6 ms·

Mozilla people - this is a serious issue. If you want to champion privacy, you NEED to have a big red button that says "nothing gets sent out" and you NEED to h

Mozilla people - this is a serious issue. If you want to champion privacy, you NEED to have a big red button that says "nothing gets sent out" and you NEED to have an end-to-end test to make sure Firefox respects it.

hajhatten 6y ago
Agreed. This is probably one of the fastest way to loose users in 2020.
- thanhvotuan 6y ago
  agree
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Article is from January 2018.
  - mtgx 6y ago
    And Mozilla has lost a lot of users since then. Coincide? I think not.
- Rexxar 6y ago
  I'm all for this functionality but if the said users go to Chrome because "Firefox has no privacy" this is ridiculous. Firefox is our best browser in this domain, let's not kill it by complaining indefinitely on it.
  - account42 6y ago
    > Firefox is our best browser in this domain Best is irrelevant - it's not good enough.
- lorenzhs 6y ago
  What are you going to switch to? Chrome? Sure, it would be nice to have an easy switch that disables all telemetry, but let's not forget that every other major browsers collects far more data, and the most popular browser steers you toward to storing your entire web and location history on their servers as soon as you log into your email account. Kinda puts non-identifying information about Firefox's performance into perspective, doesn't it?
diegocg 6y ago
Don't they have exactly that already for telemetry? You can go to the preferences and turn it off instead of using about:config
- MikusR 6y ago
  No. They even install an additional telemetry service that runs independently of Firefox.
  - alibert 6y ago
    Only on Windows I believe. Every time Firefox is updated, it installs back the "Firefox Default Browser Agent" in the Task Scheduler.
    - dblohm7 6y ago
      And FWIW it’s not just a “telemetry service.”
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  Apparently this still leaves a boatload of telemetry options switched On. I had the Preferences option Off for years and yet there was a laundry list of telemetry options enabled in about:config. This is shady as fuck if you pardon my French. Completely unacceptable.
  - rndgermandude 6y ago
    No, it doesn't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25057424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25057424
jfsanchez91 6y ago
agree
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kaba0 6y ago
Why? Like, seriously. Telemetry is useful, and I am more than happy to provide them with some useful metrics so they know what to improve on - since I can’t really help with the code itself, since it is an insanely huge project. It’s not like they use it to build a profile of you, as goddamn chrome does. I feel that whatever Mozilla does can never be good enough for some people, even though they are one of the most important players in the “fight” of OSS. Just think about it, linux is only usable as a desktop OS because most of the desktop apps migrated to the web - and firefox is the only free browser that is actually capable, as well as the only engine that is not google-controlled. We should support them as much as we can.
- lorenzhs 6y ago
  It annoys me that Mozilla and Firefox are held to an almost impossible standard by this community, whereas others get a pass on behaviour that's far more intrusive. These posts seem to be lacking entirely in perspective. That doesn't mean that Mozilla can't be criticised, but ffs, don't blow minor issues out of proportion.
  - account42 6y ago
    Impossible standard??? Not collecting information users have not explicitly consented to is the fucking baseline.
- sneak 6y ago
  Software that sends surveillance data of user activity without first obtaining the user’s consent is malware, silently acting against the wishes of the user, co-opting their hardware and network to work against them to benefit a remote party. It’s great that you consent. In that instance it is fine. Many do not, and to proceed with the assumption of consent should be a crime. What is done with the data is irrelevant. Spying without explicit consent is the problem.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  It’s not like they use it to build a profile of you, as goddamn chrome does. Eh? Says who? Them? So many times, companies have lied, cheated, made excuses. So many times "we don't", then they do. So. Many. Times. So I should just trust Mozilla, because... well, why? And this doesn't even take into account new corporate owners, leveraging existing data in a new way. Or rogue elements in corps, employees stealing data for profit, or even data leakage due to misconfigured servers. These thongs have all happened. Corps have left dumps of entire client databases, credit cards, id, on open portals! Over and over, again and again, we have been shown, never ever trust anyone with your data. Ever.
rndgermandude 6y ago
The preference controlling whether telemetry is sent anywhere is "datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled". The other telemetry settings are just about what telemetry modules are enabled to collect telemetry data locally (which you still can view with about:telemetry, but will not get send when you disabled "uploadEnabled"). [1] Disable "datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled" and Firefox will not send telemetry data around. But users cannot be expected to mess around in about:config, right? That why there is a checkbox in the Firefox preferences just for this. In the Privacy & Security tab. Also, when you create a fresh Firefox profile (e.g. when you use it for the first time), it will open their privacy policy page, with a somewhat hidden button that brings you straight to those checkboxes. I don't like that it's a bit hidden now by default, and they could do better there (and actually did better in the past, where there was a very visible popup asking you about this stuff). As for "they should test this!": Right, and they do have unit tests[2]. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/internals/preferences.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t... [2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/tests/unit/test_TelemetryReportingPolicy.js#146 https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone...

hajhatten 6y ago

Agreed. This is probably one of the fastest way to loose users in 2020.

thanhvotuan 6y ago
agree
Fnoord 6y ago
Article is from January 2018.
- mtgx 6y ago
  And Mozilla has lost a lot of users since then. Coincide? I think not.
Rexxar 6y ago
I'm all for this functionality but if the said users go to Chrome because "Firefox has no privacy" this is ridiculous. Firefox is our best browser in this domain, let's not kill it by complaining indefinitely on it.
- account42 6y ago
  > Firefox is our best browser in this domain Best is irrelevant - it's not good enough.
lorenzhs 6y ago
What are you going to switch to? Chrome? Sure, it would be nice to have an easy switch that disables all telemetry, but let's not forget that every other major browsers collects far more data, and the most popular browser steers you toward to storing your entire web and location history on their servers as soon as you log into your email account. Kinda puts non-identifying information about Firefox's performance into perspective, doesn't it?

diegocg 6y ago

Don't they have exactly that already for telemetry? You can go to the preferences and turn it off instead of using about:config

MikusR 6y ago
No. They even install an additional telemetry service that runs independently of Firefox.
- alibert 6y ago
  Only on Windows I believe. Every time Firefox is updated, it installs back the "Firefox Default Browser Agent" in the Task Scheduler.
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    And FWIW it’s not just a “telemetry service.”
huhtenberg 6y ago
Apparently this still leaves a boatload of telemetry options switched On. I had the Preferences option Off for years and yet there was a laundry list of telemetry options enabled in about:config. This is shady as fuck if you pardon my French. Completely unacceptable.
- rndgermandude 6y ago
  No, it doesn't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25057424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25057424

jfsanchez91 6y ago

agree

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kaba0 6y ago

Why? Like, seriously. Telemetry is useful, and I am more than happy to provide them with some useful metrics so they know what to improve on - since I can’t really help with the code itself, since it is an insanely huge project. It’s not like they use it to build a profile of you, as goddamn chrome does. I feel that whatever Mozilla does can never be good enough for some people, even though they are one of the most important players in the “fight” of OSS. Just think about it, linux is only usable as a desktop OS because most of the desktop apps migrated to the web - and firefox is the only free browser that is actually capable, as well as the only engine that is not google-controlled. We should support them as much as we can.

lorenzhs 6y ago
It annoys me that Mozilla and Firefox are held to an almost impossible standard by this community, whereas others get a pass on behaviour that's far more intrusive. These posts seem to be lacking entirely in perspective. That doesn't mean that Mozilla can't be criticised, but ffs, don't blow minor issues out of proportion.
- account42 6y ago
  Impossible standard??? Not collecting information users have not explicitly consented to is the fucking baseline.
sneak 6y ago
Software that sends surveillance data of user activity without first obtaining the user’s consent is malware, silently acting against the wishes of the user, co-opting their hardware and network to work against them to benefit a remote party. It’s great that you consent. In that instance it is fine. Many do not, and to proceed with the assumption of consent should be a crime. What is done with the data is irrelevant. Spying without explicit consent is the problem.
bbarnett 6y ago
It’s not like they use it to build a profile of you, as goddamn chrome does. Eh? Says who? Them? So many times, companies have lied, cheated, made excuses. So many times "we don't", then they do. So. Many. Times. So I should just trust Mozilla, because... well, why? And this doesn't even take into account new corporate owners, leveraging existing data in a new way. Or rogue elements in corps, employees stealing data for profit, or even data leakage due to misconfigured servers. These thongs have all happened. Corps have left dumps of entire client databases, credit cards, id, on open portals! Over and over, again and again, we have been shown, never ever trust anyone with your data. Ever.

rndgermandude 6y ago

The preference controlling whether telemetry is sent anywhere is "datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled". The other telemetry settings are just about what telemetry modules are enabled to collect telemetry data locally (which you still can view with about:telemetry, but will not get send when you disabled "uploadEnabled"). [1] Disable "datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled" and Firefox will not send telemetry data around. But users cannot be expected to mess around in about:config, right? That why there is a checkbox in the Firefox preferences just for this. In the Privacy & Security tab. Also, when you create a fresh Firefox profile (e.g. when you use it for the first time), it will open their privacy policy page, with a somewhat hidden button that brings you straight to those checkboxes. I don't like that it's a bit hidden now by default, and they could do better there (and actually did better in the past, where there was a very visible popup asking you about this stuff). As for "they should test this!": Right, and they do have unit tests[2]. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/internals/preferences.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t... [2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/tests/unit/test_TelemetryReportingPolicy.js#146 https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone...