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Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#41

Post by andrepd »

stoplying1 wrote: post #29
hbn wrote: post #9

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision…

Does it still have the cursed text with it that says "going away in (some month soon)". It's so stupid and confusing and baffling that I want to rage quit Firefox with this as the absolute last straw. Like wtf, you're gonna take back my color in a few months? Just pull the upsell for it? Why the hell am I having to wonder about any of this? Why on God's green earth was this done instead of spending any effort getting…

> instead of spending any effort getting a SINGLE bit of unity among the Bookmarks, Downloads and Add-ons panels

One thing I'd actually like is a reasonably powerful history browser/manager. I want to look for websites I visited in a custom time period, how many times I visited a website last month, or in January, or whatever.

It's all very poor as it stands: a very simple interface with no power-features whatsover, a fixed set of time periods to view (today, yesterday, last month), and a simple total visit count and timestamp of most recent visit.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#42

Post by kotlin2 »

eli wrote: post #24
kotlin2 wrote: post #17

One privacy feature I’d really like is kind of like HTTPS everywhere, except it’s TLS 1.3 w/ SNI encryption everywhere.

What would happen when you click a link to a site that doesn't support that?

You’d get a warning and be asked to proceed. Similar to how https everywhere works.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#43

Post by dylan604 »

reitanqild wrote: post #35
hbn wrote: post #9

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision…

Firefox used to be so extensible that what is developer tools in every browser today started in Firefox as an extension, Firebug (yes, I am aware it is slightly more nuanced, but it is close enough for this argument.) Also for a long while one of my preferred FTP programs was just a Firefox extension. Yes, I think Google must be punished harsher for Chrome than Microsoft was for IE, but Mozilla couldn't have done muc…

No post body was provided.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#44

Post by NayamAmarshe »

marcodiego wrote: post #12

I have to repost it aagain: Firefox: the last remaining mostly independent, maintained and reasonably popular browser. Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.

The truth is, people using Firefox just to 'stick it to the big bad corpo' is getting us nowhere. Firefox is losing not because of Chrome but because of its own incompetence or inability to keep the users happy.

Firefox is losing userbase a lot faster than some other browsers are gaining it, is that Firefox users' fault or Firefox's?

I use Firefox because I think the sync service it provides is great and that some of the customization is unmatched, not because I think I'm some soldier fighting the Chromium monopoly.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#45

Post by forsythe_ »

stoplying1 wrote: post #29
hbn wrote: post #9

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision…

Does it still have the cursed text with it that says "going away in (some month soon)". It's so stupid and confusing and baffling that I want to rage quit Firefox with this as the absolute last straw. Like wtf, you're gonna take back my color in a few months? Just pull the upsell for it? Why the hell am I having to wonder about any of this? Why on God's green earth was this done instead of spending any effort getting…

Counter argument: is it actually worth getting this upset over themes?

Yes, the marketing behind it is stupid because it attempts to correlate some deeper symbolic meaning to the act of choosing colors for your web browser. But as a fellow Firefox advocate, I would rather Mozilla plays around with these sort of corny marketing concepts as a way of gaining market share rather than rely on Google's patronage ad-infinitum.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#46

Post by aliqot »

reitanqild wrote: post #39
anycans wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qutebrowser isnt independent if you care that google money is involved, it uses blink. Firefox is the only even vaguely independent browser engine that keeps up at all with google.

Librewolf is a running fork of the newest Firefox with some small improvements. Unlike other forks it always has latest security updates. I use it these days and I am considering to start chipping in too (I am at my limits currently so I will have to stop something else though). But I really really want something like my old Firefox back...!

I also chip in :) Librewolf eally saved my bacon on this old laptop I keep flogging into the future.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#47

Post by reitanqild »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
reitanqild wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox used to be so extensible that what is developer tools in every browser today started in Firefox as an extension, Firebug (yes, I am aware it is slightly more nuanced, but it is close enough for this argument.) Also for a long while one of my preferred FTP programs was just a Firefox extension. Yes, I think Google must be punished harsher for Chrome than Microsoft was for IE, but Mozilla couldn't have done muc…

Quoted post unavailable.

Haven't used it for years (5 years since last I can remember and that was close to a one off).

I used it only as an example.

Oh, and BTW I always tried to use SCP or SFTP where possible the last few years.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#48

Post by coldpie »

user3939382 wrote: post #16

Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit. As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. You can profile this yourself on macOS with Charles Proxy (GUI) or mitmproxy (CLI). Until this is fixed all I can do is roll my eyes when I…

> As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this.

What data is being communicated? What about that data is harmful to you? (Genuinely asking for more information, not trying to convince you you're wrong.)

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#49

Post by forsythe_ »

dylan604 wrote: post #40
stoplying1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it still have the cursed text with it that says "going away in (some month soon)". It's so stupid and confusing and baffling that I want to rage quit Firefox with this as the absolute last straw. Like wtf, you're gonna take back my color in a few months? Just pull the upsell for it? Why the hell am I having to wonder about any of this? Why on God's green earth was this done instead of spending any effort getting…

>Why on God's green earth was this done instead of You are not alone. I'm starting to think something is wrong with me because I don't give an iota of a damn about any of this. I have watched people just get sucked into the rabbit hole of browsing for themes for the their browser while accomplishing exactly nothing after being overwhelmed and paralyzed by the choices. (Kinda like trying to find something to watch on…

I think the entire point is that Mozilla has depended on people "like you" to stay relevant for years and knows that's not a great long-term growth strategy compared to appealing to the general populace who cares about things like customizable themes.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#50

Post by xg15 »

Spivak wrote: post #13

Everyone in this thread complaining about colorways has got to be a meta-commentary on bikeshedding. This feature isn't for you. But anyway, I'm sad that HTTPS default and isolated cookies are turned on only for Private Browsing (sorry, "Guest Session" from that other silly HN thread, "private" apparently implies you have a rank in the military while using) when both these features aren't super disruptive for general…

I think what annoys me is that Mozilla (like many other companies) has co-opted the "social movement/political activist" aesthetic without actually engaging in any activism.

Private browsing mode is a prime example of that. The current improvement is absolutely miniscule for the amount of bravado they perform around it - but even if you accept it's useful for some, you could ask why private browsing mode exist at all? If that mode had superior privacy protections, why not add those to the normal browsing mode?

I think by making tracking the default and having a special mode for when you really need privacy, they are sort of doing the opposite: Normalising that privacy is an exception.

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