41–50 of 97 posts
Mozilla has an annoying pattern of removing items from the user preferences to "avoid user confusion", an excuse companies often use when deceiving customers. (Example: Microsoft dropping the "RT" designation. [1]) "Accept/reject third-party cookies", for example, doesn't always appear in the preferences any more. Mozilla's new "social" features don't have a turn-off option in the Preferences. You can disable them by…
Don't forget about this; "media.peerconnection.enabled = false" WebRTC leaks IP when you use TOR/VPN, test it with ipleak.net "beacon.enabled = false" Blocks https://w3c.github.io/beacon/ analytics. Also recommend using plugins; uBlock, NoScript if you use VPN.
Tor Browser disables this by default and if you're using Tor over standard Firefox you already have far bigger problems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think using a blocker extension like uBlock Origin restores (at least partially) this functionality without involving Google.
Right, but then you're just changing who you leak data to, you're not stopping the leak. EDIT: wow, downvotes? Getting a list from EasyList is just as much a leak as getting a list from Google. Someone has your IP either way.
The problem with SafeBrowsing isn't downloading the list, it's that it sends data back to Google if it finds a match. Malware lists with AdBlock plugins don't do this.
Wow. What the fuck, Mozilla? Here I was, really hopeful that you were actually serious about honoring user desire for privacy.
Please for the love of god do not disable the Google SafeBrowsing preferences. SafeBrowsing protects you from a lot of malicious websites, and does not leak much information to Google. For most people the security benefits of SafeBrowsing far outweigh the privacy concerns. It is important to remember that malicious websites and malware in general may negatively impact your security and privacy in extremely harmful wa…
SELECT users.id AS google_user_id
sb_hits.ip_addr AS safebrowsing_update_ip_addr
sb_hits.request_time AS safebrowsing_update_time
FROM all_page_hits AS user_hits,
all_page_hits AS sb_hits,
normal_google_accounts AS users,
safebrowsing_pseudo_accounts AS sb_users
WHERE users.cookie = user_hits.cookie
AND sb_users.cookie = sb_hits.cookie
AND user_hits.ip_addr = sb_hits.ip_addr
AND (sb_hits.request_time BETWEEN (user_hits.request_time - interval '1 hour')
AND (user_hits.request_time + interval '1 hour'))
The IP betrays information as well, but that's not a reason to make it even easier with a cookie.
"Random user x often uses their browser between 9am and 5pm on M-F"
That's exactly the important information that should be protected, to resist pattern-of-life analysis.
(apologies for any SQL errors; it's been a while since I did any serious db work)
Don't forget about this; "media.peerconnection.enabled = false" WebRTC leaks IP when you use TOR/VPN, test it with ipleak.net "beacon.enabled = false" Blocks https://w3c.github.io/beacon/ analytics. Also recommend using plugins; uBlock, NoScript if you use VPN.
Do you also disable ? Beacon is a performance optimization but it doesn't offer anything more than site owners could already see.
Seems like lots of FUD; how do Firefox Hello, Pocket and Geolocation "leak data about you" if you don't explicitly use them? How do DRM and Reader mode leak data at all? Also, Safe Browsing, DRM, Search suggestions, Telemetry and Health report can be disabled in the preferences UI. Don't need sensationalist about:config protips for that.
(Though, for file downloads, some meta information seems to be sent if I'm reading correctly.)
Seems like lots of FUD; how do Firefox Hello, Pocket and Geolocation "leak data about you" if you don't explicitly use them? How do DRM and Reader mode leak data at all? Also, Safe Browsing, DRM, Search suggestions, Telemetry and Health report can be disabled in the preferences UI. Don't need sensationalist about:config protips for that.
Also, from the description of the Safe Browsing feature (as linked on the above page), it seems that it doesn't actually send (and thus leak) URLs; rather, it downloads a blacklist from Google periodically (~30min), and checks URLs against it locally ... https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-m... (Though, for file downloads , some meta information seems to be sent if I'm reading correctly.)
So Google could indeed easily track URLs by adding it on the periodic check and then returning false on the specific check.