5 ms·

I never understood this feature. Why not use an addon instead? Ublock origin for example is much better compared to the firefox tracking protection.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Because the default should be to block tracking. We just shouldn't allow it. Imagine someone telling you a popup blocker (something even IE8 had standard) should be acquire separately.
- kgwxd 6y ago
  I agree with parent though, Firefox should just ship with uBlock Origin installed. I think putting privacy features in the hands of a third-party prevents some poor choices being made due to several conflicts of interest browser vendors have.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    Addons pose a significant increased security risk. (I would honestly advocate for the radical position of requiring you enable a "allow addons" checkbox, with a warning, before installing any browser extensions.) I absolutely agree that browser vendors have huge conflicts of interest, and we need to address those by forcibly separating browsers from companies inherently in conflict with privacy.
    - SamuelAdams 6y ago
      Yep, just remember the controversy when Firefox included Pocket naively. Some people loved it, others hated it.
  - jonnytran 6y ago
    Luckily, Mozilla is a non-profit organization. Their interests do not conflict with protecting their users. But it makes you wonder, if other browser vendors' interests do conflict with ad blocking, why would they ship with uBlock Origin? They would want to control what most people do by controlling the defaults. The vast majority of users never change the default settings.
    - Proven 6y ago
      > Luckily, Mozilla is a non-profit organization. Their interests do not conflict with protecting their users. What? Do interests of Amazon conflict with AWS protecting their users, because both sides profit from the relationship? uBlock (and other add-ons) clean cookies everywhere and can do it consistently and is a better choice for anyone who uses more than one browser because you set it consistently across all browsers and you're done.
    - quadrangle 6y ago
      Mozilla is a non-profit that owns a for-profit corporation which makes Firefox. And their funding largely comes from Google paying them to keep Google as the default search. There's not a mission-level conflict-of-interest, but there's a practical one. Until they can somehow be funded directly by users, Firefox will have this tension of "don't piss off Google or other referral partners, even if that means going against the users' interests". They won't serve the users well by losing all their funding and then dying. This situation is why Firefox and Mozilla aren't just everything they could be in terms of completely aligned with users.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      It's worth noting that while Mozilla is a nonprofit organization, it certainly retains a huge conflict of interest: It's primary financial sponsor is still Google. If Firefox was solely aligned with protecting their users, the default search would be DuckDuckGo, not Google, and it would fully block Google Analytics, Fonts, and AdSense right out of the box.
    - dependenttypes 6y ago
      > Their interests do not conflict with protecting their users. Which is why they have things like telemetry, backdoors like normandy, tracking via safebrowsing, unblockable tracking via google analytics in about:addons and any mozilla pages, a great track record with pocket and the mr robot addon, tracking-related bugs which have gone ignored for years, and richly paid executives, right?
  - takluyver 6y ago
    Even besides the money they get from Google, Mozilla aims to support the web, much of which is ad supported. Blocking tracking by default says "we think websites can survive with context-based advertising without obnoxious tracking". Blocking ads by default says "we think the ad supported business model is not worth supporting". That's a much bigger step.
- jfk13 6y ago
  In principle, yes -- we just shouldn't allow it. The problem is that it's technically difficult to block it entirely, and even more difficult to do so without breaking functionality that users want.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  Integrate ublock origin then? Why offer an inferior solution?
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    uBlock Origin does substantially more than just tracking blocking, which might be picking too much of a fight with very powerful entities.
    - dependenttypes 6y ago
      Such as letting users to use custom filters and set their own rules per site. It depends whether mozilla is interested in being pro-user or not.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Why not use an addon instead? The general population has no idea such an addon is necessary. I applaud Mozilla including at least basic privacy blocking by default now.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24062478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24062478

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

Because the default should be to block tracking. We just shouldn't allow it. Imagine someone telling you a popup blocker (something even IE8 had standard) should be acquire separately.

kgwxd 6y ago
I agree with parent though, Firefox should just ship with uBlock Origin installed. I think putting privacy features in the hands of a third-party prevents some poor choices being made due to several conflicts of interest browser vendors have.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Addons pose a significant increased security risk. (I would honestly advocate for the radical position of requiring you enable a "allow addons" checkbox, with a warning, before installing any browser extensions.) I absolutely agree that browser vendors have huge conflicts of interest, and we need to address those by forcibly separating browsers from companies inherently in conflict with privacy.
  - SamuelAdams 6y ago
    Yep, just remember the controversy when Firefox included Pocket naively. Some people loved it, others hated it.
- jonnytran 6y ago
  Luckily, Mozilla is a non-profit organization. Their interests do not conflict with protecting their users. But it makes you wonder, if other browser vendors' interests do conflict with ad blocking, why would they ship with uBlock Origin? They would want to control what most people do by controlling the defaults. The vast majority of users never change the default settings.
  - Proven 6y ago
    > Luckily, Mozilla is a non-profit organization. Their interests do not conflict with protecting their users. What? Do interests of Amazon conflict with AWS protecting their users, because both sides profit from the relationship? uBlock (and other add-ons) clean cookies everywhere and can do it consistently and is a better choice for anyone who uses more than one browser because you set it consistently across all browsers and you're done.
  - quadrangle 6y ago
    Mozilla is a non-profit that owns a for-profit corporation which makes Firefox. And their funding largely comes from Google paying them to keep Google as the default search. There's not a mission-level conflict-of-interest, but there's a practical one. Until they can somehow be funded directly by users, Firefox will have this tension of "don't piss off Google or other referral partners, even if that means going against the users' interests". They won't serve the users well by losing all their funding and then dying. This situation is why Firefox and Mozilla aren't just everything they could be in terms of completely aligned with users.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    It's worth noting that while Mozilla is a nonprofit organization, it certainly retains a huge conflict of interest: It's primary financial sponsor is still Google. If Firefox was solely aligned with protecting their users, the default search would be DuckDuckGo, not Google, and it would fully block Google Analytics, Fonts, and AdSense right out of the box.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    > Their interests do not conflict with protecting their users. Which is why they have things like telemetry, backdoors like normandy, tracking via safebrowsing, unblockable tracking via google analytics in about:addons and any mozilla pages, a great track record with pocket and the mr robot addon, tracking-related bugs which have gone ignored for years, and richly paid executives, right?
- takluyver 6y ago
  Even besides the money they get from Google, Mozilla aims to support the web, much of which is ad supported. Blocking tracking by default says "we think websites can survive with context-based advertising without obnoxious tracking". Blocking ads by default says "we think the ad supported business model is not worth supporting". That's a much bigger step.
jfk13 6y ago
In principle, yes -- we just shouldn't allow it. The problem is that it's technically difficult to block it entirely, and even more difficult to do so without breaking functionality that users want.
dependenttypes 6y ago
Integrate ublock origin then? Why offer an inferior solution?
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  uBlock Origin does substantially more than just tracking blocking, which might be picking too much of a fight with very powerful entities.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    Such as letting users to use custom filters and set their own rules per site. It depends whether mozilla is interested in being pro-user or not.

ceejayoz 6y ago

> Why not use an addon instead? The general population has no idea such an addon is necessary. I applaud Mozilla including at least basic privacy blocking by default now.

dependenttypes 6y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24062478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24062478