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The whole point of Firefox _is_ to make network requests. All of the features above aren't leaking your user data or fingerprinting you, they're assisting you i
by vesche 8y ago
The whole point of Firefox _is_ to make network requests. All of the features above aren't leaking your user data or fingerprinting you, they're assisting you in what the applications purpose is... to make network requests. Not to mention firefox is an open-source project, so you could go look at all the network communication it makes when it starts up. All of these options are configurable anyways.
I think you're looking in the wrong direction. Try the closed-source (or partial closed source) operating systems you interact with on a daily basis: Windows, Android, macOS, iOS- that's where you'll find the "fingerprinted and tracked every single time you open" sort of thing you speak of. :)
- justinclift 8y ago> The whole point of Firefox _is_ to make network requests. Just to point out, that "the whole point of Firefox" is to make the network requests I want. eg from my perspective it's a tool like (say) cURL that has a specific purpose. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. :)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- eridius 8y agoEvery one of the requests that 43920 listed in a request in service of you, the user. The first is to detect captive portals, which is something you'll find very important if you're behind a captive portal. The second is for OCSP certificate validation, which helps ensure your safety while browsing. The third is checking for updates, which again is for your benefit.
- justinclift 8y agoDon't get me wrong, I do agree with the 2nd two, though I haven't really thought through the first use case. :) I'm mainly just replying to the poster that attempted to say that since Firefox already makes network requests, ~anything should be ok.
- _Microft 8y agoA captive portal is a login screen of a service that prevents other activity unless logged in. My guess is that Firefox will not try to check for updates or other things if it notices that the detectportal-request was not successful (i.e. the user is not logged into the hotel-wifi or something like this yet).
- detaro 8y agoIt also then can prompt the user to go to the captive portal page and log in, without the other redirection methods of the captive portal breaking anything (e.g. if they spoof DNS responses to redirect you to the login page) or the user being confused why they can't use the web despite being in the network.
- bromuro 8y agoEvery request is a way for tracking you. We don’t want to be tracked when we open Firefox.
- thatguy0900 8y agoThen turn those off? These things are a tradeoff for usability, Firefox is trying to be competitive for the masses, I have a feeling your ideal Firefox would feel pretty clunky to someone who's not familiar with tech.
- justinclift 8y agoThinking about that OCSP cert validation, that's done on a per-domain basis isn't it? So... guessing here, that particular request would be checking if the domain for the Firefox update check itself has a valid cert. If that's not what it's checking, hmmm...
- aphextron 8y ago>All of the features above aren't leaking your user data or fingerprinting you, they're assisting you in what the applications purpose is... to make network requests. And you can prove this how? All I'm saying is think twice before blindly trusting a tech company, because Mozilla is no longer the fun and friendly company we once knew. They are very much a rank and file data mining company now, generating tons of cash, and being infiltrated by CEO and marketing types.
- detaro 8y agoWhat kind of objectionable data mining do you claim they do? The requests cited above don't exactly give much potential for that.