9 ms·

>Safari and Firefox both block many third-party cookies by default (which is why I had to change Firefox’s privacy settings to get this experiment to work), and

>Safari and Firefox both block many third-party cookies by default (which is why I had to change Firefox’s privacy settings to get this experiment to work), and as of today Chrome doesn’t (presumably because Chrome is owned by an ad company). Wow. I am very strongly considering switching to Firefox now, just from this paragraph.

Jallal 7y ago
Actually, this has been a strong focus of Mozilla foundation for years. The good news is that Mozilla has done a lot of refactoring / rewriting of its FIrefox codebase during the last year, and Firefox is now on par with Chrome regarding the technical aspects.
lordnacho 7y ago
FF also makes it easy to run tabs in their own containers. They've thought a lot about privacy. Plus they fixed their issues with performance, so it works just as well as the other browsers on my mbp.
- the_real_sparky 7y ago
  I was highly amused just a few days ago when a 1080p60 YouTube video was not playing correctly in Chrome (dropping frames), but played perfectly fine in Firefox. Resource utilization was not the problem on that machine. I tried restarting chrome, disabling extensions, etc but it seemed to just be some weird bug. I will also take a moment to rant about the fact that YouTube allows you to select from a bevy of lower resolutions, but doesn’t allow you to select a lower frame rate. Many times I would rather watch a 1080p30 video on slower hardware instead of the 720p60 I am forced into selecting.
  - mojomark 7y ago
    > I will also take a moment to rant about the fact that YouTube allows you to select from a bevy of lower resolutions, but doesn’t allow you to select a lower frame rate. Many times I would rather watch a 1080p30 video on slower hardware instead of the 720p60 I am forced into selecting. I've thought about this too. I'm not certain, but I suspect this has to do with streaming video compression, specifically the fact that most video compression schemes I know of are temporal (i.e. they can eliminate the need to transmit a lot of data based on unchanged or productively changing pixels between consecutive frames). With a lower frame rate, the probability that pixels in consecutive frames being related decreases. That's my guess anyway.
    - leni536 7y ago
      In these cases 1080p30 is typically available. AFAIK there is a setting, only available to logged in users. If you are not logged in then youtube-dl is also an option. I also used a browser extension before to reenable the lower framerate options, but it stopped working.
prox 7y ago
Firefox even has its own Facebook container these days. I recently went to a website which had 250 (!) tracking cookies for marketing purposes... As you might suspect it was ridden with ads.
- hollander 7y ago
  I don't understand why they don't have the same for Google. The FB container does not only force the facebook and instagram sites into that container, but keep the rest out, and disable buttons on websites that open in other tabs. Google is such an obvious candidate for this, but maybe their relationship with Google comes into play here?
  - Monory 7y ago
    There is, in fact, a Google Container extension: https://github.com/containers-everywhere/contain-google https://github.com/containers-everywhere/contain-google https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
  - Spivak 7y ago
    The Google container is less useful than just manually putting your Google session into a container because I would assume you don't want all your searches to go through your logged on session.
- onreact 7y ago
  250? Geek Tyrant injects 400 just for marketing and 500+ in total! I stopped recommending them.
jefftk 7y ago
If you block third party cookies without having built out fingerprinting prevention, trackers switch from cookies to fingerprinting, which on balance is probably worse. And if you prevent that, sites need to serve ads without any information about the user they're serving them to, and make about half as much money. Chrome is working on fingerprinting resistance and developing privacy preserving APIs that can replace third party cookies: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandbox https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb... https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy-sandbox.html https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy... https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-private-web/ https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-priv... (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself)
- mherrmann 7y ago
  I would assume that trackers always do what's in their best interest. Your claim that fingerprinting is both just a fallback and probably worse for the user thus does not add up to me. Wouldn't they always use fingerprinting if that is more powerful? > Chrome is working on fingerprinting resistance and developing privacy preserving APIs that can replace third party cookies And what will their (business and thus vital) interest in doing this probably be? Probably not what's in my, the user's interest. But what's in their customers' interest - advertisers. > I work on ads at Google Well... (Thank you for the disclosure though.)
  - lopis 7y ago
    Chrome doesn't need fingerprinting at all. If you are using that browser, you are already being tracked at all times. So by implementing fingerprinting resistance in the most popular browser, Google can thus hurt the competition while merrily continue their tracking business as usual.
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      Yep, on the occasion I need to use chrome it's very upset by the fact I'm not logged into my Google account. I'm sure most users log in. So Google really, really knows who you are.
colourgarden 7y ago
My immediate reaction to your comment was "How do you not know that?!" (I'm sorry.) However, if people frequenting a tech forum are not aware of the privacy benefits that Firefox has been pushing for a long time now, we as "tech folk" have a responsibility to push out the message. So you can find out more about Firefox tracking here - https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-blocks-third-party-tracking-cookies-and-cryptomining-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-bloc... And the Firefox Facebook Container may also be of interest - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/facebookcontainer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/facebookcontainer/ Hopefully, you're now reading replies to your initial comment in Firefox!
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  I knew Firefox was working when within about 6 weeks of switching over on my computer and phone (along with using DuckDuckGo and the Facebook container feature), I started getting ads telling me to practice law in Pennsylvania and to fix my weird sideways penis. Both of which were thankfully completely off target. Apparently those two categories are the birdshot of advertising.
  - maroonblazer 7y ago
    Genuine question: why do you prefer ads for things that are irrelevant to your interests over ads that aren't?
    - ryukafalz 7y ago
      Not GP, but: for me it’s never been about the ads. Poorly targeted ads are a sign that the advertising companies don’t have that much data on me, which is what I really care about.
    - sixothree 7y ago
      Neither of those things you described are useful to me in any way. I would prefer the one that has respect for my privacy.
    - 7y ago
cj 7y ago
Doesn't Chrome have a "Block third-party cookies" setting (disabled by default) that you can enable in Settings > Site Settings > Cookies and site data > "Block third-party cookies"? I'm under the impression that Safari and Firefox have this enabled by default. Is the only difference that it's disabled by default in Chrome?
- ishitatsuyuki 7y ago
  Safari and Firefox both have a blacklist of known trackers in addition to cookie blocking. Not only that, these browsers also fight against other means of fingerprinting.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Safari does not have a blacklist of known trackers; it generates one dynamically based on tracker-like behavior it sees as you browse.
- randlet 7y ago
  Even if it's true it's a huge difference. Very few people are going to a) think about this issue and b) know the right terms to google for a solution and/or c) dig around in their browser settings to find the setting.
- vanadium 7y ago
  It feels telling that Firefox puts their Enhanced Tracking Protection settings pretty close to upfront as possible, and Chrome’s “Block Third Party Cookie” setting is for all intents and purposes to a non-technical user, both buried and off by default.
kalev 7y ago
That paragraph alone just made me decide to switch to Firefox. In only 30 minutes, it blocked 120 (!) tracking cookies.
acolumb 7y ago
I use Firefox and what is ironic is the integration with Pocket - an on-by-default service that has tracking pixels [1] [1] https://getpocket.com/privacy#passive https://getpocket.com/privacy#passive
- mirimir 7y ago
  Huh. I didn't know that. But I've always disabled it, on general principles.

Jallal 7y ago

Actually, this has been a strong focus of Mozilla foundation for years. The good news is that Mozilla has done a lot of refactoring / rewriting of its FIrefox codebase during the last year, and Firefox is now on par with Chrome regarding the technical aspects.

lordnacho 7y ago

FF also makes it easy to run tabs in their own containers. They've thought a lot about privacy. Plus they fixed their issues with performance, so it works just as well as the other browsers on my mbp.

the_real_sparky 7y ago
I was highly amused just a few days ago when a 1080p60 YouTube video was not playing correctly in Chrome (dropping frames), but played perfectly fine in Firefox. Resource utilization was not the problem on that machine. I tried restarting chrome, disabling extensions, etc but it seemed to just be some weird bug. I will also take a moment to rant about the fact that YouTube allows you to select from a bevy of lower resolutions, but doesn’t allow you to select a lower frame rate. Many times I would rather watch a 1080p30 video on slower hardware instead of the 720p60 I am forced into selecting.
- mojomark 7y ago
  > I will also take a moment to rant about the fact that YouTube allows you to select from a bevy of lower resolutions, but doesn’t allow you to select a lower frame rate. Many times I would rather watch a 1080p30 video on slower hardware instead of the 720p60 I am forced into selecting. I've thought about this too. I'm not certain, but I suspect this has to do with streaming video compression, specifically the fact that most video compression schemes I know of are temporal (i.e. they can eliminate the need to transmit a lot of data based on unchanged or productively changing pixels between consecutive frames). With a lower frame rate, the probability that pixels in consecutive frames being related decreases. That's my guess anyway.
  - leni536 7y ago
    In these cases 1080p30 is typically available. AFAIK there is a setting, only available to logged in users. If you are not logged in then youtube-dl is also an option. I also used a browser extension before to reenable the lower framerate options, but it stopped working.

prox 7y ago

Firefox even has its own Facebook container these days. I recently went to a website which had 250 (!) tracking cookies for marketing purposes... As you might suspect it was ridden with ads.

hollander 7y ago
I don't understand why they don't have the same for Google. The FB container does not only force the facebook and instagram sites into that container, but keep the rest out, and disable buttons on websites that open in other tabs. Google is such an obvious candidate for this, but maybe their relationship with Google comes into play here?
- Monory 7y ago
  There is, in fact, a Google Container extension: https://github.com/containers-everywhere/contain-google https://github.com/containers-everywhere/contain-google https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
- Spivak 7y ago
  The Google container is less useful than just manually putting your Google session into a container because I would assume you don't want all your searches to go through your logged on session.
onreact 7y ago
250? Geek Tyrant injects 400 just for marketing and 500+ in total! I stopped recommending them.

jefftk 7y ago

If you block third party cookies without having built out fingerprinting prevention, trackers switch from cookies to fingerprinting, which on balance is probably worse. And if you prevent that, sites need to serve ads without any information about the user they're serving them to, and make about half as much money. Chrome is working on fingerprinting resistance and developing privacy preserving APIs that can replace third party cookies: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandbox https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb... https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy-sandbox.html https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy... https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-private-web/ https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-priv... (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself)

mherrmann 7y ago
I would assume that trackers always do what's in their best interest. Your claim that fingerprinting is both just a fallback and probably worse for the user thus does not add up to me. Wouldn't they always use fingerprinting if that is more powerful? > Chrome is working on fingerprinting resistance and developing privacy preserving APIs that can replace third party cookies And what will their (business and thus vital) interest in doing this probably be? Probably not what's in my, the user's interest. But what's in their customers' interest - advertisers. > I work on ads at Google Well... (Thank you for the disclosure though.)
- lopis 7y ago
  Chrome doesn't need fingerprinting at all. If you are using that browser, you are already being tracked at all times. So by implementing fingerprinting resistance in the most popular browser, Google can thus hurt the competition while merrily continue their tracking business as usual.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    Yep, on the occasion I need to use chrome it's very upset by the fact I'm not logged into my Google account. I'm sure most users log in. So Google really, really knows who you are.

colourgarden 7y ago

My immediate reaction to your comment was "How do you not know that?!" (I'm sorry.) However, if people frequenting a tech forum are not aware of the privacy benefits that Firefox has been pushing for a long time now, we as "tech folk" have a responsibility to push out the message. So you can find out more about Firefox tracking here - https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-blocks-third-party-tracking-cookies-and-cryptomining-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-bloc... And the Firefox Facebook Container may also be of interest - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/facebookcontainer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/facebookcontainer/ Hopefully, you're now reading replies to your initial comment in Firefox!

CoolGuySteve 7y ago
I knew Firefox was working when within about 6 weeks of switching over on my computer and phone (along with using DuckDuckGo and the Facebook container feature), I started getting ads telling me to practice law in Pennsylvania and to fix my weird sideways penis. Both of which were thankfully completely off target. Apparently those two categories are the birdshot of advertising.
- maroonblazer 7y ago
  Genuine question: why do you prefer ads for things that are irrelevant to your interests over ads that aren't?
  - ryukafalz 7y ago
    Not GP, but: for me it’s never been about the ads. Poorly targeted ads are a sign that the advertising companies don’t have that much data on me, which is what I really care about.
  - sixothree 7y ago
    Neither of those things you described are useful to me in any way. I would prefer the one that has respect for my privacy.
  - 7y ago

cj 7y ago

Doesn't Chrome have a "Block third-party cookies" setting (disabled by default) that you can enable in Settings > Site Settings > Cookies and site data > "Block third-party cookies"? I'm under the impression that Safari and Firefox have this enabled by default. Is the only difference that it's disabled by default in Chrome?

ishitatsuyuki 7y ago
Safari and Firefox both have a blacklist of known trackers in addition to cookie blocking. Not only that, these browsers also fight against other means of fingerprinting.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Safari does not have a blacklist of known trackers; it generates one dynamically based on tracker-like behavior it sees as you browse.
randlet 7y ago
Even if it's true it's a huge difference. Very few people are going to a) think about this issue and b) know the right terms to google for a solution and/or c) dig around in their browser settings to find the setting.
vanadium 7y ago
It feels telling that Firefox puts their Enhanced Tracking Protection settings pretty close to upfront as possible, and Chrome’s “Block Third Party Cookie” setting is for all intents and purposes to a non-technical user, both buried and off by default.

kalev 7y ago

That paragraph alone just made me decide to switch to Firefox. In only 30 minutes, it blocked 120 (!) tracking cookies.

acolumb 7y ago

I use Firefox and what is ironic is the integration with Pocket - an on-by-default service that has tracking pixels [1] [1] https://getpocket.com/privacy#passive https://getpocket.com/privacy#passive

mirimir 7y ago
Huh. I didn't know that. But I've always disabled it, on general principles.