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Facebook Container for Firefox

mozilla.org

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Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#311

Post by tialaramex »

autoexec wrote: post #297
tialaramex wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Facebook Container extension is special, it does a bunch of work to put all of Facebook and only Facebook inside the Facebook Container. Bits of Facebook trying to peak through outside Facebook (e.g. tracking pixels) are elided entirely. Which is exactly what I want. But ordinarily that's not the behaviour you get from a Firefox container. e.g. I have that Facebook Container, and I also have a Slack container I j…

> In Facebook, it's inside the Facebook container. Since the Facebook Container has no idea who I am, wouldn't they know exactly who you are with every request sent to any of their servers and any facebook page you load either by your facebook account, IP address, or by browser fingerprinting.

I mean, sure they can be entirely confident that I'm the Facebook user who signed up for that account, and so in that sense they know exactly who I am.

But in another very real sense they've got no idea who that is. It would suit them very well to be able to reliably tie it to other information (hence all the tracking pixels and so on) but the Container prevents that.

I mean, one of my Facebook friends is named say "Norman Le Plum". I'm very confident that isn't what it says on his birth certificate, and indeed when his friend request arrived I actually ignored it until I found someone out of band to tell me who "Norman" was, but in a sense Facebook know exactly who Norman is, he's a disembodied red skull who is still really into skateboarding and Steamed Hams.

What use that is,isn't clear, and presumably one day advertisers might conclude the answer is "No use whatsoever" and Facebook will go out of business. Meanwhile I read funny Steamed Hams variants, people complain about their jobs, and while I'd rather it didn't exist at all, if it must exist at least it's trapped in a little box where it can't taint everything else.

Now Google probably knows way too much about me, but that's quite a different problem.

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#312

Post by blackearl »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #307
mattmanser wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually have different profiles for Chrome which achieve exactly the same thing.

Can you have dozens of different profiles open at the same time in different tabs of the same window?

Yes, I use it at home but also a lot at work. Opening personal account and admin accounts in a bunch of different tabs for a bunch of different sites. Makes it super easy, no need to log in and out throughout the day. I have users that also will have our O365/Okta accounts as well as client O365/Okta accounts. Containers make it a cinch to keep everything separate and logged in at the same time.

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#313

Post by dngray »

mmcclure wrote: post #34

I use Firefox multi-account containers[1] extensively, it's honestly the primary reason I use Firefox these days. The big win for me is that I _hate_ having to use the Google account switcher, so I basically set up a container for each Gmail account (work, personal, old email, etc). The nice bonus feature is you can have certain sites default to containers. I had a paid YouTube account for a while, for example, so ha…

I really like "Temporary Containers" https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/temporary-container... which is a really useful privacy-enhancing usage of the containers API.

https://medium.com/@stoically/enhance-your-privacy-in-firefo...

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#314

Post by neogodless »

tialaramex wrote: post #287
neogodless wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Containers work by URL. How do you use a different container per Google account?

The Facebook Container extension is special, it does a bunch of work to put all of Facebook and only Facebook inside the Facebook Container. Bits of Facebook trying to peak through outside Facebook (e.g. tracking pixels) are elided entirely. Which is exactly what I want. But ordinarily that's not the behaviour you get from a Firefox container. e.g. I have that Facebook Container, and I also have a Slack container I j…

Ok so my point is that you specifically don't put any Google sites into "a" container but rather let them fall where there are, and if you have a Work container and open something Google, you only ever log into the Work-related Google account?

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#315

Post by autoexec »

tialaramex wrote: post #311
autoexec wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Facebook, it's inside the Facebook container. Since the Facebook Container has no idea who I am, wouldn't they know exactly who you are with every request sent to any of their servers and any facebook page you load either by your facebook account, IP address, or by browser fingerprinting.

I mean, sure they can be entirely confident that I'm the Facebook user who signed up for that account, and so in that sense they know exactly who I am. But in another very real sense they've got no idea who that is. It would suit them very well to be able to reliably tie it to other information (hence all the tracking pixels and so on) but the Container prevents that. I mean, one of my Facebook friends is named say "…

I wouldn't count on a fake name being any kind of problem for facebook assuming they're actively using the profile. Not providing them any data at all won't spare you, but if you're using the account they can easily analyze photos and comments (including those on other people's profiles), use facial recognition, use friend/activity patterns, match IP addresses/browsers (including any instances where the same IP address/browser was used to sign into non-facebook services found in records purchased by facebook from data brokers), and if he ever uses his phone or chrome to look at facebook there's a handy unique ID sent to facebook as well which can be matched with countless other recorded activities.

Facebook devotes a huge amount of time and money to collecting data and using it to associate people to a real identity to the extent that even people who never signed up for an account at all have hidden profiles created for them by facebook which contain the intimate details of their life including what they buy at the grocery store.

As far as I can tell, a container won't protect your identity but it will limit the amount of information they have on your browsing history (unless your ISP decides to sell them that information or they obtain some of it from a 3rd party data broker)

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#316

Post by quesera »

codethief wrote: post #111
satya71 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. `firefox -no-remote -P `

I used to always include `--no-remote` here but it seems `firefox -P ` now works, too, even when another Firefox instance is already running. Is anyone experiencing the same?

When I last tested, it varied by platform.

Linux was happy to open a new instance without the `--new-instance` option (which is implied by `--no-remote`), but macOS required it.

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#317

Post by krastanov »

nicholascamera wrote: post #107
JadoJodo wrote: post #23

A few others: - Temporary Containers[0] - Google Container[1] - Google Container w/ Integrations (YouTube, AdTech, Apps, etc)[2] - Reddit Container[3] There are a few others[4] as well, but I've found the Temporary Containers solves the 80%. -- [0] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai... [2] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en…

Do not use Temporary Containers. This extension to Multi-Account Containers looks great at first -- its Automatic mode spins up a new container each time you open a new tab, then switches that tab to an existing container, should one be associated with the TLD you visit. The problem is that Temporary Containers does not delete these temporary containers. They accumulate in the MAC containers list. There is no way to…

I have the same problem (which supposedly does not happen to all users of that extension). I fix it by running this script once a month (it deletes the temporary containers from the containers.json file):

    import json

    with open('containers.json.bac') as f:
        s = f.read()
        j = json.loads(s)
        ids = [i for i in j['identities'] if not i['name'].startswith('tmp')]
        print(len(j['identities']), len(ids))
        j['identities'] = ids
        with open('containers.json', 'w') as wf:
            wf.write(json.dumps(j))

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#318

Post by autoexec »

m1117 wrote: post #298

I proudly give them all my data, I want big tech to make money and get better products.

It's not just tech making money The data companies collect is valuable because it can be used against you. It's not just so that companies can show you ads for things you might be interested in. Surveillance capitalism means that your health insurance rates can increase because big data shows that people in your zip code eat out more often. The data collected is used to create a secret "consumer credit score" which determines things like how long you wait on hold, what stores will tell you their return policy is (their policies for you are not their policies for everyone else) and can mean you're paying more for identical products at the same website than the person next door. If you want companies to make money there are plenty of ways for them to do that without handing over your personal information which will be used for years to secretly exploit and manipulate you in ways you'll never even be aware of.

Re: Facebook Container for Firefox

#319

Post by endgame »

leecb wrote: post #182
moritonal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it to split my work and my personal GitHub accounts!

> GitHub recommends using only one user account to manage both personal and professional repositories. https://github.community/t/using-one-account-for-all-your-pr...

GitHub wants a lot of silly things. I want a lot of silly things. Doesn't mean we all get what we want.
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