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Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#141

Post by dkdmso »

Aardwolf wrote: post #99
hbn wrote: post #9

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision…

In Windows 3.11 you could choose all the colors you wanted for every part of the window rendering (and it wasn't called "limited edition" or whatever there either, and naming it limited edition in FF as in the image caption in the article doesn't inspire confidence to rely on this feature long term). Nothing recent comes close to that, even Linux desktops make it hard to choose colors or how visible your scrollbars a…

KDE definitely still lets you theme like crazy, I believe including the scroll bar settings

The CSS comment sounds like Gnome. I used Gnome for fifteen years and got tired of what you're complaining about and switched to KDE eight or nine months ago and haven't looked back

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#142

Post by cptskippy »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #28
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…

Is it possible to get a list of addresses and add them to a block list, in PiHole for example?

Yes, it's already in one of the Steven Black or Peter Lowe lists:

incoming.telemetry.mozilla.org

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#143

Post by charcircuit »

sabellito wrote: post #86
causi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, can you just say "we've got themes?" No one is going to remember Firefox as the next MLK Jr because they let you turn the window chrome orange. Meanwhile Firefox Android is still a slow, unstable garbage pile. How many years now since Mozilla began developing exclusively for headline writers instead of their users?

I use FF Android every day, including watching videos, and haven't noticed the "unstable garbage pile". Are you being hyperbolic?

Have you compared it to mobile chrome? Chrome feels so much faster.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#144

Post by b112 »

jjulius wrote: post #125
zuhsetaqi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any source for that story? I also heard of it but don’t know if it’s made up or not and couldn’t find a source

I was as curious as you, and found this: >While the fact that the census 1939 inquired Jewish ancestry is a well known fact in historiography its significance for the identification of individual Jews in the context of the Shoah has been disputed. The thesis argues that a population register introduced in 1939 - the People's Card Index (Volkskartei) - was essential in the identification of German Jews. Consulting new…

My understanding, is it wasn't a census, but just info at local town halls.

The purpose was only so you could be buried where you wanted, in a preferred cemetery, Catholics in a Catholic cemetery for example, people wanted, and cared about that, back then.

But if you died without relatives... the town had to know.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#145

Post by rhn_mk1 »

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?

It's not Mozilla that learns about your IP address, it's all the hops between you and Mozilla. An encrypted HTTP request typially contains the following info:

- source IP:port

- source OS (through TCP fingerprints)

- destination IP:port

- destination hostname

Now you have to consider where your packets may be diverted and who might want to do what with them.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#146

Post by Spivak »

Karunamon wrote: post #73
Spivak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla really can't win on HN, a feature that basically only exists to save one click (efficiency!) for the kind of people who consume PB regularly is very power user and aligns with their brand as being privacy focused when private mode is the thing that is always visible in the bar. Nobody on HN seems to know at all how to market tech to a general audience and play the game of "staying relevant" so they always hav…

How much do you want to bet the "general audience" does not care one bit about this and will not meaningfully move the (declining) DAU numbers? Mozilla's problems are in its fundamentals, not its marketing.

Mozilla's problem is they have been grasping for an answer to "why should you use Firefox over Chrome?" that actually resonates with people for over a decade. The product is fine, Firefox is a perfectly capable browser. Convincing people to use it is a soft-skills problem because the only reason to use Firefox is because you like Mozilla more than you like Google which is entirely driven by Mozilla having good-feels activism mindshare and getting in being in the news cycle.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#147

Post by cptskippy »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #69
marcodiego wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

Perhaps it speaks more to your priorities? I can't see anyone outside of a web developer who needed that feature 1 time or even caring that backdrop-blur wasn't implemented.

The fact that you're salty about a specific CSS property and that it's reason enough to boycott a browser speaks volumes.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#148

Post by stoplying1 »

Spivak wrote: post #133
stoplying1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 confu…

So Mozilla is chasing Nike shoe trends to advocate for their browser via colorschemes. I'm not even saying you're wrong, and I guess I'm not even sure that's an absolutely bad idea but Christ if that's "our" play for the future of browsers and privacy, I need to start building that shed ASAP!

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#149

Post by coldpie »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #145
coldpie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not Mozilla that learns about your IP address, it's all the hops between you and Mozilla. An encrypted HTTP request typially contains the following info: - source IP:port - source OS (through TCP fingerprints) - destination IP:port - destination hostname Now you have to consider where your packets may be diverted and who might want to do what with them.

Okay. Can you please describe a theoretical attack?

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#150

Post by cptskippy »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #128
bertman wrote: post #11

>[...]Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves[...] I'd like to express myself and say that I just want a secure and privacy-respecting browser that gets its priorities straight.

Priorities like mentioning PDF editing before sickly doublespeak about...theming.

Do people think it's one person implementing Theming, PDF editing, and Privacy Mode protects; and that he just needs to re-prioritize his backlog?

Why can't developer of difference capabilities contribute in different ways? I'm a competent developer but I will never be kernel module, crypto, or netcode competent; does that mean I should just forgo contributing to anything?

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