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Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

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Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#71

Post by eridius »

terryd wrote: post #65
cced wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind posting sources for your claims of ethical compromise?

Renee DiResta: Mozilla Fellow, Director of Research at New Knowledge https://www.mozillapulse.org/profile/410 New Knowledge is the organization that setup a fake Russian botnet, and then tried to push a narrative about how the Republican candidate in an Alabama Senate race was being assisted by this "Russian election interference"... anybody involved with that organization is a scumbag - it has zero redeeming qualiti…

I hadn't heard of this before, so I just dug up the original NYT story.

At least one person from New Knowledge was involved in a small experiment designed to explore how the sorts of tactics used by the Russians worked, which attempted to convince Republicans that Mr. Moore was receiving Russian help, but it was designed to be too small to actually affect the outcome of the election (as the goal was to explore how the tactics worked, not to produce any effect). This is a little shady, but as long as it didn't actually affect the outcome I see no harm in a group of people trying to better understand how the Russian social media tactics work.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#72

Post by Carpetsmoker »

happytoexplain wrote: post #69
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #58

So they emailed you about a new service; shrug . Of all the "spam" you could possibly receive this is by far the most useful. What is it with all Firefox/Mozilla hating as of late? They don't seem to be able to do anything right in the eyes of some people, and seem to be held to a ridiculously high standard (far higher than anyone else).

When I opt out (or never opted in) and am still sent promotional material, it is an explicit message that the company disrespects me. Responding to that with shrug is layering more disrespect on top of it. Disrespect for users is a cardinal sin, and quickly reaches unforgivable levels if left unchecked. It is simply incorrect that this is an issue of bias against Mozilla. Other companies behaving worse doesn't make i…

You could argue that it's not promotional material, but an announcement, which is not exactly the same.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#73

Post by yarrel »

sanxiyn wrote: post #48
thinkloop wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money does pocket actually generate? It blows my mind that mozilla would pull a java and have us install a figurative toolbar.

Mozilla acquired Pocket. Pocket is now part of Mozilla, providing content recommendation.

Yes that was a mistake. It did get the person who had the original lunch with Pocket off the hook though.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#74

Post by C4K3 »

alyandon wrote: post #3

In a similar vein, I'd appreciate it if Mozilla would stop using updates to Firefox as a mechanism to re-enable misfeatures I've explicitly disabled like Pocket integration and the "recommend X feature|extension while you are browsing but don't forget we totally respect your privacy!" settings. :-/

user.js files are awesome for Firefox. You just specify a list of preferences which then are applied every time you start Firefox.

(And here's a popular preconfigured user.js https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js )

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#75

Post by jasonlotito »

atomical wrote: post #26
geowwy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site suggests IceCat, Ungoogled Chromium, Iridium or Pale Moon: https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/browsers.html The also have a guide for enhancing privacy in Firefox

There's also Brave browser.

No. Brave is collecting money on people's behalf without their consent.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#76

Post by jasonlotito »

who_what_why wrote: post #28
asfgoinionio wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're remarkably scummy. They swapped out advertisements for a cryptocurrency scam. Maybe the browser itself is OK. I've never used it.

How's the browser a scam? I use it and enjoy it. I think their business model is the most egalitarian business model amongst all browsers.

The collect money on someone's behalf, without that person knowing. It's a scam. It would be like me taking money on behalf of you. Only I wouldn't tell you. And now someone thinks they are paying you by going through me.

Seems like a scam.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#77

Post by thekyle »

who_what_why wrote: post #28
asfgoinionio wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're remarkably scummy. They swapped out advertisements for a cryptocurrency scam. Maybe the browser itself is OK. I've never used it.

How's the browser a scam? I use it and enjoy it. I think their business model is the most egalitarian business model amongst all browsers.

I'm not trying to take sides in this but here is a relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#78

Post by justinclift »

eridius wrote: post #66
justinclift wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point of Firefox _is_ to make network requests. Just to point out, that "the whole point of Firefox" is to make the network requests I want . eg from my perspective it's a tool like (say) cURL that has a specific purpose. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. :)

Every one of the requests that 43920 listed in a request in service of you, the user. The first is to detect captive portals, which is something you'll find very important if you're behind a captive portal. The second is for OCSP certificate validation, which helps ensure your safety while browsing. The third is checking for updates, which again is for your benefit.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with the 2nd two, though I haven't really thought through the first use case. :)

I'm mainly just replying to the poster that attempted to say that since Firefox already makes network requests, ~anything should be ok.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#79

Post by talonx »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #58

So they emailed you about a new service; shrug . Of all the "spam" you could possibly receive this is by far the most useful. What is it with all Firefox/Mozilla hating as of late? They don't seem to be able to do anything right in the eyes of some people, and seem to be held to a ridiculously high standard (far higher than anyone else).

They are held to a higher standard because the alternative Chrome is as bad as it gets in terms of usability and utilizing sneaky ways to subvert privacy. The sneakiness is not necessarily malicious - it is driven by Google's revenue model.

Firefox remains configurable and privacy-enabling to a large extent, but it is becoming harder and harder, especially for non-technical folks, to realize that default Firefox settings are not necessarily user or privacy friendly. See the ruckus last year about defaulting to Cloudflare's DNS servers.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#80

Post by gpm »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #51
damnyou wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox, like most mass market software, is designed for normal people.

Yeah, portal checking and update checking are surely things 99% of people appreciate. Captive portal popup seems like an obvious UX improvement for 99% of people. I wonder how many people on HN even know how to trigger it if the browser didn't try to do it for you. Update checking and over the air updates make obvious sense to me given that my mother and girlfriend will click "Remind me tomorrow" for years on the mac…

> I wonder how many people on HN even know how to trigger it if the browser didn't try to do it for you.

For anyone wondering: Just try and open literally any http page (note: no s). I use groklaw.net.

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