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

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#321

Post by benhurmarcel » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #75

ainar-g wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is fantastic. I never liked the cookies sticking around forever, and managing them manually was a massive pain if you wanted to keep some of them. You might like the CookieAutoDelete plugin[1]. It's a recommended plugin which allows you to set a list of domains and domain patterns which retain their cookies while others are deleted. I've been using it for a couple of months now, and I love it. [1] https://addo…

CookieAutoDelete has some fatal flaws. It doesn't delete indexeddb, for instance. Also, if you're a tab hoarder it simply doesn't work for the common sites you visit. Temporary containers[1] is a much better option, as it uses firefox's container tabs to provide much tighter isolation. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

I recommend Forget Me Not as an alternative.

https://github.com/Lusito/forget-me-not/

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#322

Post by rmorey » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

nabaraz wrote: post #237

If only I can get Chromecast working on Firefox. I would never touch Chrome ever again.

I mean, you would still be touching chrome, as Chromecast devices are well, running Chrome... but your point is taken

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#323

Post by jchook » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

Surprisingly extensive article from Brave[1] from Aug 2018 -- two years ago! About redirect tracking, it says this:

> Brave’s policy of disallowing any third party state by default makes it already more privacy-preserving than ITP 2.0 in regards to third party redirection-based tracking. Brave users however may benefit from an ITP-like protection from first-party trackers, although their number is small.

Apparently Safari had ITP, a similar type of redirect tracking mitigation, for some time.

1. https://brave.com/redirection-based-tracking/

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#324

Post by benhurmarcel » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

ffpip wrote: post #191

shock wrote: post #83

Unfortunately, even with Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0 you can still be tracked by using ETags. There are extensions for Firefox that block ETag tracking, but I haven't reviewed a specific extension sufficiently to recommend one.

Remove Etags with the CleanURL addons. Just turn off everything else it does, if you only want to remove ETag. Clean URL cleans many links. No utm_source, no amazon trackers, no google/yandex changing links just right before you click it. It has adblock built in, so turn it off if you already have an adblocker. You can also do it with https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/netflix-party...

I wish CleanURL had a whitelist. It breaks a few websites.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#325

Post by yelloworangefog » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

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?

A couple of the less debilitating yet still somewhat annoying downsides I've found:

If you have the "restore previous session" option enabled and have grown accustomed to Firefox remembering all the windows you had open before, you may find it annoying that it no longer remembers the size of your windows; it just puts them to the default size. Although now that I think of it, this might possibly be specific to the X11/Linux version, as other window systems might handle window size in such a way that it's not affected by this.

Also, if you like having websites automatically detect if your system uses a dark color scheme and adjust their CSS accordingly, that no longer works. Again, speaking from an X11/Linux perspective here.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#326

Post by jimmaswell » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #259

jimmaswell wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't personally care if some ad network made a few pennies off me, and preventing that wouldn't be worth the inconvenience to me.

Disable it then, just because you're apathetic to such matters doesn't mean the application should assume everybody is. >inconvenience It's seriously doubtful you or any other user will notice any negative ramifications from third party cookies being deleted, because there basically are none.

We'll notice the inconvenience when more services get paywalled due to not being able to make enough ad money.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#327

Post by codetrotter » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

Attained wrote: post #320

Angeo34 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

That seems illegal in some places if true. The premise is that it proves we are not robots, and that's all.

By tracking you, they can remember that you are not a robot. As much as I dislike tracking, I don’t think having the captcha be always hard would be all that great either.

Ideally I’d like to see fewer captchas. But there’s no good alternative to it really. I mean, requiring phone verification instead is an alternative. But I don’t necessarily want to hand out my phone number to each and every site on the net that I interact with either.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#328

Post by mderazon » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

ffpip wrote: post #191

shock wrote: post #83

Unfortunately, even with Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0 you can still be tracked by using ETags. There are extensions for Firefox that block ETag tracking, but I haven't reviewed a specific extension sufficiently to recommend one.

Remove Etags with the CleanURL addons. Just turn off everything else it does, if you only want to remove ETag. Clean URL cleans many links. No utm_source, no amazon trackers, no google/yandex changing links just right before you click it. It has adblock built in, so turn it off if you already have an adblocker. You can also do it with https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/netflix-party...

Wow first time I read about etag tracking. The creativity of adtech companies is really impressive

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#329

Post by PhantomGremlin » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

stiray wrote: post #248

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"

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-…

Protip #3: when all else fails, they will use your IP address to target you.

E.g. I usually use Firefox with NoScript. I frequently exit Firefox; when I do I clear everything using "Clear history when Firefox closes".

When I want to visit a site that requires JavaScript I switch to Safari. I'm just as aggressive in Safari in clearing my history.

Consequently, about the only ads I do see (in Safari) are clothing ads for teenage girls. I have two teenage girls, they have their own computers, so it must be the shared IP address.

So far it hasn't been worth the hassle for me to switch to a new IP address from Comcast more than about once a year. By default my firewall asks for the same IP address and even if it didn't, Comcast will use my firewall's MAC address to give me the same IP address.

Re: Latest Firefox rolls out Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0

#330

Post by aembleton » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

markosaric wrote: post #270

Nice improvements! Firefox keeps delivering! But Chrome browser market share is now up on 71% while Firefox is down to 7.3% :(

How is that market share determined? Is it by looking at data from tracking?

Those tracking numbers will reduce, the more that Firefox cracks down on it.

User agents hitting server logs are probably more accurate now.