11 ms·

I'm relatively uninformed here, but Google often requires Android app developers to bundle Google Play Services for various features like Chromecast[1]. It is p

I'm relatively uninformed here, but Google often requires Android app developers to bundle Google Play Services for various features like Chromecast[1]. It is possible that the Mozilla folks needed Google Play Services for some feature. [1]: https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/android_sender_setup https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/android_sender_setup

kuschku 9y ago
I'm a developer, and I've worked with this before, but the library included here has only the purpose of analytics, and is not required for anything else.
- lucideer 9y ago
  Google has recently been moving GCM over to FCM, since the Firebase acquisition, and FCM has a hard dependency on the analytics library for some reason (even if you're not availing of the service - perhaps as a veiled upsell attempt). It seems very likely that Firefox would be making use of GCM/FCM - I think most major apps do - so this could be it. Incidentally, this same topics is one of the main controversies around the development of the Signal chat client - it uses GCM, which a good few prospective users object to on similar grounds. Unfortunately, unless you've rooted your phone, GCM/FCM is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones.
  - st3fan 9y ago
    Focus and Klar do not use GCM.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    > Unfortunately, unless you've rooted your phone, GCM/FCM is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones. But, and this is the interesting part, the userspace library of FCM can be easily reversed and cloned (the information required for that is here https://gist.github.com/justjanne/153bd4886f92be0ee57fb408427c8d8b https://gist.github.com/justjanne/153bd4886f92be0ee57fb40842...), and the system-side part of FCM has been cloned in an open way (see the µG project).
    - lucideer 9y ago
      I was aware of the µG project (it requires root to install though), but I'm not sure I see the point/relevance of cloning the userspace library outside of using it with µG. If you don't have µG, your cloned userspace library is still sending everything through Google's servers right? Note: I should possibly have been clearer above by saying "is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones without root"
  - andrepd 9y ago
    IIRC, Signal now falls back to not using GCM if it isn't available on the phone, so users concerned with that which don't have Google Play Services on their phone can still use Signal. Of course of it is available Signal will use GCM, for the battery savings.
bigbugbag 9y ago
Maybe, but Mozilla has a quite a record for using firefox for surveillance and spying purpose, the early versions of firefox had a proprietary modules just for this purpose and the recent version have 'telemetry'. AFAIK f-droid always had a warning about firefox containing and promoting non free in addition of tracking users from https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox : This app has the NonFreeAdd Antifeature. This app has the Tracking Antifeature. This app has the UpstreamNonFree Antifeature.
- fourthark 9y ago
  Is this FUD or serious? Because they are certainly claiming to be the opposite of that these days.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    They just recently had a PR disaster because Firefox included Google Analytics in the Addon menu. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546
    - st3fan 9y ago
      I don’t think that was a “pr disaster” - vocal minority is loud but not that loud.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    This is simply history. The proprietary module (now long removed) is among the reasons the iceweasel project was born (not the debian one but the GNU one that has been renamed icecat when debian took over the iceweasel name). It is a known fact that for years 90% or more of mozilla money came from google in exchange for making its search engine the default including tracking through an additional parameter in the URL. There is waterfox a project to build a firefox version free of the mozilla tracking and crap: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ Disabled Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) Disabled Web Runtime (deprecated as of 2015) Removed Pocket Removed Telemetry Removed data collection Removed startup profiling Allow running of all 64-Bit NPAPI plugins Allow running of unsigned extensions Removal of Sponsored Tiles on New Tab Page Addition of Duplicate Tab option Locale selector in about:preferences > General For the android version, the f-droid page does not exist anymore since firefox has been removed from f-droid, but there the wiki archive I linked earlier: https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox There used to be a collection of privacy patches to remove all the tracking, leaking and privacy issues but I can't find it through web search, it seems to have been replaced by https://github.com/williex/firefox-privacy https://github.com/williex/firefox-privacy Mozilla insist it is health report, analytics and telemetry which is marketing words for tracking and spying.

kuschku 9y ago

I'm a developer, and I've worked with this before, but the library included here has only the purpose of analytics, and is not required for anything else.

lucideer 9y ago
Google has recently been moving GCM over to FCM, since the Firebase acquisition, and FCM has a hard dependency on the analytics library for some reason (even if you're not availing of the service - perhaps as a veiled upsell attempt). It seems very likely that Firefox would be making use of GCM/FCM - I think most major apps do - so this could be it. Incidentally, this same topics is one of the main controversies around the development of the Signal chat client - it uses GCM, which a good few prospective users object to on similar grounds. Unfortunately, unless you've rooted your phone, GCM/FCM is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones.
- st3fan 9y ago
  Focus and Klar do not use GCM.
- kuschku 9y ago
  > Unfortunately, unless you've rooted your phone, GCM/FCM is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones. But, and this is the interesting part, the userspace library of FCM can be easily reversed and cloned (the information required for that is here https://gist.github.com/justjanne/153bd4886f92be0ee57fb408427c8d8b https://gist.github.com/justjanne/153bd4886f92be0ee57fb40842...), and the system-side part of FCM has been cloned in an open way (see the µG project).
  - lucideer 9y ago
    I was aware of the µG project (it requires root to install though), but I'm not sure I see the point/relevance of cloning the userspace library outside of using it with µG. If you don't have µG, your cloned userspace library is still sending everything through Google's servers right? Note: I should possibly have been clearer above by saying "is the only battery-efficient way to provide push to Android phones without root"
- andrepd 9y ago
  IIRC, Signal now falls back to not using GCM if it isn't available on the phone, so users concerned with that which don't have Google Play Services on their phone can still use Signal. Of course of it is available Signal will use GCM, for the battery savings.

bigbugbag 9y ago

Maybe, but Mozilla has a quite a record for using firefox for surveillance and spying purpose, the early versions of firefox had a proprietary modules just for this purpose and the recent version have 'telemetry'. AFAIK f-droid always had a warning about firefox containing and promoting non free in addition of tracking users from https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox : This app has the NonFreeAdd Antifeature. This app has the Tracking Antifeature. This app has the UpstreamNonFree Antifeature.

fourthark 9y ago
Is this FUD or serious? Because they are certainly claiming to be the opposite of that these days.
- kuschku 9y ago
  They just recently had a PR disaster because Firefox included Google Analytics in the Addon menu. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546
  - st3fan 9y ago
    I don’t think that was a “pr disaster” - vocal minority is loud but not that loud.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  This is simply history. The proprietary module (now long removed) is among the reasons the iceweasel project was born (not the debian one but the GNU one that has been renamed icecat when debian took over the iceweasel name). It is a known fact that for years 90% or more of mozilla money came from google in exchange for making its search engine the default including tracking through an additional parameter in the URL. There is waterfox a project to build a firefox version free of the mozilla tracking and crap: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ Disabled Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) Disabled Web Runtime (deprecated as of 2015) Removed Pocket Removed Telemetry Removed data collection Removed startup profiling Allow running of all 64-Bit NPAPI plugins Allow running of unsigned extensions Removal of Sponsored Tiles on New Tab Page Addition of Duplicate Tab option Locale selector in about:preferences > General For the android version, the f-droid page does not exist anymore since firefox has been removed from f-droid, but there the wiki archive I linked earlier: https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.firefox There used to be a collection of privacy patches to remove all the tracking, leaking and privacy issues but I can't find it through web search, it seems to have been replaced by https://github.com/williex/firefox-privacy https://github.com/williex/firefox-privacy Mozilla insist it is health report, analytics and telemetry which is marketing words for tracking and spying.