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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#31

Post by sdoering »

zwkrt wrote: post #28
sdoering wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With Google's Chrome I know whom I give my privacy to. With Firefox I am one update away from being part of an experiment without my consent.

I take the known evil every time.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#32

Post by ngokevin »

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.

Kind of funny though, the vast majority of Mozilla's money comes from the ads and tracking industry, just one step removed.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#33

Post by gruez »

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.

>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).

That's actually pretty good, considering tor browser (which has resistfingerprinting enabled) with default window size (1000x1000) has 14.82 bits of entropy.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#34

Post by ziddoap »

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on.

Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an opportunity to learn and adjust, move forward, and continue progress towards something we all want: privacy.

We should absolutely call out companies when they make mistakes or ill-advised choices. I'm not saying we shouldn't. However, we should also _applaud_ efforts that are in-line with bringing privacy to consumers. Not just spend all of our time looking for something negative to be outraged at.

This always-negative/outrage attitude just erodes any sort of meaningful discussion.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#35

Post by mlok »

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.

I have 3 more bits of identifying information than you. (block fingerprinting enabled)

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#36

Post by TaylorAlexander »

tacosx wrote: post #17
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.

I’d like to believe this, but I think it will take more time.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#37

Post by JoshMnem »

sdoering wrote: post #25
jszymborski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chrome is much worse. It seems like chopping a leg off because someone stepped on a toe.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#38

Post by dymk »

Is it possible to browse HackerNews without all these circlejerky posts?

I'm talking about contextless direct links to the Firefox download page and documentation links. And now all the contextless "view your history on Google" links plaguing the front page. None of this is technical.

If I wanted to read about today's social outrage, I'd go browse some tech group on Facebook.

I miss actual interesting technical discussion and articles. This is worse than r/programming on a bad day, now.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#39

Post by bloopernova »

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.

When I switched to Firefox, I tried enabling uMatrix and strictly blocking as much as possible.

My guess is that about half of sites had issues of one sort or another. So many load javascript from 3rd parties, or other domains under their control, that strict blocking quickly breaks the browser experience.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#40

Post by roca »

ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

It also reduces incentives to actually make moves that benefit privacy. Because if the people who say they care about privacy aren't going to support you, why bother?
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