4 ms·

This is HN. Advanced knowledge is not an issue. People making changes to user.js will have some knowledge of what they are doing, and handle the issues. The p

This is HN. Advanced knowledge is not an issue. People making changes to user.js will have some knowledge of what they are doing, and handle the issues. The post points some security/privacy extensions to complement. Nothing that a user changing user.js wouldn't already know.

floatingatoll 8y ago
Presuming intimate knowledge of second- and third-order consequences from seemingly-innocuous preference changes is guaranteed to be a losing bet, even among tech enthusiasts and experts. I missed the high risk resist-fingerprinting setting and had no idea it would cause so many problems. Those problems certainly are not documented in the gist and I would have fallen prey to them if I had applied it unaware. Advanced knowledge is not the issue. Misrepresented knowledge is the issue. A document about “privacy settings” contains non-privacy settings and does not contain any mention of the lasting harmful side effects due anyone who uses any of the settings within it. EDIT: This is how to approach changing one of these settings with the respect and care due to such a suggestion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944991
- guilhas 8y ago
  So that's you, but don't say that they should not share their knowledge because it does not follow your standards. I'm more than happy to see someone experience on this, what what worked for them, compare with mine. Better have something than nothing, not everyone have time to write a blog post every time they change one setting. You change it. Have issues. Realize it does not work for you. Change it back. If you're not sure or don't have time to deal with it, don't do it. Not difficult is it? Ans a said previously the responsibility is in the person making the change to their browser, no one is forcing them. This is my preferred approach: https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js
  - floatingatoll 8y ago
    Sharing knowledge respectfully and without overstatement or misrepresentation is a bar I’m not willing to lower. We’ll have to settle for disagreeing on this point.

floatingatoll 8y ago

Presuming intimate knowledge of second- and third-order consequences from seemingly-innocuous preference changes is guaranteed to be a losing bet, even among tech enthusiasts and experts. I missed the high risk resist-fingerprinting setting and had no idea it would cause so many problems. Those problems certainly are not documented in the gist and I would have fallen prey to them if I had applied it unaware. Advanced knowledge is not the issue. Misrepresented knowledge is the issue. A document about “privacy settings” contains non-privacy settings and does not contain any mention of the lasting harmful side effects due anyone who uses any of the settings within it. EDIT: This is how to approach changing one of these settings with the respect and care due to such a suggestion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944991

guilhas 8y ago
So that's you, but don't say that they should not share their knowledge because it does not follow your standards. I'm more than happy to see someone experience on this, what what worked for them, compare with mine. Better have something than nothing, not everyone have time to write a blog post every time they change one setting. You change it. Have issues. Realize it does not work for you. Change it back. If you're not sure or don't have time to deal with it, don't do it. Not difficult is it? Ans a said previously the responsibility is in the person making the change to their browser, no one is forcing them. This is my preferred approach: https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  Sharing knowledge respectfully and without overstatement or misrepresentation is a bar I’m not willing to lower. We’ll have to settle for disagreeing on this point.