Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 411 posts

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#11

Post by jszymborski »

lcao wrote: post #10

Yes, the same browser that sent the raw browsing history of a portion of users to a third party. Talk about tracking! >Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit. https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...

Damned if you disclose your responsible stewardship of user data, damned if you don't.

> Less than one percent of users in Germany installing Firefox from our main download page will receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz recommendations enabled out of the box.

> Cliqz does not build browsing profiles for individual users and discards the user’s IP address once the data is collected.

> One of Mozilla’s core privacy principles is No Surprises: we will use and share data in ways that are transparent and benefit our users. That is why we are telling you about this today. We

> We hope that users will appreciate the improved experience, but if users want to turn it off, they can always disable data collection or remove the Cliqz add-on entirely.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#12

Post by mevile »

Despegar wrote: post #5
stuff4ben wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it may cause some websites to break and they're aiming to provide a good user-experience for the majority of the population. If they turn this on by default without users knowing the risks of sites not working correctly, they'll unfairly blame Firefox, bad mouth it, and switch to Chrome/Edge/Safari/etc.

That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

I don't think you've turned on very strict anti-tracking in a browser if you think that's a weak reason. The setting can really break websites, making them unusable or whole blocks of content don't load. Before this update I used to use Privacy Badger and it also broke websites all the time.

I don't believe Safari has anything like what Firefox or Privacy Badger offers built in. So you wouldn't be able to use your default experience with Safari as a comparison.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#13

Post by gowld »

lcao wrote: post #10

Yes, the same browser that sent the raw browsing history of a portion of users to a third party. Talk about tracking! >Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit. https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...

Cliqz is an opt in feature for users who want it

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#15

Post by xvector »

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox?

With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600).

With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#16

Post by sdoering »

lcao wrote: post #10

Yes, the same browser that sent the raw browsing history of a portion of users to a third party. Talk about tracking! >Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit. https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...

Or Pocket. Or hyperlink auditing. Or this f... up with certificates lately.

I could go on.

My problem is that every time I wanted to return to ff, Mozilla f...ed Up again.

I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place with ff and Chrome.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#17

Post by tacosx »

OJFord wrote: post #2

> You probably wouldn’t appreciate someone tracking your moves in real life. There’s no reason to accept it online. Great to read something like this on mozilla.org.

The revolt against surveillance capitalism seems to just be starting in earnest. I think a lot of smart people are finally realizing they have wasted their considerable talents on advertising tech while pretending it was something else and are now very angry.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#19

Post by CharlesColeman »

Despegar wrote: post #5
stuff4ben wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it may cause some websites to break and they're aiming to provide a good user-experience for the majority of the population. If they turn this on by default without users knowing the risks of sites not working correctly, they'll unfairly blame Firefox, bad mouth it, and switch to Chrome/Edge/Safari/etc.

That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

>> Because it may cause some websites to break and they're aiming to provide a good user-experience for the majority of the population. If they turn this on by default without users knowing the risks of sites not working correctly, they'll unfairly blame Firefox, bad mouth it, and switch to Chrome/Edge/Safari/etc.

> That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

Safari's the only browser engine available on iPhones, and its users can't easily switch to another. That means more websites test compatibility with it, and its users are locked in even if they don't.

Apple more market power than Mozilla, so it doesn't need to compromise as much (and get get away with being a bit of a bully). Firefox is forced to tread lightly in comparison.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#20

Post by benoliver999 »

mevile wrote: post #12
Despegar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

I don't think you've turned on very strict anti-tracking in a browser if you think that's a weak reason. The setting can really break websites, making them unusable or whole blocks of content don't load. Before this update I used to use Privacy Badger and it also broke websites all the time. I don't believe Safari has anything like what Firefox or Privacy Badger offers built in. So you wouldn't be able to use your de…

I had to turn it off in Firefox. It was breaking stuff like image uploaders on ebay.
Post reply on HN