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Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

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Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#291

Post by cpeterso »

alleyshack wrote: post #205

I want to switch to Firefox, but of all things, its tab management is keeping me away. On my last try, I gave up after five minutes because I couldn't see all my open tabs at once (had to scroll). Does anyone know of an extension or setting I can use to force Chrome-like tab behavior, where all tabs are shown at once regardless of how small they become?

I don't think you can prevent tabs from scrolling off screen, but you can set the "browser.tabs.tabMinWidth" about:config pref to a tiny number so you can fit more tabs on screen.

You can also see the full list of tabs (with titles) in the tab overflow dropdown menu. It's the down arrow button to the right of the tab strip. The dropdown menu only appears after you open at least ~20 tabs. I set the browser.tabs.tabmanager.enabled about:config pref = true to always show it (because I like see the full tab titles).

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#292

Post by SamuelAdams »

Honestly the best thing you can do is use Firefox and set the browser settings to "Never remember history". This deletes everything in the cache, cookies, etc every time your browser closes. Drawbacks - you have to log back in to every site every time you relaunch the browser. But then these cookies and tracking methods do not follow you around.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#293

Post by saagarjha »

rladd wrote: post #216
typon wrote: post #130

My friend who works in an adtech company: "Protip: Use Firefox instead of Chrome. We get very little data from Firefox users"

Latest Firefox still doesn't protect against browser fingerprinting. This from the EFF Panopticlick: Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 303,579 tested in the past 45 days. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 18.21 bits of identifying information.

I strongly suspect Panopticlick to be broke to the point of being utterly useless.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#294

Post by SamuelAdams »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18
kgwxd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with parent though, Firefox should just ship with uBlock Origin installed. I think putting privacy features in the hands of a third-party prevents some poor choices being made due to several conflicts of interest browser vendors have.

Addons pose a significant increased security risk. (I would honestly advocate for the radical position of requiring you enable a "allow addons" checkbox, with a warning, before installing any browser extensions.) I absolutely agree that browser vendors have huge conflicts of interest, and we need to address those by forcibly separating browsers from companies inherently in conflict with privacy.

Yep, just remember the controversy when Firefox included Pocket naively. Some people loved it, others hated it.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#295

Post by AsyncAwait »

antioedipus wrote: post #290
maltalex wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Google bullies you with Captchas if you have `privacy.resistFingerprinting` on.

One solution for this, at least for search, would be to use something like https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#296

Post by danShumway »

maltalex wrote: post #278
danShumway wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Increased captchas, sometimes sites will also break for non-obvious reasons (usually because you need to flip the setting that enables canvas data reading to the left of the URL bar), your time zone will be set to UTC on every website that you visit.

There are a few ways of looking at the captchas; the optimistic lens is to look at it as a response to people who say that it's impossible to meaningfully reduce fingerprinting. If that was true, Google wouldn't be so mad at me for flipping this setting on.

But it does make some browsing more annoying, especially if you're not technically savy enough to realize what's going on when something unexpected happens. I think it's the right decision for them to have it off by default (at least for right now).

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#297

Post by draebek »

floatingatoll wrote: post #119
mataug wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deleting redirect cookies is a wonderful step forward in improving privacy. I'm now concerned that companies would attempt to circumvent this by profiling users via fingerprinting through canvas, screen resolution, user agent and other means. I wonder how such profiling can be minimized / eliminated ?

As of January [1], it looks like Firefox enabled fingerprinting protection by default. Expert users may have overridden settings in various ways that could prevent those protections from being active. To verify, at Preferences > Privacy > Tracking Protection (about:preferences#privacy), make sure you've selected an option that includes Fingerprinting protection. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/how-to-block-finge…

Note that I think this blocking is done not by detecting a site doing it, but instead by using block lists: Firefox has a list of sites where third-party resources, including JS that would do canvas fingerprinting, will be blocked.

As I understand it, this is different from the various "resistFingerprinting" ("RFP") settings in about:config, which will work on every site (and are notorious for breaking things). Ditto CanvasBlocker, which AFAIK runs on every site.

I got this info from one of the links in the informative post you cited: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2020/01/07/firefox-72-fing...

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#298

Post by luxuryballs »

typon wrote: post #130

My friend who works in an adtech company: "Protip: Use Firefox instead of Chrome. We get very little data from Firefox users"

I assume the same applies for Edge so if I want my ads to be a tailored as possible but don’t want to use Google apps then use the most recent Edge browser since it’s Chromium under the hood?

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#299

Post by Angeo34 »

ignoramous wrote: post #281
danShumway wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I've been treated with endless Google Captchas with that setting, and they get very difficult with each passing day, never mind the time-sink.

Google captcha works by uniquely identifying you. The easier Google can track you the easier your captcha. That's why it's nearly impossible to solve captcha with resistfingerprint on (ie tor mode)

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#300

Post by fauigerzigerk »

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…

I don't know much about privacy.com because it's not available outside the US. Knowing a bit about the legal side of payments I doubt they can promise anonymity though. They're just not passing my identity on to merchants as I understand it.

I doubt that there will ever be a widespread, convenient way to make anonymous electronic payments. The authorities would never allow that to happen (for understandable reasons I have to say).

Incentives are not working at all. Lots of services I pay for go to great lengths to squeeze even more out of that customer relationship. And how could I possibly trust a large number of small companies I know very little about?

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