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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#111

Post by zucker42 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #92
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17.62 bits on firefox, 11.0 on Tor, 17.63 on chrome. On firefox, the big contributors are HTTP headers (my native language is announced), hash of WebGl fingerprint and time zone. On Tor big contributors are hash of webGL fingerprint, screen size. On chrome, they are system fonts, hash of canvas fingerprint, user agent, and time zone. I am not too concerned about the fingerprinting in firefox since I have strict block…

The numbers don't make much sense to me. On FF I get 14.05 with NoScript active. Curiously the headers increase from 1.68 bits to 3.47 when NoScript is running.

Of course no script increases the entropy. Most people don't run NoScript, so you are more identifiable when you run it.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#112

Post by ChrisSD »

ademup wrote: post #91
ChrisSD wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is they tried diversifying their income. But people don't want their browser to ask for donations (that's nagging). They don't want their new tab page pre-populated with websites on a new install (even if their browsing overwrites them). They don't want "fun" additions to advertise TV shows (even if they're opt-in). But they're happy to pay via google's search and tracking. Mozilla doesn't have a lot of opt…

Firefox has ~250M users as of about 9 months ago and $562M revenue for 2017. I'd honestly pay $2 per month (12 times "my share") for a Firefox that completely disavows the ad model and produces a truly user-centric experience sans ads, fingerprinting, etc. However, given that over 95% of their revenue comes from Royalties, I don't see that turning around any time soon.

Well if HN users do want to try to lessen that percentage here's the donation page: https://donate.mozilla.org/

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#113

Post by Causality1 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #108
Causality1 wrote: post #18

AdNauseam is an extension that clicks ads at random in the background, thus polluting your user data. It was useful enough to get banned from the Chrome web store.

It’s probably wise not to encourage interstate advertising fraud that the FBI might decide to investigate and arrest you for knowingly participating in. https://www.fastcompany.com/90273549/fbi-and-google-take-dow...

They arrested people for making money by generating fake clicks on their own site. AdNauseam isn't ad fraud any more than running a web crawler bot is ad fraud.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#114

Post by Despegar »

dmos62 wrote: post #71
ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

> always-negative/outrage attitude That's a meaningful insight. I think Web is in a place now where anyone with technical insight is frustrated. Yes, frustration is the right word. And confused. And it's this mix of confusion and frustration that has people going around bad mouthing all browsers, or at least I think so. Mozilla Firefox is the only significant browser that has the economic incentives to take care of p…

>there's no debate about that right?

Sure there is. Mozilla depends heavily on revenue from Google whereas Apple doesn't. For Mozilla it's life or death and for Apple it's not (to be the default search engine).

There isn't a single tech company where the business incentives are more aligned with privacy than Apple.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#115

Post by eitland »

Kiro wrote: post #68
ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

Pretty sure you would never say the same thing about Google.

I defended them for years.

They made me look dumb.

I learned my lesson.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#116

Post by GrinningFool »

dmos62 wrote: post #71
ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

> always-negative/outrage attitude That's a meaningful insight. I think Web is in a place now where anyone with technical insight is frustrated. Yes, frustration is the right word. And confused. And it's this mix of confusion and frustration that has people going around bad mouthing all browsers, or at least I think so. Mozilla Firefox is the only significant browser that has the economic incentives to take care of p…

    If you compare the resources available to the 
    privacy-invading businesses, and the
    privacy-preserving businesses, how does it look?
I think this highlights an underlying problem: invading privacy has proven to be extremely profitable, which gives the companies that do it disproportionate resources when it comes to controlling the privacy discussion.

    Someone with a lighter outlook, chime in.
Oops, nope that's not me...

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#117

Post by hartator »

ziddoap wrote: post #34

I find it really interesting that when a company is making moves in a direction that benefits privacy of consumers, everyone takes the opportunity to shit on them for past mistakes or how it isn't good enough or why isn't it on by default or any other thing they can find to shit on. Yes, every single company has made mistakes. FireFox is no exception. Some of them were pretty egregious. Mistakes are - hopefully - an…

The thing is there is disparity between the value they promote - privacy - and Mozilla actions.

If privacy first was truly the Mozilla mission, we won't have Google Analytics on extension internal pages, the Mr Robot Ad, the Yahoo ad deal, and the ability to inject code remotely in your browser. Privacy seems to be a Mozilla concern but it's not a primary one.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#118

Post by eitland »

ChrisSD wrote: post #112
ademup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has ~250M users as of about 9 months ago and $562M revenue for 2017. I'd honestly pay $2 per month (12 times "my share") for a Firefox that completely disavows the ad model and produces a truly user-centric experience sans ads, fingerprinting, etc. However, given that over 95% of their revenue comes from Royalties, I don't see that turning around any time soon.

Well if HN users do want to try to lessen that percentage here's the donation page: https://donate.mozilla.org/

It was said earlier today that because of American tax rules donation money cannot go to software development.

So donation money goes to outreach and similar. Which is useful but doesn't fund Firefox.

Someone please correct me if this is wrong.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#119

Post by dessant »

StavrosK wrote: post #106
dessant wrote: post #94

Google's reCAPTCHA makes it impossible to use large portions of the web once you take reasonable measures to protect your privacy. The challenge will continuously fail, despite you spending time to carefully solve it. This cruel behavior is described in a patent [1] by Kyle Adams of Juniper Networks. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9407661

The audio CAPTCHA always works first try for me. The image CAPTCHA can go eff itself, it would always take me five tries while the images loaded super slowly.

Yes, the audio CAPTCHA is easier to solve, but the audio challenge is blocked [1] if you are not in a good network neighbourhood or they can't collect enough tracking data to classify your visit.

[1] https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/25

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#120

Post by ChrisSD »

eitland wrote: post #118
ChrisSD wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if HN users do want to try to lessen that percentage here's the donation page: https://donate.mozilla.org/

It was said earlier today that because of American tax rules donation money cannot go to software development. So donation money goes to outreach and similar. Which is useful but doesn't fund Firefox. Someone please correct me if this is wrong.

That would be weird considering they accept donations on behalf of thunderbird https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
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