Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#11

Post by asdkhadsj » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #6

OK so now I'm considering switching my primary work browser to Safari instead of Chrome (I use Firefox for a lot of my general/personal browsing already). The one thing holding me back is development tools. Which has better devtools, Firefox or Safari? (I've tried both several times but always ended up running back to Chrome...)

I don't have an answer to your question, but I would ask: Why not use what you find best for development tools?

Ie, I've switched away from almost everything Google. My phones, my email, my life. Yet, I still have Chrome installed. It has useful features, like development tools, Hangouts (for random free calls), etc.

Is it worth it to purge Chrome entirely? Are we worried about Google as if they're a virus? I'm asking honestly, do we need to be concerned with even having Chrome installed? If not, then I'd argue to keep it installed and use it for the features you need from it, like dev tools. The majority of your traffic will still be on Safari or Firefox, right?

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#12

Post by barrongineer » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #6

OK so now I'm considering switching my primary work browser to Safari instead of Chrome (I use Firefox for a lot of my general/personal browsing already). The one thing holding me back is development tools. Which has better devtools, Firefox or Safari? (I've tried both several times but always ended up running back to Chrome...)

I'm not sure about Safari, but the last time I evaluated Firefox(the initial Quantum release), it lacked the ability to inspect websocket frames. Was a dealbreaker for me and I had to go back to Chrome.

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#13

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

asdkhadsj wrote: post #11

davedx wrote: post #6

OK so now I'm considering switching my primary work browser to Safari instead of Chrome (I use Firefox for a lot of my general/personal browsing already). The one thing holding me back is development tools. Which has better devtools, Firefox or Safari? (I've tried both several times but always ended up running back to Chrome...)

I don't have an answer to your question, but I would ask: Why not use what you find best for development tools? Ie, I've switched away from almost everything Google. My phones, my email, my life. Yet, I still have Chrome installed. It has useful features, like development tools, Hangouts (for random free calls), etc. Is it worth it to purge Chrome entirely? Are we worried about Google as if they're a virus? I'm askin…

This. I keep Chrome only to test and sometimes use their dev tools though I am also productive with the ones from Firefox. They both have different things to offer.

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#14

Post by Chabs » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

s_dev wrote: post #3

bogomipz wrote: post #2

>"Apple and Mozilla are able to push the boundaries on privacy because neither depends on advertising. Google makes most of its money from selling ads." I am curious will Google at some point push back on Mozilla's efforts here? Isn't the placement of Google search as the default search engine in Firefox a significant source of funding?

Probably part of the reason why they built and maintain Chrome. Firefox will always have a dedicated user base -- if Google want to be the default search engine on that browser they will have to pay for it otherwise services like Bing will occupy that space.

OP's point is the other way around. They are wondering if Mozilla can afford the financial hit of not getting that money from Google anymore. If Google leaves that space, then Bing won't have real competition here, and will pay substantially less.

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#15

Post by mrkstu » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #4

Why should anyone with an adblocker installed care about tracking? I mean isn't the end goal to just serve personalized ads?

Chrome sends all the text entered into your 'omnibus' back to HQ. Adblocker isn't going to help in Google wants to track you, and it does.

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#16

Post by user812 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #4

Why should anyone with an adblocker installed care about tracking? I mean isn't the end goal to just serve personalized ads?

If you don't use a very sophisticated blocking system (for example uBlock Origin in medium mode + pihole) the data is being collected independently of serving ads.

While it will be used for Realtime Bidding and ad-retargeting, the data itself is very valuable in lots of other ways, and even though I am not an expert I fear that in many ways personalized profiles attached to your real world self can already be created and sold to those who want to know more about you.

Even with such a blocking system as described above there will be some data send. So the stricter the User agent, the better for the user. Making fingerprinting more difficult, which is what Safari will do with ITP 2.0, is something that is very important regardless of blocking ads, as first parties want to track you too independent of ads.

- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

- pi-hole.net

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#17

Post by yalogin » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #4

Why should anyone with an adblocker installed care about tracking? I mean isn't the end goal to just serve personalized ads?

Here are a few reasons.

1. Ad blockers have a performance impact.

2. As blockers don’t have the number of uses that the browsers have, so I have seen websites routinely request to turn them off. However if the protection is built into the browser sites cannot ask users to switch to a different browser, they have to figure something out or suck in less data.

3. It’s also a vote against Chrome and Facebook telling them we really don’t want tracking. Switching away from Chrome is the best way to send a message.

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#18

Post by sirn » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 3:00 PM UTC

asdkhadsj wrote: post #11

davedx wrote: post #6

OK so now I'm considering switching my primary work browser to Safari instead of Chrome (I use Firefox for a lot of my general/personal browsing already). The one thing holding me back is development tools. Which has better devtools, Firefox or Safari? (I've tried both several times but always ended up running back to Chrome...)

I don't have an answer to your question, but I would ask: Why not use what you find best for development tools? Ie, I've switched away from almost everything Google. My phones, my email, my life. Yet, I still have Chrome installed. It has useful features, like development tools, Hangouts (for random free calls), etc. Is it worth it to purge Chrome entirely? Are we worried about Google as if they're a virus? I'm askin…

Chrome and other Google softwares, by default will install a system-wide auto updater (Google Keystone[1]) set to run every 5 hours. The Keystone Agent cannot easily be removed, and will reinstall itself on every updates. There has also been an exploit[2] of this auto updater service.

If what you need is Chrome developer's tools, installing Chromium (or building your own, for the paranoid) seems like a much better choice to me.

[1]: Note that it has nothing to do with the google/keystone project on GitHub

[2]: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=14...

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#19

Post by cpmsmith » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #6

OK so now I'm considering switching my primary work browser to Safari instead of Chrome (I use Firefox for a lot of my general/personal browsing already). The one thing holding me back is development tools. Which has better devtools, Firefox or Safari? (I've tried both several times but always ended up running back to Chrome...)

Firefox easily. They're not as good as Chrome's, but Safari's lag behind.

Re: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking

#20

Post by briandear » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #6

OK so now I'm considering switching my primary work browser to Safari instead of Chrome (I use Firefox for a lot of my general/personal browsing already). The one thing holding me back is development tools. Which has better devtools, Firefox or Safari? (I've tried both several times but always ended up running back to Chrome...)

I think Safari dev tools are great; however, I am not heavy into JavaScript, so I can’t comment on those specifics. I think it’s a full-featured as the others for the most part. There hasn’t been anything I’ve needed that Safari doesn’t provide.