11–20 of 56 posts
That's a shame. Now I have to either wait for someone to make an extension to disable hyperpings (so it can sync between all my Firefoxes rather than me having to manually change it every time) or learn to make one myself.
uBlock Origin already blocks this feature. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#d...
An explicit ping attribute makes it easier for content blockers; with a redirect there's nothing you can do but with a declarative attribute it's clear what to block.
This seems very clearly better to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
uBlock Origin already blocks this feature. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#d...
That was a short wait.
It is not "advertising" anymore. That's not what this sort of thing is about anymore. It isn't just monetization and profitability. Not when competing options all do the same thing, at the same time, contrary to the interests of an ordinary individual.
All the major browsers align on this aspect, and it is assuredly a massive program to collect invasive data on everyone, everywhere. Don't mistake it for anything else.
The ping attribute replaces redirects and JavaScript that already allow (and are very widely used for) less performant ways of doing exactly the same tracking. An explicit ping attribute makes it easier for content blockers; with a redirect there's nothing you can do but with a declarative attribute it's clear what to block. This seems very clearly better to me.
It seems like JS-based trackers using sendBeacon are the better option for analytics.
https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/83890/hacking/ddos-html...
https://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/341522-hyperlink-auditing-...
you can always downgrade your FF version and turn off auto updates, or go to a custom palemoon, then have a chat with mozilla about why you did so.
Sites that wanted to track have always been tracking clicks on links on their pages using JavaScript or redirection pages that first record the click and then send the browser to the destination that the user wanted to go to. Ping is just a better way for sites to implement tracking, and if more sites move to this, the easier it’ll be to block (like uBlock Origin has already done). In conjunction with other Firefox extensions that thwart “traditional” click tracking, we can cover everything.
I find Mozilla’s (and Apple’s) position on enabling this by default tenable, because we certainly don’t want sites to block Firefox for this reason or tell users to use another browser (with euphemisms like) “for a better experience”. On this point, I think Brave has cornered itself as a niche browser that sites may start revolting against when it grows.
What is not acceptable from any browser vendor, especially a vendor like Mozilla or Apple that wears privacy on its sleeves, is not having a way to disable this using preferences (visible or something like about:config or defaults). Not everyone may want to trust and install several extensions for things like this. On this, Mozilla has failed (and so has Apple, though I didn’t check that in this context).