8 ms·

Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy

377 points by DvdGiessen 7y ago

arkitaip 7y ago
Maybe the ultimate move would be to create a Tor alternative that goes beyond slapping on some privacy on the pig that has become the Internet.
- OmarShehata 7y ago
  Why would that be better than current solutions, which at best users don't really notice when they work, and at worse dislike because they make many things less convenient? > Making private browsing more private was a success, which is to say less data was collected and users didn't notice the difference. > The same trackers, though, help users log into sites and pay for goods, and blocking them would break the internet for lots of users.
throwaway8291 7y ago
I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login (at around version 40). Never looked back. One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Maybe I'm too optimistic. Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering and all the innovation they added to the field - it's just good to have alternatives.
- Ygg2 7y ago
  > Maybe I'm too optimistic. Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either. Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome. Anything based on Chromium counts as well, their codebase is dictated by Google, one way or the other. My mom had so many issues with ads until I installed Firefox for her, and honestly, the ad blockers make the internet a much better for navigation.
  - realusername 7y ago
    > Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome. Or if you are building web products, please use Firefox as your dev browser, that's what I'm doing and it automatically insures that whatever I build will work on Firefox.
    - wolco 7y ago
      I've been doing this for years.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    > money As I understand it, donating money to Mozilla does not fund Firefox in any way but rather their other social initiatives (see the Mozilla Foundation page for a list). Firefox is under the Mozilla Corporation which is funded by things like search deals with Google.
  - ksec 7y ago
    >Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either. The Modern US / Silicon Valley mentality is you have to be optimistic at all cost. Being Realistic is counted as pessimism.
  - sunnytimes 7y ago
    i'm the IT guy in my shop so when i got here i switched every machine to firefox + ecosia.org for search and only one guy went back to chrome.. i try and spread the fox around as much i can.
- bilekas 7y ago
  I'm on my waay BACK to Firefox, there was a strange period when I left, Firefox just seemed really heavy on my machine, and it was super intensive for some dev tools. Now I say the same about chrome and find FF much lighter and efficient. Delighted that FF are taking a bit of a stronger stand here in the privacy dept too .
  - ailideex 7y ago
    Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.
    - Numberwang 7y ago
      This is my experience as well. At least once a year I get convinced by a HN comment that FF is now much better. It is always slow, bloated and markedly worse than Chrome. I really wish it was better.I do wonder what world fellow HN:ers are living in sometimes.
    - prox 7y ago
      I remember reading about an issue on some Linux systems, not sure if they fixed it, but do report these issues if you can.
      - ailideex 7y ago
        Not sure how, it is not exactly a bug, just ... a thing.
    - bilekas 7y ago
      Just given its Fedora I would be a bit nervous to instantly assume full blame on Firefox, given the nature of the OS, but definitely give a try again!
      - kissickas 7y ago
- XCSme 7y ago
  I personally just like Chrome because the awesome syncing between all devices and always having the best Dev Tools ready to open at any second. I know my browser usage is used for marketing purposes, but as long as it doesn't harm me in anyway I can live with that.
  - generalk 7y ago
    I'm not sure if there's something outside my usage that Chrome does better, but for my needs Firefox's dev tools are great. Firefox also not only sync's between all of my devices, including my cell phone. Each device has the ability to send a tab to another device, which I don't recall Chrome having. Just some data points in case you're ever interested in trying something different.
    - judge2020 7y ago
      https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9430554 https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9430554
    - CompBrogrammer 7y ago
      Seems that this has been in Chrome since sometime last year; first mention on Google is in March, but a lot of the stories regarding it are dated September.
  - jeltz 7y ago
    In my opinion Firefox's dev tools are superior for CSS while Chrome has better JS debugging and better profiling.
  - vengefulduck 7y ago
    Firefox also has sync and it’s end to end encrypted as well.
  - latortuga 7y ago
    Firefox has both of these things without intrusive marketing.
- avian 7y ago
  > I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login It's funny because Firefox has been pushing their login thing pretty hard (the yellow "oh no" exclamation mark icon if you're not logged in, the account icon that keeps placing itself back onto my toolbar, occasional full-page ad/nag screen, ...).
  - satya71 7y ago
    One of those browsers tracks everything you do if you sign-in, the other does it only to increase retention, not to track your activities. Guess which is which?
    - anonymousab 7y ago
      It would be better not to do [questionable thing] than to do it at all. I don't particularly care whether nagware functionality is benign or not.
      - Vinnl 7y ago
        A common complaint with Firefox was that you couldn't sync between devices - even though that was perfectly possible! But apparently, people had a hard time finding the functionality. You might not consider that use case important, but I wouldn't call it questionable.
        anonymousab 7y ago
        I'm amiable to this reasoning right up until software conveniently forgets that I told it "no, I don't care, stop bugging me about it". And again. It's the kind of "oops haha just a mistake that we did the bad thing again" shenanigans that Mozilla employees complain about Google doing.
        Vinnl 7y ago
        That's fair.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  Chrome has spread like Malware as a bundled installer with a lot of free software. Also it's on most mobile devices. So it's not that surprising.
- move-on-by 7y ago
  > One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. For reference, FF uses the level 1 disconnect.me block list, which blocks StatCounter scrips from loading on 3rd party sites [1]. [1] https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/blob/7ed6d313763611a6b63988ec346ba01de73d92ad/services.json#L9668 https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti...
  - Belphemur 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure they rely on user agent in the server logs. Sure you can spoof it, but it would be the same for the stat counter.
    - move-on-by 7y ago
      Do you have any sources to back up this claim? I know for a fact that StatCounter uses JavaScript [1] to collect data, much like Google Analytics. I do not see any reason why they would have a separate collection method for browser statistics. Even if they do have alternative collection methods, if they combine that data source with the javascript collection method - it would still cause FF usage to be under reported. [1] https://statcounter.com/support/faq/14-how-do-i-install-statcounter/ https://statcounter.com/support/faq/14-how-do-i-install-stat...
  - SXX 7y ago
    > Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. Of course it's not perfect source, but CloudFlare for instance have client detection purely by SSL handshake fingerprint and it's show 6-7% for Firefox: https://malcolm.cloudflare.com/ https://malcolm.cloudflare.com/ Long ago Wikimedia also had own statistics that was pretty much relevant, but I guess it's discontinued.
    - move-on-by 7y ago
      Wow, that is a great link, thanks for sharing! Doing a filter based on device, FF doesn't even rank on Phone, and has 12.73% on Desktop. Although the data appears to only be for 24 hours - so not super great, but still an interesting data point.
- Nitramp 7y ago
  > [...] I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Might be obvious, but consider that more people than you estimated, while understanding implications and directions, decided differently than you did. It's dangerous to attribute behaviour different from your own to lack of understanding.
- tssva 7y ago
  Last time I used Firefox it asked me to create an account and login. It wasn't required nor is it for Chrome.
  - ASalazarMX 7y ago
    Firefox suggests an account for syncing and leaked password monitoring, but it's dismissable. Chrome, brand new install, will just take your login to GMail, for example, and automatically use it for syncing without asking.
    - tssva 7y ago
      This is just false. A new Chrome install will not take your Gmail login and use it automatically for syncing. It will prompt you if you would like to use the account for syncing and you can dismiss that prompt just as you can dismiss Firefox's prompt to create and login into an account to sync.
      - ASalazarMX 7y ago
        I don't know if it is so now. When the feature was introduced, Chrome synced with my account automatically when I logged in to one of its services. I found it so bold I've never used any Google service inside chrome again.
- moksly 7y ago
  I’m not convinced it’s good to have alternatives, or maybe I’m just too uneducated on the subject to understand why. I’m old enough to have lived through the horror of IE, and since I work in Enterprise where some old web applications still require it, I will continue to live it until we’re capable of rolling out the new Edge with IE compatibility. I’ve actually used FF as my main development browser for most of those years because it’s the only browser where extensions aren’t controlled by our IT department, and I kind of need extensions on the fly. So I’ve seen the good and the bad of it. I personally prefer Chrome. I also like privacy, but I’ve tried the Duck and it just doesn’t work for my language, leading me to add the !g on almost all my searches, and if I’m google that much anyway, so I really benefit from using FF? Doesn’t FF also use one of Google’s engines to check site security? Anyway I’m rambling, so let me get back on track. I’ve been testing the new Edge, and it’s Microsoft’s best browser, and what are the risks? Is it really better to have all the browsers on different engines instead of having multiple big guys work on the same open source engine?
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4% I've used and loved Firefox from before it was called Firefox. I really, really, really want to like the modern Firefox, but I just can't. I find it limiting and irritating. So, sadly, I don't. I don't use Chrome either, though.
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    What do you find limiting about Firefox? How does your browser of choice free you from these limitations?
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      My browser of choice is Waterfox -- so, essentially, pre-Quantum Firefox. There are two things that I find limiting. First, the configurability has been seriously reduced. I really dislike Firefox's UI, and it's no longer possible to make the browser look and feel as I prefer. I can get most of the way there -- but to even do that much is a rather serious pain in the butt. Second, the neutering of the extensions hurt badly, and the only way I can retain the functionality that I want is to use something pre-Quantum. Waterfox has neither of these problems (well, the extension problem is starting to impact Waterfox, which is why I'm no longer updating it. I need to find another browser, but I haven't found a different one that works for me yet. Until I do, Waterfox it is.)
codingmess 7y ago
Freedom and privacy, good. Wokeness, not good. I wish they would have stuck to freedom and privacy. Now I can not wholeheartedly support them any longer. (Referring, for example, to their recent manifesto telling students they should only work for SJW approved companies).
- dangus 7y ago
  I think being “woke” is only “not good” if you subscribe to the Fox News Cult. Thinking carefully about the ethics of the company you work for, especially those in-demand employees who largely have a choice like software engineers, is definitely important. This is not a partisan issue. Sure, you may not get your chance to own the libs, but that stuff is a bit childish, isn’t it? What does the phrase SJW actually mean to you? If you don’t believe that “social justice” is good, what do you find appealing about the alternative of “social injustice?”
  - RabbiPires 7y ago
    The problem is listing it as a primary principle when there are more pressing concerns. I don't care about people's politics, so long as they don't push it to the forefront. Unfortunately this is what seems to happen a lot these days. "Fighting hate" should not be a primary concern for Mozilla right now.
    - dangus 7y ago
      I’m failing to see how Mozilla is being political, and how fighting hate is political. Theoretically, people across the political spectrum should all agree with that. Hate online is a huge problem, and if Mozilla think they have potential to solve that problem, I’d say they can go for it. It’s their budget, not mine or yours.
      - RabbiPires 7y ago
        "Hate" is a loaded term that depends on your interpretation, and can mean a lot of things, most of them political. I won't list them here because it's off-topic on HN. Mozilla right now should focus their efforts on being profitable (or at least sustainable!) without relying on Google, Baidu and Yandex. Ideological or political pursuits should come later.
RabbiPires 7y ago
All this talk about openness and freedom, and Mozilla's builds still ship with the proprietary Pocket extension by default. I really hope they don't have to rely on the revenue from Pocket at some point. Not only that, but it also connects to Google's SafeBrowsing servers. Is that required by their search engine contract with Google? Shouldn't be turned on by default.
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  You know they own Pocket right? Pocket is basically their version of Read Later, etc...And it’s completely optional whether you want to use it or not. So I’m not sure I understand this complaint. Mozilla’s first integration of Pocket was poorly done, and rightfully raised complaints. But since they have purchased it, a lot of those complaints have been resolved.
  - ComodoHacker 7y ago
    >Mozilla’s first integration of Pocket was poorly done, and rightfully raised complaints. But since they have purchased it, a lot of those complaints have been resolved. Off-topic, but I find current integration equally poor. Why do I have to spend extra clicks to login every time I want to add something to Pocket? Why it doesn't use stored credentials just like Sync does?
    - groovybits 7y ago
      << Why it doesn't use stored credentials just like Sync does? >> If you sign into Pocket with your Firefox Sync account, this is the behavior. It should only prompt you to re-login if you've cleared cookies. Even then, you can re-login via FF Sync without entering the password in again. If you're logging in with a service other than FF Sync (ex: Google), I'm not sure how you expect FF to know what your credentials are to log you in.
      - ComodoHacker 7y ago
        >It should only prompt you to re-login if you've cleared cookies Looks like Cookie AutoDelete extension somehow affects Pocket but not Sync. Thank you for hint!
ilitirit 7y ago
> Mozilla lost the browser wars Honest question... who did they lose to? Google Chrome? For me personally, Firefox has been better than Chrome for several years now. The only reason I still load up Chrome is when I want to stream to my Chromecast.
- nathanyukai 7y ago
  Yes, statistically the majority of people are using Chrome
  - Causality1 7y ago
    Which sadly includes me these days, since it's such a pain to run multiple versions of Firefox and there are legacy extensions I can't do without for some things.
    - ori_b 7y ago
      Did you miss that those extensions don't work on chrome either?
    - gruez 7y ago
      What are these features that are built into chrome, but only available as legacy Firefox extensions?
      - smichel17 7y ago
        I interpreted the comment to mean, they run old FF (with extensions) alongside chrome (incompatible), because they don't want to run two versions of FF. I don't quite understand this either, but it makes more sense than the other interpretation, I think.
        Causality1 7y ago
        Bingo. DownThemAll is something I would describe as "mission-critical". I had trouble getting two different versions of Firefox to not interfere with one another in odd ways such as everything running fine until I open a file with Firefox as the associated program and one version would open but have all the settings from the other version and Portable Firefox refusing to save settings or extensions at all. Using Chrome for casual browsing was just less of a headache.
DrScientist 7y ago
Ex-Mozillian Brendan Eich agrees that privacy is the battle for the future http://www.brave.com http://www.brave.com The question is - do you need to re-write the internet economy as Brave are trying to to achieve it, and not just block trackers? The third element is that governments are becoming addicted to the vast trove of information gathered - will they be willing to give that up if a technical/business model solution takes off. Interesting times.
- TuringTest 7y ago
  They will still have enough of it to get their dose - default setups, corporate apps, embedded devices everywhere. They just don't need to get ALL your online behavior as they do know by default.
- catalogia 7y ago
  I want no part of Brave's weird cryptoish scheme. I know the feature is opt-in, but I don't see the point in supporting an organization unable to find a source of revenue I find agreeable. Even something as simple and obnoxious as donation nagging, like Wikipedia, seems preferable to what Brave has proposed.
  - prepend 7y ago
    It’s not perfect, but I like it better than the alternatives (selling user data, non profit). Technically the browser is nice, but there’s something nice about a for profit org whose incentives are aligned with mine. For now, I use a FireFox for similar reasons, but I like Brave’s mode for the web better than the “bad ad” model that google and Facebook push. I used to like Opera for similar reasons.
    - hvis 7y ago
      What could one find disgreeable in a company being a non-profit?
      - luckylion 7y ago
mark_l_watson 7y ago
I liked the wrap up where the position is that it is OK when other browsers adopt some of Mozilla’s privacy features. I just about exclusively use FireFox with nine containers on my Linux and macOS laptops. Being able to segregate data is a game changer. On my iOS devices, I feel stuck with Safari since other browsers sit on top of Safari. I appreciate the privacy features in Safari but still feel the need to frequently remove all cookies and use private tabs when using sites like FaceBook. I just wrote about this yesterday https://mark-watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-from-surveillance.html https://mark-watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-... Because I like to sometimes use my Chromebook, I am stuck using the Chrome web browser. Deleting all cookies frequently helps.
- move-on-by 7y ago
  Private tabs are the only way I use Safari. I found that I rarely use websites that I need to be logged in to, as those type of services generally have an App that I'm already using. For the odd case where I need to login, with my password vault, its only a couple extra clicks.
  - mark_l_watson 7y ago
    +1 that is excellent advice. When non-tech friends ask how much of a hassle it is deleting all cookies, I point out that the passwords are saved and reliving in is quick. All private tabs is obviously better, and I will do that more often.
- Tomte 7y ago
  > On my iOS devices, I feel stuck with Safari since other browsers sit on top of Safari More importantly, Safari is the anointed web browser that opens all web links. If you could designate Firefox to be the primary web browser, I'd do so in a heartbeat, because "Send to device" is so damn useful when you're using Firefox everywhere.
ocdtrekkie 7y ago
The aforementioned Facebook Container was an excellent step, but if they really were serious about fixing Internet privacy regardless of their financial backers, they'd ship an official Google Container as well. (A third party developer ships one as a fork of Facebook Container, but it'd be far preferable for a Mozilla shipped one.) They capitalized on the Cambridge Analytica scandal with the launch of that extension, but won't follow up with the Google equivalent. The code is already written, I just think they are still too scared to ship an extension that works against their primary sponsor.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bogle 7y ago
  There's the Multi-Account Containers add-on.
  - flamtap 7y ago
    +1 on this. I have containers set up for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon logins (and all the apps they respectively own, that I of course do not have perfect knowledge of). It's quite clunky to set up though. To add a site to a container, I have to open a new tab in the target container, go to the website, check "always open in this container" in the container menu, then open a new tab, then say "yes, always in this container" at the prompt.
- MrsPeaches 7y ago
  As sister comment points out: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    Facebook Container requires and builds on this extension, you actually can’t replicate the functionality with that addon alone.
heartbeats 7y ago
If they want to do something, there's a simple three-step plan. 1) block all ads, by default 2) do not unblock Google's ads, 3) receive Adblock Plus-style bribes from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them, provided they don't harm privacy This would kill several birds in one stone. First, break Mozilla free of Google funding. Second, hurt Google. Third, increase Firefox' market share. Fourth, help users' privacy. As things stand today, Mozilla just exist so that Google can pretend they don't have a monopoly. Follow the money - who pays? (A: Google pays nearly all of their budget, and they have next to no rainy day fund)
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  They could probably exist without Google funding, like just supporting a Chromium fork with fast native adblocking. But obviously not as a thousand people company.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - heartbeats 7y ago
    Sure, but organizations strive for bigness. It's the perfect way to kill one, actually. 1) Give them $0.2 billion a year in easy money 2) Their projects expand as per Parkinson's law so they spend $0.2 billion a year 3) Since they have easy money, they won't bother seeking alternative funding sources 4) They now find themselves in the same position as a crack whore vis-a-vis her pimp Mozilla wouldn't ever abandon their fun pet projects, but with sufficient coercion they might abandon privacy for "fighting hate" or similar.
- ComodoHacker 7y ago
  >from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them, provided they don't harm privacy I doubt you can find one that doesn't harm privacy. And particulary Yandex will raise other concerns.
  - move-on-by 7y ago
stevespang 7y ago
Fake news.
Slashbot 7y ago
Let me know when those bafoons at Mozilla figure out how to add back the functionality, features and customisation of most of the addons that used to exist for Firefox pre Quantum copy chrome garbage direction.. like TabMixPlus for a start.. Until then there whole privacy gambit ploy to sucker in idiots can fall on deaf ears, they literately handed the web over to fucking Goorble. Mozilla = idiot SJW company Use Vivaldi, loads better than Firefox now.
beardedman 7y ago
I've been using Brave these days. Really like it. IMO: Firefox doesn't seem to know what sort of company they are anymore. Their product arsenal is expanding, yet core features of their flagship product is still stuck in the 2000's.
- jeltz 7y ago
  How is Firefox stuck in the 2000s? They recently switched to an entirely new modern renderer, switched to a modern fast layout engine and implement new web strandards very quickly, sometimes faster than Chrome.
  - beardedman 7y ago
    I said core features, not the entire browser. Their bookmark manager hasn't changed for many many years.
walrus01 7y ago
Firefox on Android has become my go to choice now, because it supports the full set of desktop firefox plugins, including the essential ublock origin. I can't even imagine mobile browsing without full adblock functionality anymore.
- cobalt60 7y ago
  AdguardHome/PiHole on DoT/DoH? Android 9+ supports private DNS.
  - VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
    yes, you could use those too.
  - zaarn 7y ago
    DNS blockers don't block all ads, uBlock on top is very effective.
ecmascript 7y ago
Mozilla essentially did a "get woke, go broke". They fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons, they focused on products that were useless and were really focused on spreading propaganda for woke causes. I still use Firefox everyday since it's the best browser for linux but I also use Brave. Mozilla as a company in my eyes are a bit lost and they need more focus on their technology. It seems like they have realized this in the last two years or so and I hope that trend will continue. Firefox is awesome, focus on privacy is awesome. MDN is awesome. If they need money from other sources than Google, why not create some kind of subscription service for their MDN docs? There is a bunch of things they actually need to fix like lack of PWA support in firefox (still) which is pretty bad that they don't have that enabled by default. Focus on what matters, no one cares about your woke politics in the long run.
- Angostura 7y ago
  > hey fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons Marriage equality isn't a particularly ridiculous reason.
  - ecmascript 7y ago
    So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare time? Or does the same rules apply for everyone that works at Mozilla? If so, how the fuck does anyone know what is a fireable opinion? It's not like he used company resources to promote his beliefs or enforced his beliefs on others. What Mozilla did to Brendan is essentially to enforce thought crime on their own staff. It's kind of hard to take them seriously when they say they value integrity after that. This idea of an outrage culture is what makes Mozilla go down the shitter. No one cares about that shit except a very small minority in SF. It's not like Google or most other for-profit company cares about marriage inequality either. Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't mean they care. They care about profits and market dominance only. If Google would make more money being anti same sex marriage, then they would most likely oppose same sex marriage and spend a lot of money on lobbying for the opposing view. I'm certain that firing Brendan was probably one of the worst decisions Mozilla has taken so far. I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue since they only care about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face. I'm convinced that Brave will be larger than Firefox in market share sooner rather than later mostly because of this reason alone.
jeffrufino 7y ago
Brilliant, I'll be moving to Firefox.
fmajid 7y ago
Their shabby treatment of Brendan Eich discredits their self-proclaimed commitment to diversity and open discourse.
cotelletta 7y ago
Every time people breathlessly relate the tale of Cambridge Analytica as the day privacy died, you should know they have no clue. Because the Obama campaign built the exact same kind of dataset, using the same APIs, with the same overreach, 4 years prior, and Facebook knew about it and looked the other way. The campaign boasted about leaving the stone age Republicans in the dust. I guess the Dems don't look so hot now anymore after Iowa. All of this is a matter of record. It was only bad when the "wrong" people pushed the wrong kind of propaganda, and the response was a massive push by the media to point the finger. Media, btw, whose websites too send your data to more than a hundred partners per site visit. They all fixate on the scapegoat because otherwise they'd have to admit to being part of the problem. That they then mix up the uncontroversial topic of privacy with the old hobby horses of diversity and equality is the final nail in the coffin. Mozilla is more interested in signaling their moral compliance with the current year rather than finding commonality on the greater topic of respecting privacy and thinking long term. Oh yeah, where were any of these people when Stallman was scapegoated to absolve MIT of its Epstein sins? R.I.P. Mozilla. It killed IE, and then hubris and brain damage killed it.
cousin_it 7y ago
1) Thirteen banner ads, most of them animated 2) Tracking from Google and Facebook 3) Cookie warning with no way to opt out 4) You can only opt out if you live in California: > Opting out of the sharing of your personal information by Protocol with marketers: Please send an email to privacy@protocol.com with the following information: -Name -Email -Confirmation of California residency
- tclover 7y ago
  I often forget how does the internet look like without the adblocker
  - nunodonato 7y ago
    same. I only see a very clean article :)
  - hobofan 7y ago
    Not using a dedicated ad blocker (just Firefox) and the article looks very clean to me.
    - NeutronStar 7y ago
      OP is using Chrome and complaining about tracking.
- metastart 7y ago
  No ads coming up in my Epic Privacy Browser with adblock & encrypted proxy on :-). Firefox has been copying a lot of Epic's features, but still is far behind their privacy defaults.
- waitwhatwhoa 7y ago
  There are a few news organizations somehow battling it out to survive without advertising and I applaud them, but most comments like these simply remind me of this sentiment: https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
davidy123 7y ago
The concept of the browser is a universal vehicle for information. One of the greatest breakthroughs for browsers, aside from increasing front end application rendering and interactivity, is extensions. They put the user as the primary, where they can access, control, organize the information accessed as they wish using extensions. Of course, there is a wild west aspect to this, and over time extension facilities are becoming closer to app stores, with ratings and permissions being primary. Chrome has had some of the best support for extensions, making it easy to create them and offering most features through them, which is one reason I use it instead of Firefox day to day. But no browser properly supports extensions on mobile. Chrome just doesn't, the Kiwi fork is supposed to but in my experience doesn't really, Firefox says they will but the signals are it will only be select extensions, at least for now. Extensions are one of the best markers and facilities of a free, user first web, that isn't just about accessing opaque, absolutely controlled services, where hobbyists and principled organizations can work directly in the space of privacy and trust as information is processed, so I hope they pick up some priority.
- blackearl 7y ago
  Mobile Firefox has the only extension I really need on there, uBlock Origin. No other mobile browser has anything comparable from what I've seen so I'm not sure what you're talking about on that point.
- dexen 7y ago
  >Firefox says they will [properly support extensions on mobile] The most relevant extension - uBlock Origin - works just fine on mobile Firefox. It's a real game changer, especially with screen real estate and energy usage being quite important on mobile. That extension alone is why I have and use Firefox on mobile phones (aside of the usual compatibility testing on other browsers for certain web projects).
- davidy123 7y ago
  This site, for all its virtues, really cracks me up sometimes. I was talking about the open world of extensions, with an 's,' of which there are many. But apparently all the world needs is uBlock, and whatever the sites and browser companies deign to provide. Some hackers.
h91wka 7y ago
It's funny how Mozilla preaches privacy, but if you open `about:config' and count 1) parameters that include word "telemetry" 2) everything that looks like a unique token 3) "mozilla.org" URLs you'll see that the sum is steadily going up with every release. It leaves me under impression that Mozilla is trying to follow Facebook and Google. Lately they removed setting to use a custom page for the new tabs, leaving only choice between blank page and Mozilla-provided "interest based" homepage. I am still using it as the main browser, though, as "lesser evil", but discrepancy between Mozilla's slogans and actual features is pretty chilling.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  And none of that is used to influence elections or make you buy stuff you don't want.
  - ninkendo 7y ago
    Are we sure about this? I mean I mostly agree that telemetry is different, but how can we be sure Mozilla isn't sharing their telemetry information with ad networks to help fingerprint you? It seems the only way to be truly sure is if we could verify the browser sent no information at all, right? Or else it's just about trust, same as any other browser.
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      It's mostly about trust, but we have more reasons to trust Mozilla than other browser vendors - they consist of a community of people who care about their values, they've staked their reputation on those values, they are transparent, they're a legal non-profit, etc. Their financial statements are also public, and I don't think any income from ad networks has been found there.
      - h91wka 7y ago
        > More reasons to trust Mozilla? I think Cliqz incident and Shield Studies AR Game incident prove that you can trust Mozilla as much as any other huge corp.
badrabbit 7y ago
Can they focus on making it perform as well as Chrome? I mean, I support their efforts and all but I am forced to use a chrome based browser because FF has poor windows/sso integration and absolutley horrible memory management. A tab of any tool's webui that does a lot of work with a lot of data will not only bring firefox to a halt but the entire system. I can at least try to use it for soft workloads but you never know when visiting the wrong page will cause this issue again. Why can't it manage it's impact on the rest of the system? My job performance would tank dramarically if I used firefox exclusively! Why can't they work to make it better than Chrome? They were throwing Rust at it a few years ago,so what happened? Do they just not test against the right sites? I mean, the mozilla foundation is not poor. They have money. Is it just politics or do they think getting gmail and youtube to work is all that is needed? I am only saying all this because i like firefox. Mozilla needs a wake up call. Do they not get the problems at hand or do they not care or do they lack some resource or motivation? I mean I will be happy to even buy a license for firefox if they get it to even come close to Chrome's performance. Maybe they have too many well intended fanboy's cheeeing them on?
- Liquid_Fire 7y ago
  Perhaps the specific websites you are using are particularly bad on Firefox (whether due to issues with the website or Firefox), but I do not share your experience at all. For me Firefox is fast and I never see it using too much memory, much less bringing the whole system to a halt. So my suggestion is to file bugs for any websites that perform particularly badly for you.
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    Specific? Yes ,but it's a ton of sites. The site devs basically give up on firefox.
- Scarbutt 7y ago
  They can't compete with Google on engineering. Also, Google attracts better talent and pays more.
- justinph 7y ago
gfody 7y ago
Using uMatrix really raised my awareness of how bad things are - spyTech is utterly everywhere. I still take the time to micromanage my matrix every time I encounter a new site and it’s ridiculous how long it can take to get a random infested page back to an acceptable level of usability.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- milofeynman 7y ago
  Me too. I prefer micromanaging what a site gets access to. It's sadly not a great solution for anyone who isn't technical and somewhat persnickety.
- nsomaru 7y ago
  uMatrix is better than nothing but I want more micromanagement. I want to be able to block on a per script basis because some sites will load 49 scripts from some other domain and only 1 or 2 will actually be needed to make the page work properly.
  - gfody 7y ago
    agree, I'd love to see uMatrix get more sophisticated.. there are already a lot of sites that simply cannot be fixed
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kup0 7y ago
I'm finally back to Firefox for good. Feels good to be home. I keep 'Edge-ium' around if I encounter any rare use cases that necessitate it, but that's relatively rare
inviromentalist 7y ago
If anyone can figure out why Firefox doesn't work on my computer, let me know. It's at least 30 times slower than chrome. So somethings wrong Right?
- jeltz 7y ago
  Yeah, that is not normal at all. Firefox should be about as fast as Chrome on most workloads.
worldvision 7y ago
World Vision India is focused on exclusive expectations of responsibility and straightforwardness which is a statement of our guiding principle on ''how to sponsor a child in another country”. This is on the grounds that we intensely accept that we work successfully for the prosperity of kids. World Vision India ceaselessly endeavors to keep up high national and global models of expert capability and is responsible through proper structures for accomplishing these norms. https://www.worldvision.in https://www.worldvision.in
einpoklum 7y ago
Mozilla destroyed their own platform - by removing its most significant feature, which was deep extensibility, instead of fixing it to keep that feature. > That's how Mozilla works: slowly, collaboratively, trying to speak for everyone. I don't remember Mozilla works collaboratively. By the way - remind me where they publish their income sources again? > "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Yeah, well, so has the printing press. When someone suggests we should keep a "healty press", that's oligarchic censorship. Reminds me of the US Comics Code. > Mozilla has spent the last several years fighting harder and louder than ever for the future of the internet. Must not have been loud enough, because I believe few people have noticed this. > the company's vision of a more user-centric, privacy-conscious web. "user-centric" web? Don't know what that means. It's like "reader-centric books". As for privacy - when something like uBlock Origin and EFF Privacy Badger is installed by default, and when TOR is an easily-accessible option, and when Mozilla funds some TOR endpoint routers (in countries outside US reach of course), then we'll talk. > But what if people could also use them to keep Facebook from snooping as they traveled the web? If Facebook was prevented from snooping entirely, that would not be that much of an issue. > Firefox has long held the not-entirely-flattering distinction of being the most popular browser not made by a huge corporation It's bankrolled by huge corporations. IIRC it was mostly Google for a while. Also, see below about their new VP. I am reminded how Mozilla had, for years, neglected its email client in favor of the browser, thus effectively helping to promote webmail, stored and spied on by these corporations. It certainly did nothing to promote end-to-end encryption of email, which has been quite possible with Thunderbird, and would have prevented (some of the) spying on users. > So far, Firefox has blocked 1.6 trillion tracking requests That means it doesn't block most tracking requests. > Alan Davidson ... new VP of policy ... has been working ... at Google and then as President Barack Obama's director of digital economy So one of the top people at the spying-B-us corporation and the "can't have privacy and security" administration is the new VP who'll help protect us from his former colleagues and bosses? Uh-huh.
mehdix 7y ago
As a FF user I'll also share my experience. Since Firefox switched to Quantum, I am exclusively using it on my work, home and portable computers. Chromium on my Arch Laptop was buggy, had a memory leak, and would consume all my 16G of RAM after keeping tabs open for a while. Firefox solved that for me. With uBlock, Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete and FF's built-in blocker I have a functional defense-line against privacy violating practices (not totally immune against fingerprinting yet). The reader mode helps me to get rid of the clutter and read the text, very happy with that. I also use Firefox and Firefox Preview on Android. The latter is specially superior in performance and has less bugs. For example on Firefox Android I had non-finishing download bars, not any more in the Preview. The performance is obviously superior. Nighly builds support uBlock now. The "Send Tab" feature is also very practical (I have a FF account for syncing purposes). I send tabs to my other devices which helps me to follow things on my other machines and also to memorize things by seeing them in a short while on another machine. There are two things about FF that I dislike. First thing is the massive amount of outdated articles and ancient support tickets online. Good luck with searching for a technical solution for a FF problem! Next thing is the source code. I have compiled it many times in order to fix a niche bug. I even bought a better PC to compile it faster. This aside, it is hard to understand the code. There are zillions of moving pieces, and ad-hoc bug fixing is not an option. You have to follow things for weeks if not months to get to the right information. This probably can be improved by better docs explaining the code to contributors and new comers. Overall I'm happy with it. Moreover, it is important to have alternatives otherwise we might lose the open web as we know it. Edit: add paragraphs
- rbritton 7y ago
  Another FF plugin you might like is Multi-Account Containers [0]. It lets you isolate one or more websites from others to minimize their tracking ability. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
dependenttypes 7y ago
How ironic. Firefox is the browser that calls home the most on the first run https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480 https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604... They also disabled the ability for extensions to work on mozilla pages and things like about:addons by default, where mozilla uses google analytics. They add new tracking crap on the browser in every release, so you are at a loss what to disable first in about:config as the online guides tend to get outdated easily. > that's good for trolls and surveillance organizations and violent groups Only "surveillance organizations" is relevant to privacy. The others make me think of centralisation and censorship. The only real way to browse privately is to use a browser with javascript disabled and only a subset of css enabled over tor/isp. (but then you have to deal with cloudflare and broken sites)
- jamienicol 7y ago
  What is the relevance of "number of calls home on first run"? Surely the contents of said calls, and over an extended time period, is a much more important measurement?
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    I think that the number of calls home on first run is more important because you don't get an option to disable them.
us000538 7y ago
Specifically for mobile divices mozilla's performance is too good you can feel it just try to open blogger html codes in crome it will hang but for mozilla it's fine https://www.boringworld.org https://www.boringworld.org
wnevets 7y ago
The moment ublock origin is limited or broken in chrome is the moment I abandon chrome completely and switch to firefox full time.
CivBase 7y ago
> Baker wrote on Mozilla's blog that in the last decade, the world had seen "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Baker then added four new manifesto principles calling for equality, discourse and diversity online in an addendum called "Pledge for a Healthy Internet." "Equality, discourse, and diversity" are the very principles that enable people to "magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Any attempt to promote freedom of expression while simultaneously silencing the worst of humanity is inherently at odds. Hatred is a naturally occuring phenomina, not a learned behavior. You can't just quarantine it to make it go away. That only makes it worse. The internet is not a breeding ground for hatred. It's just a reflection of how bad we can really be.
SergeAx 7y ago
The momemt Google pull the plug for Ublock Origin and other similar plugins - we'll see how "Mozilla lost the browser wars".
mariushn 7y ago
I'd love to have a Gmail-like alternative, both with a Mozilla domain (personal) and custom domains (business), for a small yearly subscription. Maybe have ad-supported as an alternative.
tonfreed 7y ago
> namedropping Cambridge Analytica And opinion discarded

377 points by DvdGiessen 7y ago

Maybe the ultimate move would be to create a Tor alternative that goes beyond slapping on some privacy on the pig that has become the Internet.

OmarShehata 7y ago
Why would that be better than current solutions, which at best users don't really notice when they work, and at worse dislike because they make many things less convenient? > Making private browsing more private was a success, which is to say less data was collected and users didn't notice the difference. > The same trackers, though, help users log into sites and pay for goods, and blocking them would break the internet for lots of users.

throwaway8291 7y ago

I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login (at around version 40). Never looked back. One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Maybe I'm too optimistic. Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering and all the innovation they added to the field - it's just good to have alternatives.

Ygg2 7y ago
> Maybe I'm too optimistic. Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either. Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome. Anything based on Chromium counts as well, their codebase is dictated by Google, one way or the other. My mom had so many issues with ads until I installed Firefox for her, and honestly, the ad blockers make the internet a much better for navigation.
- realusername 7y ago
  > Do what you can - donate time or money, or just recommend everyone to not use the piece of carp that is Chrome. Or if you are building web products, please use Firefox as your dev browser, that's what I'm doing and it automatically insures that whatever I build will work on Firefox.
  - wolco 7y ago
    I've been doing this for years.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  > money As I understand it, donating money to Mozilla does not fund Firefox in any way but rather their other social initiatives (see the Mozilla Foundation page for a list). Firefox is under the Mozilla Corporation which is funded by things like search deals with Google.
- ksec 7y ago
  >Don't be optimistic, but don't be pesimistic either. The Modern US / Silicon Valley mentality is you have to be optimistic at all cost. Being Realistic is counted as pessimism.
- sunnytimes 7y ago
  i'm the IT guy in my shop so when i got here i switched every machine to firefox + ecosia.org for search and only one guy went back to chrome.. i try and spread the fox around as much i can.
bilekas 7y ago
I'm on my waay BACK to Firefox, there was a strange period when I left, Firefox just seemed really heavy on my machine, and it was super intensive for some dev tools. Now I say the same about chrome and find FF much lighter and efficient. Delighted that FF are taking a bit of a stronger stand here in the privacy dept too .
- ailideex 7y ago
  Using Fedora Linux, last I tried a switch to FF (less than 6 months ago) it was way slower than chrome. I actually like FF functionality more and would prefer to use it but my laptop runs significantly hotter when I run FF on it.
  - Numberwang 7y ago
    This is my experience as well. At least once a year I get convinced by a HN comment that FF is now much better. It is always slow, bloated and markedly worse than Chrome. I really wish it was better.I do wonder what world fellow HN:ers are living in sometimes.
  - prox 7y ago
    I remember reading about an issue on some Linux systems, not sure if they fixed it, but do report these issues if you can.
    - ailideex 7y ago
      Not sure how, it is not exactly a bug, just ... a thing.
  - bilekas 7y ago
    Just given its Fedora I would be a bit nervous to instantly assume full blame on Firefox, given the nature of the OS, but definitely give a try again!
    - kissickas 7y ago
XCSme 7y ago
I personally just like Chrome because the awesome syncing between all devices and always having the best Dev Tools ready to open at any second. I know my browser usage is used for marketing purposes, but as long as it doesn't harm me in anyway I can live with that.
- generalk 7y ago
  I'm not sure if there's something outside my usage that Chrome does better, but for my needs Firefox's dev tools are great. Firefox also not only sync's between all of my devices, including my cell phone. Each device has the ability to send a tab to another device, which I don't recall Chrome having. Just some data points in case you're ever interested in trying something different.
  - judge2020 7y ago
    https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9430554 https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9430554
  - CompBrogrammer 7y ago
    Seems that this has been in Chrome since sometime last year; first mention on Google is in March, but a lot of the stories regarding it are dated September.
- jeltz 7y ago
  In my opinion Firefox's dev tools are superior for CSS while Chrome has better JS debugging and better profiling.
- vengefulduck 7y ago
  Firefox also has sync and it’s end to end encrypted as well.
- latortuga 7y ago
  Firefox has both of these things without intrusive marketing.
avian 7y ago
> I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login It's funny because Firefox has been pushing their login thing pretty hard (the yellow "oh no" exclamation mark icon if you're not logged in, the account icon that keeps placing itself back onto my toolbar, occasional full-page ad/nag screen, ...).
- satya71 7y ago
  One of those browsers tracks everything you do if you sign-in, the other does it only to increase retention, not to track your activities. Guess which is which?
  - anonymousab 7y ago
    It would be better not to do [questionable thing] than to do it at all. I don't particularly care whether nagware functionality is benign or not.
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      A common complaint with Firefox was that you couldn't sync between devices - even though that was perfectly possible! But apparently, people had a hard time finding the functionality. You might not consider that use case important, but I wouldn't call it questionable.
      - anonymousab 7y ago
        I'm amiable to this reasoning right up until software conveniently forgets that I told it "no, I don't care, stop bugging me about it". And again. It's the kind of "oops haha just a mistake that we did the bad thing again" shenanigans that Mozilla employees complain about Google doing.
        Vinnl 7y ago
        That's fair.
Krasnol 7y ago
Chrome has spread like Malware as a bundled installer with a lot of free software. Also it's on most mobile devices. So it's not that surprising.
move-on-by 7y ago
> One day I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. For reference, FF uses the level 1 disconnect.me block list, which blocks StatCounter scrips from loading on 3rd party sites [1]. [1] https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/blob/7ed6d313763611a6b63988ec346ba01de73d92ad/services.json#L9668 https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti...
- Belphemur 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure they rely on user agent in the server logs. Sure you can spoof it, but it would be the same for the stat counter.
  - move-on-by 7y ago
    Do you have any sources to back up this claim? I know for a fact that StatCounter uses JavaScript [1] to collect data, much like Google Analytics. I do not see any reason why they would have a separate collection method for browser statistics. Even if they do have alternative collection methods, if they combine that data source with the javascript collection method - it would still cause FF usage to be under reported. [1] https://statcounter.com/support/faq/14-how-do-i-install-statcounter/ https://statcounter.com/support/faq/14-how-do-i-install-stat...
- SXX 7y ago
  > Its certainly low, but I also think FF usage is under reported due to built-in tracker blocking. Of course it's not perfect source, but CloudFlare for instance have client detection purely by SSL handshake fingerprint and it's show 6-7% for Firefox: https://malcolm.cloudflare.com/ https://malcolm.cloudflare.com/ Long ago Wikimedia also had own statistics that was pretty much relevant, but I guess it's discontinued.
  - move-on-by 7y ago
    Wow, that is a great link, thanks for sharing! Doing a filter based on device, FF doesn't even rank on Phone, and has 12.73% on Desktop. Although the data appears to only be for 24 hours - so not super great, but still an interesting data point.
Nitramp 7y ago
> [...] I thought many people would understand the implications and directions. Might be obvious, but consider that more people than you estimated, while understanding implications and directions, decided differently than you did. It's dangerous to attribute behaviour different from your own to lack of understanding.
tssva 7y ago
Last time I used Firefox it asked me to create an account and login. It wasn't required nor is it for Chrome.
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  Firefox suggests an account for syncing and leaked password monitoring, but it's dismissable. Chrome, brand new install, will just take your login to GMail, for example, and automatically use it for syncing without asking.
  - tssva 7y ago
    This is just false. A new Chrome install will not take your Gmail login and use it automatically for syncing. It will prompt you if you would like to use the account for syncing and you can dismiss that prompt just as you can dismiss Firefox's prompt to create and login into an account to sync.
    - ASalazarMX 7y ago
      I don't know if it is so now. When the feature was introduced, Chrome synced with my account automatically when I logged in to one of its services. I found it so bold I've never used any Google service inside chrome again.
moksly 7y ago
I’m not convinced it’s good to have alternatives, or maybe I’m just too uneducated on the subject to understand why. I’m old enough to have lived through the horror of IE, and since I work in Enterprise where some old web applications still require it, I will continue to live it until we’re capable of rolling out the new Edge with IE compatibility. I’ve actually used FF as my main development browser for most of those years because it’s the only browser where extensions aren’t controlled by our IT department, and I kind of need extensions on the fly. So I’ve seen the good and the bad of it. I personally prefer Chrome. I also like privacy, but I’ve tried the Duck and it just doesn’t work for my language, leading me to add the !g on almost all my searches, and if I’m google that much anyway, so I really benefit from using FF? Doesn’t FF also use one of Google’s engines to check site security? Anyway I’m rambling, so let me get back on track. I’ve been testing the new Edge, and it’s Microsoft’s best browser, and what are the risks? Is it really better to have all the browsers on different engines instead of having multiple big guys work on the same open source engine?
JohnFen 7y ago
> I woke up to a chart showing browser market share of FF at around 4% I've used and loved Firefox from before it was called Firefox. I really, really, really want to like the modern Firefox, but I just can't. I find it limiting and irritating. So, sadly, I don't. I don't use Chrome either, though.
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  What do you find limiting about Firefox? How does your browser of choice free you from these limitations?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    My browser of choice is Waterfox -- so, essentially, pre-Quantum Firefox. There are two things that I find limiting. First, the configurability has been seriously reduced. I really dislike Firefox's UI, and it's no longer possible to make the browser look and feel as I prefer. I can get most of the way there -- but to even do that much is a rather serious pain in the butt. Second, the neutering of the extensions hurt badly, and the only way I can retain the functionality that I want is to use something pre-Quantum. Waterfox has neither of these problems (well, the extension problem is starting to impact Waterfox, which is why I'm no longer updating it. I need to find another browser, but I haven't found a different one that works for me yet. Until I do, Waterfox it is.)

codingmess 7y ago

Freedom and privacy, good. Wokeness, not good. I wish they would have stuck to freedom and privacy. Now I can not wholeheartedly support them any longer. (Referring, for example, to their recent manifesto telling students they should only work for SJW approved companies).

dangus 7y ago
I think being “woke” is only “not good” if you subscribe to the Fox News Cult. Thinking carefully about the ethics of the company you work for, especially those in-demand employees who largely have a choice like software engineers, is definitely important. This is not a partisan issue. Sure, you may not get your chance to own the libs, but that stuff is a bit childish, isn’t it? What does the phrase SJW actually mean to you? If you don’t believe that “social justice” is good, what do you find appealing about the alternative of “social injustice?”
- RabbiPires 7y ago
  The problem is listing it as a primary principle when there are more pressing concerns. I don't care about people's politics, so long as they don't push it to the forefront. Unfortunately this is what seems to happen a lot these days. "Fighting hate" should not be a primary concern for Mozilla right now.
  - dangus 7y ago
    I’m failing to see how Mozilla is being political, and how fighting hate is political. Theoretically, people across the political spectrum should all agree with that. Hate online is a huge problem, and if Mozilla think they have potential to solve that problem, I’d say they can go for it. It’s their budget, not mine or yours.
    - RabbiPires 7y ago
      "Hate" is a loaded term that depends on your interpretation, and can mean a lot of things, most of them political. I won't list them here because it's off-topic on HN. Mozilla right now should focus their efforts on being profitable (or at least sustainable!) without relying on Google, Baidu and Yandex. Ideological or political pursuits should come later.

RabbiPires 7y ago

All this talk about openness and freedom, and Mozilla's builds still ship with the proprietary Pocket extension by default. I really hope they don't have to rely on the revenue from Pocket at some point. Not only that, but it also connects to Google's SafeBrowsing servers. Is that required by their search engine contract with Google? Shouldn't be turned on by default.

thawaway1837 7y ago
You know they own Pocket right? Pocket is basically their version of Read Later, etc...And it’s completely optional whether you want to use it or not. So I’m not sure I understand this complaint. Mozilla’s first integration of Pocket was poorly done, and rightfully raised complaints. But since they have purchased it, a lot of those complaints have been resolved.
- ComodoHacker 7y ago
  >Mozilla’s first integration of Pocket was poorly done, and rightfully raised complaints. But since they have purchased it, a lot of those complaints have been resolved. Off-topic, but I find current integration equally poor. Why do I have to spend extra clicks to login every time I want to add something to Pocket? Why it doesn't use stored credentials just like Sync does?
  - groovybits 7y ago
    << Why it doesn't use stored credentials just like Sync does? >> If you sign into Pocket with your Firefox Sync account, this is the behavior. It should only prompt you to re-login if you've cleared cookies. Even then, you can re-login via FF Sync without entering the password in again. If you're logging in with a service other than FF Sync (ex: Google), I'm not sure how you expect FF to know what your credentials are to log you in.
    - ComodoHacker 7y ago
      >It should only prompt you to re-login if you've cleared cookies Looks like Cookie AutoDelete extension somehow affects Pocket but not Sync. Thank you for hint!

ilitirit 7y ago

> Mozilla lost the browser wars Honest question... who did they lose to? Google Chrome? For me personally, Firefox has been better than Chrome for several years now. The only reason I still load up Chrome is when I want to stream to my Chromecast.

nathanyukai 7y ago
Yes, statistically the majority of people are using Chrome
- Causality1 7y ago
  Which sadly includes me these days, since it's such a pain to run multiple versions of Firefox and there are legacy extensions I can't do without for some things.
  - ori_b 7y ago
    Did you miss that those extensions don't work on chrome either?
  - gruez 7y ago
    What are these features that are built into chrome, but only available as legacy Firefox extensions?
    - smichel17 7y ago
      I interpreted the comment to mean, they run old FF (with extensions) alongside chrome (incompatible), because they don't want to run two versions of FF. I don't quite understand this either, but it makes more sense than the other interpretation, I think.
      - Causality1 7y ago
        Bingo. DownThemAll is something I would describe as "mission-critical". I had trouble getting two different versions of Firefox to not interfere with one another in odd ways such as everything running fine until I open a file with Firefox as the associated program and one version would open but have all the settings from the other version and Portable Firefox refusing to save settings or extensions at all. Using Chrome for casual browsing was just less of a headache.

DrScientist 7y ago

Ex-Mozillian Brendan Eich agrees that privacy is the battle for the future http://www.brave.com http://www.brave.com The question is - do you need to re-write the internet economy as Brave are trying to to achieve it, and not just block trackers? The third element is that governments are becoming addicted to the vast trove of information gathered - will they be willing to give that up if a technical/business model solution takes off. Interesting times.

TuringTest 7y ago
They will still have enough of it to get their dose - default setups, corporate apps, embedded devices everywhere. They just don't need to get ALL your online behavior as they do know by default.
catalogia 7y ago
I want no part of Brave's weird cryptoish scheme. I know the feature is opt-in, but I don't see the point in supporting an organization unable to find a source of revenue I find agreeable. Even something as simple and obnoxious as donation nagging, like Wikipedia, seems preferable to what Brave has proposed.
- prepend 7y ago
  It’s not perfect, but I like it better than the alternatives (selling user data, non profit). Technically the browser is nice, but there’s something nice about a for profit org whose incentives are aligned with mine. For now, I use a FireFox for similar reasons, but I like Brave’s mode for the web better than the “bad ad” model that google and Facebook push. I used to like Opera for similar reasons.
  - hvis 7y ago
    What could one find disgreeable in a company being a non-profit?
    - luckylion 7y ago

mark_l_watson 7y ago

I liked the wrap up where the position is that it is OK when other browsers adopt some of Mozilla’s privacy features. I just about exclusively use FireFox with nine containers on my Linux and macOS laptops. Being able to segregate data is a game changer. On my iOS devices, I feel stuck with Safari since other browsers sit on top of Safari. I appreciate the privacy features in Safari but still feel the need to frequently remove all cookies and use private tabs when using sites like FaceBook. I just wrote about this yesterday https://mark-watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-from-surveillance.html https://mark-watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-... Because I like to sometimes use my Chromebook, I am stuck using the Chrome web browser. Deleting all cookies frequently helps.

move-on-by 7y ago
Private tabs are the only way I use Safari. I found that I rarely use websites that I need to be logged in to, as those type of services generally have an App that I'm already using. For the odd case where I need to login, with my password vault, its only a couple extra clicks.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  +1 that is excellent advice. When non-tech friends ask how much of a hassle it is deleting all cookies, I point out that the passwords are saved and reliving in is quick. All private tabs is obviously better, and I will do that more often.
Tomte 7y ago
> On my iOS devices, I feel stuck with Safari since other browsers sit on top of Safari More importantly, Safari is the anointed web browser that opens all web links. If you could designate Firefox to be the primary web browser, I'd do so in a heartbeat, because "Send to device" is so damn useful when you're using Firefox everywhere.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

The aforementioned Facebook Container was an excellent step, but if they really were serious about fixing Internet privacy regardless of their financial backers, they'd ship an official Google Container as well. (A third party developer ships one as a fork of Facebook Container, but it'd be far preferable for a Mozilla shipped one.) They capitalized on the Cambridge Analytica scandal with the launch of that extension, but won't follow up with the Google equivalent. The code is already written, I just think they are still too scared to ship an extension that works against their primary sponsor.

deleted 7y ago
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bogle 7y ago
There's the Multi-Account Containers add-on.
- flamtap 7y ago
  +1 on this. I have containers set up for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon logins (and all the apps they respectively own, that I of course do not have perfect knowledge of). It's quite clunky to set up though. To add a site to a container, I have to open a new tab in the target container, go to the website, check "always open in this container" in the container menu, then open a new tab, then say "yes, always in this container" at the prompt.
MrsPeaches 7y ago
As sister comment points out: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Facebook Container requires and builds on this extension, you actually can’t replicate the functionality with that addon alone.

heartbeats 7y ago

If they want to do something, there's a simple three-step plan. 1) block all ads, by default 2) do not unblock Google's ads, 3) receive Adblock Plus-style bribes from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them, provided they don't harm privacy This would kill several birds in one stone. First, break Mozilla free of Google funding. Second, hurt Google. Third, increase Firefox' market share. Fourth, help users' privacy. As things stand today, Mozilla just exist so that Google can pretend they don't have a monopoly. Follow the money - who pays? (A: Google pays nearly all of their budget, and they have next to no rainy day fund)

zzzcpan 7y ago
They could probably exist without Google funding, like just supporting a Chromium fork with fast native adblocking. But obviously not as a thousand people company.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- heartbeats 7y ago
  Sure, but organizations strive for bigness. It's the perfect way to kill one, actually. 1) Give them $0.2 billion a year in easy money 2) Their projects expand as per Parkinson's law so they spend $0.2 billion a year 3) Since they have easy money, they won't bother seeking alternative funding sources 4) They now find themselves in the same position as a crack whore vis-a-vis her pimp Mozilla wouldn't ever abandon their fun pet projects, but with sufficient coercion they might abandon privacy for "fighting hate" or similar.
ComodoHacker 7y ago
>from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them, provided they don't harm privacy I doubt you can find one that doesn't harm privacy. And particulary Yandex will raise other concerns.
- move-on-by 7y ago

stevespang 7y ago

Fake news.

Slashbot 7y ago

Let me know when those bafoons at Mozilla figure out how to add back the functionality, features and customisation of most of the addons that used to exist for Firefox pre Quantum copy chrome garbage direction.. like TabMixPlus for a start.. Until then there whole privacy gambit ploy to sucker in idiots can fall on deaf ears, they literately handed the web over to fucking Goorble. Mozilla = idiot SJW company Use Vivaldi, loads better than Firefox now.

beardedman 7y ago

I've been using Brave these days. Really like it. IMO: Firefox doesn't seem to know what sort of company they are anymore. Their product arsenal is expanding, yet core features of their flagship product is still stuck in the 2000's.

jeltz 7y ago
How is Firefox stuck in the 2000s? They recently switched to an entirely new modern renderer, switched to a modern fast layout engine and implement new web strandards very quickly, sometimes faster than Chrome.
- beardedman 7y ago
  I said core features, not the entire browser. Their bookmark manager hasn't changed for many many years.

walrus01 7y ago

Firefox on Android has become my go to choice now, because it supports the full set of desktop firefox plugins, including the essential ublock origin. I can't even imagine mobile browsing without full adblock functionality anymore.

cobalt60 7y ago
AdguardHome/PiHole on DoT/DoH? Android 9+ supports private DNS.
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  yes, you could use those too.
- zaarn 7y ago
  DNS blockers don't block all ads, uBlock on top is very effective.

ecmascript 7y ago

Mozilla essentially did a "get woke, go broke". They fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons, they focused on products that were useless and were really focused on spreading propaganda for woke causes. I still use Firefox everyday since it's the best browser for linux but I also use Brave. Mozilla as a company in my eyes are a bit lost and they need more focus on their technology. It seems like they have realized this in the last two years or so and I hope that trend will continue. Firefox is awesome, focus on privacy is awesome. MDN is awesome. If they need money from other sources than Google, why not create some kind of subscription service for their MDN docs? There is a bunch of things they actually need to fix like lack of PWA support in firefox (still) which is pretty bad that they don't have that enabled by default. Focus on what matters, no one cares about your woke politics in the long run.

Angostura 7y ago
> hey fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons Marriage equality isn't a particularly ridiculous reason.
- ecmascript 7y ago
  So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare time? Or does the same rules apply for everyone that works at Mozilla? If so, how the fuck does anyone know what is a fireable opinion? It's not like he used company resources to promote his beliefs or enforced his beliefs on others. What Mozilla did to Brendan is essentially to enforce thought crime on their own staff. It's kind of hard to take them seriously when they say they value integrity after that. This idea of an outrage culture is what makes Mozilla go down the shitter. No one cares about that shit except a very small minority in SF. It's not like Google or most other for-profit company cares about marriage inequality either. Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't mean they care. They care about profits and market dominance only. If Google would make more money being anti same sex marriage, then they would most likely oppose same sex marriage and spend a lot of money on lobbying for the opposing view. I'm certain that firing Brendan was probably one of the worst decisions Mozilla has taken so far. I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue since they only care about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face. I'm convinced that Brave will be larger than Firefox in market share sooner rather than later mostly because of this reason alone.

jeffrufino 7y ago

Brilliant, I'll be moving to Firefox.

fmajid 7y ago

Their shabby treatment of Brendan Eich discredits their self-proclaimed commitment to diversity and open discourse.

cotelletta 7y ago

Every time people breathlessly relate the tale of Cambridge Analytica as the day privacy died, you should know they have no clue. Because the Obama campaign built the exact same kind of dataset, using the same APIs, with the same overreach, 4 years prior, and Facebook knew about it and looked the other way. The campaign boasted about leaving the stone age Republicans in the dust. I guess the Dems don't look so hot now anymore after Iowa. All of this is a matter of record. It was only bad when the "wrong" people pushed the wrong kind of propaganda, and the response was a massive push by the media to point the finger. Media, btw, whose websites too send your data to more than a hundred partners per site visit. They all fixate on the scapegoat because otherwise they'd have to admit to being part of the problem. That they then mix up the uncontroversial topic of privacy with the old hobby horses of diversity and equality is the final nail in the coffin. Mozilla is more interested in signaling their moral compliance with the current year rather than finding commonality on the greater topic of respecting privacy and thinking long term. Oh yeah, where were any of these people when Stallman was scapegoated to absolve MIT of its Epstein sins? R.I.P. Mozilla. It killed IE, and then hubris and brain damage killed it.

cousin_it 7y ago

1) Thirteen banner ads, most of them animated 2) Tracking from Google and Facebook 3) Cookie warning with no way to opt out 4) You can only opt out if you live in California: > Opting out of the sharing of your personal information by Protocol with marketers: Please send an email to privacy@protocol.com with the following information: -Name -Email -Confirmation of California residency

tclover 7y ago
I often forget how does the internet look like without the adblocker
- nunodonato 7y ago
  same. I only see a very clean article :)
- hobofan 7y ago
  Not using a dedicated ad blocker (just Firefox) and the article looks very clean to me.
  - NeutronStar 7y ago
    OP is using Chrome and complaining about tracking.
metastart 7y ago
No ads coming up in my Epic Privacy Browser with adblock & encrypted proxy on :-). Firefox has been copying a lot of Epic's features, but still is far behind their privacy defaults.
waitwhatwhoa 7y ago
There are a few news organizations somehow battling it out to survive without advertising and I applaud them, but most comments like these simply remind me of this sentiment: https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

davidy123 7y ago

The concept of the browser is a universal vehicle for information. One of the greatest breakthroughs for browsers, aside from increasing front end application rendering and interactivity, is extensions. They put the user as the primary, where they can access, control, organize the information accessed as they wish using extensions. Of course, there is a wild west aspect to this, and over time extension facilities are becoming closer to app stores, with ratings and permissions being primary. Chrome has had some of the best support for extensions, making it easy to create them and offering most features through them, which is one reason I use it instead of Firefox day to day. But no browser properly supports extensions on mobile. Chrome just doesn't, the Kiwi fork is supposed to but in my experience doesn't really, Firefox says they will but the signals are it will only be select extensions, at least for now. Extensions are one of the best markers and facilities of a free, user first web, that isn't just about accessing opaque, absolutely controlled services, where hobbyists and principled organizations can work directly in the space of privacy and trust as information is processed, so I hope they pick up some priority.

blackearl 7y ago
Mobile Firefox has the only extension I really need on there, uBlock Origin. No other mobile browser has anything comparable from what I've seen so I'm not sure what you're talking about on that point.
dexen 7y ago
>Firefox says they will [properly support extensions on mobile] The most relevant extension - uBlock Origin - works just fine on mobile Firefox. It's a real game changer, especially with screen real estate and energy usage being quite important on mobile. That extension alone is why I have and use Firefox on mobile phones (aside of the usual compatibility testing on other browsers for certain web projects).
davidy123 7y ago
This site, for all its virtues, really cracks me up sometimes. I was talking about the open world of extensions, with an 's,' of which there are many. But apparently all the world needs is uBlock, and whatever the sites and browser companies deign to provide. Some hackers.

h91wka 7y ago

It's funny how Mozilla preaches privacy, but if you open `about:config' and count 1) parameters that include word "telemetry" 2) everything that looks like a unique token 3) "mozilla.org" URLs you'll see that the sum is steadily going up with every release. It leaves me under impression that Mozilla is trying to follow Facebook and Google. Lately they removed setting to use a custom page for the new tabs, leaving only choice between blank page and Mozilla-provided "interest based" homepage. I am still using it as the main browser, though, as "lesser evil", but discrepancy between Mozilla's slogans and actual features is pretty chilling.

Vinnl 7y ago
And none of that is used to influence elections or make you buy stuff you don't want.
- ninkendo 7y ago
  Are we sure about this? I mean I mostly agree that telemetry is different, but how can we be sure Mozilla isn't sharing their telemetry information with ad networks to help fingerprint you? It seems the only way to be truly sure is if we could verify the browser sent no information at all, right? Or else it's just about trust, same as any other browser.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    It's mostly about trust, but we have more reasons to trust Mozilla than other browser vendors - they consist of a community of people who care about their values, they've staked their reputation on those values, they are transparent, they're a legal non-profit, etc. Their financial statements are also public, and I don't think any income from ad networks has been found there.
    - h91wka 7y ago
      > More reasons to trust Mozilla? I think Cliqz incident and Shield Studies AR Game incident prove that you can trust Mozilla as much as any other huge corp.

badrabbit 7y ago

Can they focus on making it perform as well as Chrome? I mean, I support their efforts and all but I am forced to use a chrome based browser because FF has poor windows/sso integration and absolutley horrible memory management. A tab of any tool's webui that does a lot of work with a lot of data will not only bring firefox to a halt but the entire system. I can at least try to use it for soft workloads but you never know when visiting the wrong page will cause this issue again. Why can't it manage it's impact on the rest of the system? My job performance would tank dramarically if I used firefox exclusively! Why can't they work to make it better than Chrome? They were throwing Rust at it a few years ago,so what happened? Do they just not test against the right sites? I mean, the mozilla foundation is not poor. They have money. Is it just politics or do they think getting gmail and youtube to work is all that is needed? I am only saying all this because i like firefox. Mozilla needs a wake up call. Do they not get the problems at hand or do they not care or do they lack some resource or motivation? I mean I will be happy to even buy a license for firefox if they get it to even come close to Chrome's performance. Maybe they have too many well intended fanboy's cheeeing them on?

Liquid_Fire 7y ago
Perhaps the specific websites you are using are particularly bad on Firefox (whether due to issues with the website or Firefox), but I do not share your experience at all. For me Firefox is fast and I never see it using too much memory, much less bringing the whole system to a halt. So my suggestion is to file bugs for any websites that perform particularly badly for you.
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Specific? Yes ,but it's a ton of sites. The site devs basically give up on firefox.
Scarbutt 7y ago
They can't compete with Google on engineering. Also, Google attracts better talent and pays more.
justinph 7y ago

gfody 7y ago

Using uMatrix really raised my awareness of how bad things are - spyTech is utterly everywhere. I still take the time to micromanage my matrix every time I encounter a new site and it’s ridiculous how long it can take to get a random infested page back to an acceptable level of usability.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
milofeynman 7y ago
Me too. I prefer micromanaging what a site gets access to. It's sadly not a great solution for anyone who isn't technical and somewhat persnickety.
nsomaru 7y ago
uMatrix is better than nothing but I want more micromanagement. I want to be able to block on a per script basis because some sites will load 49 scripts from some other domain and only 1 or 2 will actually be needed to make the page work properly.
- gfody 7y ago
  agree, I'd love to see uMatrix get more sophisticated.. there are already a lot of sites that simply cannot be fixed

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kup0 7y ago

I'm finally back to Firefox for good. Feels good to be home. I keep 'Edge-ium' around if I encounter any rare use cases that necessitate it, but that's relatively rare

inviromentalist 7y ago

If anyone can figure out why Firefox doesn't work on my computer, let me know. It's at least 30 times slower than chrome. So somethings wrong Right?

jeltz 7y ago
Yeah, that is not normal at all. Firefox should be about as fast as Chrome on most workloads.

worldvision 7y ago

World Vision India is focused on exclusive expectations of responsibility and straightforwardness which is a statement of our guiding principle on ''how to sponsor a child in another country”. This is on the grounds that we intensely accept that we work successfully for the prosperity of kids. World Vision India ceaselessly endeavors to keep up high national and global models of expert capability and is responsible through proper structures for accomplishing these norms. https://www.worldvision.in https://www.worldvision.in

einpoklum 7y ago

Mozilla destroyed their own platform - by removing its most significant feature, which was deep extensibility, instead of fixing it to keep that feature. > That's how Mozilla works: slowly, collaboratively, trying to speak for everyone. I don't remember Mozilla works collaboratively. By the way - remind me where they publish their income sources again? > "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Yeah, well, so has the printing press. When someone suggests we should keep a "healty press", that's oligarchic censorship. Reminds me of the US Comics Code. > Mozilla has spent the last several years fighting harder and louder than ever for the future of the internet. Must not have been loud enough, because I believe few people have noticed this. > the company's vision of a more user-centric, privacy-conscious web. "user-centric" web? Don't know what that means. It's like "reader-centric books". As for privacy - when something like uBlock Origin and EFF Privacy Badger is installed by default, and when TOR is an easily-accessible option, and when Mozilla funds some TOR endpoint routers (in countries outside US reach of course), then we'll talk. > But what if people could also use them to keep Facebook from snooping as they traveled the web? If Facebook was prevented from snooping entirely, that would not be that much of an issue. > Firefox has long held the not-entirely-flattering distinction of being the most popular browser not made by a huge corporation It's bankrolled by huge corporations. IIRC it was mostly Google for a while. Also, see below about their new VP. I am reminded how Mozilla had, for years, neglected its email client in favor of the browser, thus effectively helping to promote webmail, stored and spied on by these corporations. It certainly did nothing to promote end-to-end encryption of email, which has been quite possible with Thunderbird, and would have prevented (some of the) spying on users. > So far, Firefox has blocked 1.6 trillion tracking requests That means it doesn't block most tracking requests. > Alan Davidson ... new VP of policy ... has been working ... at Google and then as President Barack Obama's director of digital economy So one of the top people at the spying-B-us corporation and the "can't have privacy and security" administration is the new VP who'll help protect us from his former colleagues and bosses? Uh-huh.

mehdix 7y ago

As a FF user I'll also share my experience. Since Firefox switched to Quantum, I am exclusively using it on my work, home and portable computers. Chromium on my Arch Laptop was buggy, had a memory leak, and would consume all my 16G of RAM after keeping tabs open for a while. Firefox solved that for me. With uBlock, Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete and FF's built-in blocker I have a functional defense-line against privacy violating practices (not totally immune against fingerprinting yet). The reader mode helps me to get rid of the clutter and read the text, very happy with that. I also use Firefox and Firefox Preview on Android. The latter is specially superior in performance and has less bugs. For example on Firefox Android I had non-finishing download bars, not any more in the Preview. The performance is obviously superior. Nighly builds support uBlock now. The "Send Tab" feature is also very practical (I have a FF account for syncing purposes). I send tabs to my other devices which helps me to follow things on my other machines and also to memorize things by seeing them in a short while on another machine. There are two things about FF that I dislike. First thing is the massive amount of outdated articles and ancient support tickets online. Good luck with searching for a technical solution for a FF problem! Next thing is the source code. I have compiled it many times in order to fix a niche bug. I even bought a better PC to compile it faster. This aside, it is hard to understand the code. There are zillions of moving pieces, and ad-hoc bug fixing is not an option. You have to follow things for weeks if not months to get to the right information. This probably can be improved by better docs explaining the code to contributors and new comers. Overall I'm happy with it. Moreover, it is important to have alternatives otherwise we might lose the open web as we know it. Edit: add paragraphs

rbritton 7y ago
Another FF plugin you might like is Multi-Account Containers [0]. It lets you isolate one or more websites from others to minimize their tracking ability. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

dependenttypes 7y ago

How ironic. Firefox is the browser that calls home the most on the first run https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480 https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604... They also disabled the ability for extensions to work on mozilla pages and things like about:addons by default, where mozilla uses google analytics. They add new tracking crap on the browser in every release, so you are at a loss what to disable first in about:config as the online guides tend to get outdated easily. > that's good for trolls and surveillance organizations and violent groups Only "surveillance organizations" is relevant to privacy. The others make me think of centralisation and censorship. The only real way to browse privately is to use a browser with javascript disabled and only a subset of css enabled over tor/isp. (but then you have to deal with cloudflare and broken sites)

jamienicol 7y ago
What is the relevance of "number of calls home on first run"? Surely the contents of said calls, and over an extended time period, is a much more important measurement?
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  I think that the number of calls home on first run is more important because you don't get an option to disable them.

us000538 7y ago

Specifically for mobile divices mozilla's performance is too good you can feel it just try to open blogger html codes in crome it will hang but for mozilla it's fine https://www.boringworld.org https://www.boringworld.org

wnevets 7y ago

The moment ublock origin is limited or broken in chrome is the moment I abandon chrome completely and switch to firefox full time.

CivBase 7y ago

> Baker wrote on Mozilla's blog that in the last decade, the world had seen "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Baker then added four new manifesto principles calling for equality, discourse and diversity online in an addendum called "Pledge for a Healthy Internet." "Equality, discourse, and diversity" are the very principles that enable people to "magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Any attempt to promote freedom of expression while simultaneously silencing the worst of humanity is inherently at odds. Hatred is a naturally occuring phenomina, not a learned behavior. You can't just quarantine it to make it go away. That only makes it worse. The internet is not a breeding ground for hatred. It's just a reflection of how bad we can really be.

SergeAx 7y ago

The momemt Google pull the plug for Ublock Origin and other similar plugins - we'll see how "Mozilla lost the browser wars".

mariushn 7y ago

I'd love to have a Gmail-like alternative, both with a Mozilla domain (personal) and custom domains (business), for a small yearly subscription. Maybe have ad-supported as an alternative.

tonfreed 7y ago

> namedropping Cambridge Analytica And opinion discarded