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Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#221

Post by dabber »

kristianp wrote: post #143
hprotagonist wrote: post #23

I installed Firefox Focus for iOS simply for its content blocker. I still prefer using mobile safari, but augmented with three content blockers: - Firefox Focus, which blocks all sorts of stuff - 1Blocker, which blocks all sorts of stuff - Unobstruct, which blocks Medium's "dickbar" popups.

I just looked up Unobstruct, and surprisingly the author's article about it is on Medium: https://medium.com/@tgaul/introducing-unobstruct-230e4e95cf5...

Well, I guess if I sold sunscreen I'd do it at the beach.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#222

Post by lern_too_spel »

habosa wrote: post #205

First of all I want to say this is fantastic. A 2.5MB Android browser that's blazing fast and beautiful. However it seems to default to HTTP not HTTPS. That's a deal breaker.

It's 2.5 MB because it's a thin UI on Chrome Web View, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#223

Post by moosingin3space »

feikname wrote: post #30
moosingin3space wrote: post #13

I like this app a lot -- very fast and convenient. Could this someday integrate Tor, making it sort of an amnesiac Tor Browser for mobile?

It is already planned to be implemented into the Ebony milestone, which itself is planned to be released on October 12 of this year. This is the relevant issue on their GitHub repo: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/issues/66 edit: Please note that this is for the Android version only.

Wonder if they could embed the Tor proxy into the apk, that way it would be completely transparent -- no need to download Orbot whatsoever. This might also work for iOS

I like and use Orbot, but requiring it isn't the greatest UX.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#224

Post by dabber »

Xoros wrote: post #114

How is this news ? I installed it weeks ago on my IPhone. I don't understand why Mozilla just announced it now. Maybe it's a new version. On the browser itself, I launched it, navigate on a URI, closed it, relaunched it, type the firsts characters of my previous URI and it auto completed it. From my history I guess. So it's not like incognito mode on other browsers. (Haven't retested again)

> news?

They launched the android version not too long ago. This is probably just a push to get the word out to people who may not have heard. Fair enough in my opinion.

> From my history I guess

I don't think it's from your history. It seems like many common websites are preset to autocomplete; stackoverflow.com for example. Because it doesn't save history this seems like a nice way to reduce friction for users. I could be wrong though.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#225

Post by calimac »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #194
eli wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it collects anonymous analytics by default but you can disable it in the settings. It's not a conspiracy. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/send-anonymous-usage-da...

You can't advertise as a "private browser" an get away with that PR bullshit. "Anonymous" usage data is anything but when the server receiving it can easily tell who it's coming from. Mozilla is not the user, it breaks the entire idea of privacy.

Absolutely correct jasonkostempski. YouTube search any martech data analytics talk to prove the "anonymous" is anything but. That anonymous I'd is ran through 15 data streams and linked back to your primary id. That's the only way the figured out the multi device single user analytics.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#227

Post by piyush_soni »

bigbugbag wrote: post #66
Froyoh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bad is that?

Depends on your views about privacy, tracking, google and mozilla. Also your degree of tolerance. To me privacy is of vital importance, tracking is to be avoided at all cost, so this is as bad as it can be. But I'm now used to mozilla engaging in tracking, giving away my privacy to google for money and firefox developers punishing users and distros who disabled their included spying tool.

How are they punishing users who disabled their included spying (if any) tool ?

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#228

Post by phrh8 »

JadeNB wrote: post #141
bigbugbag wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow those people are lucky and high on consumerism, my phone had 2GB.

> wow those people are lucky and high on consumerism, my phone had 2GB. How? Lollipop, the first Google hit for "Android OS size on phone" ( https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/118896/how-much-... ), seems to be about 5 GB. (Maybe you don't run Android, or maybe a very old version?)

What usually happens with these phones is they have something like 8GB or even 16GB, but they are poorly paritioned. It could be something like 5-6GB for /system (the OS) and they somehow only leave 2GB for the /data partition.

I've seen a phone like this running Lollipop. The best part is when it decides to auto-update all the built-in (Google) apps, collectively consuming a total of 1-1.5GB of /data, at which point Google Play refuses to let you install any apps because you do not have enough free space available.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#229

Post by dheera »

yeukhon wrote: post #219
jasonkostempski wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't advertise as a "private browser" an get away with that PR bullshit. "Anonymous" usage data is anything but when the server receiving it can easily tell who it's coming from. Mozilla is not the user, it breaks the entire idea of privacy.

As people below have already added their comments, I just want to give my two cents. This is not PR bullshit, but the Focus team can consider asking users on first run. This private browser, having been using it since beta on iOS, is nothing more than just a private browsing window like the one offered in Desktop version (I am not here to debate the technical implementation since I do not know). Telemetry does not br…

Part of the problem is when Mozilla gives data to Google, there is no way of knowing what Google does with it.

If you want to trust Mozilla AND Google AND trust that no gag orders have been issued to the above companies by the NSA, CIA, FBI et al, fine. That's the way 99% of apps work. They all have privacy policies, and people generally trust them.

The whole point of explicitly "private" or "anonymous" software is that there are a bunch of users that do NOT trust the above.

Calling your software "private browsing software" and then having Google-anything embedded in it is like serving vegetables cooked in chicken broth and calling your dish "vegetarian". Although 90% of the population will gladly eat your chicken broth, it's disingenuous to sell it to actual vegetarians.

Re: Firefox Focus – A new private browser for iOS and Android

#230

Post by mozoldie »

progval wrote: post #7

According to F-Droid [1], it contains `com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics`. [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/issues/171#note_30410376

Focus (for Android) doesn't use Google analytics directly, but it's an indirect dependency - see below.

Focus does have:

- Mozilla telemetry: enabled by default in Focus, disabled by default in Klar. This only sends data to Mozilla servers, and only concerns what features people use (i.e. do people use share, do people use custom tabs, do people clear using the bin button or the notification). This stuff is used for deciding what features to prioritise (or remove), and doesn't involve Google servers.

- Adjust SDK: an install attribution tool (aka install referrer tracking). This is only used to determine whether the app was installed as the result of a specific (google-hosted) ad campaign. Adjust depends on play-services-analytics. ( https://www.adjust.com/glossary/install-referrer/ ). This only comes into play if you install the app from the play store (which funnily enough Google own). This is the only time play-services-analytics shuld be used, i.e. on first install. This is also disabled in Klar.

(The more interesting question is: could Focus receive the INSTALL_REFERRER itself for ads attribution instead of using Adjust? That data might be meaningless without asking google to tell you where it came from, and they provided it in the first place anyway...)

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