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Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

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Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#371

Post by WhyNotHugo »

> Mozilla notes that the opt-out mechanism is the standard Telemetry opt-out. How users may opt-out before the installation of Firefox is unclear. A quick check of Chrome installers returned identical hashes each time.

This is why I keep insisting that we need a browser made in a jurisdiction which has at least minimal privacy rights. Having to explicitly opt-out of being tracked by a browser is not reasonable at all; browsers should only spy/track users who explicitly consent, not by default.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#372

Post by WhyNotHugo »

abandonliberty wrote: post #174
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…

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…

> Firefox is dead. It's time to move past denial. It doesn't stand for anything you think it does. I'm sad, too. Time to bury the putrid, rotting corpse.

I don't disagree, it's just that I need a browser, and there's no real alternatives.

Looking a lot at Librewolf. Have there been any independent audits of it?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#373

Post by bigbugbag »

rackjack wrote: post #186
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…

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

waterfox and librewolf.

then otter, seamonkey, falkon, k-meleon, srware iron, qutebrowser, comodo dragon and comodo icedragon, dooble, midori, epic.

not sure if maxthon and Avant Browser are still a thing

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#374

Post by pell »

technobabbler wrote: post #332
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…

Firefox has no real competitive pressure and no need to improve. Google is their sugar daddy and Mozilla stopped innovating a decade ago. It's just constantly playing catchup while suckling on Google teats, desperately clinging onto relevance. Without Google nobody would pay for their browser. At this point it'd be better for the web if we standardized on Blink and moved on, cleaning up some of the invasive tracking…

Firefox has fixed a lot of issues in their Quantum release. It removed a lot of what you called bloat as well. In tests it uses a lot less memory on average compared to Chrome. The privacy settings have been extended even further in recent years. Chrome’s settings come not even close to it. The extension system is still more flexible than Chrome’s. It has some built-in features such as autoplay stop and audio control that Chrome lacks. I also think you’re vastly overstating the incompatibilities on Firefox.

Finally, isn’t it better if there are multiple browser engines instead of just one? This allows for more innovation and has done so in the past too. The past pretty much proves that Firefox has and still can innovate despite your assertion.

I also wonder why you are stating all this in such a polemic and vulgar fashion. “ suckling on Google teats”, “bloated spamware”. None of this is even remotely accurate. But anyhow, what’s the point?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#375

Post by bigbugbag »

anthropodie wrote: post #197
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.

I read about librewolf the other day which is a fork of firefox. Edit: BTW what happens if I download Firefox from site like Softpedia.All the people who downloaded Firefox from this website have same identifier?

I've been using librewolf for a while after experiencing issue with waterfox.

it is not really a full fork of firefox, it's firefox with a few patches applied and sane default configuration.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#376

Post by MrYellowP »

UberFly wrote: post #262
babypuncher wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say all this as if Chrome is somehow not even worse

Chrome is worse. Chromium is the open-source engine which is fine until someone like Google turns it into their minion.

You make it sound like Google took Chromium and created Chrome out of it.

It's the other way round.

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#377

Post by WhyNotHugo »

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…

I'm sorry about the shit that went down. It makes me mad and I'm just a user, I can't image what it feels like for someone who put years of hard work into it.

Do you or any or your former colleagues still have the energy or will to work on a real user-centric, stable, privacy-first browser for the masses? Do you think there's hope of developers potentially wanting to work on an organised fork or something along those lines?

Or have you mostly had enough and mostly want to move onto something else?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#378

Post by bigbugbag »

OrlandoHakim wrote: post #194
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.

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

this: https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html

this: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/blob/master/app/trac...

also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers...

then this: https://teddit.net/r/FoamList/comments/q4z5js/brave_browser_...

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#379

Post by WhyNotHugo »

elkos wrote: post #361
ex_mozilla wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Isn't it the other way around (at least in paper)? Ex-volunteer here BTW.

Does it make any difference in practice?

Re: Each Firefox download has a unique identifier

#380

Post by bigbugbag »

smitty1e wrote: post #141
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…

> 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. Compile from source?

I tried that, and it is a time consuming and tedious process which I eventually failed.
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