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Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#151

Post by benologist »

mikeash wrote: post #93
planetjones wrote: post #85

Why can't someone take Apple to court and argue that developers should be able to build native web browser apps without relying on the Web View component? We have st3fan saying "Firefox Focus" is not ideal because he's had to use the older and slower WKWebView to implement it. Isn't this similar to Microsoft when they were forced to allow a choice of browser, or do Apple get away with it because they allow alternativ…

Apple gets away with it because they don't have a monopoly. There's a large variety of non-Apple smartphones and tablets you can buy. Microsoft's behavior was restricted because they were a monopoly. There were alternatives to Windows, but the court decided that they were sufficiently insignificant that Windows was effectively a monopoly. That changes the rules. Windows market share at the time was about 95%, Apple's…

Is a monopoly suit the only legal way to instigate change?

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#152

Post by lazyjones »

It works well, but unsurprisingly, they screwed up privacy once again by sending data to some company (https://www.adjust.com) in the background: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/17/mozilla_launches_pri...

Doesn't seem to be possible to turn it off (the instructions at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/send-anonymous-usage-da...: do not work, there is no such settings menu for "Klar by Firefox"?). Perhaps I'm getting an old version from my local App Store though.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#155

Post by eriknstr »

walterbell wrote: post #8

Is this targeted at Brendan Eich's https://brave.com ?

Speaking of Brave, how does it perform in terms of web standards compliance, amount of trackers and ads blocked, and RAM and CPU usage compared to Firefox + uBlock Origin and/or uMatrix?

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Edit: I decided to do a quick test using panopticlick. Here are the results.

- Firefox with uBlock Origin and uMatrix: fingerprint appears to be unique. fingerprint conveys at least 17.47 bits of identifying information.

- Brave: fingerprint appears to be unique. fingerprint conveys at least 17.47 bits of identifying information.

- Chromium (plain): fingerprint appears to be unique. fingerprint conveys at least 17.47 bits of identifying information.

- Tor Browser Bundle: one in 77.02 browsers have the same fingerprint. fingerprint conveys 6.27 bits of identifying information.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#156

Post by GavinMcG »

solnyshok wrote: post #132
matthewmacleod wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start from the other end – on what basis do you think that someone would be able to take Apple to court? Why do you think that they should be stopped from deciding what the platform they develop will and will not support?

just like there is freedom of speech, there should be freedom of browser choice. either device is browserless, or, it should allow for more than one browser. I'd add this to modern commandments, somewhere between net neutrality, independent DNS and guaranteed free internet access for everyone.

"Freedom of speech" means freedom from government interference with your speech. It's not what you're construing it as.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#158

Post by er0l »

wmccullough wrote: post #148
tedmiston wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why not DuckDuckGo. Perhaps Mozilla has a sponsorship from Yahoo.

No, they admitted they ran out of time and just went with defaults of a few things. They have a ticket open to solve this issue already.

Oh awesome news, it's wicked fast and will definitely be my default mobile browser once they solve the yahoo problem.

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#159

Post by er0l »

tedmiston wrote: post #131
er0l wrote: post #82

defaults to yahoo search without the ability to change does not feel private to me

I wonder why not DuckDuckGo. Perhaps Mozilla has a sponsorship from Yahoo.

https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/11/yahoo-and-mozilla-for...

"strategic partnership"

Re: Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private browser for iOS

#160

Post by LamaOfRuin »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #75
icebraining wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use Private Browsing in Firefox for Android?

That was my first thought (and what I think the path would be for getting this browser experience on Android). It's basically Firefox for Android, private browsing mode with tracking protection enabled, but it doesn't seem to be possible to set private browsing as the default. Thus any link from other applications will automatically open in a tracking friendly context first.

Scratch that.

I was looking for the wrong about:config value. While you can't have private browsing mode be the default, it is in fact possible to enable tracking protection outside private browsing mode, so you can get these same benefits (privacy.trackingprotection.enabled in about:config).

Wish this would be exposed in the UI settings.

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