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Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#141

Post by pabs3 »

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.

I'm told that this is incorrect and that the FSF has been doing it for 34 years, the EFF does it, the ACLU has done it and others have even paid for proprietary software development (their apps etc).

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#142

Post by zwaps »

banachtarski wrote: post #53

Serious question. Suppose we have this. I suppose my expectation is that instead of seeing the same ad over and over again, now I'm seeing effectively a random one. Why is this necessarily better? I guess personally, I've always thought that regulating the content of the ads, rather than the usage of sufficiently anonymized data for ad targeting.

You go to hotel.com and you don't get a good offer because they know exactly how much you are willing and able to pay.

Sounds good?

now do this for every other thing you buy online.

Good enough?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#143

Post by ngokevin »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #104
ngokevin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of funny though, the vast majority of Mozilla's money comes from the ads and tracking industry, just one step removed.

And? I used to work for a defense contractor, using the military complex money to instead pay for civil projects that actually benefit normal people. You can take money that comes from "I don't like this thing", and then spend it on "this benefits everyone".

Does the defense contractor rag on the military afterwards? You can take money from something, use it for good, but it's kinda funny when you start to claim the hands that feeds you is evil and bad.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#144

Post by ACow_Adonis »

clairity wrote: post #134
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/

i wonder why mozilla hasn't tried a premium pricing model? the premium version of firefox could have a yearly subscription of, say, $24. it would have all privacy features turned on, the best privacy addons installed, and all analytics/telemetry turned off, by default. i would even pay a whole $3/month for that! =D

The brand risk of having firefox associated with the free version would be horrendous.

To have a premium product, you need to have a non-premium product, and given that most users would use the non-premium product, firefox would quickly become associated with a browser that has the actually desirable features turned off...

Which would probably be even worse than their low market take up at the moment (and I am typing this on firefox).

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#145

Post by ngokevin »

ChrisSD wrote: post #57
ngokevin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of funny though, the vast majority of Mozilla's money comes from the ads and tracking industry, just one step removed.

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…

I think there's not much pressure to get at it when they have hundreds of millions in the bank and have been funded externally their whole life.

I believe those backfired since all their marketing has been propped on morality. When they claim ads and tracking are evil, it bit them whenever they ventured anywhere near that stuff. Give many startups here an initial audience of 200M+ engaged users and they'll figure a way!

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#146

Post by ngokevin »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #48
ngokevin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of funny though, the vast majority of Mozilla's money comes from the ads and tracking industry, just one step removed.

Yes, but that is just because they represent a risk for Google. Their incentives are quite different than Google's, and that is what matters.

Not as much as risk. More of not wanting to be seen as a monopoly. Giving up 1% of the browser market share and a few pennies is worth it to not be seen as the virtual dictator of the Web.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#147

Post by ngold »

OJFord wrote: post #2

> You probably wouldn’t appreciate someone tracking your moves in real life. There’s no reason to accept it online. Great to read something like this on mozilla.org.

“A lot of the scripts that are run to enable tracking delay webpage load times while all these tracking scripts fire and run in the background,” said Peter Dolanjski, Firefox Product Lead.

Over at Google they are trying to sell fingerprinting as a feature.

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#148

Post by remus »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #46
xvector wrote: post #15

Can someone paste their results (or at least bits of fingerprinting entropy) from https://panopticlick.eff.org with the latest Firefox? With the fancy new anti-fingerprinting Safari on macOS Mojave I get just over 14.5 bits of entropy with the most entropic source being my canvas fingerprint (1 in 600). With Safari on iOS I get 11.71 bits of entropy, with the most entropic value being my screen size and color depth.

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…

> On Tor big contributors are hash of webGL fingerprint, screen size.

Doesn't tor randomise the window size on startup? Though I guess it chooses some sensible size for your screen which is then leaking info about your screen size (in a pretty indirect way).

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#149

Post by Causality1 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #136
Causality1 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m sure you’ll be fine, eventually - but that’s not guaranteed to stop them initially, or without a digital search of your entire computer, for example.

Do you have any evidence that any AdNauseam user has ever been arrested for ad fraud?

Re: Block Fingerprinting with Firefox

#150

Post by SquareWheel »

zwaps wrote: post #133
Kiro wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Never? You may not remember this, but Google used to be cool. "Don't be evil", and all that. There was a lot of hope - when Microsoft was still the bad guys. Working at Google was the dream - they made movies about that. Nowadays we all feel stupid, obviously. Right up to deleting "Don't be evil". Literally taking it out. The nerve.

>Nowadays we all feel stupid, obviously. Right up to deleting "Don't be evil". Literally taking it out. The nerve.

No they didn't. Please don't spread misinformation.

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