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

#281

Post by kgwxd » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #278

iforgotpassword wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've given up trying to convince people of taking privacy serious. It's usually just the "but I've got nothing to hide" debate that goes nowhere. Even half of my tech friends still use chrome, got Alexa at home and whatnot. So instead with my non-techsavvy friends I usually just set up Firefox with ublock and tell them to give it a try. You don't have to mention ublock is available on chrome too, right?

What is the privacy difference between having an Alexa device at home vs. having a smartphone or anything else with an embedded microphone?

While it's possible a cell phone (smart or dumb) might be transmitting audio without user knowledge, it's unlikely and, if discovered, would cause a huge PR nightmare for whoever was involved in making it happen. Voice assistants have been shown to transmit audio unexpectedly, humans are listening, nothing has been done to fix it, and no one is apologizing for it.

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

#282

Post by tomp » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

interactivecode wrote: post #68

skocznymroczny wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some way to ensure the donation money will actually go to Firefox and not to some sort of "diversity" campaign?

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

For example:

https://medium.com/aleria/unconscious-bias-trainings-are-oft...

Unconscious Bias Trainings are (Often) a Waste of Your Money

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

#283

Post by mikro2nd » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

green-eclipse wrote: post #279

iforgotpassword wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've given up trying to convince people of taking privacy serious. It's usually just the "but I've got nothing to hide" debate that goes nowhere. Even half of my tech friends still use chrome, got Alexa at home and whatnot. So instead with my non-techsavvy friends I usually just set up Firefox with ublock and tell them to give it a try. You don't have to mention ublock is available on chrome too, right?

My hunch is that maybe 0.1% to 1% of people truly care about privacy. People love to talk about it and sound shocked about lack of privacy. But when it comes to actually changing behavior based on privacy, very few people actually do.

They may or may not care about privacy, but they do love an internet that's largely ad-free.

Most of them never knew it was possible, but I love to see how wide their eyes get when they see it. "Holy hells! you mean I don't have to look at all that crap?"

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

#284

Post by kgwxd » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

iforgotpassword wrote: post #170

a254613e wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On desktop I just don't feel any difference. There might be one but it's not perceivable to me. I haven't found a site that doesn't work there in ages. And I have an old fire tablet from 2012 at home that I don't really use anymore, but chrome is unusably slow on it while Firefox still works, which I found interesting. Only thing is that touch recognition on Firefox is worse than chrome. Chrome somehow gets stuff lik…

Mac desktop? Most of the time I see complaints about FF performance, the user is on a Mac. I don't know what they're doing so wrong there, but they could probably win a good chunk of users if they focused on making that experience better.

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

#285

Post by tomp » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:38 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.

No, the line is that "there's less qualified candidates of X minority".

Which is completely true - SV companies employee percentages fairly accurately mimic CS graduates percentages. So the majority of bias isn't in hiring... In other words, by the time you're picking the most qualified candidate it's already too late to correct for any cultural/societal bias (you should start in primary school or even earlier).

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

#286

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

interactivecode wrote: post #68

skocznymroczny wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some way to ensure the donation money will actually go to Firefox and not to some sort of "diversity" campaign?

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

Consider that this company specifically once fired a guy because someone revealed he had a fetish, then ask yourself how much they really care about diversity and how much is just a show they put on.

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

#287

Post by jancsika » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #57

newscracker wrote: post #55

Those who want a world where Firefox has a higher market share and mind share, please consider doing the following: 1. Evangelize Firefox to people you know any chance you get and show them all the reasons why its better than Chrome (focus on privacy as an important point). Show them how great browsing can be with a few key extensions (like uBlock Origin, Containers, Privacy Possum, etc.). This does not imply that Mo…

Is there some way to ensure the donation money will actually go to Firefox and not to some sort of "diversity" campaign?

Sure: pay money directly to one of a thousand developers to implement missing functionality or fix pressing bugs in Firefox and make a pull request on it.

For example: I see that Firefox still hasn't yet made all SVG elements attributes into presentation attributes per the SVG 2 spec. So right now in Firefox you can't do 'rect.style.width = "12px"' but in Chrome you can.

Not sure you could easily get full coverage (e.g., I'd bet css "d" atty would be tricky). But there's probably a fairly workable introductory subset for which one could create a fairly clean patch set.

Or pick a different self-contained, non-controversial feature/bug and fund a dev to attack it.

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

#288

Post by RobertRoberts » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #244

RobertRoberts wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if you want to only support software development and not social development? I think this is the crux of this thread of discussion.

The thread I'm replying to has moved on to implying Mozilla is being misleading by using funding or social development.

Are you saying Mozilla does _not_ have social development projects?

A specific comment on part of this thread seems to indicate it's part of their charter. (or something, not sure what to call it)

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

#289

Post by bytematic » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #287

skocznymroczny wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some way to ensure the donation money will actually go to Firefox and not to some sort of "diversity" campaign?

Sure: pay money directly to one of a thousand developers to implement missing functionality or fix pressing bugs in Firefox and make a pull request on it. For example: I see that Firefox still hasn't yet made all SVG elements attributes into presentation attributes per the SVG 2 spec. So right now in Firefox you can't do 'rect.style.width = "12px"' but in Chrome you can. Not sure you could easily get full coverage (e…

I like the approach but I don't think I could individually fund a dev, or really do much more than buy them a few meals

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

#290

Post by adangert » Wed, Sep 04, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #64

onyva wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads are not of interest to users. I think their display is a waste of time and resources, as well as the risks associated. How blocking ads make a browser “misaligned” with users? It’s in fact the opposite. Brave is simply, like stated before, a Trojan Horse. Replacing google with another ad broker is not helping anyone. >> Brave browser (Stage 1) is a Trojan Horse for their actual business which is a blockchain-base…

> Ads are not of interest to users. If you think that's true, then your idea of what constitutes an ad is very narrow, to the point it leaves out a large swath of reality. An ad is an informational transaction between an entity offering a good or service and a consumer that may want that service. When done poorly, it's an exchange neither are happy with. When done well, it's an exchange that both are happy with. We'r…

You are wrong, ads only waste people's time. It's just the main way that online companies have found to turn attention and time into money, and it's never great for the consumer. Usually the free market (adblocked internet searches) gives better results for what consumers are looking for rather than the targeted paid for inferior quality products of ad companies.

A better service would be one where consumers pay with money to ask a service for the best recommendation of a product by an independent company. However automatic ads slapped on to every webpage are never warranted, are worse quality than the products shown without them, and are at best annoying, at worst misleading. 99% of ads do not fit into your definition of a good ad, in so far as I would catagorize your idea of a good ad just as a brokerage service, and not an ad at all. Consumers never go looking for ads, it's always the other way around.

Furthermore there are multiple other ways to make revenue online that don't involve ads, such as patreon. Imagine every site, but the only ads found are for the site's own support page. The quality of that site or creator rises, while still generating revenue. In the future, I believe that products and services that are not on some sort of crowdfunding service, will be outcompeted by those who are, no ads are necessary here.