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Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

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Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#341
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people reading this comment are thinking, "what's a fax machine?" :o) I like the analogy, but I wonder how effective it is on anyone under the age of what, 35?

I had to use a Fax machine in 2018. In the United States. As the only acceptable way to submit certain documents. I should also point to non-Unitedstatians that checks (that physical paper worth as much money as you write and sign on it) are still in use in the USA.

Checks still in use in Canada as well. I had a person today tell me they had 3 checks stolen and cashed and my response was “people still use checks?”.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#342
post #335
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm old enough to remember (like New Coke) ZapMail by FedEx where you would send documents by FedEx and FedEx would Fax it on their equipment to a location near the recipient for physical delivery. Obligatory Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapmail . Hey, most businesses didn't have one of those newfangled FAX machines.

Newfangled? It will enter its third century in a decade or so.

So just fangled

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#343
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> never see an ad again

I wish that were true. Although uBlock Origin does a good job, some ads definitely still make it through. There are also some sites that detect ad blockers and refuse to let you in unless you disable it. There are workarounds for some of these, but it's still a bit of a mess.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#344
post #236
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people reading this comment are thinking, "what's a fax machine?" :o) I like the analogy, but I wonder how effective it is on anyone under the age of what, 35?

You might be surprised how many of us under-35s still have to use Fax machines on a regular basis ;)

> You might be surprised

This is such a meaningless statement.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the desktop there has been minor movement as percentage of the whole market, but up 9% on their own share. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...

Chrome is losing market share since October? What changed?

I downloaded and looked at the raw data. The biggest reason seems to be the new Edge browser gaining popularity. It went from 5.8% to 7.4% market share since October. I'm not sure why this chart displays both IE and the old Edge, when together they're a third of the market share of new Edge.

Safari and Firefox also are up since October, but I'm not sure why that is. For Safari I suspect new Apple devices being purchased around the holidays, but that's just a guess.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#346
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 (…

This. If you are loading some scripts that are actually required for your app or page to work right, why would you get them from someone else's infrastructure? Terminal laziness? Or is the assumption that XYZ corp has more incentive than you do to keep your page working? This never made much sense to me except for developer toys & tutorials.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#347
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people reading this comment are thinking, "what's a fax machine?" :o) I like the analogy, but I wonder how effective it is on anyone under the age of what, 35?

My bank still accepts fax documents. All I would have to do is find a fax machine ...

Unsurprisingly Equifax requires you communicate with them through snail mail, fax or a telephone call.

Every other credit agency had no problem with my SSN + address then Equifax throws a flag, locks my account and says I have to validate my identity by faxing them identity documents.

Fat chance, idiots.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#348
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to use a Fax machine in 2018. In the United States. As the only acceptable way to submit certain documents. I should also point to non-Unitedstatians that checks (that physical paper worth as much money as you write and sign on it) are still in use in the USA.

Checks still in use in Canada as well. I had a person today tell me they had 3 checks stolen and cashed and my response was “people still use checks?”.

The demise of checks is greatly exaggerated. I've written about 70 or so checks in the last 5 years. Mostly: Property taxes, home improvement contractors, dues for various clubs and social groups, kids activities, and some mail-in retailers who simply don't take credit card.

That's leaving out the "automatic bill pay" function of my bank's web site, which, for most payees, at the end of the day results in physical paper checks being printed and sent in envelopes.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#349

These advertising networks are destroying web performance. Most of these "Supercookies" are optimizations to improve performance. By abusing them, advertisers have turned what should be a great performance tool into a liability. I know FF suggests this won't significantly affect most websites performance, but web advertising and trackers are already responsible for a huge chunk of performance issues already. Of cours…

We're trying to build an ad network that doesn't track users: https://www.ethicalads.io/ We talked a little bit about how these ads still work, even without tracking you. You might be losing 10-15% of revenue, but if you never had that revenue to start with, you don't miss it: https://www.ethicalads.io/blog/2018/04/ethical-advertising-w... I think the real secret is just to not become dependent on the additive revenu…

I appreciate that you're trying what you're trying, but I wanted to address this:

> All businesses forgo additional revenue based on ethics and regulation, and I don't understand why that's such a odd thing to do with advertising.

The great bulk of advertising is built upon a conflict of interest and is essentially manipulative. Consider, for example, an article. Both the writer and the reader want the reader's maximum attention on the article for as long as the reader cares to give it. The goal of advertising is to distract from that in hopes of extracting money from the reader. Generally, ads are constructed without much regard to whether the reader was intending to buy or would really benefit from the product. The goal is to make a sale. (If you doubt me, look at how many people who create or show ads, say, test a product before putting the ad in front of people. Or just look at tobacco advertising, a product that has killed hundreds of millions.)

So I think there's an inherent lack of ethics to ads as an industry. It could be that you'll find enough people who are worried about privacy but not about the other stuff to build a business. But I wouldn't bet on it. It's no accident that this security hole is being closed not because of random miscreants but because of industrial-scale exploitation.

Re: Firefox 85 cracks down on supercookies

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this: https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/04/ad-industry-tracking/ "my iPhone 11 Pro was also unique among the more than 2.5 million devices they have tested." Time zone is one possible fingerprint data point.

> Time zone is one possible fingerprint data point. Totally forget that. Oops. Now for the meat of your comment ...and how many have tested their protections so that their testing site recognize that your device is not unique? A very good counterclaim was posted in the comments: I strongly disagree with your findings, Ben. Namely, you list fingerprinting techniques available to browsers, and fail to mention how Safar…

I've got a question; if it is ok to lie in these reports, why do they even exist? I thought these reports were there as a way to introduce client capabilities so that the server can serve the right content.

Disclaimer: This is a genuine question. I'm a hardware guy and I don't know how web works nowadays.

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