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Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

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Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#341

Post by nsajko »

cookiengineer wrote: post #256

I don't understand why this is news? Spyware watchdog posted about this years ago. It's been in there at least since 2016, and every time you open Firefox (not start!) it will happily broadcast its geo position information to their geolocation backend. The same goes for the WebRTC related STUN servers, which are always connected to when Firefox starts. I mean, come on folks. Never trust any software blindly. Use MITM…

> For the moment the best alternative is ungoogled chromium with ublock origin

> I am still busy forking webkit

Why choose to base your browser on Webkit instead of on Chromium? Is your point that Chromium get's more development, so it's harder to keep up with it?

Am I wrong to think that Chromium is ahead of Webkit in terms of security? I know that this would be offset to some degree by your changes that decrease the attack surface, but couldn't you have done that for Chromium/Blink instead?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#342

Post by fsflover »

aembleton wrote: post #272
cookiengineer wrote: post #256

I don't understand why this is news? Spyware watchdog posted about this years ago. It's been in there at least since 2016, and every time you open Firefox (not start!) it will happily broadcast its geo position information to their geolocation backend. The same goes for the WebRTC related STUN servers, which are always connected to when Firefox starts. I mean, come on folks. Never trust any software blindly. Use MITM…

If you prefer Firefox to chrome, then the best alternative is librefox. Librefox is Firefox without all of the tracking: https://github.com/intika/Librefox/

I think IceCat is a better alternative: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#343

Post by ex_mozilla »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #333
ex_mozilla wrote: post #230

I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I've been working at Mozilla since its inception. And eventually left the company 2 years ago. And I'm so mad. Mozilla is not the Mozilla that was created almost 20 years ago. It's not the same people there. After the Firefox 4 nightmare, they started hiring product managers from big corp. We started seeing some ex-twitter, ex-microsoft, ex-amazon joining the company. Peop…

A good time to remind everyone that when you donate to "Mozilla", you're donating to the Mozilla Foundation, which is the social justice part, not the Mozilla Corporation, which is the browser part.

Mozilla Foundation is just a department of Mozilla Corp. It's bs. Donating does nothing.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#344

Post by tootahe45 »

I'm honestly more comfortable with Google than companies that pretend to be into the whole privacy thing. At least Google doesn't try deceive you. I really hope nobody here uses TOR (developed by Mozilla?) for anything important, It seems like large parts of the network is owned by the govt.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#346

Post by [deleted] »

ranguna wrote: post #311
cookiengineer wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not fork Firefox? > Why not fork Electron/Chromium/nwjs? Tried it and gave up. It's impossible. Repotools, manifests and submodule fatigue and other things make it close to impossible to host all the code yourself and build it, because many parts of the build toolchain and codebase contain includes via git/https URLs these days. That's why I went with WebKit, because there I clone a single repo, install the dep…

You don't have to do it alone. Checkout librewolf.

[deleted]

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#347

Post by grey_earthling »

ex_mozilla wrote: post #230

I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I've been working at Mozilla since its inception. And eventually left the company 2 years ago. And I'm so mad. Mozilla is not the Mozilla that was created almost 20 years ago. It's not the same people there. After the Firefox 4 nightmare, they started hiring product managers from big corp. We started seeing some ex-twitter, ex-microsoft, ex-amazon joining the company. Peop…

> Maybe he didn't have the same values employees had about LGBT, but fuck this

This tactic will only work if Mozilla doesn't want to bring queer people along with them — an open web for _most_ people, but some people aren't welcome to join in.

Making tools and services for public use is always political, and by tacitly endorsing discrimination against queer people, Mozilla would have been taking a stance that would have tarnished their reputation with a lot of potential contributors — just look at what's happening with Disney right now.

On the other hand, it might have been possible for Mozilla to retain Brendan's services without alienating a good fraction of their user base, with a suitably well-thought-through response:

- acknowledge Brendan's personal political donations

- affirm that Mozilla's position is on the side of diversity and inclusivity

- publicly describe the robust grievance/disciplinary/safeguarding procedure that any contributor would face if they did discriminate unfairly against other contributors (while stating clearly that this procedure has never been needed for Brendan, so any concerns at this stage are hypothetical)

- reiterate Brendan's technical credentials

I think the mistake Mozilla made was assuming that a high-profile leader's personal political position would always reflect on Mozilla; whereas I think it may have been possible to separate the two — as long as everyone's able to behave as though they respect each other.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#348

Post by busymom0 »

VexorLoophole wrote: post #285
busymom0 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/s7…

What do you use for adblocking on safari?

I use Adblock Pro. I got it for free a while back and it’s perfect. AdGuard is another good one.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#349

Post by grey_earthling »

xtanx wrote: post #257
cf141q5325 wrote: post #21

From the linked bugzilla https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677497#c0 >One note, in case it's not already clear: The download token will be available in the telemetry environment, but all web session data that it is linked to will NOT ever be included in telemetry, it is being deliberately kept in a separate data set, and we will be limiting access to the ability to join these data sets to a small set of p…

> Approval granted by Privacy. Good to go. Great job there "Privacy"...

This is an example of where openness — which Mozilla used to excel at — would have helped.

If there was a detailed rationale considering the potential privacy impact of this change, publicly available, then we'd be able to see that Mozilla did indeed thoughtfully weigh up the consequences of doing this.

We may disagree with the decision, but at least we'd be able to see the set of underlying assumptions and point to which one we think is wrong, and perhaps provide evidence to show it's mistaken — constructive feedback.

But as it is, we just have an opaque assertion that “this is fine”.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#350

Post by jiriro »

Slartie wrote: post #315
jiriro wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Download installer from Mozilla from your home network - Mozilla now has your home IP and installer ID. The Apple’s icloud private relay should prevent Mozilla knowing the IP.

Great! And what about all those non-Apple users? Or all those Apple users not on a paid iCloud plan?

> non-Apple users?

Don’t know.. perhaps they might consider to get a gadget with that goddamn safari:-)

> not on a paid iCloud plan

It’s $0.99/month.

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