In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default • Hacker News Board

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#251

Post by konart » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

sjapkee wrote: post #166

pweezy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I use a 12" MacBook "retina" (not air), which is an ultraportable with a weak CPU. Firefox is borderline unusable, even with uBlock Origin, unless you stick to only 1 or 2 tabs. High def video in YouTube really struggles, Google Maps struggles, and other Google properties like Flights have a habit of freezing up. Plus the non-native feel you mentioned. No pinch-to-zoom, moving tabs between windows feels cl…

>I use a 12" MacBook "retina" (not air) You just need to buy a good laptop instead of MacBook.

Regardless of one's opinion of Apple products - Firefox does have big problems with macOS, with quite a few issues in their bugtracker that are being worked on.

On of them is fixed in v70 already.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#252

Post by andrewaylett » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #175

interactivecode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes why would you not want companies investing in diversity? Especially if they are the interface to our online world?

Possibly because affirmative diversity could be seen as incompatible with meritocracy.

If you're not aware of the origins of the term "meritocracy", it's worth a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

"It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

Is your meritocracy measuring merit in the way you think it is?

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#253

Post by hgoel » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #242

hgoel wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lack of diversity isn't in and of itself a sign of a lack of meritocracy, and nor is simply increasing diversity a sign of meritocracy. It's misguided to think that by manually ensuring diversity (eg. By hiring someone for simply being a qualified minority rather than necessarily the best candidate) is pushing for meritocracy. If diversity programs were interested in maintaining meritocracy while increasing diversi…

That's the usual line, that assume no qualified minority candidates exist . Which is, at root, a biased assumption already. E.g. Stanford (used to) vigorously recruited qualified minority candidates to help improve diversity on campus.

Isn't explicitly choosing based on their race also making the same assumptions? That there aren't enough minority candidates, and thus they need to explicitly force more of them in? After all, why would there be any bias if selections were completely merit based (that is, blind to race and sex) unless the pools being drawn from were themselves biased? The best way to get around biases in the hiring process obviously being to avoid informing hiring managers about the identities of candidates, instead of emphasizing it even more.

My assumption was that not enough qualified minority candidates exist, obviously there are qualified minority candidates, just not enough, thus why they aren't as equally represented in the field in question.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#254

Post by qbaqbaqba » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

Jonnax wrote: post #188

ecmascript wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he did not. He funded a political campaign. No I do not know that formulation and I completely disagree with that. It's like saying you need heavy censorship in order to have free speech. Complete bullshit.

They funded a homophobic political campaign. Websites started user agent detecting Firefox and putting banners saying to not use Firefox because of their homophobic CEO. It's pathetic that people like you hide behind censorship arguments and "diversity of thought" when defending the right to attack minorities. This kind of disingenuous thinking makes me question anyone evangelising Brave as a web browser.

One website.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#255

Post by heavenlyblue » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 1:01 PM UTC

martin_a wrote: post #156

sakisv wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way to ensure this, so I will not give any money at all. Please keep in mind that this is not a personal attack as I don't know you and I don't find it particularly constructive to engage in this kind of attacks, so please only focus on my argument: I cannot understand this way of thinking. On one hand we have the option to give Mozilla some money to use them however they see fit. This means that from t…

> I cannot understand this way of thinking. I want Mozilla to build a browser and a mail program. Nothing else. It's easy as that. And if I have to "fear" that they will use my money to build something else, I will not donate to them. Think of them as a company with several products. People would buy Firefox, they would buy Thunderbird, but probably nobody would buy the aforementioned "moz://" product or Pocket. In a…

Mozilla is not a democracy.

You donate towards their mission and you are probably not informed enough about the back-stage politics of their foundation.

I like Pocket because it provides features I don’t find in other browsers. I would happily pay for it especially knowing that this is the money that may also be used for the development of the browser engine.

It’s like donating to Wikipedia, but only donating toward articles about Biology. The issue is that you are donating towards infrastructure, not the actual articles written by someone.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#256

Post by hgoel » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

hgoel wrote: post #253

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the usual line, that assume no qualified minority candidates exist . Which is, at root, a biased assumption already. E.g. Stanford (used to) vigorously recruited qualified minority candidates to help improve diversity on campus.

Isn't explicitly choosing based on their race also making the same assumptions? That there aren't enough minority candidates, and thus they need to explicitly force more of them in? After all, why would there be any bias if selections were completely merit based (that is, blind to race and sex) unless the pools being drawn from were themselves biased? The best way to get around biases in the hiring process obviously…

And the solution to not having enough qualified minority candidates is to increase their level of qualification.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#257

Post by notyourday » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #104

richthegeek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose if he wanted to donate to a diversity campaign, he'd donate to one directly. Wikipedia is a big one for this: the donation campaign is all about 'keeping our servers running', and then huge chunks of the spending goes on community feelgood stuff. I've nothing against diversity campaigning but if you were to treat donation like any other 'purchase' you'd be pretty miffed if you thought you were ordering a ch…

Orders and purchases are different from donations and gifts.

Every marginally legitimate non-profit in the US that solicits and gets donations has restricted funds. Money from that fund cannot go to anything other than what those moneys were received for.

Non-profits hate that because that money cannot be used for G&A, their other pet projects, feel good stuff or say charitable events used for fundraising (you know, the fabulous parties that non-profits throw - spend $300k to raise $303k while important people at the non-profit have a good time being photographed). Make sure to donate to restricted funds. In that case your funds will either be returned to you ( your donation rejected ) or it will be used with the restrictions you put on it.

For the downvoters:

https://www.501c3.org/kb/what-are-restricted-funds/#

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#258

Post by rossdavidh » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

a254613e wrote: post #78

shadykiller wrote: post #3

Switched to Firefox a few months back. Havn’t missed Chrome at all

To offer a bit of an opposite view here on HN: I give firefox a shot from time to time. I switch all devices to it, and then I use it exclusively all the time. My most recent attempt failed few days ago, after a bit more than a month with it. Firefox performance just doesn't feel the same as chrome, from constant small freezes, to using 100% CPU pretty often. And just overall experience on some platforms - especially…

This is odd, because I use it on both Linux (my laptop) and Android, and I never experience this.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#259

Post by notyourday » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #210

michaelt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but if I donate to a charity because I'm passionate about their mission of X and instead they spend their money on Y which is still a worthy cause, but one I'm less passionate about, I'm not likely to donate to that charity again - because my aim is to donate towards X. Hell, X and Y don't even have to be all that different. Did you know Make-A-Wish doesn't grant wishes for hunting or fishing, while other chari…

When you provide a general purpose donation to a charity, you're giving them a gift. You're entrusting them to do with it what they think is best. If you don't trust them to do the right thing, don't give them the money in the first place, or donate to a specific campaign if they offer such opportunities. Unless they turn out to be deceitful, duplicitous, or otherwise exceptionally wasteful, second guessing and/or ju…

People who write large checks never donate unrestricted funds because they know how terrible charities are ran.

Do you want to make $10k a year for 5 years on something that costs you $2k? Buy a copier on ebay and lease it to a 501(c)3. That's why smart donors restrict funds.

Re: In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default

#260

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

hgoel wrote: post #245

Insanity wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to be an example against discrimination. :) People should be held accountable for such views. It should be clear to anyone that having "an opinion" which discriminates a whole group of people is not that same as sharing an opinion about Star Wars..

So people should lose their livelihoods for having controversial views that the elites in big cities don't like? It isn't even as if his opinion was interfering with his professional responsibilities. Same-sex marriage was a very hot topic just a few years ago, should we unperson everyone who was ever against the cause? Even though the entire point of having freedom of speech and association is to allow safe politica…

> Even though the entire point of having freedom of speech and association is to allow safe political discourse?

It's to reduce the need for violent revolution against the government by making such discourse that challenges the government safe from retaliation by the government. It is not to make discourse free of consequence more generally. That may in some cases be desirable on its own merits, but it is not part of the “entire point of having freedom of speech”.