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Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

monica-at-mozilla.blogspot.com

41–50 of 304 posts

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#41

How does this compare to something like Privacy Badger[1]? I haven't done any benchmarking, but if it causes similar slowdowns, it isn't bothersome and the benefits are definitely worth it. [1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

I tried Privacybadger for about 5 minutes: it was awful (significantly worse than ABP), - it's shameful that the EFF wasted donation money to finance a crap project like that, rather than support e.g. https://github.com/gorhill

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This again..

It's a valid objection. GA at this point is on most websites you visit. The data is forwarded to Google where it's processed and stored forever. GA is one of the biggest threats to privacy on the web, and any company claiming to care about your privacy should not be using it.

I agree with you that it's a valid objection. I disagree however, when you say " any company claiming to care about your privacy should not be using it." That's an easy accusation to throw around, but what is hard to is come up with a better alternative.

What is your suggestion, that they should abandon all analytics, or that they should build their own, or do you not have one? Are you willing to acknowledge that GA solves a real problem and provides valuable information?

In my judgement, it makes a lot of sense that Mozilla would use GA. I want them to use it because I believe in their mission, and I'm sure in the balance of things, it helps them maintain a stronger position as an organization.

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was more or less the point of the GP minus the condescension bit. Making unqualified statements about what you believe about a large corporation is roughly on par with contesting that particular belief.

Then again Apple has a track record and APIs to put forward. Just about every API in iOS puts privacy first. If you want e.g. location data, the API asks the user's permission -- including with Apple's own apps.

How do I install any API from apple without providing Apple (and whoever else) with my credit card?

The OsX machine at my office is mystifying, am I supposed to provide my personal credit card to apple to get security updates? That is more secure and insures more of my privacy than not entering my credit card into a system I don't trust?

I view Apple as insulting my intelligence with promises of "convenience" that amount to being able to give them money on impulse.

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#45
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they actually get most of their revenue from the App store and iTunes--and in neither of those cases is privacy good for business.

> Huberty said that Apple's online services are underappreciated by investors because they accounted for less than 6 percent of the company's revenue over the last 12 months. http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/05/28/apples-app-store-r...

Ah, interesting.

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#46
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple believes in user privacy. Your naïveté is touching.

Well, Apple makes most money with hardware. Unlike Google who makes most money with ads. So at least in theory Apple can more easily invest in privacy. EDIT: Check their last quarter's results, Apple makes only 6% of their revenue with online services: https://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q1fy15datasum.pdf

There was a reddit post where OP works for a third party company that Apple send Siri voice to. People complained that users didn't read the EULA or whatever. Anyway OP said it was very specific too and crazy. So it doesn't sound like Apple being the champion of privacy.

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#47

I would love for Mozilla to find other means of funding online content besides advertising. In either case I'd love to see them take a hard stance on privacy and against tracking. They should block trackers that have no effect on website features and restrict and monitor the ones that do effect features. ...and this is another reason Mozilla needs to have their own search engine. They could have much greater influenc…

Huh? Mozilla has $307 million a year in revenu. Of that $300 million comes from Google in exchange for being the default search bar. So I'm not sure what you're talking about exactly.

Edit: ok, revenue is from Yahoo now. That doesn't make me any less confused as to what parent reply meant though.

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#48
post #4

For those wondering what Firefox tracking protection is - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-fir... From my, very quick, tests it appears to work quite well as a poor man's adblocker as well. Nice!

It seems that their protection is based on Disconnect. Does that mean I can get the same level of protection with this feature instead of using Disconnect?

Good question. And a corollary: is Disconnect redundant with this feature turned on?

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#49
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is supposedly getting into the search engine business. It'd be great if they and Mozilla got together, both companies believe in user privacy and could complement each other in getting things down

IMO DuckDuckGo is the obvious choice of who to partner with. DDG already focuses on privacy as a defining feature, its why I use then as my primary search engine. Seems like a win win for both Mozilla and DDG.

Mozilla needs the money, DDG doesn't have it

Re: Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

#50
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also like a comparison with ublock and/or ghostery. It appears that this becomes enabled after the blocking plugins.

ublock is more about ads, and this is tracking. While they usually come hand in hand, Facebook ads (eg: while on facebook) don't add additional tracking.

uBlock in 'Advanced User' mode[0] allows for significant, granular script and iframe blocking. 3rd-party default-deny mode, even in the absence of the EasyPrivacy list will give you a significant amount of control over external entities that are frequently used to track users across the web. It's also somewhat more intelligible than NoScript.

I would argue that with Dynamic filtering (enabled for advanced users) the goal of uBlock is not limited to ads, but to any undesired content on the internet. I guess you could say the same about Adblock, though, so I guess YMMV.

[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...

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