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First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

ctrl.blog

71–80 of 120 posts

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#71
post #70

I've been doing this the hard way for years -- running four browsers at all times, each for different things. Chrome is logged into Google, Firefox is logged into Facebook, Safari is for HN/Reddit, and Chrome canary is for other random sites that I don't want to have already logged in, like when I use the AWS console. And then I also use incognito windows for going to forums and deal sites and all those sites known f…

It's less drastic than using different browsers, but far easier to use, so depending on how paranoid you are you might be interested in this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#72
post #70

I've been doing this the hard way for years -- running four browsers at all times, each for different things. Chrome is logged into Google, Firefox is logged into Facebook, Safari is for HN/Reddit, and Chrome canary is for other random sites that I don't want to have already logged in, like when I use the AWS console. And then I also use incognito windows for going to forums and deal sites and all those sites known f…

have you considered using multiple profiles/containers in one browser e.g. Firefox supports containers, and Chrome supports profiles?

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#73
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad... The ads help fund writing and research into technologies that restrict ads without blocking them outright. You choosing to block ads is your choice, but it takes away incentives for researching and writing about the topics you care to read about. You can sign-up for Flattr if you prefer…

Advertise natively, don't track. It's that simple, no need for research. Our ancestors did it for hundreds of years. There is no acceptable level of tracking.

> There is no acceptable level of tracking.

On what grounds do you make this sweeping absolute statement? I'm personally willing to accept lots of tracking by Google, Facebook, etc. in exchange for free or cheaper services.

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#74
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://duckduckgoose.com/

site:news.ycombinator.com About 91,000 results (0.38 seconds) site:news.ycombinator.com in google.com About 11,90,000 results (0.25 seconds)

And how many of the initial results in google will be filtered out (e.g takedown notices) when you hit the very last page? I'm doubtful about the usefulness of the results count in comparisons like this.

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#75
post #25

I like most of what you said and agree with the cause. But why does your own blog load up with an apparently-unironic call to be whitelisted in Adblock? If you don't want to be tracked by other people's ads, why are you helping track people with ads on your own site? The page also loads Google Analytics.

Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad... The ads help fund writing and research into technologies that restrict ads without blocking them outright. You choosing to block ads is your choice, but it takes away incentives for researching and writing about the topics you care to read about. You can sign-up for Flattr if you prefer…

>Effort have been made at keeping the impact of ads and tracking low: https://www.ctrl.blog/about/privacy-policy#privacy-policy-ad....

FWIW, that's what every website will say. I don't have any reason to trust your site any more than I trust any other site. I don't want to be tracked by anybody, regardless of their intentions.

> The ads help fund writing and research into technologies that restrict ads without blocking them outright. You choosing to block ads is your choice, but it takes away incentives for researching and writing about the topics you care to read about. You can sign-up for Flattr if you prefer not to see ads and still support writers.

I'm sorry, but merely putting something online doesn't entitle you to make money from it. Posting an article or tweet or picture or other content on the public internet is an inherently non-profit activity, and it always has been. It doesn't entitle you to follow me around the internet.

If you want to make money posting online use a paywall.

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertise natively, don't track. It's that simple, no need for research. Our ancestors did it for hundreds of years. There is no acceptable level of tracking.

> There is no acceptable level of tracking. On what grounds do you make this sweeping absolute statement? I'm personally willing to accept lots of tracking by Google, Facebook, etc. in exchange for free or cheaper services.

Well, bootlickers are a thing, sure. We don't have to optimize for them.

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#77
The biggest problem is SSO and similar - especially across organizations that have multiple domains (think the various google properties for instance). Part of how they work is the login process cycling through multiple domains when you click the login button. Dealing with that, and making everything work without also making the same technique work for tracking is ... challenging.

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#78
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best strategy is to not use Google however. It's not like you need to in 2018 anymore. There are better services for almost anything out there, although you may have to pay a few dollars for some of them. Well worth it since they are superior to Google. For email, Fastmail is king.

I use “alternative search engines” daily. However, I have to crawl back to Google if I want to find things that were published in the last two weeks. Even Microsoft Bing can’t keep up with all the content that appears on the web every day.

Right? I tried so hard to use duck duck go and bing, but at some point DDG seemed to start producing very bing-like results, and bing is just not as good as google for technical searches - apparently by design, they believe their results are better for general users.

Kind of frustrating :-/

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#79
I use it. Over the last year or two this feature, in addition to a renewed effort towards privacy on my part has led me to simple not use websites which will not work with my privacy settings.

My only real hold outs in the "decidedly not private wise" camp are my gmail account used for various emails I still wish to receive but don't wish to give my email too and my old nick (this one here).

Re: First-party isolation in Firefox: what breaks if you enable it?

#80

I've been running at home and at work with first-party isolation enabled for a few months now. Google login works fine for me, as does login with Google. It's broken a few internal tools, especially when people do things like hotlink across internal systems (which would have been broken at least some of the time for most people anyway, until they realise that to view _this_ page properly they need to log in over _the…

The best strategy is to not use Google however. It's not like you need to in 2018 anymore. There are better services for almost anything out there, although you may have to pay a few dollars for some of them. Well worth it since they are superior to Google. For email, Fastmail is king.

I run my own mailserver and use DDG for all my searching.

And use GMail as an MUA and am the GSuite administrator for the school I support.

Using Google is a trade-off, and there are definitely services they provide where the trade-off is worth it for me. Your mileage appears to vary. First-party isolation definitely kicks the needle across towards Google only having data I'm happy for them to have.

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