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Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

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Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#131

Post by basch »

xoa wrote: post #81
darkpuma wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, and probably many other users, have begun blocking all first-party cookies by default. I only permit it on sites I sign into and want to remember me, which are very few. If Mozilla wants to make a real difference, they'd study uMatrix and figure out how to create UX that would give that degree of flexibility and power to non-technical users.

> I only permit it on sites I sign into and want to remember me, which are very few. I don't know if I'm an outlier, but I hate having to resign back into sites I use even semi-regularly unless its for administrative access or purchase confirmation. Regular "auto sign outs" already happens with a few due to a snafu somewhere along the stack, for me The Economist and Foreign Affairs are the major ones where it seems l…

You block cookies, scripts, frames, on sites you DONT sign into, and you allow them on sites you do sign into. uMatrix makes it really easy.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#132

Post by isostatic »

mosselman wrote: post #96

My work laptop is a very fast upper end macbook and I can somewhat reliably run Firefox on that. My personal laptop is an older macbook pro retina model and whenever I use firefox on that it gets incredibly slow and from time to time the computer just freezes for 20-40 seconds. So, sadly, I can't use firefox on that. At one point someone on HN posted a link to the bug report on mozilla's bug tracker about this issue…

I've got a bottom of the line 2013 macbook air. I closed everything down earlier to update to mojave, and firefox told me it would close 7 windows and 71 tabs. Never had a problem with it.

My main desktop is an ubuntu 16.04 machine with 16GB of memory and I've never had a slowdown, often get upto the 100+ tab range across different windows.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#133

Post by anthony_doan »

mosselman wrote: post #96

My work laptop is a very fast upper end macbook and I can somewhat reliably run Firefox on that. My personal laptop is an older macbook pro retina model and whenever I use firefox on that it gets incredibly slow and from time to time the computer just freezes for 20-40 seconds. So, sadly, I can't use firefox on that. At one point someone on HN posted a link to the bug report on mozilla's bug tracker about this issue…

I'm currently surfing on a "MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)". It works fine with 4 window opened (1 private, 2 with ~20 tabs, main one with at least 50 tabs).

I'm also running 10+ extensions.

Works pretty well for me.

Sometime after awhile the video playback goes wonky though. I end up doing `sudo killall firefox`.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#134

Post by cphoover »

icebraining wrote: post #90
puffy_magicdrgn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You send tracking events to your analytics/tracking partner from your backend instead of from the browser and they combine the cookie ids.

> and they combine the cookie ids. And how do they do that? The "advantage" of third-party tracking is that a cookie set by the analytics service on site A gets sent back when the user goes to site B and C and D (etc). Without that, they have to somehow figure out that user 34 on site A is the same as user 95 on site B. That's often possible, but much less reliable.

Browser fingerprinting?

How do you defeat that? If people want to track... they will track.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#135

Post by superkuh »

fimdomeio wrote: post #11

One thing mentioned on the responses that might be really concerning is the fact that this will mean that for a lot of analytics it will look like firefox usage is close to zero. No usage data, devs caring less about firefox, users having more problems when using firefox, less users using firefox, less users having 3rd party trackers blocked, chrome monopoly growing.

Don't forget all the Firefox forks that have to falsely identify as Firefox in order to get websites to not simply kick them off. Firefox usage is already significantly lower than Firefox usage is shown in terms of useragent statistics. A lot of that is because Firefox has chromed itself if not in source code then in spirit.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#136

Post by dontbenebby »

stunt wrote: post #40
fxfan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Containers have some great add-ons built around them, have you taken a look? I agree with your point completely though- needs to be a front and center feature. I'd like to add something else- firefox should ship a 'power user' edition. Comes pre-installed with uBlock origin/uMatrix/temporary containers/sidebar tabs/greasemonkey/Tridactyl (sorry emacs users ;)

> firefox should ship a 'power user' edition If you have Firefox-Sync enabled. You will get all your extensions anyway. so it is a one time setup for all those extensions that you need. First time hearing Tridactyl! I'm using Vimium. Does it have any advantage over Vimium?

>If you have Firefox-Sync enabled. You will get all your extensions anyway. so it is a one time setup for all those extensions that you need.

Yes, but it's still annoying to set up the containers and set up that certain sites only open in certain containers.

Also if I'm on a work device I may not want to sign into Firefox Sync for privacy reasons.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#137

Post by dmortin »

Freak_NL wrote: post #20
wbxrs wrote: post #8

I think this is a bad idea. Even though I personally block 3rd party trackers by default, breaking the web by default will cause problems. Also, ad blocking will start being a problem when enough people start doing it. I still remember the days of no websites yelling at you for blocking their ads. Things are going to get much worse.

Good. Let them yell, allow the system to break. I'm not convinced that the current status quo of paying for services via targetted advertising that amounts to quite a severe level of manipulation and tracking is tenable (nor desirable). Figure out something better. The alternative is what we do now: a select group with tech savvy blocks advertisements, and lets the masses pick up the bill by 'accepting' ads and havin…

> Figure out something better.

There is no magical solution. The alternative is some kind of payment system.

And many people can't afford paying for each site they visit, so it would limit people's access to the net if there were paywalls everywhere.

Also, if sites can't show ads and not enough people subscribes then many sites will close which would lead to further concentration of the web. Small players would be eliminated, big players would still thrive.

Independent journalism would decrease while sites financed by rich companies and people could keep running and promoting the agenda of the rich players.

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#138

Post by slasaus »

I think this is huge. It reminds me of the early days of Firefox (back then still known as Phoenix) in a world where IE6 and pop-up ads dominated. At launch IE6 was really the best and most innovative browser of it's time (IMHO). But after IE6 had beaten Netscape, Microsoft stopped putting money in IE development and the situation got worse over time. It was Phoenix with, among other things, a pop-up blocker that was on by default that brought down Internet Explorers hegemony.

Today, with Chrome being dominant the situation is different because Google is still innovating Chrome at light speed. The one and only Achilles heel to beat this giant is by attacking their business model, which is to enable ad blocking by default. I expect this is something people want, just like pop-up blockers back in the days. Google will never be able to lead, or even follow in this direction without changing their business model.

Unfortunately, Mozilla’s own business model also heavily relies on selling ads, albeit indirectly. According to this statement from an independent audit report[1]:

"Note 10 - Concentrations of Risk:

Mozilla has entered into contracts with search engine providers for royalties which expire through November 2020. Approximately 93% and 94% of Mozilla’s royalty revenues were derived from these contracts for 2017 and 2016, respectively, with receivables from these contracts representing approximately 75% and 79% of the December 31, 2017 and 2016 outstanding receivables."

In other words, $539 Million, which is 93% of their total revenue, comes from companies that have selling ads as their business model (Baidu, Google, Yahoo and Yandex [2]).

I really hope Mozilla will be able to change this revenue stream to better align with their mission[3]. They have been trying to diversify their revenue since 2014 [4] and although they might not be as dependent on Google as they once were, they're still almost fully dependent on ads.

Oh, and yeah, of course simply making a better browser than Chrome would also help ;)

Background:

* https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/

* https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-2017-fo...

[1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-201...

[2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Global_Search_Strategy_Status

[3] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/ "An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent."

[4] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...

Re: Firefox to Block All 3rd Party Trackers by Default

#140

Post by driverdan »

bfrydl wrote: post #116
fimdomeio wrote: post #11

One thing mentioned on the responses that might be really concerning is the fact that this will mean that for a lot of analytics it will look like firefox usage is close to zero. No usage data, devs caring less about firefox, users having more problems when using firefox, less users using firefox, less users having 3rd party trackers blocked, chrome monopoly growing.

In my experience as a long-term Firefox user, developers already don't care about Firefox. It's amazing how many websites I visit that break or look awful until I switch to Chromium.

Which sites? I've been using FF as my browser for years. The only sites I've had issues with are owned by Google.
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