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Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#61

Post by s_ting765 »

user3939382 wrote: post #16

Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit. As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. You can profile this yourself on macOS with Charles Proxy (GUI) or mitmproxy (CLI). Until this is fixed all I can do is roll my eyes when I…

> Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit.

Biggest reason I refuse to use Firefox no matter how bad Chromium is. I sometimes use Firefox Focus for doing searches on my phone and the thing is always pinging mozilla services. Some of them location related. No way to turn any of these off on what is supposed to be an incognito browser.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#62

Post by traceroute66 »

ris58h wrote: post #54
traceroute66 wrote: post #51

What I want to know is have Firefox fixed the show-stopper bug with their implementation of Private Windows yet ? In Firefox, if I login to something in one Private Window, and open a second Private Window, my session is maintained (e.g. login to Protonmail on one, I open a second private window and I'm already logged in). So I assume Firefox is sharing cookies and whatnot between Private Windows. Brave doesn't do th…

> Hence I assume it is a bug. You probably should report it to Mozilla https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

> You probably should report it to Mozilla https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

Probably. But I've never had much luck getting any traction on previous reports even when I've made sure to produce great supporting detail to enable reproduction.

I suspect you need to know the right people to get traction on Mozilla bugs. Everyone else just seems to get lost in the swamp.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#63

Post by Nextgrid »

coldpie wrote: post #48
user3939382 wrote: post #16

Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit. As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. You can profile this yourself on macOS with Charles Proxy (GUI) or mitmproxy (CLI). Until this is fixed all I can do is roll my eyes when I…

> As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. What data is being communicated? What about that data is harmful to you? (Genuinely asking for more information, not trying to convince you you're wrong.)

> What about that data is harmful to you?

Arguments like these always reminds me of the story where some town had a population register that included religion, and then the Nazis invaded.

You don't know how or when the collected data will be misused, whether by the original owner, a malicious third-party breaching their systems, or the government (and even somewhat-stable governments can quickly turn sour, see Russia or the US's recent issues on abortion for an example).

Furthermore, at least in Europe, the GDPR mandates that all non-essential data collection must be strictly opt-in, so regardless of opinions, it's a law with which you have to technically comply (even though lacklustre enforcement allows offenders to get away), but doubly so if your entire selling pitch is based on privacy.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#65

Post by user3939382 »

elashri wrote: post #26
user3939382 wrote: post #16

Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit. As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. You can profile this yourself on macOS with Charles Proxy (GUI) or mitmproxy (CLI). Until this is fixed all I can do is roll my eyes when I…

While it is not a simple change, you can always modify things in about:config to turn off all (probably) telemetry on Firefox. The annoying thing is that you should keep updating the strings that is changing with updates (when they add or remove strings). Also you can keep an eye to updated to arkenfox user.js because while using it by default probably will break many websites but they keep track of privacy updates o…

That's the problem, even with every possible option disabled there is currently no way, even through about:config, to keep Firefox from phoning home at these points in its execution lifecycle.

The telemetry settings they provided basically amount to, we'll phone home to Mozilla either more or less, depending on your settings.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#66

Post by coldpie »

Nextgrid wrote: post #63
coldpie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. What data is being communicated? What about that data is harmful to you? (Genuinely asking for more information, not trying to convince you you're wrong.)

> What about that data is harmful to you? Arguments like these always reminds me of the story where some town had a population register that included religion, and then the Nazis invaded. You don't know how or when the collected data will be misused, whether by the original owner, a malicious third-party breaching their systems, or the government (and even somewhat-stable governments can quickly turn sour, see Russia…

I agree, which is why I asked what data is being collected. If it's like, "a user launched Firefox version 105.0.1 and has Pocket disabled," I've got a tough time caring. Telemetry is genuinely useful information. But if it's like, "a user with IP 123.45 opened MyFavoriteReligion.com and spent 20 minutes at that domain" then it's bad news. So, I'd like to know what's actually being transmitted.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#68

Post by fotta »

traceroute66 wrote: post #51

What I want to know is have Firefox fixed the show-stopper bug with their implementation of Private Windows yet ? In Firefox, if I login to something in one Private Window, and open a second Private Window, my session is maintained (e.g. login to Protonmail on one, I open a second private window and I'm already logged in). So I assume Firefox is sharing cookies and whatnot between Private Windows. Brave doesn't do th…

I came here looking to see if this was fixed too. This isn’t really a “bug” per se as the text on the Private Window says it does this. But I agree with you it’s the biggest issue with Private Windows. I always check if I have one open now if I want to use one and have started using Safari Private Windows more now because each one is isolated.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#69

Post by NayamAmarshe »

marcodiego wrote: post #58
NayamAmarshe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is, people using Firefox just to 'stick it to the big bad corpo' is getting us nowhere. Firefox is losing not because of Chrome but because of its own incompetence or inability to keep the users happy. Firefox is losing userbase a lot faster than some other browsers are gaining it, is that Firefox users' fault or Firefox's? I use Firefox because I think the sync service it provides is great and that some of…

> people using Firefox just to 'stick it to the big bad corpo' is getting us nowhere. Don't underestimate the power of small contributions. You could say the same about people using konqueror 20 years ago, it brought KHTML which brought us webkit. You could say the same about people using firefox at the same time. You could say the same about people using linux in middle 90's, the same about GCC... I could go on show…

Sure but we're acting as if a few people sticking to Firefox for the sake of it is going to save it, it's not. Not unless Mozilla fixes its underlying problems like the management and development roadmaps.

The fact that Firefox got backdrop-blur support in mid 2022 speaks volumes about Firefox's priorities.

I get the point you're trying to make, I use FOSS because I believe more people should be using it and if I don't, who would? But that doesn't work when it comes to Firefox. There are a lot of good free and open source browsers right now, no matter what engine they use.

If a chromium based FOSS browser gets popular enough, there are better chances of it surviving and breaking away from Google's monopoly at the same time. It does not matter what Google does with Chrome, as long as independent forks are able to exist within that same space and can get just as big.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#70

Post by kotlin2 »

mehlmao wrote: post #56
kotlin2 wrote: post #17

One privacy feature I’d really like is kind of like HTTPS everywhere, except it’s TLS 1.3 w/ SNI encryption everywhere.

Firefox does offer an HTTPS only-mode, which tries to upgrade HTTP to HTTPS and warns you before connecting if it's not enabled. Settings > Privacy & Security > HTTPS-Only Mode As far as I know, there are still no practical attacks against TLS 1.2.

The issue I’d like to solve is that, even with TLS, you still leak the SNI as part of the handshake. So your ISP can tell you’re connecting to google.com even if you’re using HTTPS.
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