5 ms·

We really need a fork of Firefox with all the garbage removed, including the ability for Mozilla's marketroids to push things at us remotely. (Also "telemetry",

We really need a fork of Firefox with all the garbage removed, including the ability for Mozilla's marketroids to push things at us remotely. (Also "telemetry", DRM, Pocket, spam on the new tab page, etc.) A browser should just be a tool which answers to the user. I want my browser to be like a pair of pliers or a bicycle, neither of which have relationships with television shows. I think Iceweasel was essentially this, until the Debian project abandoned the effort.

jimktrains2 9y ago
Don't iceweasle and friends do that?
TheDong 9y ago
> removed .. telemetry We want our browsers to work. Without telemetry, they simply won't be able to find and solve bugs and crashes effectively. Without crash reporting and other basic telemetry, it's basically impossible to know how prevalent certain bugs and configurations... which is of the utmost important for making a browser which actually works.
- chrismartin 9y ago
  > Without telemetry, they simply won't be able to find and solve bugs and crashes effectively. Users can be prompted to report bugs with some facility to provide telemetry (e.g. after a crash), but the browser must ask permission first. On-by-default telemetry is tantamount to malware exfiltrating information about your computing activity to a third party.
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    > e.g. after a crash Not "e.g. after a crash", "only after a crash". That's about the only kind of telemetry you can get on a "prompt on each occurrence" basis like that. Just monitoring crashes is not nearly enough to create a competitive browser. Performance bugs, many of which are specific to older systems mostly used by people who can't be expected to file bugs in Bugzilla, cannot be reliably caught without some kind of telemetry.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  The last thing I want is my browser to 'phone home' when it feels like it. What data leaves my computer is mine to decide.
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    Correct. That's why telemetry is opt-in: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/FAQ#Is_Telemetry_enabled_by_default_on_normal_Firefox_releases.3F https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/FAQ#Is_Telemetry_enabled_...
    - j_s 9y ago
      These discussions with responses from Mozilla employees demonstrate that hasn't always been the case (I'm not 100% sure the add-on settings tracking is opt-in at this point, it appears to have been fixed to follow the 'Do Not Track' setting) and show a bit more of the mindset of the company. They want to have their cake and eat it too. "Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings" | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 kannanvijayan: we can't build a better browser without good information on how it's behaving in the wild "Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way" | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071492 potch: negotiated a special contract with Google to only collect a subset of data and that that data is only used for statistical purposes
      - pcwalton 9y ago
        None of that contradicts the fact that telemetry, the feature, is opt-in.
        j_s 9y ago
        (Original reply, heavily edited) My intention was to warn that Mozilla's use of the term 'Telemetry' as a feature does not cover all of their data collection, and to point to official examples demonstrating the mindset of the Mozilla developers for a higher-level perspective. As you have repeated, the one (primary) aspect of of Firefox's data collection that you mentioned (dubbed Telemetry, which I initially confused in context of OP's comment as intending to include all data collection) is documented on your link as opt-in. Props for that, but there are other aspects. (I am also going to verify it must indeed be enabled manually during a default install.) Per OP: The last thing I want is my browser to 'phone home' when it feels like it. I may be wrong, but my understading is that "Google Analytics in the add-on settings" has been improved only to _opt-out_ rather than being required in the past. Also, per their website SHIELD Studies seem to have a global opt-in followed by a per-study opt-in/out setting. Unfortunately the wording seems a bit wishy-washy and there are anecdotes on this discussion claiming this specific "study"/marketing opportunity did install and run something (at the very least: to skip enabling itself) without purposeful opt-in. There is a lot of confusion here. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956568 >Manishearth: What was enabled was a small piece of code[1] that would enable the full addon when a pref was flipped (Note: the Github link 404's since the add-on has been updated after this story broke.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15958466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15958466 >tosssh: Shield Studies are opt-out by default
thristian 9y ago
Optimizing for benchmarks only gets you so far, and often a change that benchmarks well can actually hurt performance in the real world, so telemetry is vitally important for judging real-world performance. Since Google is pretty comfortable with adding telemetry, they have excellent data and deep insights into the performance (and hardware compatibility, and network reliability, etc.) problems that occur in the real world, and can design Chrome to meet those needs. Mozilla is unwilling to telemetrize All The Things, but in order to stay competitive they need to understand the problem-space at least as well as their competition, and so you see them tying themselves in knots trying to walk the line between privacy and useful telemetry.
scrollaway 9y ago
A fork of Firefox fixes none of the issues at hand. At best it gives a couple hundred users some obscure name to proudly flaunt when they are asked what browser they use. Mozilla is what's important, not Firefox. And Mozilla needs to be fixed.

jimktrains2 9y ago

Don't iceweasle and friends do that?

TheDong 9y ago

> removed .. telemetry We want our browsers to work. Without telemetry, they simply won't be able to find and solve bugs and crashes effectively. Without crash reporting and other basic telemetry, it's basically impossible to know how prevalent certain bugs and configurations... which is of the utmost important for making a browser which actually works.

chrismartin 9y ago
> Without telemetry, they simply won't be able to find and solve bugs and crashes effectively. Users can be prompted to report bugs with some facility to provide telemetry (e.g. after a crash), but the browser must ask permission first. On-by-default telemetry is tantamount to malware exfiltrating information about your computing activity to a third party.
- pcwalton 9y ago
  > e.g. after a crash Not "e.g. after a crash", "only after a crash". That's about the only kind of telemetry you can get on a "prompt on each occurrence" basis like that. Just monitoring crashes is not nearly enough to create a competitive browser. Performance bugs, many of which are specific to older systems mostly used by people who can't be expected to file bugs in Bugzilla, cannot be reliably caught without some kind of telemetry.
jacquesm 9y ago
The last thing I want is my browser to 'phone home' when it feels like it. What data leaves my computer is mine to decide.
- pcwalton 9y ago
  Correct. That's why telemetry is opt-in: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/FAQ#Is_Telemetry_enabled_by_default_on_normal_Firefox_releases.3F https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/FAQ#Is_Telemetry_enabled_...
  - j_s 9y ago
    These discussions with responses from Mozilla employees demonstrate that hasn't always been the case (I'm not 100% sure the add-on settings tracking is opt-in at this point, it appears to have been fixed to follow the 'Do Not Track' setting) and show a bit more of the mindset of the company. They want to have their cake and eat it too. "Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings" | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546 kannanvijayan: we can't build a better browser without good information on how it's behaving in the wild "Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way" | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071492 potch: negotiated a special contract with Google to only collect a subset of data and that that data is only used for statistical purposes
    - pcwalton 9y ago
      None of that contradicts the fact that telemetry, the feature, is opt-in.
      - j_s 9y ago
        (Original reply, heavily edited) My intention was to warn that Mozilla's use of the term 'Telemetry' as a feature does not cover all of their data collection, and to point to official examples demonstrating the mindset of the Mozilla developers for a higher-level perspective. As you have repeated, the one (primary) aspect of of Firefox's data collection that you mentioned (dubbed Telemetry, which I initially confused in context of OP's comment as intending to include all data collection) is documented on your link as opt-in. Props for that, but there are other aspects. (I am also going to verify it must indeed be enabled manually during a default install.) Per OP: The last thing I want is my browser to 'phone home' when it feels like it. I may be wrong, but my understading is that "Google Analytics in the add-on settings" has been improved only to _opt-out_ rather than being required in the past. Also, per their website SHIELD Studies seem to have a global opt-in followed by a per-study opt-in/out setting. Unfortunately the wording seems a bit wishy-washy and there are anecdotes on this discussion claiming this specific "study"/marketing opportunity did install and run something (at the very least: to skip enabling itself) without purposeful opt-in. There is a lot of confusion here. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15956568 >Manishearth: What was enabled was a small piece of code[1] that would enable the full addon when a pref was flipped (Note: the Github link 404's since the add-on has been updated after this story broke.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15958466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15958466 >tosssh: Shield Studies are opt-out by default

thristian 9y ago

Optimizing for benchmarks only gets you so far, and often a change that benchmarks well can actually hurt performance in the real world, so telemetry is vitally important for judging real-world performance. Since Google is pretty comfortable with adding telemetry, they have excellent data and deep insights into the performance (and hardware compatibility, and network reliability, etc.) problems that occur in the real world, and can design Chrome to meet those needs. Mozilla is unwilling to telemetrize All The Things, but in order to stay competitive they need to understand the problem-space at least as well as their competition, and so you see them tying themselves in knots trying to walk the line between privacy and useful telemetry.

scrollaway 9y ago

A fork of Firefox fixes none of the issues at hand. At best it gives a couple hundred users some obscure name to proudly flaunt when they are asked what browser they use. Mozilla is what's important, not Firefox. And Mozilla needs to be fixed.