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Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

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Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#101

Post by dexen »

davidy123 wrote: post #95

The concept of the browser is a universal vehicle for information. One of the greatest breakthroughs for browsers, aside from increasing front end application rendering and interactivity, is extensions. They put the user as the primary, where they can access, control, organize the information accessed as they wish using extensions. Of course, there is a wild west aspect to this, and over time extension facilities are…

>Firefox says they will [properly support extensions on mobile]

The most relevant extension - uBlock Origin - works just fine on mobile Firefox.

It's a real game changer, especially with screen real estate and energy usage being quite important on mobile.

That extension alone is why I have and use Firefox on mobile phones (aside of the usual compatibility testing on other browsers for certain web projects).

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#102

Post by Belphemur »

move-on-by wrote: post #83
throwaway8291 wrote: post #3

I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login (at around version 40). Never looked back. One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Maybe I'm too optimistic. Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering and all the innovation they…

> One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. For reference, FF uses the level 1 disconnect.me block list, which blocks StatCounter scrips from loading on 3rd party sites [1]. [1] https://githu…

I'm pretty sure they rely on user agent in the server logs.

Sure you can spoof it, but it would be the same for the stat counter.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#103

Post by XzetaU8 »

heartbeats wrote: post #46
groovybits wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a privacy enthusiast, what's wrong with Google's SafeBrowsing service? It provides protection from low-hanging fruit with anonymized data (hashes of URLs).

It's not very anonymized. Google already has a list of URLs, so they can just hash them all and see what matches. And if they have URL 1, 2, and 4, odds are they can interpolate to find out what #3 is.

That's not how GSB works in firefox.

https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/how-safe-browsing-works-...

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#104

Post by metastart »

cousin_it wrote: post #94

1) Thirteen banner ads, most of them animated 2) Tracking from Google and Facebook 3) Cookie warning with no way to opt out 4) You can only opt out if you live in California: > Opting out of the sharing of your personal information by Protocol with marketers: Please send an email to privacy@protocol.com with the following information: -Name -Email -Confirmation of California residency

No ads coming up in my Epic Privacy Browser with adblock & encrypted proxy on :-). Firefox has been copying a lot of Epic's features, but still is far behind their privacy defaults.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#105

Post by h91wka »

It's funny how Mozilla preaches privacy, but if you open `about:config' and count

1) parameters that include word "telemetry"

2) everything that looks like a unique token

3) "mozilla.org" URLs

you'll see that the sum is steadily going up with every release. It leaves me under impression that Mozilla is trying to follow Facebook and Google. Lately they removed setting to use a custom page for the new tabs, leaving only choice between blank page and Mozilla-provided "interest based" homepage. I am still using it as the main browser, though, as "lesser evil", but discrepancy between Mozilla's slogans and actual features is pretty chilling.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#106

Post by simias »

anonymousab wrote: post #66
satya71 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of those browsers tracks everything you do if you sign-in, the other does it only to increase retention, not to track your activities. Guess which is which?

It would be better not to do [questionable thing] than to do it at all. I don't particularly care whether nagware functionality is benign or not.

Firefox sync is super convenient though, I don't really agree with you that it's a dark pattern. It does make using your browser more convenient across devices and I'm sure many people coming from chrome expect this to work out of the box especially since, AFAIK, google auto-logs you into Chrome as soon as it can.

On the other hand I find Pocket a much more questionable addition.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#107

Post by [deleted] »

dangus wrote: post #6
codingmess wrote: post #4

Freedom and privacy, good. Wokeness, not good. I wish they would have stuck to freedom and privacy. Now I can not wholeheartedly support them any longer. (Referring, for example, to their recent manifesto telling students they should only work for SJW approved companies).

I think being “woke” is only “not good” if you subscribe to the Fox News Cult. Thinking carefully about the ethics of the company you work for, especially those in-demand employees who largely have a choice like software engineers, is definitely important. This is not a partisan issue. Sure, you may not get your chance to own the libs, but that stuff is a bit childish, isn’t it? What does the phrase SJW actually mean…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#108

Post by nunodonato »

tclover wrote: post #99
cousin_it wrote: post #94

1) Thirteen banner ads, most of them animated 2) Tracking from Google and Facebook 3) Cookie warning with no way to opt out 4) You can only opt out if you live in California: > Opting out of the sharing of your personal information by Protocol with marketers: Please send an email to privacy@protocol.com with the following information: -Name -Email -Confirmation of California residency

I often forget how does the internet look like without the adblocker

same. I only see a very clean article :)

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#109

Post by Numberwang »

ailideex wrote: post #71
bilekas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on my waay BACK to Firefox, there was a strange period when I left, Firefox just seemed really heavy on my machine, and it was super intensive for some dev tools. Now I say the same about chrome and find FF much lighter and efficient. Delighted that FF are taking a bit of a stronger stand here in the privacy dept too .

Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.

This is my experience as well. At least once a year I get convinced by a HN comment that FF is now much better.

It is always slow, bloated and markedly worse than Chrome. I really wish it was better.I do wonder what world fellow HN:ers are living in sometimes.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#110

Post by propogandist »

Anon1096 wrote: post #75
heartbeats wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not very anonymized. Google already has a list of URLs, so they can just hash them all and see what matches. And if they have URL 1, 2, and 4, odds are they can interpolate to find out what #3 is.

I don't think you understand what anonymized means. Yes they know that someone went to those URLs... but they can't link it to a person. So it's anonymous.

The request originates and returns to an IP address, your IP address. It's not anonymous.
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