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Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

zdnet.com

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Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#141

Post by cift »

alkonaut wrote: post #138
fxfan wrote: post #94

Maybe firefox should also install ublock origin by default? This isn't just for some power users- it will increase their share among regular people whose pages will load even faster making Firefox popular. Or are they waiting until the user share falls below 5%? Maybe they should listen to Andy grove and prepare now.

They should turn fingerprinting to max and install uBlock origin by default. It might mean millions of FF users would suddenly struggle with captchas, but it might also mean that site creators just stop using reCaptcha and similar.

Or, most 'regular' users will switch to Chrome because reCAPTCHAs work better in that browser. Firefox needs to make sure they're not going to ruin the user experience by breaking sites like this

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#142

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

tsukurimashou wrote: post #131
homero wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup it's disgusting. Even in private mode sites know it's me with my build version and ip.

To be honest most people are confused about "private mode", I agree there should be privacy options enabled by default with it, but the reality is pretty much "no browser history will be stored (locally) and your session / cookies will be isolated between private mode and "normal mode"

Indeed. It's intended as a method of watching porn without having it pop up in the address autocomplete later when your kids are trying to go to the Peppa Pig website.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#144

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

trumped wrote: post #56
function_seven wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What CSS file did the browser fetch? The one for screens less than 500px wide? Or the one for screens that are 504px wide? There are a million ways to exfiltrate UI parameters through JS and CSS. It’s hard to both prevent that and still allow JS and responsive pages.

right... developers suck, overall ( I could not reply to the comment below because nyc would not let me)

It's more a case of the web being used in ways in which it wasn't really originally intended. Of course developers can implement things poorly and create problems (and often do) but demand for things like responsive sites is user-driven in my experience.

If you don't understand how the web works and actively dislike the community I don't understand why you keep commenting here.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#145

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

meruru wrote: post #19
pera wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using privacy.resistFingerprinting for a while and also recommend it, but there is one major "side effect": your reCAPTCHA score will drop to 0.1 making many websites really tedious to use. It's a price I'm willing to pay though...

reCAPTCHA is a Google thing so it gets blocked in my browser already anyway (by uMatrix). If I need to load it to see a website, I close the tab immediately and go somewhere else.

Do you never buy anything online or log into anything? They're blocked for me too but I will unblock them temporarily when the need arises.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#146

Post by Tsubasachan »

oftenwrong wrote: post #58
burtonator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps need it to determine where to place elements. If it wasn't you would still be able to reverse engineer it by sticking elements outside the viewport and seeing if they're hidden or not. Turns out anonymity is super freaking hard. :-/

Some would take enhanced privacy over properly-functioning sites. I wonder how broken sites would appear if the browser simply lied about such things.

Wonder no longer. There is an add-on for FF called canvasblocker.

https://github.com/kkapsner/CanvasBlocker/releases

I have been using it and it makes some websites go nuts and Google CAPTCHA takes forever.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#147

Post by the_pwner224 »

meruru wrote: post #13

I recommend the privacy.resistFingerpriting about:config mentioned. It's been available for a while and does other things too, like changing your user agent.

Aside from the downsides mentioned in other comments, this significantly reduces JS timer accuracy which will make games and WebGL laggy and unusable.

In about:config if you search for 'resistFingerprinting' there seem to be sub-settings which you can tweak to disable the timer modifications, but even after tweaking them I wasn't able to get performance to be as smooth as when resistFP was completely disabled.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#148

Post by close04 »

nindalf wrote: post #129
tyingq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that's the biggest reason Google was so interested in "https everywhere". That removed detailed browsing visibility from a lot of entities, but not Google.

I've seen this tendency on HN - if this person/entity does something, I suspect it must be bad or selfish. On the subject of HTTPS - do you think the interests of ordinary consumers are in any way served by continuing on HTTP? Countless websites, even those accepting login credentials used to think that it was acceptable to not take the trouble to set up HTTPS. The only thing the operators of these websites cared abo…

I think calling it the "biggest reason" is wrong but not necessarily entirely wrong. There's a difference between Google's reasons and your benefit.

It could simply mean the interests aligned. I get my credentials encrypted and Google gets more [insert stuff here]. When the interests don't align the result is a bit different. You could be sending tracking/location data every few minutes, adblockers could be crippled, you could be forced to sign in to sync Chrome data, etc. Usually the very same stuff Google relies on for revenue.

So what I'm saying is that it's not that outlandish to assume Google had more reasons than your benefit.

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#149

Post by aerique »

fxfan wrote: post #105
nilolo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they would lose their financing from Google by adding UBlock.

I don't know the terms but surely there are enough parties willing to pay them- MS would love to shoot with gun on fx shoulders. The engineering effort required to implement this feature is better spent in doing useful things.

Microsoft just switched the rendering engine for Edge to Google's rendering engine, helping increase the monoculture.

Despite all Microsoft's posing and snuggling up to the Open Source world, they're just as bad as Google and Facebook if given the chance. (And they have been as bad in the past.)

Re: Firefox to add Tor Browser anti-fingerprinting technique called letterboxing

#150

Post by slezyr »

scarejunba wrote: post #125
tjpnz wrote: post #115

Why can't the ad industry just accept that there are some people out there who don't want to see ads and wouldn't click on one to begin with? Then they can honor Do Not Track and those who choose to work in adtech can start working on things that are more productive to their business.

The ad industry was ready to honour DNT. MS killed it by going default.

Sure, they gave their pinky promise do not track those, who will set it.
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