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Okay, so, youtube targets a small subset of users, and changes their experience capriciously, and to suit their own purposes. Firefox, it turns out, has a buil

Okay, so, youtube targets a small subset of users, and changes their experience capriciously, and to suit their own purposes. Firefox, it turns out, has a built-in telemetry system that defaults to enable exactly the same behavior: changing your system, to suit their desires. You’re words “a big evil conspiracy to use this mechanism to uninstall Internet Explorer from peoples' computer” are misleading. No one would propose that the intent is an attack on Microsoft applications. Rather, the intent is to blindfold users on a whim, should a Firefox component prove inconvenient to the providers of Firefox. Ostensibly, in the event that some add-on or extension threatens the bottom line for major backers of Firefox’s funding.

dralley 7y ago
> Firefox, it turns out, has a built-in telemetry system that defaults to enable exactly the same behavior: changing your system, to suit their desires. An example of the typical use of this system: say Mozilla wants to enable video hardware acceleration in Firefox but they don't know if bugs in video drivers or in Firefox will make crashing more frequent. So they enable hardware acceleration for 1% of users instead of 100% and compare the reported crash rate between the two to determine if it's ready to be pushed out universally.
- betterunix2 7y ago
  At some point in the next five-ten years we will see this "feature" abused. Maybe Mozilla will use it to "soften" commonly used ad blockers to enable "acceptable" ads for Firefox users. Maybe Mozilla will be hacked by some government that wants to enable MITM attacks against its citizens, and Normandy will make that happen. Or maybe Mozilla will just cooperate with the government trying to do so. You say it is "typically" used for benevolent purposes, but why should we trust Mozilla? Mozilla does not have a stellar history with this sort of thing and in my experience they do not take security as seriously as they should if we are to trust them with such a feature.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    The level of paranoia throughout this thread is truly through the roof..... Mozilla has had several "PR nightmare" decisions that a vocal set of users didn't like, and sometimes were genuinely ill advised/bad/shitty. But as far as I can see they do not have a bad track record when it comes to security/privacy. Do you have any examples of actual serious security/privacy fuck ups by Mozilla/Firefox? I mean that stood up to scrutiny beyond the sensationalist headlines? Their defaults might not be your defaults, but they are even working on bringing Tor into mainstream Firefox. None of this means they are above criticism of course, but... context! The sum total of their actions points towards an organisation that has some internal problems but that is genuinely pursuing privacy and an open web as a goal for as many users as possible.
    - DoctorOetker 7y ago
      > Do you have any examples of actual serious security/privacy fuck ups by Mozilla/Firefox? Sadly I don't, but others argue they have top notch standard security practices like automated alerts etc. regarding certificate renewals...
    - rue 7y ago
      …This one? This one isn’t very privacy-friendly or open. And that raises all the previous questions again. Should they maybe have learned something about clandestinely fucking with people’s systems?
    - bscphil 7y ago
      > But as far as I can see they do not have a bad track record when it comes to security/privacy. Do you have any examples of actual serious security/privacy fuck ups by Mozilla/Firefox? I mean, they are currently shipping real actual ads on the new tab page that aren't blocked by ad blockers - and possibly can't be (there are limits to what WebExtensions can modify on Firefox internal pages). Sure, maybe your parent comment was exaggerating a little bit, but what if Mozilla instead starts inserting "privacy-friendly" "recommendations" into webpages in order to "enhance users' browsing experiences"? That doesn't sound at all far-fetched for the Mozilla we know today.
Filligree 7y ago
> Okay, so, youtube targets a small subset of users, and changes their experience capriciously, and to suit their own purposes. They added a dismissable banner. That falls far short of "changing their experience", in my mind.

dralley 7y ago

> Firefox, it turns out, has a built-in telemetry system that defaults to enable exactly the same behavior: changing your system, to suit their desires. An example of the typical use of this system: say Mozilla wants to enable video hardware acceleration in Firefox but they don't know if bugs in video drivers or in Firefox will make crashing more frequent. So they enable hardware acceleration for 1% of users instead of 100% and compare the reported crash rate between the two to determine if it's ready to be pushed out universally.

betterunix2 7y ago
At some point in the next five-ten years we will see this "feature" abused. Maybe Mozilla will use it to "soften" commonly used ad blockers to enable "acceptable" ads for Firefox users. Maybe Mozilla will be hacked by some government that wants to enable MITM attacks against its citizens, and Normandy will make that happen. Or maybe Mozilla will just cooperate with the government trying to do so. You say it is "typically" used for benevolent purposes, but why should we trust Mozilla? Mozilla does not have a stellar history with this sort of thing and in my experience they do not take security as seriously as they should if we are to trust them with such a feature.
- Certhas 7y ago
  The level of paranoia throughout this thread is truly through the roof..... Mozilla has had several "PR nightmare" decisions that a vocal set of users didn't like, and sometimes were genuinely ill advised/bad/shitty. But as far as I can see they do not have a bad track record when it comes to security/privacy. Do you have any examples of actual serious security/privacy fuck ups by Mozilla/Firefox? I mean that stood up to scrutiny beyond the sensationalist headlines? Their defaults might not be your defaults, but they are even working on bringing Tor into mainstream Firefox. None of this means they are above criticism of course, but... context! The sum total of their actions points towards an organisation that has some internal problems but that is genuinely pursuing privacy and an open web as a goal for as many users as possible.
  - DoctorOetker 7y ago
    > Do you have any examples of actual serious security/privacy fuck ups by Mozilla/Firefox? Sadly I don't, but others argue they have top notch standard security practices like automated alerts etc. regarding certificate renewals...
  - rue 7y ago
    …This one? This one isn’t very privacy-friendly or open. And that raises all the previous questions again. Should they maybe have learned something about clandestinely fucking with people’s systems?
  - bscphil 7y ago
    > But as far as I can see they do not have a bad track record when it comes to security/privacy. Do you have any examples of actual serious security/privacy fuck ups by Mozilla/Firefox? I mean, they are currently shipping real actual ads on the new tab page that aren't blocked by ad blockers - and possibly can't be (there are limits to what WebExtensions can modify on Firefox internal pages). Sure, maybe your parent comment was exaggerating a little bit, but what if Mozilla instead starts inserting "privacy-friendly" "recommendations" into webpages in order to "enhance users' browsing experiences"? That doesn't sound at all far-fetched for the Mozilla we know today.

Filligree 7y ago

> Okay, so, youtube targets a small subset of users, and changes their experience capriciously, and to suit their own purposes. They added a dismissable banner. That falls far short of "changing their experience", in my mind.