Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#201

Post by mdavidn » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #122

abcd_f wrote: post #68

Per-site caching negates the principal selling point of centrally-hosted JS and resources, including fonts. The convenience remains, but all speed-related perks (due to the resources being reused from earlier visits to unrelated sites) are no more... which is actually great, because it reduces the value that unscrupulous free CDN providers can derive from their "properties". It also means that I can remove fonts.goog…

That idea of having JS files hosted elsewhere always struck me as a Girardian scam (e.g. "everybody else does it") and always getting voted down when I showed people the reality factor. Nobody seemed to think it was hard to host a file before this came along, just as nobody thought it was hard to have a blog before Medium. Of course this creates the apocalyptic possibility that one of these servers could get hacked (…

Browsers can check "subresource integrity" to guard against hacks of third-party services.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Subres...

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#202

Post by JKCalhoun » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #161

warent wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a network ad-block dns (pihole) and consistently 25-33% of all my network traffic is blocked as ads. It's much more than I ever imagined. Now I'm used to a different internet, when I'm using internet off the network it's like WTF is this?

I run Pi-Hole on my network as well; it's wonderful. I'm terrified that it will stop working soon though, as companies start to use their own DNS servers, which I've heard is happening.

Interesting. I would think though that the move to their own DNS servers could extend to their own ads as well — that is, cutting out the middle man that is Google/etc.

I'm all for news sites, for example, hoisting ads if I knew they were getting the money from those ads, knew the ads were actually coming from their site.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#203

Post by danShumway » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

chromaton wrote: post #104

danShumway wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a parallel reality: "Firefox 85 Cracks Down on Fingerprinting" "Is this really important given that supercookies can almost always persist between sessions and across domains?" ---- If you want to fix a problem, there are going to be points during that process where the problem is partially fixed. This only becomes an issue if we're headed in the wrong direction, or focusing on a sub-problem that would be better a…

You're right, of course. But let's not forget that fingerprinting exists and is going to be tough to eliminate.

People shouldn't think that this change on its own means they can't be tracked any more, but also this change is worth celebrating -- not all sites use fingerprinting (yet).

But yeah, we still have a ways to go. Small steps.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#204

Post by grishka » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #189

makecheck wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern ad networks are essentially the “fax machine flyers” of old: someone you don’t know using your resources and your time, denying you use of your own resources temporarily, to send you something you don’t want. Except now it’s like every “normal” fax page includes 15,000 flyers.

Some pages don't let you "Reject All" cookies, you have to uncheck them one by one, and there's literally hundreds of ad networks listed. It's spooky, I tell ya!

Use your browser settings to block third-party cookies altogether. And, better yet, install uBlock Origin and never see an ad again.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#205

Post by cptskippy » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #168

warent wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a network ad-block dns (pihole) and consistently 25-33% of all my network traffic is blocked as ads. It's much more than I ever imagined. Now I'm used to a different internet, when I'm using internet off the network it's like WTF is this?

25-33% of requests? Or is this a percentage of bytes? Because I wonder what percentage of bandwidth (in terms of bytes) trackers/banners/ads account for. Need to set up a pi-hole ... just too many other projects....

Pi-Hole is a DNS solution so it's just blocking DNS lookups. Mine is currently blocking 43.9% of all DNS requests.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#206

Post by notriddle » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

peterpost2 wrote: post #19

How is that even legal

> It is how they track people who have been suspended on the platform

That sounds like a legitimate interest to me.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#207

Post by Fiahil » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #168

warent wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a network ad-block dns (pihole) and consistently 25-33% of all my network traffic is blocked as ads. It's much more than I ever imagined. Now I'm used to a different internet, when I'm using internet off the network it's like WTF is this?

25-33% of requests? Or is this a percentage of bytes? Because I wonder what percentage of bandwidth (in terms of bytes) trackers/banners/ads account for. Need to set up a pi-hole ... just too many other projects....

It's a percent of DNS requests. It might be quite difficult to see what percentage of bytes it translate to, since HTTP requests aren't actually sent.

My pihole is showing 18.7%-23% of requests blocked :)

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#208

Post by hinkley » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #150

ghostDancer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the /s. This is HN here you find people that can take that seriously and agree.

IMO the /s requirement applies anywhere. Sarcasm is dead, literal expressions are literally interpreted literally since 2018 and on.

Poe’s Law was named in 2005. Which was interesting news to all of us on Usenet for whom this phenomenon was already known before Eternal September or Green Cards stole the show.

Sarcasm was already dead before “spam” meant ads instead of scrolling a forum or chat window by repeating yourself (exactly like the Monty Python sketch it alluded to).

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#209

Post by vaduz » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

secondcoming wrote: post #117

guilhermetk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can do that via whitelist/blacklist: https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/misc/whitelist-blacklist/

allowlist/denylist

> allowlist/denylist

As of now, it is called whitelist/blacklist in PiHole [0]. Maybe it will change, maybe it will not, but there is already a place to fight that battle [1] and it is not HN.

[0] https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/misc/whitelist-blacklist/

[1] https://github.com/pi-hole/AdminLTE/issues/1448

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#210

Post by ogre_codes » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

biryani_chicken wrote: post #179

ogre_codes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you use the web when you can't click on links? I can't effectively keep a mental black list of all the sites which I don't want to click on.

I don't. I mean, if it's a news site just search for the title in a search engine and you'll find other articles. If it's a web application I search for an alternative and bookmark that. If you really want to avoid even loading it, you can just block the whole site with your adblocker but I don't go that far.

That is what I currently do. It turns casual browsing into a frustrating scavenger hunt. The whole point of the web was to make links effortless so you could browse sites. This breaks that whole model.