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Firefox Profilemaker

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Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#21

Post by 0xffff2 »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #11
papayawhip wrote: post #6

I feel the strong need to point out some of these settings will break Firefox in subtle and hard to understand ways. There’s a reason you “void the warranty” when tweaking the about:config preferences. No rule against it, but just watch out. (Mozilla employee)

Maybe Mozilla should remove about:config, so users can't hurt themselves on it. I'm sure the telemetry shows its rarely used, and when it is, it often breaks the browser in ways that are unfixable for the average user. Malware is also able to modify these advanced settings to hijack the browser in nasty ways, and slow down Firefox, and make people switch to Chrome faster. If they don't remove it Firefox is going to c…

>(This is in fact sarcasm before you get too eager with that down arrow)

I see this defense quite a lot on the internet, and I think it's misplaced. Even without your comment, I would have downvoted you, not because I though you were in earnest, but because your sarcastic comment doesn't add anything to the conversation.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#22

Post by cpeterso »

gruez wrote: post #10

>Disable malware scan >The malware scan sends an unique identifier for each downloaded file to Google. AFAIK that's not how safebrowsing works. it checks the hash against a local database, and it only sends the hash to google if there's a match.

You're correct. Firefox compares a hash of the URL in question to a local database of hashes of unsafe URLs. If a an unsafe hash match is found, Firefox will then double check by contacting Google's Safe Browsing server to request the current status for a truncated part of the suspect URL plus some random "chaff" hashes. So Google never receives the suspect URL or even the URL's full hash.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-m...

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#23

Post by WorldMaker »

alexis_fr wrote: post #20
WorldMaker wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that I like about experiments in "Container Tabs", where you get the power of separate profiles, but the ability to mix-and-match them in the same browser window and opening a profile can be as simple as opening a new tab. I understand though why Mozilla seems to be having such a hard time converging on a UX for Container Tabs that makes everyone happy and it may be impossible to ever surface 100% of…

« Container Tabs » doesn’t build trust in user’s mind. You’re always one click away from sending data with the wrong profile. With Chrome, you get a separate window, and different skins, and a different data folder on the hard drive, you can at least comfort yourself with the idea that you’ve somewhat isolated your lives. Besides the classic work/home/sysadmin profiles, I also have a profile for browsing websites lik…

That's a solvable UX problem. Admittedly, it's a UX problem that Mozilla has struggled with trying to build a UX that is trustworthy for both inexperienced users and power users alike.

Most browsers already have highly separated threads/processes for different tabs for performance reasons alone, but also cross-tab security issues. In most cases the technical difference between two tabs in the same window and two tabs in different windows is minimal. Technical differences in profiles such as different data folder on the hard drive is even already a part of Firefox's container tabs.

There is definitely an experiential difference, but a lot of the same signifiers (different themes / different "title" bars / etc) can be brought in and applied to multiple tabs in the same window, switching with tabs themselves. Or perhaps new UX signifiers might be developed that work better in a mixed tab space. It was encouraging that Mozilla was experimenting in that space, at least, even if what they built they weren't entirely happy with user studies of it. Again, the fundamental issue should be solvable with enough applied UX. We likely haven't discovered the solution for that yet (especially not one usable by novice users), but its still something interesting to continue to research and something that I hope is continued to be researched.

(PS If you are worried about getting fired over your dirty laundry, I'm not sure airing it in cleartext on HN is exactly the right idea either.)

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#24

Post by Osmose »

buzzy_hacker wrote: post #13
unethical_ban wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't ask for a complete audit, but is there one example from the wizard that could break stuff, that is NOT called out by the wizard itself?

I used to run Firefox with resist fingerprinting enabled. I believe it was causing chat time stamps on websites like WhatsApp to be incorrect, which was annoying but I don’t know if you consider that broken.

It also breaks add-on compatibility because it sets your user agent to the last ESR version of Firefox, which may be several versions behind the version you're actually running.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#25

Post by ppseafield »

alexis_fr wrote: post #20
WorldMaker wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that I like about experiments in "Container Tabs", where you get the power of separate profiles, but the ability to mix-and-match them in the same browser window and opening a profile can be as simple as opening a new tab. I understand though why Mozilla seems to be having such a hard time converging on a UX for Container Tabs that makes everyone happy and it may be impossible to ever surface 100% of…

« Container Tabs » doesn’t build trust in user’s mind. You’re always one click away from sending data with the wrong profile. With Chrome, you get a separate window, and different skins, and a different data folder on the hard drive, you can at least comfort yourself with the idea that you’ve somewhat isolated your lives. Besides the classic work/home/sysadmin profiles, I also have a profile for browsing websites lik…

You can configure container tabs to always open desired URLs in specified containers. You just click the containers button and check "Always open in ".

After that when you click a link to that site from a different container, it will prompt you and ask if you want to use the other container or continue with the one you were just using. It will remember your choice.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#26

Post by Tomte »

ppseafield wrote: post #25
alexis_fr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« Container Tabs » doesn’t build trust in user’s mind. You’re always one click away from sending data with the wrong profile. With Chrome, you get a separate window, and different skins, and a different data folder on the hard drive, you can at least comfort yourself with the idea that you’ve somewhat isolated your lives. Besides the classic work/home/sysadmin profiles, I also have a profile for browsing websites lik…

You can configure container tabs to always open desired URLs in specified containers. You just click the containers button and check "Always open in ". After that when you click a link to that site from a different container, it will prompt you and ask if you want to use the other container or continue with the one you were just using. It will remember your choice.

But it will not leave the container when clicking a link to "outside".

One moment of inattention, and you're surfing the whole web for hours in your Facebook container.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#27

Post by shittyadmin »

WorldMaker wrote: post #4
nicoburns wrote: post #2

I wish Firefox exposed a better UI for it's profiles. It seems like a really powerful feature that is much less useful than it might be due to poor ergonomics...

That's something that I like about experiments in "Container Tabs", where you get the power of separate profiles, but the ability to mix-and-match them in the same browser window and opening a profile can be as simple as opening a new tab. I understand though why Mozilla seems to be having such a hard time converging on a UX for Container Tabs that makes everyone happy and it may be impossible to ever surface 100% of…

I love container tabs, my biggest worry and the reason I'm hesitant to rely on them is that I suspect they'll get scrapped in the future because Mozilla seems to be building a Chrome clone lately.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#28

Post by ppseafield »

Tomte wrote: post #26
ppseafield wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can configure container tabs to always open desired URLs in specified containers. You just click the containers button and check "Always open in ". After that when you click a link to that site from a different container, it will prompt you and ask if you want to use the other container or continue with the one you were just using. It will remember your choice.

But it will not leave the container when clicking a link to "outside". One moment of inattention, and you're surfing the whole web for hours in your Facebook container.

Fair point, one I had not considered.

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#29

Post by Sylos »

cpeterso wrote: post #22
gruez wrote: post #10

>Disable malware scan >The malware scan sends an unique identifier for each downloaded file to Google. AFAIK that's not how safebrowsing works. it checks the hash against a local database, and it only sends the hash to google if there's a match.

You're correct. Firefox compares a hash of the URL in question to a local database of hashes of unsafe URLs. If a an unsafe hash match is found, Firefox will then double check by contacting Google's Safe Browsing server to request the current status for a truncated part of the suspect URL plus some random "chaff" hashes. So Google never receives the suspect URL or even the URL's full hash. https://support.mozilla.org…

More technical article: https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/how-safe-browsing-works-...

Re: Firefox Profilemaker

#30

Post by jammygit »

cpeterso wrote: post #19
gruez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for a technical user, but is the average user going to know that discord is broken because they disabled webrtc? Also, resistfingerprinting is going to significantly increase the difficulty of recaptcha challenges you encounter.

ResistFingerprinting is currently known to break Google's Recaptcha v3. Here is the Firefox bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1503872

I wonder just how much security relies on tracking. I know my VPN makes captchas an absolute nightmare.
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