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Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

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Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#241

Post by busymom0 »

thyrox wrote: post #161
car_analogy wrote: post #62

Suppose you want to do something anonymously. 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. 2. Transfer it via USB key to a secure, anonymous computer - one not linked to you, on a network not associated with you, such as public WiFi. 3. Install Firefox using that installer on said computer. It transmits the installer ID to Mozilla, which matches the one gi…

You know I let a lot of important things in Firefox slide (like the poor Webspeech API support, bad text-to-speech, some missing extensions and a lot of other things) but I still make it a habit to use it over Chrome (and recommend it to everybody) as somewhere in my mind it feels like a small revolt against the giant evil Google corp. But stuff like this and other shenanigans in the past (like Mr.robot, misuse of fu…

I changed my default browser few days ago back to Safari. In Firefox, I would usually click the first two items on the home page which would be photopea or reddit. That day, they put 2 sponsored items for Amazon and Trivago instead at the first 2 spots and I accidentally clicked the amazon one without realizing because that first item was supposed to be Photopea. That was enough to piss me off:

https://i.imgur.com/s7NIfCX.png

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#243

Post by LightHugger »

rurp wrote: post #65
ordu wrote: post #14

They seem to be trying to gather a lot of telemetry to measure how they can boost popularity of Firefox. I wonder did they tried to measure how the measurement itself influences popularity? Social measurements are like quantum ones, they change reality. There was a funny story of a Hawthorn Experiment[1], which tried to find ways to boost productivity but at the end managed to state just that the very attempt to cond…

> They seem to be trying to gather a lot of telemetry to measure how they can boost popularity of Firefox. This might sound like a crazy idea, but they could always try listening to users! Everytime I get annoyed by something in Firefox and try to find a fix for it, I find a lot of people with the same issue across HN, Reddit, the Mozilla forums, etc. There is rarely any sign that a decision maker from Mozilla cares…

I have observed this as well, and not just with Mozilla.

It is so easy to just ignore feedback because it's difficult to parse, just set up some automated telemetry and focus on nothing but that. Removing the human element here is a big optimization in the cycle of receiving feedback, and it's also critically damaging to the effectiveness of decisions made based on that feedback cycle...

I don't know how to claw back a company like Mozilla that has strayed this far. Perhaps the political culls they had are responsible for the breakdown in decision making competence. Perhaps they've just gotten too big. Either way they aren't serving the original market of firefox, and if they continue straying this way the only option is a unified effort by the community to create a true competitor, likely starting as a fork. Maybe one of the forks that exist now can launch themselves successfully into prominence with proper funding and achieve independence from the Mozilla branch.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#244

Post by devwastaken »

pigbearpig wrote: post #221
abandonliberty wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe the apologists commenting on this. Firefox put a lot of effort into tracking download to install behavior. Maybe this is the only violation you know about. There's no reason to continue to believe in Mozilla's good faith. They've been captured, and are 90% dependent on Google revenue. Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28954390 Firefox is dead. It's time to move past denial. It does…

I can. I'd still rather use Firefox than Chrome or Edge when it comes to privacy. "Firefox is dead ... Time to bury the putrid, rotting corpse" is ridiculously dramatic.

Mozilla as an org is a husk of it's former self. They're constantly playing catch up with Firefox, almost abandonwared thunderbird, and have little actual usable innovation. What part of Firefox is "open source" when you can't integrate in your own projects? What's the point when the tech is non portable? Chromium is the clear OS winner, so open and modular you can just make your own browsers.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#245

Post by moralestapia »

vlark wrote: post #222
OrlandoHakim wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is controversial about Brave? Seems like the best alternative at the moment IMHO

Some folks object to the Brave Rewards system and the embedded crypto wallet.

It is opt-in and also extremely easy to enable/disable.

It also comes with a built-in ad blocker that works really good.

It's fast and doesn't eat your CPU/RAM.

Recommended, 100%.

Disclaimer: Not a Brave shill.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#246

Post by mrjangles »

OrlandoHakim wrote: post #193
thyrox wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I let a lot of important things in Firefox slide (like the poor Webspeech API support, bad text-to-speech, some missing extensions and a lot of other things) but I still make it a habit to use it over Chrome (and recommend it to everybody) as somewhere in my mind it feels like a small revolt against the giant evil Google corp. But stuff like this and other shenanigans in the past (like Mr.robot, misuse of fu…

I switched to Brave - no regrets

I'm almost certain Brave would have something like this too as advertising is their business model, right?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#247

Post by garbagetime »

kaba0 wrote: post #129
kreeben wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives Mozilla the opportunity to connect my IP address with my browser with my Mozilla account. Mozilla needs to bow down to the US govt and supply them with this information should they have stored it, if the govt feels they need it.

You log into your mozilla account from your browser through the goddamn internet. They literally have to have your IP address for that and that adds absolutely zero information than necessary. It is just “people want to be outraged over nothing” yet again.

What's a Mozilla account?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#248

Post by jraph »

willcipriano wrote: post #207
rackjack wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What're the alternatives to Firefox? The only ones that come to mind are Opera and Brave, and Brave had some controversy too.

Lynx is the only one I trust, but it's quite limited. Everything else has my suspicion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser)

w3m too.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#250

Post by jraph »

devwastaken wrote: post #244
pigbearpig wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can. I'd still rather use Firefox than Chrome or Edge when it comes to privacy. "Firefox is dead ... Time to bury the putrid, rotting corpse" is ridiculously dramatic.

Mozilla as an org is a husk of it's former self. They're constantly playing catch up with Firefox, almost abandonwared thunderbird, and have little actual usable innovation. What part of Firefox is "open source" when you can't integrate in your own projects? What's the point when the tech is non portable? Chromium is the clear OS winner, so open and modular you can just make your own browsers.

> What part of Firefox is "open source" when you can't integrate in your own projects?

Let's not mix everything up. For a good debate we need clear ideas. Firefox can be built from sources available under open source licenses, it is sufficient to makes it open source. Being embeddable and modular may be desirable features but it isn't a requirement to be open source.

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