Protections Against Fingerprinting and Crypto Mining in Firefox Nightly and Beta

Post by ogre_codes » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

darkpuma wrote: post #146

ogre_codes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This little bit of misdirection Google and Facebook have propagated about how much better the advertising you get with tracking is the slimiest piece of bait-and-switch in history. Seeing people repeat it like it's fact is testament to just how insidious it is. Targeted advertising is not designed to serve the viewer, it's designed to serve the advertiser. So advertisements you get are even sleazier than non-targeted…

> "So advertisements you get are even sleazier than non-targeted advertising" On average yes. Just as there is a gradient in non-targeted advertising of 'basically benign' to 'scum of the earth', I think there is a gradient in targeted advertising too. On the basically benign end of the gradient you have the "You recently bought book X from author Y, perhaps you'd be interested in Book Z from author Y." (I don't like…

Post by Arbalest » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 11:23 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #72

jacekm wrote: post #68

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> like to see more security around the data that is used for fingerprinting, such as user agent I think this is already available, just not enabled by default. In about:config one need to set privacy.resistFingerprinting to true. (be aware however that this setting causes problems with google captcha - the number of challenges that you will need to solve will drastically increase)

Even without resistFingerprinting Firefox takes some steps, like reducing the precision on event timestamps. But the most effective measures won't become standard anytime soon because of recaptcha. 0: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Event/timeS...

Post by aussieguy1234 » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 11:34 PM UTC

the-pigeon wrote: post #150

Spare_account wrote: post #92

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The people who're trying to avoid being fingerprinted are probably thinking of Google when they decided to go down this path. I'm willing to go through extensive captcha cycles if that's the cost of retaining some anonymity. I installed uMatrix a while back to recover some anonymity and it worked at first, my Captcha load spiked significantly which was a great indication that I'd succeeded but it has dropped over tim…

At this point can I just pay for a certificate or something? Like for $1 give me a certificate that I can use to say "I'm not a spammer" and I can anonymously buy as many certificates as I want. And then if a certificate is used by a spammer it becomes invalid. Seems like it's expensive enough to be worth using for existing spammers but let normal people pay a $1 every year or two to not have to deal with captchas.

Post by crummy » Tue, Apr 09, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #78

tialaramex wrote: post #66

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In principle advertising is fine. Telling people that a product exists is useful. "Do you need a hat shaped exactly like a golf ball? At Dave's Golf Ball Hats we sell six sizes!". Targeting this advert to most likely be seen by people who actually had been thinking of buying a hat shaped like sporting equipment is still a good idea too. But an advert that steals from you, or harms you is neither of those things. Goog…

> Targeting this advert to most likely be seen by people who actually had been thinking of buying a hat shaped like sporting equipment is still a good idea too. Not if that targeting is done using data gathered about me without my consent -- as it almost universally is. Targeting based on context (what sort of website the ad is on, for instance), is fine.

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

elagost wrote: post #113

gcb0 wrote: post #108

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not to mention when google puts you in captcha-hell-ban. often, after a few difficult ones, I realize I get stuck into the same 20 challenges. over and over. no matter if I get them rigth or not. We do run all browser in the office with figerprint protection on and run non-exit-tor-nodes in all offices. But those are hardly excuses. The hell bans happens more often on firefox for android, but I guess that is what you…

I've had this happen frequently because my configuration really aggressively blocks this stuff. It's bad enough that I have a separate browser (Gnome Web aka Epiphany) just for logging into and using sites that have Captcha, like Pocket and Bandcamp, and I do everything else in Firefox. Captcha is horrible. I understand why sites use it, but putting a Google-wall in front of your content is a very bad idea.