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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#271

Post by pbhjpbhj »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #104
ngokevin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And? I used to work for a defense contractor, using the military complex money to instead pay for civil projects that actually benefit normal people. You can take money that comes from "I don't like this thing", and then spend it on "this benefits everyone".

If that's truly your rationale then you're deluding yourself: you can take money, for sure, but as soon as you act to aid the source of the money then you're complicit in whatever that source is doing.

You might consider the positive aspects of your use of the money out with the negative aspects of your aiding murder, say, but that's not quite what you outlined.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#272

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dralley wrote: post #220
msla wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic, though, given their stance on opt-out-only telemetry.

99% of what telemetry tracks has nothing to do with user actions. It's mostly stuff like this: https://metrics.mozilla.com/webrender/dashboard_nvidia.html

99% of a thugs day is not smashing people in the face so that must mean there entirely benign, right?

In short your metric doesn't work.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#273

Post by a_imho »

ChrisSD wrote: post #57
ngokevin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The irony is they tried diversifying their income. But people don't want their browser to ask for donations (that's nagging). They don't want their new tab page pre-populated with websites on a new install (even if their browsing overwrites them). They don't want "fun" additions to advertise TV shows (even if they're opt-in). But they're happy to pay via google's search and tracking. Mozilla doesn't have a lot of opt…

Are they that cash strapped? IIRC moz://a had an agreement with yahoo which they terminated just so they can sign with Google.

The real irony imo of FF being considered the alternative browser, but not actually competing against Chrome where it could have a serious edge only entrenches the pro commercial anti user status quo.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#274

Post by pbhjpbhj »

codsane wrote: post #241
rjf72 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as privacy conscious is a misleading statement. Choosing to migrate their default search to Google was a money grab by Firefox and that money is, in turn, 100% dependent upon tracking. I think this is why what limited privacy options Firefox does offer are entirely opt-in, and often hidden behind menus that your average user will probably never visit. By contrast Brave has had things such as blocking of fingerpr…

I can't say that I could agree Firefox's privacy options are hidden/behind menus. I downloaded a fresh copy of Firefox today and the privacy features were quite encouraged and are even the main focus of the Security / Privacy tab. Brave is an excellent browser but it is only a matter of time until the remaining features are brought over to Firefox. Not to mention some feel they aren't "out of the grasp" of Google unt…

I installed FF on a new Win10 instance recently (March IIRC) and had to go through and disable fingerprinting features and install adblocking.

In contrast I installed Brave, and it appears to have all adblocking and anti-fingerprinting as default settings, easily accessible if you wanted to change them.

The OP reads to me as a PR piece to keep geeks onboard, knowing that regular users won't ever change default settings.

I mean FF have the telemetry they know exactly how many users disable defaults.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#275

Post by maxheadroom »

rplnt wrote: post #270
molf wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will become a less acceptable answer the more popular other browsers become. The only way to make that happen is to stop using Chrome and tell others to do the same.

"But you told me to use Chrome." Google took over with shady practices, with the help of tech savvy people.

Not to mention Edge moving to the Chrome base; which further disenfranchises anyone from making sure it works in 'x' browser, anymore.

"It works in Chrome and Edge, which is based on Chrome, so what's your problem, again?"

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#276

Post by banachtarski »

zwaps wrote: post #254
banachtarski wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would classify that as "not sufficiently anonymized." I'm asking a serious question and don't really subscribe to dogma as being particularly convincing. Thanks for the facetious argument and hand-waving though.

This is literally why the data is being collected. Granted, i do not work at Google, but i have experience in exactly this area. Apps and websites want to sell you things. Well many of them. They then need to know for how much. If they know, they can extract more profit. Which is why they try to find out. Really. No dogma. What do you think I do with your fingerprint as you engage with my sales website? "Improve my s…

I'm trying to suggest that there is a middle ground between outright banning all tracking, and the current state of affairs. Not that the situation I described is where we are today.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#277

Post by SCdF »

visarga wrote: post #263
sebazzz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that reCAPTCHA v1 used to be noble: reading books and converting them to text. Now you're just training many Google machine learning algorithms by classifying data. In which they get more useful for the consumer, thus more powerful.

I hate them as much as you do, but you're wrong. Those storefront and traffic sign captchas are not useful for training ML models. If they were to be useful, they would be much more varied, like the original ones (used for OCR).

My brain is unwilling to accept this.

What is the purpose of those choices then?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#278

Post by privateprofile »

remus wrote: post #148
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17.62 bits on firefox, 11.0 on Tor, 17.63 on chrome. On firefox, the big contributors are HTTP headers (my native language is announced), hash of WebGl fingerprint and time zone. On Tor big contributors are hash of webGL fingerprint, screen size. On chrome, they are system fonts, hash of canvas fingerprint, user agent, and time zone. I am not too concerned about the fingerprinting in firefox since I have strict block…

> On Tor big contributors are hash of webGL fingerprint, screen size. Doesn't tor randomise the window size on startup? Though I guess it chooses some sensible size for your screen which is then leaking info about your screen size (in a pretty indirect way).

That's false. Tor Browser actually advises the user to keep the window at the default size to avoid it being used as a fingerprinting vector.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#279

Post by maxheadroom »

visarga wrote: post #263
sebazzz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that reCAPTCHA v1 used to be noble: reading books and converting them to text. Now you're just training many Google machine learning algorithms by classifying data. In which they get more useful for the consumer, thus more powerful.

I hate them as much as you do, but you're wrong. Those storefront and traffic sign captchas are not useful for training ML models. If they were to be useful, they would be much more varied, like the original ones (used for OCR).

>Those storefront and traffic sign captchas are not useful for training ML models.

Not to get all tin-foil-hat, but this is going to sound like it, but if you have a car that has 9+ cameras upon it that drives in areas full of these, then maybe there would be some use for it for Google.

Bear in mind that I'm not saying that they are doing this but to dismiss it unequivocally as something that can't or wouldn't be done entirely ignores the premise that it could prove useful to other areas of their business, which might have a vested interest in such use (say, for example, if Google or it's parent company were trying to break into the self-driving car area[0]).

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#280

Post by smittywerben »

kabacha wrote: post #218
dessant wrote: post #94

Google's reCAPTCHA makes it impossible to use large portions of the web once you take reasonable measures to protect your privacy. The challenge will continuously fail, despite you spending time to carefully solve it. This cruel behavior is described in a patent [1] by Kyle Adams of Juniper Networks. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9407661

Google's reCAPTCHA is cancer upon the web. Everyone should enable fingerprint block to shut this invasive and abusive garbage. If everyone would block it the website owners would have no choice other than to move to a different captcha system.

I'm logged in on a Chrome browser with a residential IP and get a reCAPTCHA 1-3 times a day when programming. It's the kind that I don't need to solve puzzles but still need JS enabled to click the button. So after the first few (SEO optimized) pages I either get fingerprinted or temp banned. Ugh this is getting ridiculous.

DRINK VERIFICATION CAN

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