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For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

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Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#81
post #22

The article links to Mozilla’s press release / blog entry about the acquisition of Anonym [0]. It’s pretty dystopian reading. The last three paragraphs and the summary of Anonym are more worrying than anything else I’ve read on this so far: > This acquisition marks a significant step in addressing the urgent need for privacy-preserving advertising solutions. By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with An…

> Mozilla has been down this road before. It was not good for them.

Yes, this is Cliqz all over again and that scandal cost them most of their German userbase.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#82
post #17

The CTO of Mozilla just posted on /r/firefox about this: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_abo...

"The devil is in the details, and not everything that claims to be privacy-preserving actually is"

Yeah, like Mozilla.

This is not the first time they silently added tracking and avertisement. The toggle with "firefox shares basic telemetry with the adcompany Adjust" has been there activated by default since a while (among other stuff). This is just more tracking from them, while claiming to defend privacy. Another day, another scandal.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#83
post #37

So where can I donate to Ladybird browser development? Before anyone tries to respond with it. It is https://donorbox.org/ladybird

They really need to start adding windows as a build target at some near point in the future. As a webdev, that’s the only way I can convince the public to switch.

Maybe Ladybird can be a good reason to convince the "public" to switch away from Windows in the near future

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#84
post #74
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this line is very important: > First, in the absence of alternatives, there are enormous economic incentives for advertisers to try to bypass these countermeasures, leading to a perpetual arms race that we may not win. It's very likely that this arms race will lead to DRM in web publications and video feeds (which Google is already experimenting with).

> leading to a perpetual arms race that we may not win So we're not even going to try.

This is an attempt to try. You don't win my being an immovable wall going against the biggest corporations. If the W3C manages to create a system that satisfies advertisers while preserving our privacy, that's how you win. There isn't a future where advertising will just disappear. I'm just being pragmatic here, as a user of ad blockers for 15 years.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#85
post #84
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leading to a perpetual arms race that we may not win So we're not even going to try.

This is an attempt to try. You don't win my being an immovable wall going against the biggest corporations. If the W3C manages to create a system that satisfies advertisers while preserving our privacy, that's how you win. There isn't a future where advertising will just disappear. I'm just being pragmatic here, as a user of ad blockers for 15 years.

Most advertisers will not be satisfied with that. The real question is if regulators will be and therefore can use this as a reason to clamp down on advertisers. If so this might work, but I am skeptical. And either way it was wrong of Mozilla to sneak this in as opt-out.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will begrudgingly admit he has a point here. In a few years I imagine almost all sites will refuse to serve anything without WEI, and the "open" web will be the preserve of a few hobbyists. Annoyingly you'll still need to use a compromised browser (or worse, app) to do anything with your bank, etc.

It will be something like WEI or sites will just be a giant blob served via WebASM.

[deleted]

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#87
post #17

The CTO of Mozilla just posted on /r/firefox about this: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_abo...

> It’s clear in retrospect that we should have communicated more on this one

What isn’t clear, in retrospect or otherwise, is why companies/apps/services need to keep learning this lesson. The user outcry was utterly predictable from even before the first web article was out. The fact that no one with decision power at Mozilla saw it coming is worrying: either they have zero understanding of people’s concerns for privacy or they don’t care. Neither is good.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#88
post #24

So how do we turn it off? Found it. Go to settings, type privacy into the search box. The last item under "Firefox Data Collection and Use" is a check box labelled "Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement". It was already unchecked on mine when I looked just now.

on firefox mobile: open chrome://geckoview/content/config.xhtml, set general.aboutConfig.enable to true open about:config, set dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled to false

What's the difference with setting

    dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled 
to false in the gekoview?

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#90
post #24

So how do we turn it off? Found it. Go to settings, type privacy into the search box. The last item under "Firefox Data Collection and Use" is a check box labelled "Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement". It was already unchecked on mine when I looked just now.

on firefox mobile: open chrome://geckoview/content/config.xhtml, set general.aboutConfig.enable to true open about:config, set dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled to false

Thanks a lot for this tip. I don't know how one is supposed to find this setting.
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