5 ms·

I was shocked when I reviewed the Firefox repo. Firefox has a ton of telemetry code. Edit: to the downvoters - why would you downvote a true statement. Have yo

I was shocked when I reviewed the Firefox repo. Firefox has a ton of telemetry code. Edit: to the downvoters - why would you downvote a true statement. Have you read the code?

m463 7y ago
At first I used all the about:config settings, but then I ended up blocking mozilla.org outgoing. As to ff vs chrome, what I figure is: I'd rather have poorly funded code defending my privacy than well-funded code defeating my privacy.
napo 7y ago
The downvotes seems a bit unfair. I think this is a good comment. Any chance you could give more info on which metrics they're looking at though? Because if it's mainly CPU usage and the like it doesn't seem to be a big concern.
- bzbarsky 7y ago
  If you load about:telemetry in Firefox, it will tell you what information is being collected, link to various documentation, etc. It also tells you whether telemetry is actually enabled right now or not, and links to the preference section where you can enable/disable telemetry. The set of telemetry collected by default depends on the build channel: release builds collect much less data than nightly or beta. You can also see exactly what data Firefox engineers can see at https://telemetry.mozilla.org/ https://telemetry.mozilla.org/ -- there is no special behind-a-login view for this stuff that I know of. Disclaimer: I work on Firefox.
  - rasengan 7y ago
    The problem is there are more lines of telemetry than most projects have code. You should probably have it audited - or better yet - just remove the telemetry.
    - threwawasy1228 7y ago
      That is the great thing about firefox, when I disable the telemetry which they make extremely easy to do. I can be certain that it is actually disabled. Unlike the shady practices Chrome uses where I never feel comfortable or like they are telling me the whole story. Hidden options and settings force me to not be able to feel safe using their product after an update. I have stopped using Chrome entirely over 3 years ago and have no tried it since. Too many shady and irresponsible practices at play there.
      - techntoke 7y ago
        How can you be certain about Firefox? They did disable all addons due to a "failed certficate update" and then proceeded to bash Chrome for 2 weeks about a fake story of adblocker addons being blocked, which turned out to be completely false, then they had two 0day exploits in 2 days. Same can't be said for Chrome or Chromium, which actually has video decoding hardware acceleration on Linux because they are more serious advocates for open source.
        dblohm7 7y ago
        Telemetry probes in Firefox/Gecko go through a common telemetry core that contains a kill switch. That code is located at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone.... Have fun.
    - dblohm7 7y ago
      Not all probes are active at all times. They are all defined in the descriptors that I’m including links for. [1][2] They all include expiry dates, and probes with perpetual lifetimes require devs to take responsibility for them. All probes need to go through the data collection process outlined at [3]. [1] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/Histograms.json https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... [2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/Scalars.yaml https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... [3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection
user17843 7y ago
I laughed when I discovered that, while the mobile data on https://data.firefox.com https://data.firefox.com has been "coming soon" for more than a year now, they had opened a github issue for adding Google Analytics to the site, and subsequently added it. Talk about priorities.
- derefr 7y ago
  I mean, presumably the people at data.firefox.com are data scientists; and presumably those same data scientists are used by Mozilla to answer any number of internal questions. So, like any proper data scientists, their response to "how highly should we prioritize this task for the public" is "let's get data on how interested people are in the report."
  - user17843 7y ago
    so apparently no one cares about the site then.
- andrewxd 7y ago
  Adding Google Analytics is incredibly trivial in most cases, and gives the devs tons of insight into how people use their site.
- sp332 7y ago
  Mozilla made Google limit their use of user data first. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14
everdrive 7y ago
People unfortunately equivocate the idea of telemetry, and will compare the idea of a web browser sending version information with a web browser collecting actual web traffic. Both may be bad, but they're certainly different kinds of bad. Do we have a thorough and detailed list of what information is possible in the default Firefox telemetry?
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  This should be the list of all telemetry currently collected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244271 has a better description and links.
- kbrosnan 7y ago
  The list is at https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/file/tip/toolkit/components/telemetry/Histograms.json https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/file/tip/too... looking at the blame view will usually lead to the bug that introduced the probe. Short of the file being refactored, which case you need to look at the file before the refactoring happened. That will describe the reason and the data review that occurred before adding the probe. There is also the probe dictionary at https://telemetry.mozilla.org/probe-dictionary/?optout=true&channel=release https://telemetry.mozilla.org/probe-dictionary/?optout=true&... which is a bit easier to read.
- Yoric 7y ago
  Yes, we do: https://data.firefox.com/ https://data.firefox.com/ .
- cpeterso 7y ago
  You can see what telemetry data your Firefox has recorded in the about:telemetry page.
rndgermandude 7y ago
Since you asked, I have read the code (quite a while ago). The telemetry bits can be disabled easily. A new firefox installation (or rather, a new firefox profile) will open in a tab: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ . That website has a button under the "Improve performance and stability for users everywhere" section that will bring you directly to the section of the preferences where you can disable telemetry and crash reports and such. Did you read the privacy page? PS: Firefox used to pop up a small notification bar at the bottom on fresh profiles instead of that privacy pge that asked you to allow telemetry data sharing. That seems to be gone now. The previous solution was more obvious about the stuff but also worse UI/UX. The privacy page could and should be improved to make the preferences button more visible or at least not-hidden in a collapsed section by default.
- dymk 7y ago
  > The telemetry bits can be disabled easily. If it's not disabled by default, this means nothing for 99% of users.
  - eitland 7y ago
    Do you know what telemetry is an what it is used for? The reason I ask is because if telemetry is off by default it is useless. As long as they are trustworthy and up front about it and makes it easy to disable it this is ok with me. A relevant question then is you find Mozilla trustworthy. I cannot give you an easy answer to that.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
There is a significant pro-FF brigade here. I'm ambivalent really, I don't care about the OMG Privacy so much and I think all modern browsers are over-complicated garbage fires, but if I say something like "Firefox has some memory leak issue that constantly gives me trouble on the Lubuntu laptops I have" I expect to be downvoted because how dare I tarnish the good name of their preferred software! It's a lot like dealing with Linux Desktop evangelists actually, and probably helps FF adoption as much as that does Linux Desktop adoption.
- ripdog 7y ago
  I have issues with memory usage and crashing with Chrome, but you don't see me filling up threads about Chrome with posts about the isolated issues I'm having with it. It's not relevant. Put bugs in bugzilla, please.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- StevePerkins 7y ago
  There IS currently a pro-Firefox sentiment on HN. But like most things here, it operates on a pendulum. * Sentiment was sharply NEGATIVE not so long ago... when Firefox cut off support for the legacy plugin ecosystem. * Sentiment was POSITIVE not so long before that... when Quantum shipped. Improving performance, and delighting the Rust crowd. * Sentiment was NEGATIVE not so long before that... as Mozilla was too distracted by mobile OS misadventures, and Firefox's performance had become awful relative to its competitors. * Sentiment was POSITIVE not so long before that... as Mozilla was the only voice somewhat pushing against DRM in HTML5 standards. And so on. At any rate, I don't think you're being downvoted due to a pro-Firefox brigage. I think you're being downvoted because you are posting in an immature "Reddit" style, without contributing much of interest to the discusion, and that style generally does not fare well here.

I was shocked when I reviewed the Firefox repo. Firefox has a ton of telemetry code. Edit: to the downvoters - why would you downvote a true statement. Have you read the code?

m463 7y ago

At first I used all the about:config settings, but then I ended up blocking mozilla.org outgoing. As to ff vs chrome, what I figure is: I'd rather have poorly funded code defending my privacy than well-funded code defeating my privacy.

napo 7y ago

The downvotes seems a bit unfair. I think this is a good comment. Any chance you could give more info on which metrics they're looking at though? Because if it's mainly CPU usage and the like it doesn't seem to be a big concern.

bzbarsky 7y ago
If you load about:telemetry in Firefox, it will tell you what information is being collected, link to various documentation, etc. It also tells you whether telemetry is actually enabled right now or not, and links to the preference section where you can enable/disable telemetry. The set of telemetry collected by default depends on the build channel: release builds collect much less data than nightly or beta. You can also see exactly what data Firefox engineers can see at https://telemetry.mozilla.org/ https://telemetry.mozilla.org/ -- there is no special behind-a-login view for this stuff that I know of. Disclaimer: I work on Firefox.
- rasengan 7y ago
  The problem is there are more lines of telemetry than most projects have code. You should probably have it audited - or better yet - just remove the telemetry.
  - threwawasy1228 7y ago
    That is the great thing about firefox, when I disable the telemetry which they make extremely easy to do. I can be certain that it is actually disabled. Unlike the shady practices Chrome uses where I never feel comfortable or like they are telling me the whole story. Hidden options and settings force me to not be able to feel safe using their product after an update. I have stopped using Chrome entirely over 3 years ago and have no tried it since. Too many shady and irresponsible practices at play there.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      How can you be certain about Firefox? They did disable all addons due to a "failed certficate update" and then proceeded to bash Chrome for 2 weeks about a fake story of adblocker addons being blocked, which turned out to be completely false, then they had two 0day exploits in 2 days. Same can't be said for Chrome or Chromium, which actually has video decoding hardware acceleration on Linux because they are more serious advocates for open source.
      - dblohm7 7y ago
        Telemetry probes in Firefox/Gecko go through a common telemetry core that contains a kill switch. That code is located at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone.... Have fun.
  - dblohm7 7y ago
    Not all probes are active at all times. They are all defined in the descriptors that I’m including links for. [1][2] They all include expiry dates, and probes with perpetual lifetimes require devs to take responsibility for them. All probes need to go through the data collection process outlined at [3]. [1] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/Histograms.json https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... [2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/Scalars.yaml https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone... [3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection

user17843 7y ago

I laughed when I discovered that, while the mobile data on https://data.firefox.com https://data.firefox.com has been "coming soon" for more than a year now, they had opened a github issue for adding Google Analytics to the site, and subsequently added it. Talk about priorities.

derefr 7y ago
I mean, presumably the people at data.firefox.com are data scientists; and presumably those same data scientists are used by Mozilla to answer any number of internal questions. So, like any proper data scientists, their response to "how highly should we prioritize this task for the public" is "let's get data on how interested people are in the report."
- user17843 7y ago
  so apparently no one cares about the site then.
andrewxd 7y ago
Adding Google Analytics is incredibly trivial in most cases, and gives the devs tons of insight into how people use their site.
sp332 7y ago
Mozilla made Google limit their use of user data first. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14

everdrive 7y ago

People unfortunately equivocate the idea of telemetry, and will compare the idea of a web browser sending version information with a web browser collecting actual web traffic. Both may be bad, but they're certainly different kinds of bad. Do we have a thorough and detailed list of what information is possible in the default Firefox telemetry?

rndgermandude 7y ago
This should be the list of all telemetry currently collected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244271 has a better description and links.
kbrosnan 7y ago
The list is at https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/file/tip/toolkit/components/telemetry/Histograms.json https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/file/tip/too... looking at the blame view will usually lead to the bug that introduced the probe. Short of the file being refactored, which case you need to look at the file before the refactoring happened. That will describe the reason and the data review that occurred before adding the probe. There is also the probe dictionary at https://telemetry.mozilla.org/probe-dictionary/?optout=true&channel=release https://telemetry.mozilla.org/probe-dictionary/?optout=true&... which is a bit easier to read.
Yoric 7y ago
Yes, we do: https://data.firefox.com/ https://data.firefox.com/ .
cpeterso 7y ago
You can see what telemetry data your Firefox has recorded in the about:telemetry page.

rndgermandude 7y ago

Since you asked, I have read the code (quite a while ago). The telemetry bits can be disabled easily. A new firefox installation (or rather, a new firefox profile) will open in a tab: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ . That website has a button under the "Improve performance and stability for users everywhere" section that will bring you directly to the section of the preferences where you can disable telemetry and crash reports and such. Did you read the privacy page? PS: Firefox used to pop up a small notification bar at the bottom on fresh profiles instead of that privacy pge that asked you to allow telemetry data sharing. That seems to be gone now. The previous solution was more obvious about the stuff but also worse UI/UX. The privacy page could and should be improved to make the preferences button more visible or at least not-hidden in a collapsed section by default.

dymk 7y ago
> The telemetry bits can be disabled easily. If it's not disabled by default, this means nothing for 99% of users.
- eitland 7y ago
  Do you know what telemetry is an what it is used for? The reason I ask is because if telemetry is off by default it is useless. As long as they are trustworthy and up front about it and makes it easy to disable it this is ok with me. A relevant question then is you find Mozilla trustworthy. I cannot give you an easy answer to that.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

There is a significant pro-FF brigade here. I'm ambivalent really, I don't care about the OMG Privacy so much and I think all modern browsers are over-complicated garbage fires, but if I say something like "Firefox has some memory leak issue that constantly gives me trouble on the Lubuntu laptops I have" I expect to be downvoted because how dare I tarnish the good name of their preferred software! It's a lot like dealing with Linux Desktop evangelists actually, and probably helps FF adoption as much as that does Linux Desktop adoption.

ripdog 7y ago
I have issues with memory usage and crashing with Chrome, but you don't see me filling up threads about Chrome with posts about the isolated issues I'm having with it. It's not relevant. Put bugs in bugzilla, please.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
StevePerkins 7y ago
There IS currently a pro-Firefox sentiment on HN. But like most things here, it operates on a pendulum. * Sentiment was sharply NEGATIVE not so long ago... when Firefox cut off support for the legacy plugin ecosystem. * Sentiment was POSITIVE not so long before that... when Quantum shipped. Improving performance, and delighting the Rust crowd. * Sentiment was NEGATIVE not so long before that... as Mozilla was too distracted by mobile OS misadventures, and Firefox's performance had become awful relative to its competitors. * Sentiment was POSITIVE not so long before that... as Mozilla was the only voice somewhat pushing against DRM in HTML5 standards. And so on. At any rate, I don't think you're being downvoted due to a pro-Firefox brigage. I think you're being downvoted because you are posting in an immature "Reddit" style, without contributing much of interest to the discusion, and that style generally does not fare well here.