Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#271

Post by spanhandler » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

cuddlybacon wrote: post #195

noahtallen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FF’s UX around things not related to browsing is slightly worse on all platforms. It’s most obvious on iOS where some of the styles for your “library” just don’t work correctly on iPhone 10’s. I also think their model for managing non-browsing stuff is too complex comparatively. To access many things like history and bookmarks, you need to use the dropdown menu on the right, which has like 30 different options in it,…

I also avoid FF because of the UI. It's what I use on my PC, which doesn't get used much. If I have to VNC into a linux machine at work, I'll use it there as well. But that is even rarer. The last time I noticed a UI change, it was for the worse. The made the url/navigation/search bar get bigger when it had focus. To me that is pretty dumb, and I wish you could turn it off. Knowing Firefox you probably can, but a few…

Yeah, I also remember what sold it in the Phoenix/Firebird days, and what got me to insist on installing it for everyone I knew, being 1) popup/under blocking, 2) it was really light and nimble compared to the competition (IE, Netscape/Mozilla), both in terms of the program itself and the browsing experience, and 3) the interface was very clean, clear, and pleasant to use. Tabbed browsing was just a nice bonus and I don't remember extensions really mattering much until well after it'd started to get traction from early adopters like me installing it on everything we came in contact with. Really, it was basically Opera with a less-slightly-weird-feeling UI and no adbar in the free version.

Given those early reasons for favoring it, from my perspective it's mostly gotten worse since 2.0 came out.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#272

Post by irontinkerer » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

tgb wrote: post #266

I'm trying to get myself to finally switch to Firefox thanks to this post. But I'm having problems with ctrl +/- changing of font sizes. In Chrome, that setting affects one domain only. Here I'm getting confused because I open a new tab and the font is tiny or huge, even sometimes on sites I've never visited before. Ctrl 0 fixes it but then I seem to reset sites that I do want enlarged (like HN). What's the logic her…

I've had the same experience! Well sort of, I think it's related to the experimental zoom I enabled. Trying to track down how to reproduce so I can open a bug, but it's sporadic for me. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the browser

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#273

Post by cpeterso » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #238

jdashg wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! We at Mozilla certainly don't see that! I'm at 815 tabs in this window alone and switching is instantaneous. Did you happen to file a bug report about this atypical behavior?

FWIW, Firefox is slower for me on certain pages. I keep Chrome installed for things like Google Docs. For example, in the word processor, it tries to save the document every few keystrokes and Firefox will hang for 5-10 seconds whereas on Chrome it's so fast it isn't noticeable.

Firefox developers welcome Bugzilla bug reports for slow site performance. Attaching a performance profile from the Firefox Profiler will make the bug more likely to get traction. Instructions for installing the the Firefox Profiler:

https://profiler.firefox.com/

Google Docs performance is a long-standing issue, but it sounds like you're seeing an unusual problem. (I usually have 10-20 Google Docs tabs open all day in Firefox Nightly.) Perhaps try reproducing with any Firefox extensions disabled. Some, particularly ad blockers, can cause performance problems as they repeatedly scan the page's DOM.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#274

Post by BadassFractal » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

muststopmyths wrote: post #217

tdhz77 wrote: post #23

I keep encouraging people to use Firefox over the others. My efforts keep failing. Mozilla’s focus on privacy is important and should be to others. People have been burned in the past and are willing to give up privacy for something that just works. The irony.

I recently gave up on firefox after trying for years to use it for my more sensitive browsing (email, bank, investments, etc.) where I could not run javascript blockers. 3 big problems (and many minor little things that i hit every day but haven't bothered to record) - composing email in gmail is horrible. unexplained bursts of lag where it hangs for several seconds and may or may not lose anything I typed in that in…

Firefox is my daily driver as well, and I experience a bunch of lag with it too. Overall it's stable and reliable, but it feels slow. I usually fail over to Chromium if Firefox is misbehaving.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#275

Post by danShumway » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #263

stiray wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip #2, for what cant be traced using conventional methods, they will use fingerprinting and those add-ons take care about most common methods of fingerprinting - canvas, webgl, fonts and audio: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/canvas-finger... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/webgl-fingerp... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/font-fingerpr... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-…

Firefox already includes many of these, some of those plugins are redundant or unnecessary.

> already includes many of these

Make sure you turn them on though!

Firefox by default doesn't block canvas fingerprinting, that's a setting you need to enable in `about:config` under the `privacy.resistFingerprinting` section.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#276

Post by UI_at_80x24 » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:25 PM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #253

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm running 12.1-RELEASE-p5 [quarterly], so that's interesting. We should be overlapping somewhat. I inclined to believe that it's just my luck. You need somebody to find edge-case bugs? I'm your stooge.

I hear that. The latest update to kde / plasma5 changed something enough that it took me 4 logins before I got a task manager. Dealing with these these super disruptive / breaking kde changes only a few times a year are why I run the stable packages rather than the -current packages. I think I'm just going to give up and switch to lxde

Not to be too much of an old-fart, but I gave up on kde after they moved away from 3.5. I've tried every major release since 4 came out and I keep not liking it.

I do really enjoy some of the apps, but I'm fully in the i3 camp for several years now.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#277

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #147

formerly_proven wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even less data if you use uBlock Origin and possibly uMatrix (which is very high maintenance, but also reveals the utter insanity of the web). Without an adblocker the internet is such a slow heap of trash that I'd never go back to not using one. This is also one of the main reasons I use my iPhone so little, since it doesn't really have any way to adblock.

The only downside is that product managers who rely on third-party analytics to decide what platforms are relevant will never see Firefox+uBlock users as relevant. I've had to argue this at multiple companies; fortunately at some places multiple developers used uBlock so it wasn't as hard as making the case alone.

[deleted]

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#278

Post by maltalex » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #275

xvector wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox already includes many of these, some of those plugins are redundant or unnecessary.

> already includes many of these Make sure you turn them on though! Firefox by default doesn't block canvas fingerprinting, that's a setting you need to enable in `about:config` under the `privacy.resistFingerprinting` section.

Why aren't they on by default? What's the downside?

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#279

Post by derivagral » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

gpanders wrote: post #254

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't use an ad blocker. I know all the arguments for ad blocking and I agree with many of them. I know what difference it makes in terms of performance and annoyance. But I just can't bring myself to indiscriminately block all ads, knowing how important they are as a funding source for the websites I use. There's only one thing that destroys privacy even more thoroughly than ad targeting: payment.

> There's only one thing that destroys privacy even more thoroughly than ad targeting: payment. I disagree with this. Maybe you can elaborate? If I am paying for a service then there is no incentive to mine my personal data for revenue. It's a mutually beneficial transaction. And there are plenty of ways to hide your personal information (even your name) when paying for something (e.g. using a service like privacy.co…

My understanding is that the mentality is "they paid us, we have their data, we're keeping it for future leads, we could get a new line of revenue by turning that into a product."

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#280

Post by DominikD » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #155

nitrogen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only downside is that product managers who rely on third-party analytics to decide what platforms are relevant will never see Firefox+uBlock users as relevant. I've had to argue this at multiple companies; fortunately at some places multiple developers used uBlock so it wasn't as hard as making the case alone.

> fortunately at some places multiple developers used uBlock so it wasn't as hard as making the case alone. Is adblocking not common? Every tech literate person I know uses an ad blocker. I'd say about 30-40% of millennials I know use them, most using ADB or uBlock Origin. Every time I see someone using a browser with ads I forget what a nightmare the internet is.

I'm tech savvy (software developer for 15+ years) but I used to be a web journalist in my early days and I can appreciate the need of ads. So I wouldn't block ads until a year age or so. But I'm still very conscious of pages I visit, whether I want to give them eyeballs or not (POS at NYT are in the "not") and I exempt many pages from ad blocking.