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Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#131

Post by WallyFunk »

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…

If you don't want to configure stuff, LibreWolf[0] has all the phoning home / telemetry stuff blocked out of the box.

[0] https://librewolf.net/

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#132

Post by ndriscoll »

coldpie wrote: post #85
freediver wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All telemetry at the very least transfers your IP address which is legally considered personal information. A browser can not therefore be considered privacy-respecting if it has telemetry turned on by default. Respecting users' privacy at a fundamental level is important for a tool that is our most intimate window to the web (a web browser) even if you personally have 'nothing to hide'.

Can you please describe a theoretical attack on your privacy by Mozilla learning that your IP address launched a Firefox instance?

Assuming they tag the browser install, that information could be used to track your location history. e.g. if you move from your home network to a store wifi.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#133

Post by Spivak »

stoplying1 wrote: post #34
Spivak wrote: post #13

Everyone in this thread complaining about colorways has got to be a meta-commentary on bikeshedding. This feature isn't for you. But anyway, I'm sad that HTTPS default and isolated cookies are turned on only for Private Browsing (sorry, "Guest Session" from that other silly HN thread, "private" apparently implies you have a rank in the military while using) when both these features aren't super disruptive for general…

I think you should re-read the complaints with slightly more empathy for both sides. I love my purple Firefox (apparently via Colorways). Meanwhile, the "Colorways" feature UX and messaging is stupid and confusing . I'm not exaggerating, me and others are quite confused about what it is/isn't and if it's going away. All for freaking what? My mom sees that shit? She's gonna go "uh I don't know what Colorways is, why's…

> All for freaking what?

Because they wanted something to talk about social media that was fun and limited time. They were following the Nike playbook with shoe drops including the terminology. Look at the screenshot in the blog post about colorways the art is even a shoe with a basketball.

They were trying something new. Limited time cosmetic drops for browsers that get people hyped in every other context. It confused white people because of how they executed it. Live and learn I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Every non-chrome browser has to answer the question "why use me instead of Chrome" and for Firefox it's the activism. you might not like that but it's what Mozilla's got. At least it's not some crypto nonsense.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#134

Post by WallyFunk »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #114

For anyone else being annoyed that private windows now switch their chrome into dark mode by default, completely rendering black favicons (or the toggle icon of the TreeStyleTabs extension) invisible: You can set browser.theme.dark-private-windows to false. I don't want dark mode, period. Who decided that privacy must equal to dark mode, and that there is no easy switch in settings to turn it off?

> Who decided that privacy must equal to dark mode

It's a visual cue to remember what context you are in. I always done that anyway. I have a Pink theme when surfing NSFW sites :)

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#135

Post by WallyFunk »

standup wrote: post #7

The "privacy" provided by so-called private browsing mode is just a smokescreen considering how much device fingerprinting is going on. And widespread surveillance of the Internet backbone not just by intelligence agencies but now private organisations like Team Cymru. It would be better if we spent the resources on a next generation anonymity network to replace Tor, or some kind of alternative data transport like ra…

> The "privacy" provided by so-called private browsing mode is just a smokescreen

And to add insult to injury, browsing artifacts are sometimes remembered in Windows' pagefile and other parts of the OS. Even on Linux, if your distro cares to add stuff to swap, it will dump browsing sessions in plaintext to your hard-drive, incognito/private mode or not. This is why people need to use TailsOS[0] if they're really concerned about not leaving any traces.

[0] https://tails.net/

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#136

Post by TonyTrapp »

WallyFunk wrote: post #134
TonyTrapp wrote: post #114

For anyone else being annoyed that private windows now switch their chrome into dark mode by default, completely rendering black favicons (or the toggle icon of the TreeStyleTabs extension) invisible: You can set browser.theme.dark-private-windows to false. I don't want dark mode, period. Who decided that privacy must equal to dark mode, and that there is no easy switch in settings to turn it off?

> Who decided that privacy must equal to dark mode It's a visual cue to remember what context you are in. I always done that anyway. I have a Pink theme when surfing NSFW sites :)

Does the clue have to cover the entire browser chrome, though? Maybe the previous indicator was too small, but messing with font contrast of all UI elements? It seems too much to me.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#138

Post by Spivak »

xg15 wrote: post #50
Spivak wrote: post #13

Everyone in this thread complaining about colorways has got to be a meta-commentary on bikeshedding. This feature isn't for you. But anyway, I'm sad that HTTPS default and isolated cookies are turned on only for Private Browsing (sorry, "Guest Session" from that other silly HN thread, "private" apparently implies you have a rank in the military while using) when both these features aren't super disruptive for general…

I think what annoys me is that Mozilla (like many other companies) has co-opted the "social movement/political activist" aesthetic without actually engaging in any activism. Private browsing mode is a prime example of that. The current improvement is absolutely miniscule for the amount of bravado they perform around it - but even if you accept it's useful for some, you could ask why private browsing mode exist at all…

> The current improvement is absolutely miniscule for the amount of bravado they perform around it.

Welcome to marketing. This icon is a more visible change than 1000 closed PRs in the browser internals. It's Twitter fodder, and to get tech journalists to talk about Firefox.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#139

Post by WallyFunk »

traveler01 wrote: post #102

I want to like and use Firefox. Seriously, I really do. But when will they fix the performance of the browser? They're spending devs time on useless crap instead of being improving the engine, which clearly needs improvements. For example, I wanted to send some thousands of pictures to Proton Drive (doesn't have a sync App yet) and tried doing it in Firefox. It literally started to take all the computer RAM (my compu…

> It literally started to take all the computer RAM

That's probably not Firefox, but the way Proton encrypts data client-side. The browser has to do a lot of heavy crypto operations. At least that's the case with Filen.io[0]. I was told by support to have a beefy machine since the desktop web app encrypts data on-the-fly before uploading to their servers.

[0] https://filen.io/

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