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Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

blog.mozilla.org

121–130 of 321 posts

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#121

There are things about Firefox that need attention; more UI bling isn't one of them. Also, the Private Browsing upgrade appears to be just a theme change and a button. Most of the article is nothing to do with Private Browsing, so the title of the post is incorrect.

Whoever edited the title of the HN submission somehow made it even more misleading than Mozilla did. The original HN title was the same as the Mozilla article: "Privacy online just got easier with today’s Firefox release"

https://web.archive.org/web/20221018134430/https://news.ycom...

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#122
post #17

One privacy feature I’d really like is kind of like HTTPS everywhere, except it’s TLS 1.3 w/ SNI encryption everywhere.

Does anything support Encrypted Client Hello given its draft status? I got it back as unsupported when testing (yes, I would prefer to test on something other than Cloudflare but I couldn't find any): https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/

I guess ESNI was deprecated and removed from Firefox in favor of ECH (just found that out now). CloudFlare supports ESNI, but not ECH. So that feels like a step backwards.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#123
My small wish is that FF on Android supports an intent that opens a URL in a new private tab. That way I'd be able to selectively open pages from HN, Reddit or other apps in private tabs—by the way of Tasker or Automate.

I looked a bit through FF code, and there's an intent to open an empty private tab, but not an address. Alas, with my lack of knowledge about data flow in an Android app, I'm not of much help so far.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#124
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…

> bring joy while browsing the web

Why am I seeing people using the word "joy" everywhere lately? And why is theming a web browser bringing it to anyone?

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about that data is harmful to you? Arguments like these always reminds me of the story where some town had a population register that included religion, and then the Nazis invaded. You don't know how or when the collected data will be misused, whether by the original owner, a malicious third-party breaching their systems, or the government (and even somewhat-stable governments can quickly turn sour, see Russia…

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 sources it shows that the collation of the census data on ancestry with the Volkskartei was ordered in March 1941 to facilitate the identification and localisation of German Jews in the context of the deportations.

https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/95623/

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#126
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qutebrowser isnt independent if you care that google money is involved, it uses blink. Firefox is the only even vaguely independent browser engine that keeps up at all with google.

> Qutebrowser isnt independent if you care that google money is involved, it uses blink. Did something change? Last I checked almost all funding for Firefox was from Google.

That was my impression too, signing a 3 year deal in 2020 for ~$400 to $450 million/year.

> More than 90 per cent of Mozilla's funding comes from web search providers that pay for the right to be the default search engine in Firefox in their regions. According to the organization's latest financial figures [PDF], $430m of its 2018 total revenue of $451m came from those internet giants – primarily Google, we understand. These deals were due to be renewed or renegotiated by November this year.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/14/mozilla_google_search...

I believe it's listed under royalties and also receivables in the annual report, though that does not specify Google specifically, but you can look at the numbers and figure they are a large portion if the news was accurate.

[2] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-202...

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#127
post #22
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.

I kind of like the colourways, but the way they present it is quite a bit over the top. Just call it themes and be done with it.

From Mozilla's point of view its probably that people might get confused between the old and new themes and wonder why all the highly customisable themes we use to have no longer work. So we have to have a new the colourways name so Mozilla can market the 'new' feature and sidestep the problem.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#128
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.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well it's useable, I use it as well, but definitely worse then before this "new" version. And I want the extension support back.

Install Fennec using F-Droid, it's firefox with more extensions than what firefox for android allows. Are they ever going to re-enable other extensions on firefox android? Firefox used to be synonymous with "awesome list of helpful extensions".

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well it's useable, I use it as well, but definitely worse then before this "new" version. And I want the extension support back.

I've had the opposite experience, switched to Firefox on Android after the new update because of the better performance and UI. Limited extension support is annoying, but if you get it from F-Droid or use the nightly version, you can enable a hidden setting that lets you install any extension you like.
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