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

21–30 of 411 posts

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#21

Post by Despegar »

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…

Safari has been leading on the privacy front for more than a decade. They were first to block third-party cookies by default (which led to the FTC collecting a scalp from Google when they bypassed it), blocking trackers with ITP by default, and blocking fingerprinting by default [1].

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/new-safari-privacy-features-on-mac...

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#24

Post by jimmaswell »

jszymborski wrote: post #11
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…

It was done to less than 1% of users so it's okay? Obviously Chrome is worse but this still sounds bad to me.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#25

Post by sdoering »

jszymborski wrote: post #11
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…

Sorry. If I want my data somewhere else I can stay with Chrome.

I switched years ago because of performance reasons. Whenever I tried to switch back I felt stabbed in the back shortly thereafter by Mozilla.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#26

Post by nicklaf »

Despegar wrote: post #3

As always when it comes to Firefox and privacy, the question is why isn't it on by default?

Possibly to avoid the kind of cat-and-mouse dynamics that played out when MS enabled Do Not Track by default in IE10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track#Internet_Explorer...

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#27

Post by jodrellblank »

jszymborski wrote: post #11
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…

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/74vt08/psa_huber_b...

> "PSA: Huber Burda Media, the majority owner of Cliqz, which owns many media and digital brands, owns the computer magazine "Chip", its online platform offers "secure installers" which are used to distribute malware (adware)."

and

> "One interesting thing I've found on the Cliqz about page, is that they call themselves a "small startup". This is a lie since they're a sub division of Burda Media which is one of the biggest media companies in Europe. How can you trust a company if they even lie on their about page?"

and the Booking.com snippet https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/abfdym/mozilla_on_...

> "I skimmed the source code of the Cliqz extension back during the scandal and as far as I could tell it sent back enough information for it to be possible to identify and create profiles for quite many of the users. Now it is perfectly possible that Cliqz were honest and handled the sensitive data carefully (e.g. by throwing away IPs), but we have no way of knowing that."

Remember 2006 when AOL search data was deliberately anonymized and made public, and then de-anonymized? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak

Even if Cliqz do "throw away IPs" that's not enough for it to no longer be personally identifying. It says nothing about Cliqz throwing away the data. How long before Cliqz realizes they're sitting on a trove of "valuable" data and changes their policy so they do retrospectively build profiles of users, or sell out to Facebook?

That's not responsible stewardship of data, and disclosing it on a blog page nobody read, just saying "it might happen to you, quietly and opt-out" is not responsible disclosure.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#28

Post by zwkrt »

sdoering wrote: post #16
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.

The choice is so easy. Mozilla's main problem is manufactured outrage over some risky/mediocre product management, some bugs (never shipped a bug before?). Google's main problem is trying to remake the entire internet in their image, end-to-end, from optic nerve to server silicon. I'll choose the lesser of two evils, please.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#29

Post by numakerg »

xvector wrote: post #15

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.

Panopticlick says I have "strong protection against Web tracking" but amiunique.org says I'm unique. Though amiunique also claims my TOR is fingerprint is one of six.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#30

Post by mevile »

benoliver999 wrote: post #20
mevile wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can disable it on a per website basis. That's what I do. It protects me from random websites and websites I don't trust. I also find that it speeds up page load because it's loading less ad tech.
Post reply on HN