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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#281

Post by stockkid »

kgwxd wrote: post #198
stockkid wrote: post #125

> Keep in mind that blocking fingerprinting may cause some sites to break. This represents the sad state of Internet we are all living through. I have noticed that when I turn on privacy settings on Firefox, some major websites are broken and rendered unusable. It seems that the Internet is rampant with tracking and privacy violation, and we consumers are passively accepting it, by and large.

I haven't had an issue, but I avoid "major websites" like the plague, as they are the modern equivalent (though measles is making a comeback). If a site breaks with good privacy settings, it's a decent indicator you're better off not visiting. If a breaking site shows up on my radar too much, I add the domain to an add-on I made to hide links to it on any page. My HN/reddit/search results/etc views usually have a few…

> I add the domain to an add-on I made to hide links to it on any page.

That sounds interesting. Have you published it or made source available? I'd love to try.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#282

Post by b-3-n »

Firefox is playing its trump, the privacy, very well lately. This is very smart as the competition has no good answer. Equalizing on privacy level would go against their business model so they won't ever do it wholeheartedly.

Trying out Firefox now...

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#283

Post by rum3 »

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.

Cloudflare must be mentioned when talking about recaptcha and cancer. They are the ones locking people out from whole websites and forcing you to fill out these recaptchas. They are also the ones who have almost destroyed browsing the internet using TOR due to these recaptchas.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#284

Post by smittywerben »

skybrian wrote: post #183
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fingerprinting is the primary way that Captcha decides whether to block you or not. Fingerprinting == security is the parallel they are drawing.

Ok, that makes sense. Not ideal, but captchas need to be written somehow.

The fact that CAPTCHA sweatshops exist is a testament to it's failure as a protocol, let alone the privacy implications (just run X.exe to continue).

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#285

Post by rum3 »

SCdF wrote: post #277
visarga wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Since they introduced the square-selecting captchas I have always assumed that they use it for identifying the user. I bet that depending on how you solve the captchas they can identify who you are if their system already has a theory of who you might be.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#286

Post by philpem »

confounded wrote: post #245
kabacha wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Hm, works in Chrome. Are you using Chrome?”

I know someone who loves giving this response. "Safari is junk, use Chrome and it'll work".

I also love sending him patches to show how easy it is to fix his stuff so it works in Firefox, Chrome, Edge... and of course Safari.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#287

Post by philpem »

rum3 wrote: post #283
kabacha wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cloudflare must be mentioned when talking about recaptcha and cancer. They are the ones locking people out from whole websites and forcing you to fill out these recaptchas. They are also the ones who have almost destroyed browsing the internet using TOR due to these recaptchas.

While I agree with you -- I'd also like to point out that >90% of malicious traffic to the websites I administer comes through the Tor network.

It shouldn't be the case, and I don't want to block people who have a legitimate reason to use Tor. Unfortunately there isn't a "block Tor traffic from assholes" option, so all I can really do to reduce the malicious traffic is block exit nodes.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#288

Post by dao- »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #274
codsane wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 settin…

We (Mozilla) are planning to enable tracking protection by default. It's a relatively slow process, developed and rolled out incrementally, since we have a larger user base than Brave and need to make sure not to break the Web.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#289

Post by anonymfus »

maxheadroom wrote: post #275
rplnt wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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? "

Well considering that Google already specifically blocks Chromium based Edge from its current YouTube version may be Recaptcha will not work in it soon too.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#290

Post by philpem »

atoav wrote: post #260
skybrian wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that makes sense. Not ideal, but captchas need to be written somehow.

I had simple questions you can answer with text on my site for years, and I had no spam problem whatsoever. I am not convinced that training google’s image recognition algorithms is the only way to solve the captcha problem

I have one which picks a bunch of random single-digit numbers and a math operator, then asks you to type the result.

I spent days trying it out with screen readers and tweaking it to work with as many as possible.

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