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LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

librewolf-community.gitlab.io

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Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#221

Post by tinus_hn »

tristor wrote: post #108

I examined this and it appears that you can get the same effect yourself by enabling ETP strict mode, disabling telemetry and suggestions, and installing uBlock Origin in Firefox, which is a pretty common configuration for a lot of people. I suppose it's easier to just install this and have that already set up, but it's not exactly hard to do this in Firefox for the average HN reader and you most likely /already have…

Until Firefox accidentally disables these settings or replaced them with new ones with new defaults, deprecates these plugins or introduces a new privacy invasion.

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#222

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

_kulang wrote: post #44
_jal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've lost sight of what running a sustainable business in this space would look like Is the claim that it is economically impossible to create a browser without turning it in to surveillance malware? To the extent that's true, it is the best argument yet for shutting down the web.

Something I vehemently agree with

Can't drain the swamps if the goal is to have moats.

Except if you go full-on Neo-Amish/Luddite and use

[->] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)

or the remaining stuff which stays accessible via simple

browsers like [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetSurf ,

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo ,

or textmode stuff like Lynx, (E)Links(2), W3M, and similar.

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#223

Post by cpeterso »

jcranmer wrote: post #185
criddell wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How valuable is the telemetry data to Mozilla?

I'm not an expert on Mozilla's telemetry, but my recollection is the vast majority of telemetry data is performance data (e.g., how long does it take the program startup, how long does it take to query the history database when typing in the URL bar) or features usage (and this is more on the level of "which SSL cipher suites are being used" versus "who clicks this button in the UI").

Here is Mozilla's list of telemetry probes, including descriptions and whether it is recorded in prerelease (Firefox Nightly and Beta) or release versions.

https://probes.telemetry.mozilla.org/

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#224

Post by rz2k »

st3fan wrote: post #195
Scharkenberg wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on their recent design changes (deprecation of compact mode, for example), they are either not collecting enough telemetry about the affected parts of the UI/UX, or they are ignoring what they have collected for whatever reason. Of course, there is a chance that telemetry confirms their vision, but based on the explicit feedback I've been seeing online, I doubt the rationality of their decision-making at least…

How do you compare strong voices of a few on a site like HackerNews or Reddit against many many many millions of data points of users around the world. Should written feedback overrule a bigger data set?

Is there a guiding philosophy behind any of Firefox's decisions?

If it isn't customizable by the type of users who care about customization, then what is the reason to use Firefox instead of what ships with your OS or Chrome. Why would "typical users" have chosen Firefox in the first place without some vocal user suggesting it?

I still use Firefox for everything, I'm just sad that the lack of inspiration in the project means that it might not be a viable option in a few years. Maybe they're aiming for making 98% of users happy, and matching 98% of the features of other browsers, but it needs to have some reason to exist. Usability testing without innovation is that different from p-hacking without hypotheses in science.

Anyway, compact density was a non-default option, so it's difficult to understand why the option had to be deprecated. Compare that to MacOS. I didn't upgrade to Big Sur until Apple restored the option `NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture`, which allows you to drag a window from any pixel when you hold down control-option-command. Out of a billion users, I'd be surprised if more than 5,000 users care about this feature. (ie >99.9995% probably don't care) I only use the feature in combination with Karabiner Elements to change the command and Steermouse to recognize mouse button chords, but I invoke the command every couple minutes. Nevertheless it was restored, and it never disappeared in Monterey. Is it the budget alone that allows Apple to be simultaneously opinionated in their UI design and user accommodating, or is it completely different attitudes about users?

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#225

Post by robbedpeter »

st3fan wrote: post #195
Scharkenberg wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on their recent design changes (deprecation of compact mode, for example), they are either not collecting enough telemetry about the affected parts of the UI/UX, or they are ignoring what they have collected for whatever reason. Of course, there is a chance that telemetry confirms their vision, but based on the explicit feedback I've been seeing online, I doubt the rationality of their decision-making at least…

How do you compare strong voices of a few on a site like HackerNews or Reddit against many many many millions of data points of users around the world. Should written feedback overrule a bigger data set?

A technically competent user's feedback should be weighted at least one, if not tens or hundreds of orders of magnitude greater than anonymously gathered telemetry. Remove actual, intentional human communication from the loop and you're lost at sea - anyone can make the anonymous data mean anything, and then it's whomever can make the cleverest chart or analysis of the data that ends up directing decisions.

Ignoring the people who actually take the time to communicate problems in favor of interpreted telemetry is exactly why Firefox is losing. Taking direction from technical users, or so-called power users, can give the application improvements in nuanced and technical uses. Taking direction from anonymous "averages" makes development a race to the bottom.

Firefox developments over the last couple years feels like what would happen if you put grandma in charge of trying to make things better. To put it bluntly, fuck grandma, she doesn't know what the hell she's doing anyway. Firefox used to be a Lamborghini, it doesn't need training wheels and balloon bumpers. Lean into technical excellence and drop the obsessive ui/ux nonsense.

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#226

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

dralley wrote: post #69
taneq wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the unlimited resources that Apple, Microsoft, and Google are able to pour into their unprofitable ecosystem moats No sane company pours money into unprofitable anything. They pour money into those moats precisely because it pays dividends.

My point (which I'm confident you do understand despite the pedantry) is that the browsers themselves are not profitable without taking into account their effects on the entire ecosystem. Mozilla doesn't have an ecosystem like Google, Microsoft and Apple do. If they want to stay afloat they have to be profitable with the browser alone. So trying to directly compare that to the "free candy" approach which the others c…

Can't see the value of Amazon Retail here without going full-in with Prime, and not even then.

Though that may be regional, as I speak from Germany.

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#227

Post by SyzygistSix »

InTheArena wrote: post #204
st3fan wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you compare strong voices of a few on a site like HackerNews or Reddit against many many many millions of data points of users around the world. Should written feedback overrule a bigger data set?

Typically on the web more virulent, extreme content should always win against the quiet majority.

Is this sarcasm or sincere? I agree to a certain extent; informed people with good taste tend to be strongly opinionated.

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#228

Post by junon »

tarasglek wrote: post #128

Author of Mozilla telemetry here. You can accomplish this with official firefox by blacklisting incoming.telemetry.mozilla.org domain, per https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/search?q=telemetry.moz...

Let's stop making privacy a techie-only thing, though. This should be a question a user chooses the first time they boot the browser, and Firefox should do its hardest to honor it.

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#229

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #220
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even the privacy aspect alone. There have been repeated cases of absolutely legit, not even controversial sites landing on blacklists, for reasons of technical errors maintaining those, or some jurisdictions DMCAing some other site(s), hosted behind the same IP-range in the same data-center. Boom. Suddenly the site is gone, or at least you have to click around endless warnings about impending doom if you pro…

I came across a very annoying case of it blocking seclists.org for a few months but it eventually cleared up. Despite this, I still advocate for it. If one day it does start seeming to act maliciously I can simply push a button and it's switched off. Until then it provides a real benefit to security because a whole lot of nasty sites are blacklisted using the service. If you think it's for nothing then perhaps it's w…

Your's may be a valid point of view. But mine is too. Because I didn't pull that shit out of thin air,

instead having experienced it,

and came to the conclusion that it IS indeed the same shit.

At the end of the day.

All those 'swimmies' and life-savers are ball and chain to me,

dragging me down. Learn to surf, row, swim, dive, whatever!

Re: LibreWolf – A fork of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom

#230

Post by md8z »

rz2k wrote: post #224
st3fan wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you compare strong voices of a few on a site like HackerNews or Reddit against many many many millions of data points of users around the world. Should written feedback overrule a bigger data set?

Is there a guiding philosophy behind any of Firefox's decisions? If it isn't customizable by the type of users who care about customization, then what is the reason to use Firefox instead of what ships with your OS or Chrome. Why would "typical users" have chosen Firefox in the first place without some vocal user suggesting it? I still use Firefox for everything, I'm just sad that the lack of inspiration in the proje…

As someone who is currently implementing a compact theme for a different app, anything of that nature has a non-zero cost. Which is compounded by the number of designers you have working on the product who now all have to review every change multiple times.
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