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Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

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Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#151

Post by 0xffff2 »

NotASithLord wrote: post #132
dajonker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they can. But in my experience, at big organizations, the people using Google Analytics are not developers and will have no idea what weblogs are or how they could use them to determine the real browser statistics.

I'm a dev and I have no idea what weblogs have to do with this discussion. Quick search didn't do anything to clue me in either.

Which part is confusing? The browser sends lots of data to the server with each request. The server usually logs at least some of that data. Among other things, that data can be used to generate a subset of the data that is typically gathered by GA and other client-side analytics tools.

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#152

Post by nolok »

akerro wrote: post #16
dajonker wrote: post #2

I see one risk for Firefox: if they block all trackers, e.g. Google Analytics, then it would appear to people viewing browser statistics in Google Analytics that no-one is using Firefox, and thus the developers will be told they don't need to test anything on Firefox.

I used to have piwik instead GA 2-5 years ago, according to piwik my website had 23% more visitors than on GA. https://matomo.org/

> according to piwik my website had 23% more visitors than on GA

A fair share of that is probably because GA is much better at identifying the same user across multiple browsers / devices. If they identify two browsers as the same person on site A, they can know they're the same person on site B, even if site B on its own doesn't have enough to figure it out (so piwik can't know it).

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#153

Post by TeMPOraL »

harterrt wrote: post #139
floatboth wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That particular example is just extremely odd because… well, the business model of the utilities whose bills you pay (nor the bank's) shouldn't be based on advertising?? Maybe it's just a pile of web development fail, using 3rd party cookies for no good reason..

Utilities shouldn't need advertising in theory, but utilities don't behave well (economically speaking) in general. There is to much regulation (limiting upside from selling their services means squeezing money out of less ethical verticals) or there are monopolistic incentives (you don't have a choice, so we can make you give us ad revenue)

It's arguably the second. Advertising/surveillance as an additional revenue stream is a no-brainer for ethically challenged companies.

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#154

Post by beckler »

angott wrote: post #72
Gondolin wrote: post #71

It would be nice to know the priority of blocking elements between firefox default anti-tracker list, ublock origin, and privacy badger. When I see a tracker hit ublock origin does it mean that it bypassed firefox anti-tracker blocking, or is it the reverse? Having three anti-trackers installed is also a bit inconvenient when this breaks a site, I have to disable each one successively to try to make it work again...

Based on my experience, uBlock Origin has priority over the built-in blocker.

I'm seeing the same thing, my report doesn't have a ton of data (~10 blocks a day on average), and the only other blocker I have is uBlock.

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#155

Post by floatboth »

wasdfff wrote: post #111
floatboth wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could go all in with Multi-Account + Temporary containers :)

Tried that for a month and I couldn’t stand it. When you open a link that opens in a new container, you loose the history that brought you to that link. Clicking a link actually opens a new tab and simultaneously closes your current one. Going backwards is now broken and you have to shift cmd t to go through all your recently closed tabs or dig through your history if you are a user who regularly uses back on a brows…

> Clicking a link actually opens a new tab

I don't have that enabled, even ctrl-clicking something opens in the same container for me. Not perfect in terms of privacy paranoia (my HN container gets cookies from sites I go from HN to, unless I take the effort to explicitly open in a different container) but it has never annoyed me.

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#156

Post by capdeck »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #21

The downside of all of this is that I feel like sites are now intentionally being designed to break if this kind of stuff is blocked. I used to be able to use Firefox Focus (which has tracking protection built-in) to pay most of my bills. This was convenient because I would just open up the one site in FFF, pay the bill, and then close it, with all browsing history automatically deleted. In the past month about 3 of…

We have squandered our privacy rights by using "free" services and software. Now getting those back will be an uphill battle.

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#157

Post by hellcow »

lacker wrote: post #143
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #21

The downside of all of this is that I feel like sites are now intentionally being designed to break if this kind of stuff is blocked. I used to be able to use Firefox Focus (which has tracking protection built-in) to pay most of my bills. This was convenient because I would just open up the one site in FFF, pay the bill, and then close it, with all browsing history automatically deleted. In the past month about 3 of…

You can take a small action in support of privacy by complaining to your utility or your ISP that the website is not working in your browser.

We're talking about utility companies. It wouldn't surprise me if the answer is "Please use Internet Explorer 8"

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#158

Post by orhmeh09 »

harterrt wrote: post #139
floatboth wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That particular example is just extremely odd because… well, the business model of the utilities whose bills you pay (nor the bank's) shouldn't be based on advertising?? Maybe it's just a pile of web development fail, using 3rd party cookies for no good reason..

Utilities shouldn't need advertising in theory, but utilities don't behave well (economically speaking) in general. There is to much regulation (limiting upside from selling their services means squeezing money out of less ethical verticals) or there are monopolistic incentives (you don't have a choice, so we can make you give us ad revenue)

Where is there too much regulation of utilities? Particularly considering the issue with PG&E, it seems unlikely this would be the case in the US; the money in the US is being squeezed toward bonuses and the like.

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#159

Post by symlinkk »

Vinnl wrote: post #133
kgwxd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't, ever. There's no reason to trust Mozilla will keep this up forever. They're not even close to doing what uBO does. Blockers are best kept as a third-party solution with no conflict of interest. If too many people stop using uBO because the FF built in tools are "good enough", eventually we'll loose proper extension support and we will be at the mercy of browser vendors again.

What's Mozilla's conflict of interest?

Most of their funding comes from Google, in return for making Google search the default search engine on Firefox

Re: Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center

#160

Post by autoexec »

floatboth wrote: post #94
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #21

The downside of all of this is that I feel like sites are now intentionally being designed to break if this kind of stuff is blocked. I used to be able to use Firefox Focus (which has tracking protection built-in) to pay most of my bills. This was convenient because I would just open up the one site in FFF, pay the bill, and then close it, with all browsing history automatically deleted. In the past month about 3 of…

That particular example is just extremely odd because… well, the business model of the utilities whose bills you pay (nor the bank's) shouldn't be based on advertising?? Maybe it's just a pile of web development fail, using 3rd party cookies for no good reason..

> well, the business model of the utilities whose bills you pay (nor the bank's) shouldn't be based on advertising??

They shouldn't need it, but from their point of view why on earth wouldn't they sell their customers out at every opportunity if it means more money for them? Companies are amoral monsters who care about nothing but making money. If a company can do something that will make them more money you should expect them do it regardless of how ethical or legal it is.

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