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Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

windowsreport.com

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Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#151

Post by recursive »

registeredcorn wrote: post #56
JohnFen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It irks me, however, that they no longer even have the option. I think the major point is that they don't have the option right now . The percentage of websites that honor DNT is a rounding error, so the existence of it -- at best -- gives the illusion of privacy protection. In my opinion, the illusion of security is worse than not having security but knowing it.

>The percentage of websites that honor DNT is a rounding error Referring to my previous comment: "This is spurious reasoning. 'Many' is neither a percentage, or a basis for justification. Many people ignore speed limits - so what?" Privacy configurations are not a popularity vote. Instead, they are an implementation of software design. E.g. "No one" bothers with PGP, therefore it should be supported. A more charitabl…

> poorly enforced

The problem is that there is no, and can be no enforcement mechanism. Unless you live behind a great firewall of [country] or are only accessing the web through your employer's corporate network.

Operating a motor vehicle on public roads requires a license and vehicle registration in most jurisdictions. These rules are not always observed, but there are enforcement mechanisms in place.

There is no website licensing body, and kind of can't be without making everything worse.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#152

Post by binarymax »

miki123211 wrote: post #150
gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I think a new browser could genuinely gain massive popularity if it was really good at this, and advertised the feature heavily, particularly in the EU. Google will never touch it with a hundred-foot pole due to antitrust concerns, they're effectively banned from making any significant, user-experience-affecting changes to Chrome at this point. Many people would immediately switch to a browser with 1) reliable Youtub…

DDG privacy browser and Brave browser are both trying to make this work.

Personally I use FF with lots of blockers and settings on my laptop/desktop, and DDG browser on my mobile.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#153

Post by pmontra »

autoexec wrote: post #110
kube-system wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even better if you have JS disabled by default and sites can't collect 90% of the data points your browser exposes at all. There's two gigantic issues with that: 1. Most websites won't work 2. Most people like websites to work, and so they have JS turned on. If you don't, you'll stick out like a sore thumb.

You'd be surprised at how many websites work just fine with JS disabled, at least in terms of providing the content you want. Menus/navigation might not work, and I wouldn't even attempt online shopping without JS, but enough websites still manage to display basic text and images without JS that it's a surprising annoyance when they fail to. Sticking out like a sore thumb isn't a problem as long as you look like a di…

All of Amazon.com works with their adsystem domain disabled by uMatrix. Only about half of their almost 100 js files are needed to browse products.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#154

Post by recursive »

ddtaylor wrote: post #47
registeredcorn wrote: post #23

> However, as we approach 2025, with growing concerns about online privacy and data protection, Mozilla believes that DNT is no longer an effective privacy measure. Many websites ignore the DNT signal. Therefore, Mozilla has removed the DNT signal from Firefox version 135. This is spurious reasoning. "Many" is neither a percentage, or a basis for justification. Many people ignore speed limits - so what? >The company…

Mozilla makes it increasingly difficult to support Firefox. I'm beginning to realize the only solution there is an entirely different governing body than Mozilla like most of the Firefox derivatives are now. Sigh.

Maybe so, but this particular move seems unambiguously good. DNT is a net negative and is misleading. Its only practical effect is to add another bit of entropy to shady fingerprinting mechanisms.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#155

Post by mossTechnician »

shaky-carrousel wrote: post #85
iLoveOncall wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing this feature harms user agency It doesn't, because nobody respects it. It is actually harmful to have a feature that misrepresents its efficiency to users, especially when it comes to privacy and security. Nobody should ever feel that they will not be tracked because they enabled do-not-track, because it's wrong. Removing it is the right thing to do because of this.

That nobody respects is is a false statement. Some do. Also that header permits users to signal sites if they want or not to be tracked, avoiding cookie popups. Edit: I just saw that Firefox supports GPC, which seems a better alternative to DNT.

I looked into GPC, and I'm not sure if it's much better. From the implementation notes[0]:

GPC is also not intended to limit a first party’s use of personal information within the first-party context (such as a publisher targeting ads to a user on its website based on that user’s previous activity on that same site).

GPC also appears to use the same tracking signals as DNT, so it has the exact same potential for abuse, as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm missing something, but unless there's legal power behind this, I'm not sure if it's better.

[0]: https://w3c.github.io/gpc/

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#156

Post by gkoberger »

miki123211 wrote: post #150
gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I think a new browser could genuinely gain massive popularity if it was really good at this, and advertised the feature heavily, particularly in the EU. Google will never touch it with a hundred-foot pole due to antitrust concerns, they're effectively banned from making any significant, user-experience-affecting changes to Chrome at this point. Many people would immediately switch to a browser with 1) reliable Youtub…

I somewhat agree... but browsers aren't a profitable business. In 30 years of browsers being mainstream, nobody has built one that's sustainable –– only works if it's subsidized by a larger company.

There's been a few attempts (Brave wants to monetize via crypto, Arc is pivoting away), but it's really hard. People don't want to pray for a browser – 99% of people are apathetic, and the 1% that cares aren't known for paying for things.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#157

Post by itscrush »

miki123211 wrote: post #150
gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I think a new browser could genuinely gain massive popularity if it was really good at this, and advertised the feature heavily, particularly in the EU. Google will never touch it with a hundred-foot pole due to antitrust concerns, they're effectively banned from making any significant, user-experience-affecting changes to Chrome at this point. Many people would immediately switch to a browser with 1) reliable Youtub…

I think librewolf gets you most of the way there. Just add a sponsorblock extension and check a few extra lists on its built in ubo.

Does the reliance on Firefox ESL or based on Gecko rule this one out?

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#158

Post by registeredcorn »

bluGill wrote: post #96
registeredcorn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The percentage of websites that honor DNT is a rounding error Referring to my previous comment: "This is spurious reasoning. 'Many' is neither a percentage, or a basis for justification. Many people ignore speed limits - so what?" Privacy configurations are not a popularity vote. Instead, they are an implementation of software design. E.g. "No one" bothers with PGP, therefore it should be supported. A more charitabl…

Unless you have a plan to make it useful it needs to go. Right now it is false advertising. If you can find someone and successfuly sue them for not honoring it great - but you still need to do a lot more (sue many others in many countries).

What need is that? Bad people with malicious intentions exist: therefore, remove something that functions properly.

DNT is not shilled by some privately-owned company that claims it will somehow, "Make users invisible online for the low, low price of (money)!" Instead, it is simply an HTTP header that some (many) websites ignore, or outright maliciously exploit for personal gain.

Computer Operating systems are not "false advertising" simply because certain programmers ignore standard practices outlined by the maintainers. It is not the fault of an Operating System if programmers refuse to adhere to the documentation on how something should be implemented. It's certainly not a sensible justification for Operating Systems "needing to go", just because people write bad or malicious software to abuse an OS's weaknesses.

To be clear, I am hardly saying DNT is a good option, precisely because so many websites have ignored or abused it in the past. I am simply saying DNT should be an option, and that it should be one that is enabled by default.

>If you can find someone and successfuly sue them for not honoring it great - but you still need to do a lot more (sue many others in many countries).

If DNT is removed as being an option, what need would there be for such a law to be created in the first place? You said you support the idea of a law being made - shouldn't you be for DNT remaining, then? I hope that doesn't mischaracterize your point but it's a little confusing, it sounds like you're saying you: support the premise of DNT, want a law to enforce DNT...and you don't want DNT as a configuration option in Firefox.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#160

Post by nemomarx »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #124
DennisP wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that 40 different subscriptions is unreasonable. I use adblockers because I think user-hostile advertising is also unreasonable. I would happily pay a subscription that gets divided among whatever sites I visit. In the absence of that option, I pay for a subset of sites and freeload the rest. My solution seems ethical to me since if everybody picked a random subset, most sites would get their revenue.

I think your approach is reasonably ethical. I'm not all that concerned with ethics; rather the continued funding of the websites we like. One important element of your first hypothetical is that a donation model probably won't suffice, websites will need to be able to set their price based on their costs, so it can't be evenly split between the sites you visit. So I think the experience would be like you add $5 to y…

the problem with ads targeted to what I might like is they lead to more purchasing and spending, which is not without cost. something you won't buy without seeing an ad for it is probably an impulse purchase, and those are somewhat predatory.

it seems more reasonable to me to only advertise like that when a user signals they're interested in a particular type of product, not passively all the time.

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