14 ms·

Facebook Container for Firefox

• Kequc 8y ago
  I would like to isolate every website I visit into a container, such that cookies or other tracking mechanisms are unable to be effective while on other pages.
  • tehlike 8y ago
    What about ips?
    • dredmorbius 8y ago
      To an extent, Tor can address this, though many sites make this exceedingly painful (Captchas, rate-limiting, outright blocking), and Tor itself is slow -- to set up, bandwidth, and latency. I'm not sure if some middle tier of connection indirection, content caching-and-forwarding, or other mechanisms, might better address this. There are protocols such as IPFS and browsers such as Min which might be a partial response to this: https://minbrowser.github.io/min/ https://minbrowser.github.io/min/
  • _sigma 8y ago
    it is linked elsewhere on this page, but this will do that https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...
• tomc1985 8y ago
  Is this any different than Firefox's regular container support?
  • cptskippy 8y ago
    It's got Facebook in the name to ride the hate wave? I'm so glad Mozilla hired a Marketing team... /s
    • Blaaguuu 8y ago
      IIRC, this was just one engineer's side project to take their existing container tech, which might be too 'advanced' for most users, and make a one-off addon that more users might be interested in. Do you think that Mozilla's marketing of Firefox as more privacy focused is a bad thing?
      • cptskippy 8y ago
        > Do you think that Mozilla's marketing of Firefox as more privacy focused is a bad thing? Not at all. This just strikes me as desperation, jumping on the hate train against Facebook because it's easy. Instead I'd like to see them actually develop their container functionality into a mainstream feature for the browser that might gain enough attention to make people start asking why Chrome, Safari, or Edge don't do the same. I could see it very easily existing somewhere between the "New Window" and "New Private Window" menu options. They'd just need to rebrand it as something other than "containers" for the masses to understand it. "Private Window" would have been good but unfortunately that's been taken, in hindsight they should have gone with something that more clearly convey's the "burned after reading" forgetful nature of the private window because I think private conveys secret/isolated without the self destruction that comes with a Private/Incognito window.. People understand the Private/Incognito window, it wouldn't be hard to explain that a container window exists somewhere between a regular window and Private/Incognito. They could also easily surface or suggest sites you might want to containerize.
    • laumars 8y ago
      Up until now I hadn't heard of their containers feature despite being a Firefox user so at least one techy has benefited from this update. Though I doubt I am alone.
    • atonse 8y ago
      It's smart – my only complaint when seeing this is "how come nobody's focusing on Google?"
      • dingo_bat 8y ago
  • TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
    It's a convenient wrapper for that which automatically redirects Facebook pages into the container, redirects other sites to be outside the container, and deletes Facebook cookies: > How does this compare to the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension? > Facebook Container specifically isolates Facebook and works automatically. Firefox Multi-Account Containers is a more general extension that allows you to create containers and determine which sites open in each container. > You can use Multi-Account Containers to create a container for Facebook and assign facebook.com to it. Multi-Account Containers will then make sure to only open facebook.com in the Facebook Container. However, unlike Facebook Container, Multi-Account Containers doesn’t prevent you from opening non-Facebook sites in your Facebook Container. So users of Multi-Account Containers need to take a bit extra care to make sure they leave the Facebook Container when navigating to other sites. In addition, Facebook Container assigns some Facebook-owned sites like Instagram and Messenger to the Facebook Container. With Multi-Account Containers, you will have to assign these in addition to facebook.com. > Facebook Container also deletes Facebook cookies from your other containers on install and when you restart the browser, to clean up any potential Facebook trackers. Multi-Account Containers does not do that for you. (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/facebook-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...)
  • ktpsns 8y ago
    The addon desc (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...) says: > Facebook Container leverages the Containers feature that is already built in to Firefox. When you enable Facebook Container, you may also see Containers named Personal, Work, Shopping, and Banking while you browse. If you wish to use multiple Containers, you’ll have the best user experience if you install the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-conta... So: No, it is not.
    • tomc1985 8y ago
      There's a few little extra gubbins in there. See sibling comments
• badloginagain 8y ago
  Im using uBlock origin and PrivacyBadger, will this cover something Im missing?
  • asdsa5325 8y ago
    PrivacyBadger might not block all trackers. Firefox containers "block" all trackers (or rather, they allow all trackers but limit the information they can gather completely).
  • ytch 8y ago
    How about Decentraleyes?
  • jakecopp 8y ago
    I use uBlock Origin to whitelist 1st party JS when I like a site, and Containers to keep the signed in riff-raff away from everything else!
  • icc97 8y ago
    Use them all in combination. Containers are nice way to divide up your tabs even if you don't want to be tracked.
• Insanity 8y ago
  Don't blame them for taking advantage of the current media attention facebook is getting to bump firefox containers a bit! It's pretty neat technology.
• zyztem 8y ago
  Unsurprisingly there is no Google container for Firefox
  • asdsa5325 8y ago
    You can use containers for any website / group of webistes. The specific Facebook-only container extension is for people who don't want to hassle of organizing their containers themselves and only want one for Facebook.
    • gowld 8y ago
      Hey why is Firefox giving Facebook preferential treatment?
      • asdsa5325 8y ago
        Have you read the news lately? Facebook has been a special concern as of late...
      • lucb1e 8y ago
        Preferential? Other than publicity, I'd say it's the opposite. Though I see your point.
      • ytch 8y ago
        Because facebook gives preferential treatment to us?
      • pessimizer 8y ago
        Still shedding users and they need something to press release.
      • pavs 8y ago
        I think you meant to ask why is Facebook treating its users like shit?
    • justinzollars 8y ago
      Do you have any more information on how to do this? A link? I'm interested in isolating google.
• atonse 8y ago
  Uh it says I'm on Firefox 52 and can't install this. But I'm on Firefox 59.
  • evilpie 8y ago
    You probably have the privacy.resistFingerprinting preference set to true. This spoofs your browser version.
    • atonse 8y ago
      Yep that fixed it. Thank you!
• jacobsenscott 8y ago
  I've been trying to use Firefox's containers for a while. They are pretty clunky - you need to open a blank container tab using a menu and then enter the url. I forget to do that all the time, so after some time you are just logged into everything in the "global" container, or logged in to google and twitter in the same container etc. If you check the "Always open this page in this container thing" - then it prompts you with an "are you sure you want to open this page in this container" every time you go to that page which is very annoying. Edit - this is not true - there's a checkbox to "remember your choice". I don't know why I didn't see it. They are error prone enough that they aren't good tracking protection. Just use ublock origin or a similarly good privacy plugin to globally block as much tracking as you can. The facebook container eliminates some of those annoyances, but only for facebook.
  • jakecopp 8y ago
    > then it prompts you with an "are you sure you want to open this page in this container" every time you go to that page which is very annoying. That isn't true - you say yes/no the first time and then it's automatic. Works great for me. I create a container for every service I want to stay logged into and whitelist the specified sites with Cookie Autodelete (which is container aware), then auto delete all other cookies on tab close.
    • tomc1985 8y ago
      There's a "remember this" checkbox and that worked last time I tried to use it.
    • function_seven 8y ago
      Yeah, I'm not getting it after the first "Are you sure?" prompt, but that first one is annoying. I already checked the box asking to always open foo.com in a specific container. Why is it asking again? Also, I'd love to do this in my bookmarks, instead of having to visit each site and set the container one-by-one.
      • zjs 8y ago
• walrus01 8y ago
  If anyone in your household uses FB from the IOS or android mobile app from wifi, it will have both your IP address and GPS coordinates. Correlating that multiple people share one residence or workplace is easily done for FB. You can keep playing a shell game like run all your desktop PC traffic through a VPN somewhere so that the FB container doesn't show up as the same geolocation, but you or an ignorant non technical user you live or work with will slip up. Edit: fb also buys geolocation data from organizations that do the modern equivalent of wardriving. Correlating GPS location with RSSI of specific wifi SSIDs and AP MAC addresses. If anyone near you uses the app, even if their phone has all location services turned off, you're still geoprofiled to within a city block.
  • dao- 8y ago
    What's your point? Facebook still won't know what websites you visit on your PC. It also doesn't have geolocation access there unless you explicitly grant it.
    • walrus01 8y ago
      That the targeted advertising and profiling will still come to you. Live with a person who joins fb mommy groups and buys diapers online? Prepare for a barrage of relevant ads. The main point is that the combination of relationship-inference and geolocation can undo probably 70% of your own privacy protection measures, through ignorant ordinary use of the fb app by friends, family and coworkers. Then combine that with fb facial recognition profiling from photos third parties may upload...
      • dao- 8y ago
        Sure, they will still track you as best as they can (though as I said Facebook doesn't have geolocation access on desktop). This doesn't change the fact that without your browsing profile, Facebook will have less knowledge about you than it would normally have, period. Facebook can't "undo" that.
        • 8y ago
• moocowtruck 8y ago
  cool, but if anything tells me there's something wrong with permission systems it's this... the permissions it asked for, if that was any extension i'd be leery of it, but since this is from mozilla i trusted it..
• Operyl 8y ago
  > In addition, websites that allow you to create an account or log in using your Facebook credentials will generally not work properly. Because this extension is designed to separate Facebook use from use of other websites, this behavior is expected. As much as I love these kinds of things, this is going to break something for my less tech-y family. As such, I can't let them use this kind of thing.
  • briandear 8y ago
    Maybe you should can’t let them use Facebook logins?
    • Operyl 8y ago
      They have existing apps that wouldn't let them do that. I'm not about to control my mother's choices.
• 07d046 8y ago
  I used Firefox's containers for about a day, and then I discovered the privacy.firstparty.isolate option (in about:config), which effectively gives every site its own container with no user effort. That, combined with Cookie AutoDelete, seems to work well.
  • 6ak74rfy 8y ago
    nice, I wish there were a dedicated checkbox for this in the settings page. I didn't know about this until now.
    • vvanders 8y ago
      Yup, this is how I thought containers would work like at first. 9/10 times I navigate off a link from one container and boom I've pulled in everything in that new container by ctrl+l reflex.
  • forapurpose 8y ago
    Any problems? For example, CDNs are in different domains. Some ecommerce sites use payment services from other domains.
    • guelo 8y ago
      Things will break like logging in with Google/Facebook/other OAuths that use popup window redirects, iframe services like Disqus or Facebook comments, Google's captcha will become more annoying, less local caching will happen which means slower browsing in general.
      • mehrdadn 8y ago
        Yet another reason why you should avoid using service to log into another as much as possible.
        • ams6110 8y ago
          I'm really of two minds about this. On the one hand you can use Facebook or Google to log in and then have them know what sites you log into. Or you can use a site's native login and be pretty sure that at some point you're going to get a "we take security very seriously" notice after they screw up and expose all their user data.
• narag 8y ago
  We're going from cold war to all-in. Not just a privacy question. Reddit nags me every time I hit the front page, even returning from a story, asking me to log in. For most sites I need to create ublock filters to prevent pop-ups with useless "we use cookies", subscription requests, ads or social media bars that fills half the screen, etc. etc. etc. Every newspaper I read has decided that autostarting video and streaming is a good idea. Yes, HN is OK, but sites that it points to are not. I'm giving up on the web.
  • kfrzcode 8y ago
    > I'm giving up on the web They said, while posting on a web forum
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • ttctciyf 8y ago
      > a web forum which, to be fair, is accessible via numerous 3rd party apps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684105
  • jackgolding 8y ago
    When you mentioned reddit I thought you were talking about their "install the app" pop up. They have by far the worst mobile experience out of any site I've use more than once in the last 2 years.
    • Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
      LinkedIn are ever so slightly worse. But it's tight.
      • briandear 8y ago
        LinkedIn absolutely “wins” when it comes to a sucky mobile web experience.
• EastSmith 8y ago
  Good start targeting one of the biggest offenders. Now make the next step implementing full blown ad blocker the way Brave has done it.
  • dao- 8y ago
    Firefox has tracking protection. It's a pretty effective ad blocker for me.
    • dingo_bat 8y ago
      That's absolutely wrong! Tracking protection just results in dumber ads. But they still clutter your pages and waste your bandwidth.
      • dao- 8y ago
        That tracking protection is a good enough ad blocker for me is absolutely wrong? You do realize that tracking protection actually blocks ads, don't you?
        • dingo_bat 8y ago
          I did not know that, sorry. I thought it blocks tracking cookies and stuff. Does it actually hide advert elements from the page? If yes, I can see how it can be good enough for most people.
• fiatjaf 8y ago
  Stop "containing" Facebook, just quit it. These workarounds are just keeping you from facing the real problem: the time and mental effort spend on Facebook.
  • sjwright 8y ago
    Quitting Facebook doesn't solve the problem that containing it solves.
• CivilEngineer 8y ago
  This is an interesting idea. One big part of the problem with Facebook is how their ad system follows you around the web.
• JoshMnem 8y ago
  You can also run multiple Firefox profiles at the same time, each with different extensions. Something like: $ firefox -ProfileManager -no-remote & Also interesting: https://github.com/mozfreddyb/webext-firstpartyisolation https://github.com/mozfreddyb/webext-firstpartyisolation https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers
  • cpeterso 8y ago
    You can also create and launch Firefox profiles in a running Firefox instance on the about:profiles page.
• mehrdadn 8y ago
  How in the world do you get this to work with subdomains in the general case? How do I just say "open all [sub]domains under example.com in their own container, end of story"?
• shiado 8y ago
  Can't this be easily bypassed by Facebook? Given the amount of information usable to fingerprint browsers with JS enabled can't FB do some basic tricks like IP + WebRTC local IP + WebGL fingerprint + Canvas Fingerprint , etc...?
  • bencmbrook 8y ago
    Yeah, their fingerprinting would be incredibly well trained, and I imagine would work perfectly well on sparser data.
  • askvictor 8y ago
    Wouldn't surprise me; Perhaps containers could be extended to spoof/fuzz some of this data when then the site requests it? OTOH, if this blocks the tracking done by facebook's like buttons/forums by preventing their loading outside the container, then I don't think there's anything for FB to go off.
  • pavs 8y ago
    If users need to go through so many hoops to avoid facebook tracking, Best use privacy badger + don't use facebook at all.
• gfody 8y ago
  can someone explain why this is necessary? shouldn't anything that happens outside of any site stay outside that site, why a special extension just for facebook?
  • dfee 8y ago
    Let’s say you go to example.com and they’re using a Facebook Pixel for analytics - so example.com can continue marketing that widget to you after you’ve left their site. Well, when you visit example.com/shop/widget1 you essentially load a 1x1 pixel image from the url ads.facebook.com/pixel?metadata=goes-here and you web browser sends your Facebook cookie along side the request (as it does for every request to .facebook.com). So Facebook knows what site you’ve visited and what your interest are so that example.com can better market to you, their prospective customer. The web relies on cookies so you can remain logged in, have a shopping cart, and do most everything else that is stateful (though sometimes this stuff gets implemented in the browser’s webdata cache called localStorage). The container effectively makes the “session” - all data that is identifying - unique to the tab. So you couldn’t open a second tab and remain logged in to your bank account, for example. the urls are examples; I’m on my phone, not on my laptop.
    • d6de964 8y ago
      Can't the websites share that information with facebook by proxying that information? It'd be the same workaround as for ads if you host them it's very hard for someone else to block them, especially if you use dynamically named divs, image sizes etc.
      • dfee 8y ago
        No. You’re not providing your Facebook cookie to the third party site. So, there is no way to associate your identity on example.com with your Facebook profile. Think of it this way, if you have an authentication ticket, such as what is in a session cookie, then you have access to your account. If someone intercepted that ticket / cookie, they could maliciously act on your behalf and play around on your Facebook - just like you. Your browser therefore doesn’t send cookies to domains that aren’t specified as trusted by the originator of the cookie; I.e. third parties. So example.com and Facebook wouldn’t be able to associate the two identities. *except of course through some interesting trickery like browser fingerprinting.
• jakecopp 8y ago
  In my opinion Containers are the best thing in Firefox. I'm sacrificing battery life just so I can use them on my Mac. I finally feel free to search for whatever I want and not have second thoughts.
  • ReverseCold 8y ago
    > I finally feel free to search for whatever I want and not have second thoughts. Doesn't Google also link sessions through IP Address? That combined with "how you usually browse" + interests is a very powerful deanonymization tool.
    • jakecopp 8y ago
      You may be very right. I haven't encountered any targeting related to search terms yet, but I'm sure they have the capability. I do need to make the leap to DuckDuckGo at some point!
      • kbenson 8y ago
        I did both at the same time. Containers were the easier of the switches, because while DDG does an admirable job, it's not Google level quality for searches, and it can't be while still providing privacy. 80% of the time it's fine, the rest is acclimating yourself to g! and reminding yourself it exists.
      • rocgf 8y ago
        Making the leap to DDG was way easier than I thought and I am really pissed now that I didn't do it months ago. As other have said, you can generally find anything you want and, if not, you always have !g. However, I now have an intuition as to what sort of searches might yield good results. Either way, I encourage everyone to do it. Just change your search engine to DDG in your browser and, after a couple of searches, you will forget it's not Google.
    • sourcesmith 8y ago
      If they do, then you can turn it off through My Account -> Google Search personalization -> Signed out search activity.
• kgoutham93 8y ago
  What's a Firefox container and why should I use one ?
  • dao- 8y ago
    As the page explains: it prevents Facebook from tracking you across the Web.
    • kgoutham93 8y ago
      No I read it, but I want to understand the technical details like how is this different from using Facebook in incognito window.
      • dao- 8y ago
        Using Facebook in private windows only is a reasonable workaround that achieves roughly the same if you're disciplined. The addon is more user friendly.
• tptacek 8y ago
  Is there an advantage to this over Chrome Profiles, a feature built-into the browser?
  • pcwalton 8y ago
    See "How does this compare to the Facebook Container extension?": https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/?utm_source=blog.mozilla.org&utm_campaign=firefox_frontier&utm_medium=referral https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... It is also my understanding that Chrome Profiles are per-window, while Firefox containers are per-tab.
  • Flenser 8y ago
    This is install and forget. With Chrome Profiles you have to change your behaviour. i.e. opening a new window in the right profile before you open facebook. Also, one slip up with chrome profiles and you could end up with a facebook cookie in the wrong profile.
• Klasiaster 8y ago
  GNOME Web (Epiphany) lets you easily save a web page as web application, so that it gets an own desktop icon and browser profile to separate it from your normal browser.
• dingo_bat 8y ago
  Now do it for Google!
• cosmotron 8y ago
  Here's a link to when this was first appeared on HN (March 27): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688681 The comments have input from the add-on's author (groovecoder).
• hartator 8y ago
  Mozilla likes so much to trend, but this container wouldn’t have done anything against the current Facebook leak.
  • Krasnol 8y ago
    It's not like they could have. They do what they can.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• _o_ 8y ago
  Just as alternative, I am using this and it works great: https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio... (I don't use FB)
• tylerl 8y ago
  /sigh. Yet another "privacy" solution that's solves the wrong problem. You prevent the big bad company from spying on your browsing activity while, at the same time, explicitly posting to the big bad company's first-party site messages containing all the juicy bits of private information that you went through all that effort to prevent them from inferring through your other activities. And we pretend this is helping, rather than just adding noise to an already confusing technical landscape.
  • TheRealPomax 8y ago
    Sorry, you're not seriously entertaining the idea that browsers should just turn off facebook for everyone, are you? There are plenty of parts on this planet where facebook is the main page in people's lives, like it or not, and the problem to solve is one of people's attitude towards that being okay. Not the availability of facebook. You don't change people's minds from "this is useful to me on an hourly basis" to "I won't use this" without going through (many) intermediate step(s), and this is a GREAT intermediate step for those people who can't (for whatever reason) give up facebook, but do understand that maybe it's time to restrict what facebook sees a little. And then we keep the pressure on, as society. This is a long battle, we're nowhere near done.
    • some_account 8y ago
      Big companies like this never go away. They just reshape their public image and keep doing what they are doing. The Facebook thing will blow over. He has friends in high places. Right now this is a show for the public. Later its forgotten and Zuckerberg is back doing whatever he wants to do.
      • TheRealPomax 8y ago
        Big companies like this have never existed before. It's hard to remember, but 10 years ago there was no "massive Facebook" or anything of the same scale. Amazon, Apple, you name it: NONE of them have been around long enough for a claim that "they never go away" to make any kind of sense.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• dilliwal 8y ago
  I did the same for many years, blocking third party cookies, having a different browser profile, but none matters. Recently I downloaded all my fb data and I found that fb gives a tool to advertisers where they can upload my contact information to join all the dots. The heading says "Advertisers who uploaded a contact list with your info" https://imgur.com/a/FRsUP https://imgur.com/a/FRsUP
  • Antrikshy 8y ago
    That's kinda the opposite. The brands somehow had your info (from accounts you may have created with them, for instance), which they explicitly imported into Facebook specifically to show ads to you etc.
    • dilliwal 8y ago
      Yes, it seems like that, and thats what I am trying to say, that browsers are just one vector, users information is collected from number of sources: - apps you use on your mobile - your email/phone (example: which you gave to a Pizza company is same as of your fb) - Your address which is with a local store nearby etc. etc. All this information is collected to connect all the dots. When I was going through the advertiser list, I was kinda shocked coz I never give my any detail to them, and still they have somehow uploaded it to fb. FB should ask the advertisers about source of data.
• nimbosa 8y ago
  why not just use the Private / incognito mode every time you want to use Facebook directly or indirectly? That way any Facebook-owned service like logins and website comments plugin will work as expected but will not follow you around in your regular browser window! ________________________ From the extension page: > "Clicking Facebook Share buttons on other browser tabs will load them within the Facebook Container. You should know that using these buttons passes information to Facebook about the website that you shared from." > "Because you will be logged into Facebook only in the Container, embedded Facebook comments and Like buttons in tabs outside the Facebook Container will not work. This prevents Facebook from associating information about your activity on websites outside of Facebook to your Facebook identity. > In addition, websites that allow you to create an account or log in using your Facebook credentials will generally not work properly. Because this extension is designed to separate Facebook use from use of other websites, this behavior is expected."
• msravi 8y ago
  I've used a separate container tab for facebook in firefox (nightly) for some time now, along with uMatrix, uBlock origin, and privacybadger. I downloaded my info from fb a few days ago, and was pleasantly surprised at how little info they had on me - they only have 2 advertisers with my contact info (email id). I click stuff on fb, but don't post, and occasionally have had message exchanges with friends.
• newscracker 8y ago
  If you use Firefox Containers, including the Facebook Container, please also use Cookie AutoDelete [1] to get rid of cookies from closed tabs across containers. Otherwise, in my observation, sites will still be able to track you if you reuse a container (even after closing all tabs of that container) for a specific site. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...
  • pjmlp 8y ago
    Cool advice, thanks.
  • vidyesh 8y ago
    Honestly, I think one should use the container for specific things and just destroy it.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • LudoA 8y ago
    But doesn't that mean you need to login again each time you go to a website? Sure, by saving passwords in Firefox it isn't a huge hassle, but a cookie is still more practical...
    • peteretep 8y ago
      Explicitly white-list sites you don't think are tracking you across the web.
  • denzil_correa 8y ago
    Shouldn't Cookie AutoDelete be part of the Firefox containers?
  • scriptsmith 8y ago
    This is the purpose of containers. They allow you for the same set of websites to interact with 'you' in different contexts
• suyash 8y ago
  Firefox is one of the worst browsers in terms of security, so much malware just slips right through it, not to mention web designers don't bother testing on firefox much.
  • kjhkhhhhhb 8y ago
    Citation?
• drinchev 8y ago
  This should be enabled by default in Firefox, as is the tracking in Facebook. Hardly will Facebook care for the couple of hundreds that install and use something like this, but it will be much more efficient if browsers are pre-enabled with this feature.
  • dest 8y ago
    It may not be completely legal for Firefox to do that. I don't know though.
• kunthar 8y ago
  i have deleted all facebook accounts. easy and clean solution. also i suggest to use several browsers to login google accounts and browse daily. therefore activities totally separated and tracking is getting hard with combination of cookie removal. etags are still big problem though.
• gerardnll 8y ago
  I don't trust Facebook. I am 'aware' of the importance of privacy. I install 'Facebook Container' because I prefer to install an extension to keep Facebook kind of controlled than to delete my account. It doesn't make sense to me. If you are so privacy concerned it seems to me that the step you should take is to delete your account but not to look for ways to avoid being tracked by the company you don't trust, although you use its services. If this extension is not for Facebook users but for everyone, why don't implement it by default and for a lot of other websites?
  • siddhant 8y ago
    > It doesn't make sense to me. If you are so privacy concerned it seems to me that the step you should take is to delete your account but not to look for ways to avoid being tracked by the company you don't trust, although you use its services. A lot of people I know use Facebook because they have to. For instance, a friend of mine keeps track of job postings that are only posted in certain Facebook groups. I would modify the argument such that if you're so privacy concerned, don't put any personal information on Facebook, and limit what Facebook has access to (which is what the container extension is doing).
• gnanesh 8y ago
  I need a Google container for firefox.
  • mverwijs 8y ago
    There you go: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-container/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
• cornholio 8y ago
  Third party cookies, and any way to fingerprint a specific user starting from high entropy user agents to screen resolution, font fingerprinting or canvas data, should be considered a breach of the browser security model. All sites should run in containers and no advertiser should be able to track you across sessions. When I want 3rd party interaction, I should need to opt in and connect the current site with Facebook or some other 3rd party.
  • indiv0 8y ago
    Exactly. Why aren't all websites run in containers by default (personally I'm envisioning per-domain containers)? What benefit do we get from full-coverage containerization not being the default?
    • r3bl 8y ago
      In short: site breakage. We're so deep in this that a first party isolation would break almost every single website. In a cooperation with Tor, Mozilla actually ported the first-party isolation feature in mainstream Firefox (available in Nightly, don't know about stable), but since it would break almost every single website, there are no plans to turn it on by default. You can, of course, enable it yourself by turning on "privacy.firstparty.isolate" in about:config. Disclaimer: I'm a Mozilla Foundation affiliate that has nothing to do with Mozilla Corporation nor Firefox.
      • cornholio 8y ago
        It would break some sites (certainly not every site, I'm browsing this site right now with it enabled) because 3rd party cookies are an entrenched, standardized feature of the web, you can't simply turn them off tomorrow. Developers are using them to create benign functionality, for example spread an application across multiple domains owned by the same publisher. What I proposed above is that we introduce an opt-in feature: before the browser is allowed to connect to 3rd parties (in the tracking and cookie sense), the user needs to opt-in, for example by clicking in a notice window displayed at the corner of the browser window. Instead of nagging every user of every site that "This site is using cookies", developers should nag only when connecting to other applications, using a standardized browser API. After sometime from standardization, you can roll out this functionality to all users and nothing legitimate would break. There should be no presumed used consent - because there really is none, the outcry against Facebook and advertiser tracking shows people don't expect the web to work the way it does.
• baalimago 8y ago
  This might have been commented already, but: maybe have something similar for Google also? Now I'm not an expert, but ghostery/duckduckgo privacy essentials/ublock and so on "blockers" tell me that Google is responsible for a majority of the tracking
• dasanman 8y ago
  Its funny with all the focus on Facebook, while Google tracking is so much more widespread
  • isostatic 8y ago
    Google didn't elect Trump
    • LowDog 8y ago
      Yeah, the American people elected Trump in an extremely rare case of the public taking back the election from corporate behemoths. But let's pretend that Google hasn't had enormous sway over the White House and hasn't been rubbing shoulders with Obama and other Democrats [1][2][3][4]. Let's also ignore the fact that much of Silicon Valley publicly supported Hillary and opposed Trump, with big outspoken critics including Microsoft, Faceboook, and Apple. It's a shame to see indoctrination stretching to users of this site such that people here legitimately believe that a bunch of Russians locked away in some computer lab single-handedly elected the only man who challenged the prospect of perpetually living under the oligarchical thumb of the Bushes and the Clintons. [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transforming-power-and-politicsgoogle-once-disdainful-of-lobbying-now-a-master-of-washington-influence/2014/04/12/51648b92-b4d3-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transf... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/google-political-donations-congress https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/google-polit... [4] http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/09/google-higher-ups-love-donating-to-democrats-not-republicans/ http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/09/google-higher-ups-love-don...
      • pritambaral 8y ago
        This is off-topic, and your idea of how Trump got elected is not the only — or even one of the popular — view. Closer to the topic: what Facebook enabled was far more effective targeting, by agents not authorized by the targets, on a massive scale. That's a lot different than the "bunch of Russians locked away in some computer lab single-handedly elected" rhetoric.
• jammi 8y ago
  I hadn't used Firefox for anything practical in years except testing things of my own for compatibility. Now I launched it from a clean state, installed that extension and logged into Facebook... and it is still slow as molasses. It feels like downgrading the hardware to something 1/10th as powerful than what I'm used to. My point of comparison on this hardware is Safari, which I use for regular everyday default web browsing. It's not just Facebook on Firefox either; everything is sluggish and even typed text lags noticeably behind, which is something I hadn't experienced on anything since the iPhone 4 iOS 7 upgrade.
• chicob 8y ago
  Firefox Containers don't seem to work in Private Mode. Also Privacy Badger, btw.
  • yoavm 8y ago
    How would you use Firefox Containers in Private Mode? Private Mode is essentially a container that destroys itself when you close it.
    • chicob 8y ago
      Well, I didn't know that Private Mode worked as a container. I thought it merely didn't store browsing history and cookies between sessions by default, while allowing tabs to share data between them for each session.
• BuckRogers 8y ago
  I'm glad they released this and hit got some headlines because I tried it, realized how necessary it was and then learned about Firefox containers in general.[0] Now I'm using them for Gmail, Youtube, Twitter & FB. The three amigos, the internet bad guys. I really should just delete the last two accounts, but I feel a heck of a lot better now. I used to keep those in Microsoft Edge, a browser pretty much relegated to that dirty, social media duty alone. If I can use Firefox for everything, and cut off Google while I'm at it, even better. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy7lyvAfOSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy7lyvAfOSw
• chmike 8y ago
  I have a similar need for Google. I have two gmail accounts. One is to preserve my privacy. But I can only open one at the time. That's acceptable since I forward mails. But then, everything I do at Google is tracked and associated with this opened gmail account. Once we are connected to Google, we are kind of logged in Google. They can track everything we do, even searches. The problem I'm facing is that I can't keep the Google agenda opened for one user, and be connected to Google gmail as the other user. That's how far the "logging to Google" has got.
  • ozim 8y ago
    For email maybe use Thunderbird instead of browser. I have multiple mail accounts for different stuff on gmail. I do not login to it through web interface. It would be too much work and in Thunderbird I have also mails from other providers in one place.
  • ttctciyf 8y ago
    Why not use different browsers, like chrome and firefox, or, purely within firefox, different browser profiles?
    • pritambaral 8y ago
      Or, purely within the same Firefox profile, different containers? (I recognize that that's coming back to square one.)
• cJ0th 8y ago
  They have the right intention. But how is this useful? As far as I can tell, it does not prevent FF from leaking information that helps FB generate a fingerprint. I'd still reveal the same IP address (would be cool if Mozilla provided a VPN that all FB traffic goes through), the same browser, the same OS, screen resolution etc...
• miken123 8y ago
  What I cannot find anywhere: how does this compare to Firefox' tracking protection feature? That would already block third-party requests to Facebook on other sites, wouldn't it?
• benevol 8y ago
  I'm in favor of putting Facebook in a container. I further suggest to throw the container into a fire.
• amelius 8y ago
  What about this is specific for Facebook? Why not apply it to every website we visit?
• TekMol 8y ago
  Looks like what it does is deleting a bunch of cookies. If it only was that easy! The real problem is not cookies. I can already delete those. The real problem is fingerprinting.
  • yetanotherjosh 8y ago
    And all this talk of cookies leaves out html5 features like localStorage. Targeting only mechanism for tracking does not solve the tracking problem.
• amelius 8y ago
  IMHO, this is how containers should really work: - Every website (domain) should get its own container by default. I don't want to configure stuff when visiting a new domain. - If I want domains to share a container, then I don't mind having to configure that. - When clicking a link inside a container that points to a different domain, then the link should open in the container for the domain pointed to. - When clicking a link, I should have the opportunity to edit the link before opening it, to avoid information leakage from one container to another. - Cookies may be saved per container (default). But I should be able to turn cookies off for a specific container. - Containers should work against fingerprinting, i.e. by perturbing browser characteristics slightly. This should work by default per container and per session. It should be configurable. - If some well-known websites only work with multiple domains, then that is ok. These domains can be grouped into one container. Firefox can distribute a "whitelist" for such configurations. Please don't bother me with the specifics, but enable me to figure out what the settings are for a container, and to change those settings. - Container settings should be synced over my devices. Needless to say, containers should work on all platforms.
  • amelius 8y ago
    Btw, the ground rule I used here is that the amount of "security-related mental-gymnastics" I have to perform to stay on the safe side during normal browsing should be zero.
• roomate 8y ago
  Currently it is not about my privacy and data (those has been lost and given away far ago). It is about my time.
• _pmf_ 8y ago
  Time for a Facebook browser, I guess. Circumventing the middle man is the next logical step.
• TheCapeGreek 8y ago
  What makes containers and other related things here better than just downloading something like PrivacyBadger and using some anti-tracking uBlock lists? I'm assuming it's because some things might still fall through the cracks?
• dbalan 8y ago
  I like this, but 2018 Internet is essentially needing this for every website you visit.
• k__ 8y ago
  Half-OT: Somehow pages like dev.to or whatsapp always get opened in the default container, even if specified otherwise.
• piyush_soni 8y ago
  Is the 'Facebook Container' extension different from I creating a new container myself and keeping only facebook in it?
• calvinbhai 8y ago
  Have been using Ghostery on Safari for quite some time, and I dont see how this Facebook Container can be anywhere close to what Ghostery provides. The number of trackers on any website, is just mind blowing. I believe Ghostery works with all browsers and I strongly suggest everyone use it, in addition to what ever ad blocker, container, VPN service you intend to use, even if you are using Facebook Container for Firefox.
  • syoc 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery#Criticism I would recommend being highly critical with regards to what ad blocking add-ons to install. I do personally recommend uBlock origin as something non disrupting for your average user. Neat URL and Skip Redirect are also nice for skipping tracking redirect urls like out.reddit.com. Decentraleyes is also an interesting project that caches commonly used CDN resources locally. Finally, umatrix and no-script with scripts enabled is in my opinion a good compromise between little breakage while still leaving power users with a lot of control.
  • eugeniub 8y ago
    Ghostery has a shady history of selling data it collects on you to advertising companies. The data collection feature was previously called Ghostrank, and now it's called Human Web. I'm not sure what Ghostery does with the data since it got acquired by Cliqz in 2017, but I'd be careful.
    • calvinbhai 8y ago
      Wow, good to know! thanks for sharing this info. Will check and figure out what is a better alternative.
• thrwwy_cntnr 8y ago
  I normally avoid posting on threads like this, because there's more pile-on then there is coherent discussion, but I think there are some things missed here, and I want to elevate the discussion. Let's take a step back for a moment from the fact that this is extremely one-sided, since there are many sites used all over the web which have a view on most of your browsing traffic, like Google Analytics (try and pry that from the cold, dead hands of administrators), to reddit, to other ad networks. I'll assume that the reader would just respond that we should do this for all sites. Think a bit about the generalized business model of contracting out to third-party vendors. When you go the supermarket, it's very likely that the cash registers came from IBM (at least in the US). When you go to a restaurant, your payments are likely to be handled by Authorize.net (not to mention the credit networks), when you go to a hotel, the wifi is handled by some third-party company. In each of these cases, there is a valuable service being provided to a company, and any service that has a large enough market penetration has access to a large amount of information about you. Third-party vendor relationships are not going to go away. So what does this mean for the net? What effect will this have on the world? In the best case for anyone who thinks this is a good idea, it won't catch on, doesn't go mainstream, and a small amount of invisibility is granted to the few users who adopt this. But what happens if this were to become the default way the web works? Think about the wrench/security XKCD ( https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ ). If browsers started doing this, than the companies who depend on these services will just find other solutions. Already, many sites use url redirectors in order to accomplish this (think: Google Search), if we try to prevent redirects, then you break the web. Okay, nuclear option, we decide to break the web, and require all users to manually confirm before doing redirects. There will be sites concerned enough about the drops in traffic that would be caused by forcing redirects that they'll stop using them. Does that mean this practice will stop? Of course not! The next step is out-of-band network requests. You request data from a site, they ping the third-party, no muss, no fuss, and you're never the wiser. Well, what happens in that case? Suddenly, you go from a situation where companies are using third-party services via the browser, where the end user's interface to the third-party is entirely secured from the company receiving the service, to a world where all of this information is proxied the third party, meaning that instead of less companies being able to track you, suddenly more companies are able to track you. I for one, hope that this does not catch on. Not because I care one way or the other about the tracking (I think there are better solutions) but because I think this is an effort that will hurt both the web, and eventually users. My thoughts on this: I find this akin to state surveillance. It's inevitable. The 'solution' to state surveillance is not hoodies and masks, but instead sousveillance (which means granting distributed surveillance powers to the masses, like way a large number of police issues came to light). Put the power in the hands of the people. How does this apply to web traffic? Same thing, instead of having traffic available to a few companies, make it scattershot, and make sure everyone has access. Surfing the web? Make browsers overfetch. DNS lookup for the letter p? grab everything from park to porn to production. That way, there is no loss of power
• wufocaculura 8y ago
  for those wondering what's the difference between Facebook Container and Multi-Account containers: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-facebook-container-different-multi-account-con https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-facebook-container-...
• jrochkind1 8y ago
  Heck yeah, I've been dreaming of this for a while. Or really, something that can work on _any_ website you configure it to work on, not just fb. Or specifically, I'd love one that worked for google search (not neccesarily all google products, which would be hard, but one which let me search without being able to tie me to my other internet use including other google products).
  • calvinbhai 8y ago
    Checkout Ghostery. It does a pretty good job with blocking trackers of any type. Ghostery is owned by a company that is backed by Mozilla, and claims to not share any data with third parties.
    • jrochkind1 8y ago
      I've been using Disconnect, I may try Ghostery instead. Disconnect inteferes with a lot of websites from working, and I think (like I think Ghostery which works similarly) does not do the same thing(s) that Firefox Containers do. I actually didn't realize the general Firefox Containers feature existed, and will also explore that more.
• KKKKkkkk1 8y ago
  Great initiative. I'm wondering why no Google container?
• justme00 8y ago
  Up! Following.
• bhu1st 8y ago
  I don't use Facebook much but when I login I've been using Internet Explorer just for browsing Facebook. Otherwise IE would just sit there on my MS box.
• strogonoff 8y ago
  Made a jump to Firefox as primary browser on macOS this month. My setup involves heavy use of the new containers feature and a tree-style vertical tab panel, which AFAIK is unique to Firefox and offers neat visual browsing history. Extension rundown: — kesselborn’s Conex, a Spotlight-like quick container switcher/tab finder. It’s set to auto-hide tabs not in the current container, and I use it to routinely create one-off containers for specific tasks — piro’s Tree Style Tab, with a workaround setting to make it play well with Conex and a couple of custom styling rules — MarsCat’s Switch Container, which allows to re-open a tab in another container (used with caution) What unblocked the switch for me: — There’s now a working tree-style tabs extension in Quantum — The new Web Authentication API removes the need for Keychain integration in the long run I’m wary of getting too used to a heavily customized setup, and am still figuring out the best way to back up my Firefox profile. Previously I relied mostly on stock Safari and Chrome, which is still great for its developer’s tools.
  • kodablah 8y ago
    > tree-style vertical tab panel, which AFAIK is unique to Firefox For the major browsers, yes. Some Chromium off-shoots have them though.
    • strogonoff 8y ago
      I stand corrected, also I should’ve added “on Macs”. I’ve been keeping an eye on Doogie[0], but its maintainer doesn’t have the resources to maintain another build. Curious if anyone can weigh in with similar alternatives available on macOS. [0] https://cretz.github.io/doogie/ https://cretz.github.io/doogie/
      • kodablah 8y ago
        You're talking to the maintainer :-) Yeah, I don't use Apple products so looking for someone to do the work. In the meantime, I am not too familiar with mac alternatives, but these days CEF, QtWebEngine, etc aren't that difficult to use if you want to roll your own (mine is just Qt + CEF).
• sammorrowdrums 8y ago
  They have a newer version that can handle custom isolated tab groups not just Facebook. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account...
  • sammorrowdrums 8y ago
    For the record I've been using this for separate Amazon, Google and Facebook browsing amongst others. It works really well.
  • so33 8y ago
    The Facebook container is the "newer" extension, IIRC, released after the Cambridge Analytica news. Both extensions use an API called contextualIdentities: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/contextualIdentities https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP...