11 ms·

Testing Cliqz in Firefox

156 points by hnaccy 9y ago

smegel 9y ago
> The surfing activities of those users who receive a Firefox version with Cliqz are sent to the Cliqz servers; including the URLs of the pages they visit. Yeah thanks but no thanks.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  This would make a great 1st of April joke. What the hell, Mozilla? Google is tracking everything, come to us we'll respect your privacy ... while we send all the urls you visit to some 3rd party you've never heard of.
  - smegel 9y ago
    But what's more trustworthy than a third-party you've never heard of called "Cliqz"? /s
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Can you at least try to not rip sentences like these completely out of their place? There's people here who won't bother to translate and you're abusing that to make Mozilla look bad. The sentences afterwards: "Cliqz uses different methods which should take care of removing sensitive information, before it's sent out from Firefox. Additionally, Cliqz does not create profiles of individual users and erases their IPs as soon as the data has been collected. The code of Cliqz is publicly accessible [open-source under MPLv2] [1] and a description of the used methods can be viewed here [in English, 2]." [1] https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/modules/human-web/sources/human-web.es https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/module... [2] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
  - smegel 9y ago
    1) the sentence is true. 2) why should I or anyone else trust a company called Cliqz to do anything?
    - floatingatoll 9y ago
      Who wold trust a company named “YCombinator”? Or “Google”, which was at one point a sexual slang word?! Discriminating by name will get you absolutely nowhere.
      - clan 9y ago
        You hit the point accurately. But misses why the discrimination is both warranted and needed. We do not trust those either. With the recent progress in Firefox they had a really good position to win users back. A key driver would be getting away from Google (Chrome) who wants your data. That driver has now been reduced. They have taken the lower road. Neither do I trust YCombinator with this data. Or anyone else... So why trust company X? The point being: I do not. Thank you for your software but please do not use it as leverage for getting my data.
  - clan 9y ago
    No abuse here. I honestly think you are missing the point of what is upsetting people. Nothing in your full quote makes it any more palatable. No matter how nice your intentions are. No matter how transparent you are. No matter how sincere your wish to contribute to a greater common good is. Do not... Do not... Do simply not collect my browsing data. They are not yours to have. Whatever excuse is brought to the table I will take it as dishonesty. It can come as no surprise that even the slightest privacy concerned users will take offense of this. They simply hope it will fly under the radar of the common users - because "we do good". (Please do not take the "yours" as a personal attack - english is my second language - some nuance has been lost in translation)
    - floatingatoll 9y ago
      Please switch to TOR browser. You have clearly indicated that you will treat all future words from Mozilla as lies, so I will make no effort to explain why you should.
jitl 9y ago
tl;dr can someone summarize for non-German readers? Why?
- lightedman 9y ago
  They claim it is to offer you more diverse search results in the face of centralization.
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    I can validate this claim, having been in some of those discussions at work.
- toyg 9y ago
  Google Translate is pretty good on this page. Basically, they invested in this Cliqz company that "provides recommendations and other information, such as news, weather news, or the world of sports, while typing into the address line". Being a recommendation engine, it needs to be fed user data, so they are automatically shipping and turning on user tracking in 1% of Firefox downloads from German servers. For a brand built on privacy and freedom, it's shocking - but it's the same sort of idiocy that we saw with the Pocket thing a few years ago. Clearly nobody learnt the lesson - or maybe they did, this time they are sneaking things through slowly and communicating it on Friday afternoon. This is pure filth from Mozilla.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Well, first of all, I wouldn't call it "tracking". They're going to be aggregating the data and specifically promise to not create profiles on individual users. Secondly, I wouldn't necessarily call it "third-party" either, since Mozilla owns parts of the Cliqz GmbH, so will at least know what's going on inside the company and can easily pull the plug, if Cliqz should actually start to store user data. Generally speaking, though, Cliqz is a content recommendation engine, trying to compete with web search engines, so sort of hoping to take a bit of world domination (and money) out of Google's hands. The actual recommendations will be generated locally without sending data to Cliqz, but they do need a data set that tells them what users are usually looking for based on the browsing history that they have.
inamberclad 9y ago
why?
NegativeLatency 9y ago
Sneak the unpopular news out on a Friday evening.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  We work on Friday evenings, and a lot of staff participate on HN. Enjoy your evening off; I’m spending mine on Hacker News.
  - stewbrew 9y ago
    Is HN officially work now?
    - jkoll 9y ago
      If you're shilling, it is.
toyg 9y ago
What the flying fuck, Mozilla???? You build your brand around privacy and freedom from tracking, then you pull a stunt like this? Are you guys trying to fail?
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Remember that we’ve argued for thousands of hours over multiple years about this stuff internally. I’m not involved directly with the teams, but I’ve been part of their discussions. These are not actions taken lightly, and they are absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users.
  - Gracana 9y ago
    That's what Lenovo said about Superfish. Nobody wants a product like that.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      I guess some people would want those recommendations, but only very few will voluntarily and consciously trade their data for it.
      - floatingatoll 9y ago
        Your assertion about people is very incorrect. Do a study and see what results you get back. It’ll horrify you.
        musage 9y ago
        No matter, because the argument made by a non-fool to a non-fool that there are fools who think X makes sense is void regardless of the amount of fools.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    I totally get that, but this is a pretty classic example of what the road to hell is paved with. Sending my browsing history to a remote server is not a thing a browser should do. How did the discussion not end when this was brought up? I was literally today getting ramped up to switch to Firefox. Now I have to be on a constant lookout for stuff like this? I think this may actually do enough damage to kill Firefox. And for what? Better search? Firefox is a browser, not Google/Bing/DDG/whatever. Honestly, if you guys wanted to know where to find good porn on the internet, why didn’t you just ask?
jdright 9y ago
English announcement here: https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2016/08/23/mozilla-makes-strategic-investment-in-cliqz-to-enable-privacy-focused-search-innovation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2016/08/23/mozilla-makes-s...
- mig39 9y ago
  Is that the same announcement? It's from August 2016. I think this is the correct URL for the latest announcement in English: https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...
  - sctb 9y ago
    Thanks! We've updated the link from https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i....
    - ktta 9y ago
      This looks like it is the new link.
- toyg 9y ago
  That's the announcement of Mozilla investment from last year, and it says Cliqz would just be an optional add-on. There is nothing about being preinstalled and turned on by default.
arkitaip 9y ago
If I understand the Google translation correctly, Mozilla has invested in Germany based Cliqz, basically a privacy oriented fork of Firefox. Cliqz has a feature which displays contextual information in the address bar and apparently Mozilla is experimenting with this feature in Firefox. German users (less than 1% of them) who download Firefox will have the Cliqz addon activated and the addon will collect anonymized user data, such as which URLs have been visited. Cliqz's attempt to collect data while safe guarding user privacy is called Human Web [0] and the code is open source [1]. [0] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885... [1] https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/modules/human-web/sources/human-web.es https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/module...
sharmi 9y ago
TL;DR Cliqz provides recommendations such as news, weather news, or the world of sports, while typing into the address line. Next week, a little less than one percent of the German users who download Firefox from mozilla's central download page will receive a Firefox version with the Cliqz recommendations activated automatically. This includes the data capture tool that records the surfing activities those users, including the URLs of the pages they visit. The data are sent to the Cliqz servers. Cliqz promises to anonimize the data. The data gathering code is available online at [1] and a description methods of gathering at [2]. One can always use the Disable Data Recovery or completely remove the Cliqz add-on. [1] https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/modules/human-web/sources/human-web.es https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/module... [2] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
yorwba 9y ago
> Eines von Mozillas zentralen Prinzipien zum Schutz von Daten lautet Keine Überraschungen. One of Mozilla's central data protection principles is No Surprises. I damn well hope that the download link will be clearly marked as an altered version of Firefox, explain that the complete browsing history will be collected and analyzed, and will preclude absolutely any way to accidentally download it without understanding the risk.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  To clarify, when you say “complete browser history” you describe what Chrome does, where the entire browser history is sent to Google for sync and analysis. Did you mean to say “all links visited in the Cliqz-enabled browser”, or otherwise does the post somewhere express any intention to collect visit data from prior to Cliqz?
  - leeoniya 9y ago
    the comment is pretty clear. tell users exactly what they're downloading and how it affects their privacy. "This version of Firefox will send your browsing history to a third party, Cliqz, for analysis and suggestions". When i download Chrome, i know where my history goes - to Google. I also know where it doesn't go - somewhere else.
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      That entirely oversimplifies things, though. For one, Mozilla owns parts of that third party, therefore they presumably do know what happens with that data and can pull the plug from their side, if nefarious things happen. And secondly, Google can do a lot more with your data than Mozilla and that third party combined could ever do, both from a technical viewpoint in terms of evaluation, linking to other data, distribution, and especially so from a legal viewpoint. Providing this information as you put it would be entirely misleading, even if it is factually accurate in isolation.
  - pseudalopex 9y ago
    To clarify, when you say "what Chrome does", you describe what Chrome does if you sign in. The article doesn't say prior history won't be collected, and the grandparent didn't say it will be. If you want to be pedantic, someone installing Firefox from the main download page probably won't have any prior history.
amingilani 9y ago
Cliqz is like a search engine in your address bar: https://cliqz.com/en/ https://cliqz.com/en/ I think it's a nice tool, but auto-opting in users' data to be forwarded to Cliqz servers is kinda shitty. I get that there are no user profiles being built, but it's still concerning for me.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Oh yeah. It’s going to be super difficult to guess who I am when I log into example.com and it redirects me to example.com/profile/igorpartola. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    It's described here, how they deal with that sort of stuff: https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      To summarise: they're not going to send which URLs you visit. However, they can set up specific experiments, and will send the results. Thus, they could set up an experiment "did users first visit example.com and later example.com/profile/igorpartola, and then have only you report that to be the case. That example is of course not that likely and thus troublesome. What worries me, though, is the described experiment "what search terms have led to users switching search engine", and then reporting the search engine. They acknowledge this problem, but the response is "at least that's better than gathering that data server-side". True, but it's still too much data, I think.
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    We don’t want to know who you are. We obsess over not knowing who you are. None of us want to know who you are. I know this is of little assurance, but all the same.
will4274 9y ago
It's clear that this move won't be popular with a vocal portion of FFs _developer_ base. I have to wonder - is there a breaking point in the future where a meaningful fork begins? The only other product of a similar size that I can think of being forked is OpenOffice/LibreOffice - and, in that case, the original was effectively defunded.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  The TOR browser is the fork you seek. It already turns off every bit of phone-anywhere that we have, and we work with them to keep that the case. Use it and be merry.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Mozilla should be sued into the ground and destroyed. You should lose your job and never be employable again. A scorched earth policy is the only way that maybe, just maybe, you will learn that if you base your brand image on privacy, you can’t go and illegally exfiltrate userdata. I mean for fucks sake, who do you think uses Firefox? The only people still using it are those focusing on privacy, and you continue to drive away the last few users you have. In the global internet market you have below 6% of users. In Germany, a very privacy-focused market, you have still 40% of the desktop market, because of privacy. If you actually ship this product in Firefox releases, you can expect this story to show up at least on page 3, but more likely on the frontpage of every newspaper, and expect to see your userbase fall to nothing. Is this seriously what you want? To destroy Mozilla yourself?
  - fwn 9y ago
    This is very bad advice. The TOR browser is not just a Firefox without the data traps, it's tunneling your connection through the onion network. This is something you have to be aware of while browsing. It has many implications!
- Feniks 9y ago
  There is Pale Moon. Being a very niche browser developed by a small community it is unlikely to add to the internet data mining gold rush that is currently going on. Pale Moon doesn't even accept the new DRM standards that Mozilla was forced to accept.
hysan 9y ago
I'm going to repeat the same thing I said during the whole Pocket fiasco. Why not have this pre-installed as an add-on but disabled? You can make an announcement on the updates page with your reasoning, and users who feel like this is worthwhile can opt-in by enabling it. Why is this being enabled by default for 1% of users?
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Because 1% of users is still probably an order of magnitude higher than however many would opt-in and because they want as broad of a user-base. If you only have people that opt-in, you'll pretty much only have power-users.
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    Several orders of magnitude.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Not if you lose all your users over this.
  - hysan 9y ago
    But is that worth the damage to the brand? I tried to support Firefox for as long as I could, but their mixed messages about what they stood for + poor performance (at the time) eventually forced my hand in switching browsers. However, they did apologize after the huge backlash post-Pocket. Combined with all the news about FF 57 and Quantum, I was intrigued enough to consider giving them a second chance. This move though... it is so much worse than any other misstep they've done. From my point of view, this just seems like an opportunistic attempt at slipping something by right before one of their biggest releases / PR pushes. I cannot see myself ever believing in Mozilla the organization anymore.
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      If you actually look into it, there's basically nothing that you can accuse them of here. There's the possibility that Cliqz does actually start collecting the data, i.e. breaks the contract, commits a crime, and that then Mozilla, which owns parts of Cliqz and therefore has insight, does not notice right away. Other than that, there's nothing. No serious journalist will pick this up, because it would in turn damage their reputation to accuse Mozilla of mishandling user data here. Yes, it is still going to damage Mozilla's brand, because people prefer conspiracy theories over actually reading up on what they're doing, but it's going to stay isolated to first-hand news discussion forums, like HN, Reddit, Slashdot. This is simply an investment that Mozilla is willing to take to potentially improve search in their browser and to decrease the internet's dependence on classic web search engines, which is to say Google.
fiatjaf 9y ago
Hey, I want that. How do I opt in?
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  I think, the Cliqz browser extension will do the same: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cliqz/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cliqz/
fiatjaf 9y ago
Well, people who are pissed off should know that Chrome and Chromium have been doing the same thing for a decade. This doesn't diminish what Mozilla is doing, but at least you should yell at Google too.
- akkartik 9y ago
  I'd like to hold Mozilla to a higher standard. Sigh.
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    We certainly hold ourselves to a higher standard, no matter what people say to the contrary. Endless never-ending arguments for a very long time about all of this. Whatever else you think of us, at least remember that we not only care but agonize over this stuff at length.
    - musage 9y ago
      Then why do you instantly bring up Chrome to "clarify" here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421980 ? Endless never-ending arguments? So they're still going on? Or you're so exhausted, you can't actually address anything for real and share none of what was discussed?
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Then why the fuck are you behaving just as horrible as Google in exfiltrating user’s data, illegally, without opt-in? How the fuck do you deceive yourself into thinking you’re supporting the privacy of your users by doing this, or the Google Analytics in the addon settings?
      - floatingatoll 9y ago
        These are accusations, not questions. The framing of the sentences prevents any useful reply.
- 9y ago
1024core 9y ago
> Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit. Yep, this should end well. Mozilla has been trying to sell out for years. c.f.: Pocket
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Correction: We bought Pocket, not sold out to Pocket.
  - JosephLark 9y ago
    What's with the revisionist history? Mozilla acquired Pocket long after the controversy. Per wikipedia [0]: Integration into Firefox: June 2015 Acquired by Mozilla: February 27, 2017 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_(service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_(service)
  - mercer 9y ago
    Your behavior in this discussion sickens me, and I'm not saying that lightly. Not only is this 'clickz' thing antithetical to any privacy argument that made me a supporter of Mozilla and Firefox, the fact that you're in here responding as if this is not a big deal is a slap in the face. I was bothered by having Pocket shoved down my throat, let alone another unasked privacy situation. What's so difficult about just providing a fucking browser that does not harvest my data for ads? Are you bored? I've seriously never been angry on an online forum since I was in my teens, and yet here we are.
    - heeen2 9y ago
      Devil's advocate, but the difficulty is a delivering a very complex piece of software to a highly competitive market to customers not willing to pay for anything.
  - pseudalopex 9y ago
    Mozilla killed Reading List, signed a referral deal with Pocket, and made misleading-at-best statements for months before coming clean. You bought Pocket more than a year after that.
jasonkostempski 9y ago
Dev tools are completely useless after the update I got today and now they're pulling more anti-privacy stunts. Not a happy user right now.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Which dev tools, specifically? What functionality is broken? Is this in 56 or 57?
  - lucb1e 9y ago
    I've wanted vertical tabs forever but existing addons didn't work or held my cpu at 100% the whole time. A little while ago they trialled it with Firefox Test Pilot and I've been enjoying it ever since. Now they broke their own addon in Firefox 56, which is not even suppossed to have the shit webextensions yet. I was going to stay at 56 for a while until there were replacements for everything, but it seems 55 was the last usable version. I don't know what parent means specifically, but 56 already started breaking stuff irrevocably for me.
    - floatingatoll 9y ago
      If you switch to the ESR client, it'll retain working old-extensions support and continue offering security updates for a while longer.
hiram112 9y ago
Wow - just when it looked like Mozilla might be on the right path again, after years of incredibly bad ideas, they remind us all why we moved to Chrome.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  If you moved to Chrome to have your complete browser history harvested without any effort to protect your privacy from the advertising company that makes Chrome, then you chose correctly.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - cryo 9y ago
    @floatingtoll Can you please send me your complete browsing history, everyday? I promise to protect it and will not do any evil, I'm very good at cyber. What could possibly go wrong? If you won't trust some random guy from the internet, why should users trust Cliqz? Somehow Mozilla thinks it's worth to loose the over years gained valuable trust of users for the benefit of recommendations. You may think I'm totally wrong here, so please make the following test - Ask random people: "Are you ok that all your browser history is send to our high security server (insert security/promise magic here), so we can provide you better recommendations?" If people really understand the first part of the question I can't imagine they have a good feeling about it, that's not human nature. Acceptance for such "features" must not rely on people don't understanding what's happening behind the scenes.
jshb 9y ago
Ask toolbar lives again, this time in Firefox.
osivertsson 9y ago
Tin-foil hat: "Invisible hand" is trying to make mass surveillance of Firefox users easier.
leeoniya 9y ago
This is fine if the user is fully informed in advance and has your consent before using the software. It is absolutely unacceptable to do this behind their backs. If this was a feature that was shown to be highly beneficial to your users, then why deploy it to just 1%? Super shady. This is Pocket all over again. Will this be something that can be fully disabled? Not something I ever expected to see out of privacy-focused Mozilla. Are we going to need a world with unmozillad-firefox, à la https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium ? Sad day.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  > If this was a feature that was shown to be highly beneficial to your users, then why deploy it to just 1%? Super shady. They've seen this on a small scale, and only among power users. They're now rolling it out to this 1% to test further how users like it and especially also to see how average users like it. Besides that, they're trying to improve the data set to see how well it works with enough data. 1% of users is plenty to get that data set up. So, in case they decide to not roll the feature out, they only have to take it away from that 1% of users. Lastly, they are aware that this opens up potential ways to infringe on user privacy and more-so will spin up conspiracy theorists that have now discovered that Mozilla was evil all along. It's just something that can harm their image, even if it is done in an entirely privacy-respecting way. So, they're testing the waters. If users like it a lot, they might be willing to take that reputation damage. If the feedback is good, but not overwhelming, then they might backpedal, just to get those conspiracy theorists back into the boat.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  Reading over the technical description [1], I agree that this does not live up to the standards I expect from Mozilla (although it's not as bad as some people make it out). That said, rolling out new features to 1% of users first is not that extraordinary. Especially considering that we (or at least, I) hadn't heard of this experiment earlier, and that there's only now erupting some fuss over this, it seems like a good idea to still consider it in the experimental phase and thus just roll it out to an initial batch. And hopefully back out of it later. [1] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
stewbrew 9y ago
Marketing fun in action: "we highlighted the increasing problem of centralisation and how that impacts discovery on the Web." And that's why they send all their user's data to one central place that responds with recommendations where they should go to next.
Feniks 9y ago
Christ Almighty if I wanted Chrome I would be using Chrome. I specifically use FF to get away from this stuff. I have no Google or Facebook account and block/erase as many trackers and cookies because I'm not interested in aiding your data mining quest. Bah.
zakk 9y ago
Is this a joke? I started using FF as my primary browser two weeks ago, thanks to the good performance of Quantum in beta and the new brand image as the privacy-oriented browser. If this ends up on a single download I will switch back to Safari.
- chrisper 9y ago
  We are both in the same boat. I just switched from Chrome to FF Beta recently. And now this...
esaym 9y ago
This is no good. I've used only Mozilla/Firefox since 2003. Even this makes me want to leave. I can't help but wonder why? Desperate for money? No body will believe the story that this is some how for "good"
AlbertoGP 9y ago
I've just opened an issue at uBlockOrigin with information on the URLs used by this thing: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/743 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/743
- zakk 9y ago
  Can it block other extensions?
  - AlbertoGP 9y ago
    As noted by someone else in the issue discussion, the old version (works until Firefox 57 arrives) can, but the new webext version can not: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Firefox-WebExtensions#differences-with-ubolegacy https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Firefox-WebExtensions...
    - lucb1e 9y ago
      WebEx seems like a worse and worse idea (or perhaps it's just the execution) every single time I read anything about it.
      - girst 9y ago
        IMHO sandboxing extensions is overall a good thing. A rouge extension could have access to e.g. your password manager otherwise.
        lucb1e 9y ago
        There's a difference between compartmentalization and limiting your platform's extensibility.
        jhasse 9y ago
        Thing is: I trust uBlock Origin more than I trust Mozilla.
shevy 9y ago
Now mozilla totally lost it. I realized a few months ago that mozilla is run by google drones, so it no longer surprises me that mozilla kills itself. But the level of stupidity is amazing. I think the people who work there are deliberately recruited in regards to who is the better one at killing off mozilla.
- rrix2 9y ago
  Which google drones? Can you point to particular names or is this just a random theory?
Yetanfou 9y ago
A quick look at the source of the extension shows they use the following addresses for gathering data and publishing 'offers': https://abtests.cliqz.com https://anolysis-gid.cliqz.com https://anolysis-telemetry.cliqz.com https://antiphishing.cliqz.com https://anti-tracking.cliqz.com https://api.cliqz.com https://cdn.cliqz.com https://cliqz.com https://hpn-collector.cliqz.com https://hpn-sign.cliqz.com https://offers-api.cliqz.com https://safe-browsing.cliqz.com https://safe-browsing-quorum.cliqz.com https://stats.cliqz.com These can be added to the blocklist on the router or just watched for fun and profit, your choice. As an aside, both the domain name 'cliqz.com' as well as the use of terms like 'offers' leave a bad taste. If this is really meant to be a legitimate operation they could have done better than to copy the language of the bottom feeders of the 'net, now they just come across like a revamp of 'Bonzi Buddy' and its ilk, watching users' browsing habits to provide 'shopping opportunities' and such drivel.
cityzen 9y ago
Sort of off topic but if you use Ghostery, it was acquired by Cliqz back in February: https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquired-cliqz/ https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquire... It’s really hard to understand what is going on with the web these days. There seems to be this whole bait > acquire > switch routine is the exit strategy. Take the whole unrollme/uber thing: https://theintercept.com/2017/04/24/stop-using-unroll-me-right-now-it-sold-your-data-to-uber/ https://theintercept.com/2017/04/24/stop-using-unroll-me-rig... oh well... it was a fun ride while it lasted
gmb2k1 9y ago
You can upvote the bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1406647 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1406647 Personally, I think, that's a horrible move by mozilla, that destroys any momentum that they gained with the quantum project.
- axonic 9y ago
  I did. Interestingly, I also tried to view a related bug to find "You are not authorized to access". How fitting. There seems to be a fight between people trying to raise the issue to Mozilla's attention, and the staff. So they get caught doing something shady again, get told to stop, and react by posting pseudopolite comments about how we've made their work experience difficult, close comment threads, and come spread misinformation here? What should be done?
cowchase 9y ago
Awful. Who are the suits that are sabotaging Mozilla's core mission? Don't they understand that Mozillas Unique Selling Point is trust? Why the hell are they fumbling the ball?

156 points by hnaccy 9y ago

> The surfing activities of those users who receive a Firefox version with Cliqz are sent to the Cliqz servers; including the URLs of the pages they visit. Yeah thanks but no thanks.

rdtsc 9y ago
This would make a great 1st of April joke. What the hell, Mozilla? Google is tracking everything, come to us we'll respect your privacy ... while we send all the urls you visit to some 3rd party you've never heard of.
- smegel 9y ago
  But what's more trustworthy than a third-party you've never heard of called "Cliqz"? /s
482794793792894 9y ago
Can you at least try to not rip sentences like these completely out of their place? There's people here who won't bother to translate and you're abusing that to make Mozilla look bad. The sentences afterwards: "Cliqz uses different methods which should take care of removing sensitive information, before it's sent out from Firefox. Additionally, Cliqz does not create profiles of individual users and erases their IPs as soon as the data has been collected. The code of Cliqz is publicly accessible [open-source under MPLv2] [1] and a description of the used methods can be viewed here [in English, 2]." [1] https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/modules/human-web/sources/human-web.es https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/module... [2] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
- smegel 9y ago
  1) the sentence is true. 2) why should I or anyone else trust a company called Cliqz to do anything?
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    Who wold trust a company named “YCombinator”? Or “Google”, which was at one point a sexual slang word?! Discriminating by name will get you absolutely nowhere.
    - clan 9y ago
      You hit the point accurately. But misses why the discrimination is both warranted and needed. We do not trust those either. With the recent progress in Firefox they had a really good position to win users back. A key driver would be getting away from Google (Chrome) who wants your data. That driver has now been reduced. They have taken the lower road. Neither do I trust YCombinator with this data. Or anyone else... So why trust company X? The point being: I do not. Thank you for your software but please do not use it as leverage for getting my data.
- clan 9y ago
  No abuse here. I honestly think you are missing the point of what is upsetting people. Nothing in your full quote makes it any more palatable. No matter how nice your intentions are. No matter how transparent you are. No matter how sincere your wish to contribute to a greater common good is. Do not... Do not... Do simply not collect my browsing data. They are not yours to have. Whatever excuse is brought to the table I will take it as dishonesty. It can come as no surprise that even the slightest privacy concerned users will take offense of this. They simply hope it will fly under the radar of the common users - because "we do good". (Please do not take the "yours" as a personal attack - english is my second language - some nuance has been lost in translation)
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    Please switch to TOR browser. You have clearly indicated that you will treat all future words from Mozilla as lies, so I will make no effort to explain why you should.

jitl 9y ago

tl;dr can someone summarize for non-German readers? Why?

lightedman 9y ago
They claim it is to offer you more diverse search results in the face of centralization.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  I can validate this claim, having been in some of those discussions at work.
toyg 9y ago
Google Translate is pretty good on this page. Basically, they invested in this Cliqz company that "provides recommendations and other information, such as news, weather news, or the world of sports, while typing into the address line". Being a recommendation engine, it needs to be fed user data, so they are automatically shipping and turning on user tracking in 1% of Firefox downloads from German servers. For a brand built on privacy and freedom, it's shocking - but it's the same sort of idiocy that we saw with the Pocket thing a few years ago. Clearly nobody learnt the lesson - or maybe they did, this time they are sneaking things through slowly and communicating it on Friday afternoon. This is pure filth from Mozilla.
482794793792894 9y ago
Well, first of all, I wouldn't call it "tracking". They're going to be aggregating the data and specifically promise to not create profiles on individual users. Secondly, I wouldn't necessarily call it "third-party" either, since Mozilla owns parts of the Cliqz GmbH, so will at least know what's going on inside the company and can easily pull the plug, if Cliqz should actually start to store user data. Generally speaking, though, Cliqz is a content recommendation engine, trying to compete with web search engines, so sort of hoping to take a bit of world domination (and money) out of Google's hands. The actual recommendations will be generated locally without sending data to Cliqz, but they do need a data set that tells them what users are usually looking for based on the browsing history that they have.

inamberclad 9y ago

why?

NegativeLatency 9y ago

Sneak the unpopular news out on a Friday evening.

floatingatoll 9y ago
We work on Friday evenings, and a lot of staff participate on HN. Enjoy your evening off; I’m spending mine on Hacker News.
- stewbrew 9y ago
  Is HN officially work now?
  - jkoll 9y ago
    If you're shilling, it is.

toyg 9y ago

What the flying fuck, Mozilla???? You build your brand around privacy and freedom from tracking, then you pull a stunt like this? Are you guys trying to fail?

floatingatoll 9y ago
Remember that we’ve argued for thousands of hours over multiple years about this stuff internally. I’m not involved directly with the teams, but I’ve been part of their discussions. These are not actions taken lightly, and they are absolutely and wholeheartedly in service of improving the experience of all users.
- Gracana 9y ago
  That's what Lenovo said about Superfish. Nobody wants a product like that.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    I guess some people would want those recommendations, but only very few will voluntarily and consciously trade their data for it.
    - floatingatoll 9y ago
      Your assertion about people is very incorrect. Do a study and see what results you get back. It’ll horrify you.
      - musage 9y ago
        No matter, because the argument made by a non-fool to a non-fool that there are fools who think X makes sense is void regardless of the amount of fools.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  I totally get that, but this is a pretty classic example of what the road to hell is paved with. Sending my browsing history to a remote server is not a thing a browser should do. How did the discussion not end when this was brought up? I was literally today getting ramped up to switch to Firefox. Now I have to be on a constant lookout for stuff like this? I think this may actually do enough damage to kill Firefox. And for what? Better search? Firefox is a browser, not Google/Bing/DDG/whatever. Honestly, if you guys wanted to know where to find good porn on the internet, why didn’t you just ask?

jdright 9y ago

English announcement here: https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2016/08/23/mozilla-makes-strategic-investment-in-cliqz-to-enable-privacy-focused-search-innovation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2016/08/23/mozilla-makes-s...

mig39 9y ago
Is that the same announcement? It's from August 2016. I think this is the correct URL for the latest announcement in English: https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks! We've updated the link from https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-firefox/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i....
  - ktta 9y ago
    This looks like it is the new link.
toyg 9y ago
That's the announcement of Mozilla investment from last year, and it says Cliqz would just be an optional add-on. There is nothing about being preinstalled and turned on by default.

arkitaip 9y ago

If I understand the Google translation correctly, Mozilla has invested in Germany based Cliqz, basically a privacy oriented fork of Firefox. Cliqz has a feature which displays contextual information in the address bar and apparently Mozilla is experimenting with this feature in Firefox. German users (less than 1% of them) who download Firefox will have the Cliqz addon activated and the addon will collect anonymized user data, such as which URLs have been visited. Cliqz's attempt to collect data while safe guarding user privacy is called Human Web [0] and the code is open source [1]. [0] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885... [1] https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/modules/human-web/sources/human-web.es https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/module...

sharmi 9y ago

TL;DR Cliqz provides recommendations such as news, weather news, or the world of sports, while typing into the address line. Next week, a little less than one percent of the German users who download Firefox from mozilla's central download page will receive a Firefox version with the Cliqz recommendations activated automatically. This includes the data capture tool that records the surfing activities those users, including the URLs of the pages they visit. The data are sent to the Cliqz servers. Cliqz promises to anonimize the data. The data gathering code is available online at [1] and a description methods of gathering at [2]. One can always use the Disable Data Recovery or completely remove the Cliqz add-on. [1] https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/modules/human-web/sources/human-web.es https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/blob/master/module... [2] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...

yorwba 9y ago

> Eines von Mozillas zentralen Prinzipien zum Schutz von Daten lautet Keine Überraschungen. One of Mozilla's central data protection principles is No Surprises. I damn well hope that the download link will be clearly marked as an altered version of Firefox, explain that the complete browsing history will be collected and analyzed, and will preclude absolutely any way to accidentally download it without understanding the risk.

floatingatoll 9y ago
To clarify, when you say “complete browser history” you describe what Chrome does, where the entire browser history is sent to Google for sync and analysis. Did you mean to say “all links visited in the Cliqz-enabled browser”, or otherwise does the post somewhere express any intention to collect visit data from prior to Cliqz?
- leeoniya 9y ago
  the comment is pretty clear. tell users exactly what they're downloading and how it affects their privacy. "This version of Firefox will send your browsing history to a third party, Cliqz, for analysis and suggestions". When i download Chrome, i know where my history goes - to Google. I also know where it doesn't go - somewhere else.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    That entirely oversimplifies things, though. For one, Mozilla owns parts of that third party, therefore they presumably do know what happens with that data and can pull the plug from their side, if nefarious things happen. And secondly, Google can do a lot more with your data than Mozilla and that third party combined could ever do, both from a technical viewpoint in terms of evaluation, linking to other data, distribution, and especially so from a legal viewpoint. Providing this information as you put it would be entirely misleading, even if it is factually accurate in isolation.
- pseudalopex 9y ago
  To clarify, when you say "what Chrome does", you describe what Chrome does if you sign in. The article doesn't say prior history won't be collected, and the grandparent didn't say it will be. If you want to be pedantic, someone installing Firefox from the main download page probably won't have any prior history.

amingilani 9y ago

Cliqz is like a search engine in your address bar: https://cliqz.com/en/ https://cliqz.com/en/ I think it's a nice tool, but auto-opting in users' data to be forwarded to Cliqz servers is kinda shitty. I get that there are no user profiles being built, but it's still concerning for me.

IgorPartola 9y ago
Oh yeah. It’s going to be super difficult to guess who I am when I log into example.com and it redirects me to example.com/profile/igorpartola. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  It's described here, how they deal with that sort of stuff: https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    To summarise: they're not going to send which URLs you visit. However, they can set up specific experiments, and will send the results. Thus, they could set up an experiment "did users first visit example.com and later example.com/profile/igorpartola, and then have only you report that to be the case. That example is of course not that likely and thus troublesome. What worries me, though, is the described experiment "what search terms have led to users switching search engine", and then reporting the search engine. They acknowledge this problem, but the response is "at least that's better than gathering that data server-side". True, but it's still too much data, I think.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  We don’t want to know who you are. We obsess over not knowing who you are. None of us want to know who you are. I know this is of little assurance, but all the same.

will4274 9y ago

It's clear that this move won't be popular with a vocal portion of FFs _developer_ base. I have to wonder - is there a breaking point in the future where a meaningful fork begins? The only other product of a similar size that I can think of being forked is OpenOffice/LibreOffice - and, in that case, the original was effectively defunded.

floatingatoll 9y ago
The TOR browser is the fork you seek. It already turns off every bit of phone-anywhere that we have, and we work with them to keep that the case. Use it and be merry.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Mozilla should be sued into the ground and destroyed. You should lose your job and never be employable again. A scorched earth policy is the only way that maybe, just maybe, you will learn that if you base your brand image on privacy, you can’t go and illegally exfiltrate userdata. I mean for fucks sake, who do you think uses Firefox? The only people still using it are those focusing on privacy, and you continue to drive away the last few users you have. In the global internet market you have below 6% of users. In Germany, a very privacy-focused market, you have still 40% of the desktop market, because of privacy. If you actually ship this product in Firefox releases, you can expect this story to show up at least on page 3, but more likely on the frontpage of every newspaper, and expect to see your userbase fall to nothing. Is this seriously what you want? To destroy Mozilla yourself?
- fwn 9y ago
  This is very bad advice. The TOR browser is not just a Firefox without the data traps, it's tunneling your connection through the onion network. This is something you have to be aware of while browsing. It has many implications!
Feniks 9y ago
There is Pale Moon. Being a very niche browser developed by a small community it is unlikely to add to the internet data mining gold rush that is currently going on. Pale Moon doesn't even accept the new DRM standards that Mozilla was forced to accept.

hysan 9y ago

I'm going to repeat the same thing I said during the whole Pocket fiasco. Why not have this pre-installed as an add-on but disabled? You can make an announcement on the updates page with your reasoning, and users who feel like this is worthwhile can opt-in by enabling it. Why is this being enabled by default for 1% of users?

482794793792894 9y ago
Because 1% of users is still probably an order of magnitude higher than however many would opt-in and because they want as broad of a user-base. If you only have people that opt-in, you'll pretty much only have power-users.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  Several orders of magnitude.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Not if you lose all your users over this.
- hysan 9y ago
  But is that worth the damage to the brand? I tried to support Firefox for as long as I could, but their mixed messages about what they stood for + poor performance (at the time) eventually forced my hand in switching browsers. However, they did apologize after the huge backlash post-Pocket. Combined with all the news about FF 57 and Quantum, I was intrigued enough to consider giving them a second chance. This move though... it is so much worse than any other misstep they've done. From my point of view, this just seems like an opportunistic attempt at slipping something by right before one of their biggest releases / PR pushes. I cannot see myself ever believing in Mozilla the organization anymore.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    If you actually look into it, there's basically nothing that you can accuse them of here. There's the possibility that Cliqz does actually start collecting the data, i.e. breaks the contract, commits a crime, and that then Mozilla, which owns parts of Cliqz and therefore has insight, does not notice right away. Other than that, there's nothing. No serious journalist will pick this up, because it would in turn damage their reputation to accuse Mozilla of mishandling user data here. Yes, it is still going to damage Mozilla's brand, because people prefer conspiracy theories over actually reading up on what they're doing, but it's going to stay isolated to first-hand news discussion forums, like HN, Reddit, Slashdot. This is simply an investment that Mozilla is willing to take to potentially improve search in their browser and to decrease the internet's dependence on classic web search engines, which is to say Google.

fiatjaf 9y ago

Hey, I want that. How do I opt in?

482794793792894 9y ago
I think, the Cliqz browser extension will do the same: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cliqz/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cliqz/

fiatjaf 9y ago

Well, people who are pissed off should know that Chrome and Chromium have been doing the same thing for a decade. This doesn't diminish what Mozilla is doing, but at least you should yell at Google too.

akkartik 9y ago
I'd like to hold Mozilla to a higher standard. Sigh.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  We certainly hold ourselves to a higher standard, no matter what people say to the contrary. Endless never-ending arguments for a very long time about all of this. Whatever else you think of us, at least remember that we not only care but agonize over this stuff at length.
  - musage 9y ago
    Then why do you instantly bring up Chrome to "clarify" here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421980 ? Endless never-ending arguments? So they're still going on? Or you're so exhausted, you can't actually address anything for real and share none of what was discussed?
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Then why the fuck are you behaving just as horrible as Google in exfiltrating user’s data, illegally, without opt-in? How the fuck do you deceive yourself into thinking you’re supporting the privacy of your users by doing this, or the Google Analytics in the addon settings?
    - floatingatoll 9y ago
      These are accusations, not questions. The framing of the sentences prevents any useful reply.
9y ago

1024core 9y ago

> Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit. Yep, this should end well. Mozilla has been trying to sell out for years. c.f.: Pocket

floatingatoll 9y ago
Correction: We bought Pocket, not sold out to Pocket.
- JosephLark 9y ago
  What's with the revisionist history? Mozilla acquired Pocket long after the controversy. Per wikipedia [0]: Integration into Firefox: June 2015 Acquired by Mozilla: February 27, 2017 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_(service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_(service)
- mercer 9y ago
  Your behavior in this discussion sickens me, and I'm not saying that lightly. Not only is this 'clickz' thing antithetical to any privacy argument that made me a supporter of Mozilla and Firefox, the fact that you're in here responding as if this is not a big deal is a slap in the face. I was bothered by having Pocket shoved down my throat, let alone another unasked privacy situation. What's so difficult about just providing a fucking browser that does not harvest my data for ads? Are you bored? I've seriously never been angry on an online forum since I was in my teens, and yet here we are.
  - heeen2 9y ago
    Devil's advocate, but the difficulty is a delivering a very complex piece of software to a highly competitive market to customers not willing to pay for anything.
- pseudalopex 9y ago
  Mozilla killed Reading List, signed a referral deal with Pocket, and made misleading-at-best statements for months before coming clean. You bought Pocket more than a year after that.

jasonkostempski 9y ago

Dev tools are completely useless after the update I got today and now they're pulling more anti-privacy stunts. Not a happy user right now.

floatingatoll 9y ago
Which dev tools, specifically? What functionality is broken? Is this in 56 or 57?
- lucb1e 9y ago
  I've wanted vertical tabs forever but existing addons didn't work or held my cpu at 100% the whole time. A little while ago they trialled it with Firefox Test Pilot and I've been enjoying it ever since. Now they broke their own addon in Firefox 56, which is not even suppossed to have the shit webextensions yet. I was going to stay at 56 for a while until there were replacements for everything, but it seems 55 was the last usable version. I don't know what parent means specifically, but 56 already started breaking stuff irrevocably for me.
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    If you switch to the ESR client, it'll retain working old-extensions support and continue offering security updates for a while longer.

hiram112 9y ago

Wow - just when it looked like Mozilla might be on the right path again, after years of incredibly bad ideas, they remind us all why we moved to Chrome.

floatingatoll 9y ago
If you moved to Chrome to have your complete browser history harvested without any effort to protect your privacy from the advertising company that makes Chrome, then you chose correctly.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cryo 9y ago
  @floatingtoll Can you please send me your complete browsing history, everyday? I promise to protect it and will not do any evil, I'm very good at cyber. What could possibly go wrong? If you won't trust some random guy from the internet, why should users trust Cliqz? Somehow Mozilla thinks it's worth to loose the over years gained valuable trust of users for the benefit of recommendations. You may think I'm totally wrong here, so please make the following test - Ask random people: "Are you ok that all your browser history is send to our high security server (insert security/promise magic here), so we can provide you better recommendations?" If people really understand the first part of the question I can't imagine they have a good feeling about it, that's not human nature. Acceptance for such "features" must not rely on people don't understanding what's happening behind the scenes.

jshb 9y ago

Ask toolbar lives again, this time in Firefox.

osivertsson 9y ago

Tin-foil hat: "Invisible hand" is trying to make mass surveillance of Firefox users easier.

leeoniya 9y ago

This is fine if the user is fully informed in advance and has your consent before using the software. It is absolutely unacceptable to do this behind their backs. If this was a feature that was shown to be highly beneficial to your users, then why deploy it to just 1%? Super shady. This is Pocket all over again. Will this be something that can be fully disabled? Not something I ever expected to see out of privacy-focused Mozilla. Are we going to need a world with unmozillad-firefox, à la https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium ? Sad day.

482794793792894 9y ago
> If this was a feature that was shown to be highly beneficial to your users, then why deploy it to just 1%? Super shady. They've seen this on a small scale, and only among power users. They're now rolling it out to this 1% to test further how users like it and especially also to see how average users like it. Besides that, they're trying to improve the data set to see how well it works with enough data. 1% of users is plenty to get that data set up. So, in case they decide to not roll the feature out, they only have to take it away from that 1% of users. Lastly, they are aware that this opens up potential ways to infringe on user privacy and more-so will spin up conspiracy theorists that have now discovered that Mozilla was evil all along. It's just something that can harm their image, even if it is done in an entirely privacy-respecting way. So, they're testing the waters. If users like it a lot, they might be willing to take that reputation damage. If the feedback is good, but not overwhelming, then they might backpedal, just to get those conspiracy theorists back into the boat.
Vinnl 9y ago
Reading over the technical description [1], I agree that this does not live up to the standards I expect from Mozilla (although it's not as bad as some people make it out). That said, rolling out new features to 1% of users first is not that extraordinary. Especially considering that we (or at least, I) hadn't heard of this experiment earlier, and that there's only now erupting some fuss over this, it seems like a good idea to still consider it in the experimental phase and thus just roll it out to an initial batch. And hopefully back out of it later. [1] https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...

stewbrew 9y ago

Marketing fun in action: "we highlighted the increasing problem of centralisation and how that impacts discovery on the Web." And that's why they send all their user's data to one central place that responds with recommendations where they should go to next.

Feniks 9y ago

Christ Almighty if I wanted Chrome I would be using Chrome. I specifically use FF to get away from this stuff. I have no Google or Facebook account and block/erase as many trackers and cookies because I'm not interested in aiding your data mining quest. Bah.

zakk 9y ago

Is this a joke? I started using FF as my primary browser two weeks ago, thanks to the good performance of Quantum in beta and the new brand image as the privacy-oriented browser. If this ends up on a single download I will switch back to Safari.

chrisper 9y ago
We are both in the same boat. I just switched from Chrome to FF Beta recently. And now this...

esaym 9y ago

This is no good. I've used only Mozilla/Firefox since 2003. Even this makes me want to leave. I can't help but wonder why? Desperate for money? No body will believe the story that this is some how for "good"

AlbertoGP 9y ago

I've just opened an issue at uBlockOrigin with information on the URLs used by this thing: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/743 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/743

zakk 9y ago
Can it block other extensions?
- AlbertoGP 9y ago
  As noted by someone else in the issue discussion, the old version (works until Firefox 57 arrives) can, but the new webext version can not: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Firefox-WebExtensions#differences-with-ubolegacy https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Firefox-WebExtensions...
  - lucb1e 9y ago
    WebEx seems like a worse and worse idea (or perhaps it's just the execution) every single time I read anything about it.
    - girst 9y ago
      IMHO sandboxing extensions is overall a good thing. A rouge extension could have access to e.g. your password manager otherwise.
      - lucb1e 9y ago
        There's a difference between compartmentalization and limiting your platform's extensibility.
      - jhasse 9y ago
        Thing is: I trust uBlock Origin more than I trust Mozilla.

shevy 9y ago

Now mozilla totally lost it. I realized a few months ago that mozilla is run by google drones, so it no longer surprises me that mozilla kills itself. But the level of stupidity is amazing. I think the people who work there are deliberately recruited in regards to who is the better one at killing off mozilla.

rrix2 9y ago
Which google drones? Can you point to particular names or is this just a random theory?

Yetanfou 9y ago

A quick look at the source of the extension shows they use the following addresses for gathering data and publishing 'offers': https://abtests.cliqz.com https://anolysis-gid.cliqz.com https://anolysis-telemetry.cliqz.com https://antiphishing.cliqz.com https://anti-tracking.cliqz.com https://api.cliqz.com https://cdn.cliqz.com https://cliqz.com https://hpn-collector.cliqz.com https://hpn-sign.cliqz.com https://offers-api.cliqz.com https://safe-browsing.cliqz.com https://safe-browsing-quorum.cliqz.com https://stats.cliqz.com These can be added to the blocklist on the router or just watched for fun and profit, your choice. As an aside, both the domain name 'cliqz.com' as well as the use of terms like 'offers' leave a bad taste. If this is really meant to be a legitimate operation they could have done better than to copy the language of the bottom feeders of the 'net, now they just come across like a revamp of 'Bonzi Buddy' and its ilk, watching users' browsing habits to provide 'shopping opportunities' and such drivel.

cityzen 9y ago

Sort of off topic but if you use Ghostery, it was acquired by Cliqz back in February: https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquired-cliqz/ https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquire... It’s really hard to understand what is going on with the web these days. There seems to be this whole bait > acquire > switch routine is the exit strategy. Take the whole unrollme/uber thing: https://theintercept.com/2017/04/24/stop-using-unroll-me-right-now-it-sold-your-data-to-uber/ https://theintercept.com/2017/04/24/stop-using-unroll-me-rig... oh well... it was a fun ride while it lasted

gmb2k1 9y ago

You can upvote the bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1406647 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1406647 Personally, I think, that's a horrible move by mozilla, that destroys any momentum that they gained with the quantum project.

axonic 9y ago
I did. Interestingly, I also tried to view a related bug to find "You are not authorized to access". How fitting. There seems to be a fight between people trying to raise the issue to Mozilla's attention, and the staff. So they get caught doing something shady again, get told to stop, and react by posting pseudopolite comments about how we've made their work experience difficult, close comment threads, and come spread misinformation here? What should be done?

cowchase 9y ago

Awful. Who are the suits that are sabotaging Mozilla's core mission? Don't they understand that Mozillas Unique Selling Point is trust? Why the hell are they fumbling the ball?