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Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

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Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#271

Post by zaarn »

BurningCycles wrote: post #235
JohnFen wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why Mozilla is hellbent on pushing this upon their users is beyond me It's one of their many attempts at finding a revenue source that isn't Google. Their hope was that people would love it so much that they'd sign up for the pay version. I have a huge amount of sympathy for Mozilla on this issue. They get slammed for being funded by Google, but pretty much every time they do something that could generate revenue a…

>They get slammed for being funded by Google I don't see that at all, I mean they've been funded by Google for practically their entire existence. On the contrary it seems to me that Firefox users find that funding the project through selling the default search engine is a good compromise as it is both easy to switch to a different search engine, and also that the vast majority use Google either way. Also it's not as…

The issue is that if Google cuts their funding if they encroach too much on Chromium, then Mozilla is in trouble. At the moment, their entire operation is financially dependent on a competitor paying them money.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#272

Post by ailideex »

kbrosnan wrote: post #227
ailideex wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.

Are you running Wayland? Make sure Firefox was running in Wayland mode. Fedora had a separate package for Wayland Firefox for some time, though it might be the default in 31. XWayland can result in a performance hit. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Firefox_Wayland_By_De...

I am not using Wayland and I am running XFCE

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#273

Post by luckylion »

hvis wrote: post #255
luckylion wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to demonstrate anything if you don't have a control group and can't turn the thing in question on and off. Conflicts of interest are real, you don't need to demonstrate that they are, though it's not clear how much they sway Mozilla's decisions. And you're right, the non-profit-status doesn't imply that, they could just as well do the same as a commercial enterprise. It would be more obvious that way. Would…

It's a difficult problem. Unless a majority-marketshare browser does that as well (and we know that Chrome certainly won't), a lot of websites might choose to block all Firefox users instead. And perhaps you and I know how to disable an ad blocker selectively. An average user might simply see problems with websites and uninstall Firefox as "not working", tanking its marketshare even more. So Google doesn't necessaril…

True, though I think that would be a short (and just!) war that would get us to a much better place: hiding the type of user agent you're using from the site means less finger printing opportunities.

It very much could lead to the opposite too. "Oh hey, the web works when you're using Firefox". My mother has become a missionary (for adblockers, not firefox) since she's once witnessed how websites look on a friend's PC. She told her "I think your computer is broken", which lead to confusion & a presentation on my mother's PC... which lead to them calling me asking how to make her friend's PC do that too.

It might, ironically, also be a great signal for Google's bots. I've never seen a quality site that tried to block me for using an adblock, and even "hey, please turn adblock on" is a strong signal for me that it's SEO content and I should go on looking for something else.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#274

Post by Vinnl »

ninkendo wrote: post #238
Vinnl wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And none of that is used to influence elections or make you buy stuff you don't want.

Are we sure about this? I mean I mostly agree that telemetry is different, but how can we be sure Mozilla isn't sharing their telemetry information with ad networks to help fingerprint you? It seems the only way to be truly sure is if we could verify the browser sent no information at all, right? Or else it's just about trust, same as any other browser.

It's mostly about trust, but we have more reasons to trust Mozilla than other browser vendors - they consist of a community of people who care about their values, they've staked their reputation on those values, they are transparent, they're a legal non-profit, etc. Their financial statements are also public, and I don't think any income from ad networks has been found there.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#275

Post by ailideex »

bilekas wrote: post #157
ailideex wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.

Just given its Fedora I would be a bit nervous to instantly assume full blame on Firefox, given the nature of the OS, but definitely give a try again!

I don't really have any issues with Fedora performance wise, is it widely perceived to not be performant? I have had much more issues with everything on Ubuntu than I ever had with Fedora. Maybe ricing with Gentoo could get me a bit further but given both Firefox and Chrome will basically use the same system libraries I don't see how it is fair to blame Fedora for the difference.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#276

Post by ailideex »

tssva wrote: post #193
ailideex wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.

This has been my experience across Linux distros and was also the case on my MacBook Pro. Whenever I mention my MacBook issues the down voters swarm despite the fact that there is an open bug regarding poor performance on certain MacBook configurations. And no the performance fix for Macs that came out a few months ago didn't resolve it.

Is it faster on Windows? This would be quite fascinating if it is the case - my experience with windows is that it is an all round slacker when it comes to performance.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#277

Post by ailideex »

prox wrote: post #153
ailideex wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.

I remember reading about an issue on some Linux systems, not sure if they fixed it, but do report these issues if you can.

Not sure how, it is not exactly a bug, just ... a thing.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#278

Post by DrScientist »

stiray wrote: post #222
DrScientist wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying Brave is the answer, but I think they have at least identified the right problem - ie If, for example, an effective adblocking browser takes off, huge amounts of revenue to content providers will disappear. So content providers will start to resist in the only way they can - by blocking people with adblockers. If you want to avoid either massive reduction of content, or the blocking of ad blockers, then yo…

Yes, I want massive reduction of content. I am sorry, but if you haven't noticed, internet is a giant, steaming pile of garbage. Amount of usable content is 1:10000 and the reason for this are ads - you earn money regardless what crap you sell. It is no longer about content but about watching ads.

I agree with much of that - but what I worry about is the perilous state of journalism - it is being hit by reduction in ad money resulting in less depth and more pandering to people with money.

You could argue the garbage is the problem - taking ad money from better sources, however if you have a blanket ad block then there is no discrimination - the Brave model offers you a chance to discriminate but still use ad payment model.

The alternative is to move to 'pay to view' models - the problem here is that then competes with free content that is free because it's paided propaganda.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#279

Post by shifto »

fabrice_d wrote: post #265
alecmg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to react on first words in article too. Netscape lost. Original Opera lost. IE lost. Edge lost. As in killed off by creators and no new work is done on it. Mozilla Firefox at this point is going strong and growing. It is a better browser than Chrome for me.

Unfortunately it's not growing: look at Mozilla's own usage data at https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

Lot of this telemetry is blocked on corp networks. No idea how big a piece of the pie it really is though.

Re: Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

#280

Post by alecmg »

fabrice_d wrote: post #265
alecmg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to react on first words in article too. Netscape lost. Original Opera lost. IE lost. Edge lost. As in killed off by creators and no new work is done on it. Mozilla Firefox at this point is going strong and growing. It is a better browser than Chrome for me.

Unfortunately it's not growing: look at Mozilla's own usage data at https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

Staganting indeed.

I was under impression things were going up since move to new faster engine.

Pretty sure android firefox should be going up.

I'm not helping things by having the stats reporting turned off as a first thing.

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