4 ms·

I didn't experience faster Firefox on: high end desktop, laptop, mobile. UI changed, promotion of features like Pocket that I don't use. But not performance. Ch

I didn't experience faster Firefox on: high end desktop, laptop, mobile. UI changed, promotion of features like Pocket that I don't use. But not performance. Chromium is still faster in everything sadly.

franga2000 6y ago
Oh come on, when will everyone stop bitching about Pocket? It's decent if you use it and out of your way if you don't? Especially when the alternative is Chrome, which pushes it's shit on you constantly. And regarding performance, I find it rather unlikely that you didn't experience a performance improvement, especially on mobile. Seriously try downloading the last build of Fennec and load the same webpage on it, then on Fenix (the new Firefox for Android). I've seen 2x load time improvements on plently of sites and the speedup seems to be proportional to how heavy the page is. Yes, Chrome still beats it at anything using JS, but even horribly slow things like GDrive are now completely usable on FF, even with many tabs.
- cookiengineer 6y ago
  > Oh come on (...) Would it be better if we talk about leanplum and firebase analytics, or say mozilla's telemetry service, or how google safebrowsing is implemented? I mean, if you comment on Chrome for integrating Google services, you gotta do the same when Mozilla does it, too. If you don't believe me, run an MITMproxy to check for yourself. I'd rather recommend Ungoogled Chromium, even on mobile, due to Fenix's lack of privacy.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Adding Pocket, which is basically the Read It Later feature that every other browser has, and there is no complaint about, is trivial compared to Google, say, logging you into your Google account in Chrome when you log into GMail in your browser. Also, the OP comment is hilarious because they clearly seem to have forgotten why people bitched about Pocket in the first place. It wasn’t because it was an integration of Mozilla’s services. It was exactly the opposite. It was the fact that Pocket was NOT a Mozilla service at the time the integration happened that people bitched about it. Which just goes to show that it wasn’t a real concern, but a Twitter net pointless and baseless moral crusade.
    - rakoo 6y ago
      The concern with Pocket is primarily, IMO, that the service wasn't and still isn't Open Source, which is a hard sell for a browser that champions user control.
  - franga2000 6y ago
    > Would it be better if we talk about... Yes! Talk about the things that actually have anything to do with privacy, security, experience... - Leanplum seems to be there for A/B testing and doesn't have access to anything sensitive. - Firebase is partially unavoidable (GCM) and as far as I can tell, the only usage of it that impacts privacy is in Rocket (FF Lite) which barely exists anymore. - Google Safe Browsing seems to be designed in a way that makes it nearly impossible to violate privacy, even if you wanted to. On top of that, FF takes extra measures to protect privacy "just in case". So where's the problem? Yeah, Mozilla has done some dumb shit (like auto-installing some weird extensions and basically anything upper management does) in the last few years, and they aren't the Stallman* utopia some people want them to be, but they never really claimed to be. Just like DDG, they give you the best privacy level they can while staying sustainable enough to survive.
    - cookiengineer 6y ago
      I tend to disagree with your statements. The codebases provide enough evidence that this is not the case. > - Leanplum seems to be there for A/B testing and doesn't have access to anything sensitive. Leanplum has access to at least geolocation and the device id (See [1]), due to their geofencing A/B testing feature. Combine that with an IP and you can uniquely identify any user. Additionally, Leanplum sends its messages via their own Firebase Provider [2]. > - Firebase is partially unavoidable (GCM) Firebase Push Notifications are necessary since Android 10, and only if your application consistently runs in the background. If you have e.g. a download notification with a high priority displayed, your app is allowed to continue to run without any firebase, at all. Source: The Telegram FOSS fork does this, actually. See [3] for details > - Google Safe Browsing seems to be designed in a way that makes it nearly impossible to violate privacy, even if you wanted to. Okay, now it's time to refine this in context of "Firefox Klar", "Firefox Focus" or say, the Fenix codebase(s). I'm focussing on Fenix here only, because all current Firefox products for mobile rely on it as an engine. (Usually the same metrics are included in Firefox for Desktop, too, but this post would explode this comment; see spywarewatchdog or similar audits for more details on it, which still hasn't been improved over the years by mozilla.) - Mozilla implemented their own ads distribution system that hijacks google ads on pages and replaces the id with the one that was specifically generated for the web browser (after first opening the web browser) [4]. - Mozilla's Safebrowsing uses a generated hash, that is used specifically to identify a single device [5]. - The server for both of those hash URLs is hosted by Alibaba in CHINA, which is certainly a GDPR "violation by the book", as the server is contacted for everyone, not only people that live within China; every time the Browser is online again; even in an interval. (also [5]) - Fenix also adds Tab interactions and sends the data to their telemetry service; including the URL and history of that specific tab [6] > On top of that, FF takes extra measures to protect privacy "just in case". As my links prove: No, they don't. For example, they activate Leanplum's device id specific tracking even if the user is outside the geofences, so they track users even if they already know it's unnecessary. [7] ========= [1] https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK (especially the AndroidSdkCore is relevant here, assuming the discussion of the "most privacy respecting" featureset) [2] https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK/blob/master/AndroidSDKFcm/src/main/java/com/leanplum/LeanplumPushFirebaseMessagingService.java https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK/blob/master... [3] https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/blob/master/Notifications.md https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/blob/mas... [4] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/5ad714db864bce7a3defff4a82c6838b6e85f290/app/src/main/java/org/mozilla/fenix/search/telemetry/ads/AdsTelemetry.kt https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/5ad714db864bce7... [5] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/686f7bd7c65cbaa8fa8c7dd0b390cd6adf11e079/app/src/geckoNightly/java/org/mozilla/fenix/engine/GeckoProvider.kt#L24 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/686f7bd7c65cbaa... [6] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/556fea5591acbde48b9659900bf023294c710c6b/app/src/main/java/org/mozilla/fenix/TelemetryMiddleware.kt https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/556fea5591acbde... [7] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/41a92a8d8b316446e21a2fc8a6eadec43e6f4799/app/src/main/java/org/mozilla/fenix/components/metrics/LeanplumMetricsService.kt#L224-L242 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/41a92a8d8b31644...

franga2000 6y ago

Oh come on, when will everyone stop bitching about Pocket? It's decent if you use it and out of your way if you don't? Especially when the alternative is Chrome, which pushes it's shit on you constantly. And regarding performance, I find it rather unlikely that you didn't experience a performance improvement, especially on mobile. Seriously try downloading the last build of Fennec and load the same webpage on it, then on Fenix (the new Firefox for Android). I've seen 2x load time improvements on plently of sites and the speedup seems to be proportional to how heavy the page is. Yes, Chrome still beats it at anything using JS, but even horribly slow things like GDrive are now completely usable on FF, even with many tabs.

cookiengineer 6y ago
> Oh come on (...) Would it be better if we talk about leanplum and firebase analytics, or say mozilla's telemetry service, or how google safebrowsing is implemented? I mean, if you comment on Chrome for integrating Google services, you gotta do the same when Mozilla does it, too. If you don't believe me, run an MITMproxy to check for yourself. I'd rather recommend Ungoogled Chromium, even on mobile, due to Fenix's lack of privacy.
- addicted 6y ago
  Adding Pocket, which is basically the Read It Later feature that every other browser has, and there is no complaint about, is trivial compared to Google, say, logging you into your Google account in Chrome when you log into GMail in your browser. Also, the OP comment is hilarious because they clearly seem to have forgotten why people bitched about Pocket in the first place. It wasn’t because it was an integration of Mozilla’s services. It was exactly the opposite. It was the fact that Pocket was NOT a Mozilla service at the time the integration happened that people bitched about it. Which just goes to show that it wasn’t a real concern, but a Twitter net pointless and baseless moral crusade.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    The concern with Pocket is primarily, IMO, that the service wasn't and still isn't Open Source, which is a hard sell for a browser that champions user control.
- franga2000 6y ago
  > Would it be better if we talk about... Yes! Talk about the things that actually have anything to do with privacy, security, experience... - Leanplum seems to be there for A/B testing and doesn't have access to anything sensitive. - Firebase is partially unavoidable (GCM) and as far as I can tell, the only usage of it that impacts privacy is in Rocket (FF Lite) which barely exists anymore. - Google Safe Browsing seems to be designed in a way that makes it nearly impossible to violate privacy, even if you wanted to. On top of that, FF takes extra measures to protect privacy "just in case". So where's the problem? Yeah, Mozilla has done some dumb shit (like auto-installing some weird extensions and basically anything upper management does) in the last few years, and they aren't the Stallman* utopia some people want them to be, but they never really claimed to be. Just like DDG, they give you the best privacy level they can while staying sustainable enough to survive.
  - cookiengineer 6y ago
    I tend to disagree with your statements. The codebases provide enough evidence that this is not the case. > - Leanplum seems to be there for A/B testing and doesn't have access to anything sensitive. Leanplum has access to at least geolocation and the device id (See [1]), due to their geofencing A/B testing feature. Combine that with an IP and you can uniquely identify any user. Additionally, Leanplum sends its messages via their own Firebase Provider [2]. > - Firebase is partially unavoidable (GCM) Firebase Push Notifications are necessary since Android 10, and only if your application consistently runs in the background. If you have e.g. a download notification with a high priority displayed, your app is allowed to continue to run without any firebase, at all. Source: The Telegram FOSS fork does this, actually. See [3] for details > - Google Safe Browsing seems to be designed in a way that makes it nearly impossible to violate privacy, even if you wanted to. Okay, now it's time to refine this in context of "Firefox Klar", "Firefox Focus" or say, the Fenix codebase(s). I'm focussing on Fenix here only, because all current Firefox products for mobile rely on it as an engine. (Usually the same metrics are included in Firefox for Desktop, too, but this post would explode this comment; see spywarewatchdog or similar audits for more details on it, which still hasn't been improved over the years by mozilla.) - Mozilla implemented their own ads distribution system that hijacks google ads on pages and replaces the id with the one that was specifically generated for the web browser (after first opening the web browser) [4]. - Mozilla's Safebrowsing uses a generated hash, that is used specifically to identify a single device [5]. - The server for both of those hash URLs is hosted by Alibaba in CHINA, which is certainly a GDPR "violation by the book", as the server is contacted for everyone, not only people that live within China; every time the Browser is online again; even in an interval. (also [5]) - Fenix also adds Tab interactions and sends the data to their telemetry service; including the URL and history of that specific tab [6] > On top of that, FF takes extra measures to protect privacy "just in case". As my links prove: No, they don't. For example, they activate Leanplum's device id specific tracking even if the user is outside the geofences, so they track users even if they already know it's unnecessary. [7] ========= [1] https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK (especially the AndroidSdkCore is relevant here, assuming the discussion of the "most privacy respecting" featureset) [2] https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK/blob/master/AndroidSDKFcm/src/main/java/com/leanplum/LeanplumPushFirebaseMessagingService.java https://github.com/Leanplum/Leanplum-Android-SDK/blob/master... [3] https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/blob/master/Notifications.md https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/blob/mas... [4] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/5ad714db864bce7a3defff4a82c6838b6e85f290/app/src/main/java/org/mozilla/fenix/search/telemetry/ads/AdsTelemetry.kt https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/5ad714db864bce7... [5] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/686f7bd7c65cbaa8fa8c7dd0b390cd6adf11e079/app/src/geckoNightly/java/org/mozilla/fenix/engine/GeckoProvider.kt#L24 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/686f7bd7c65cbaa... [6] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/556fea5591acbde48b9659900bf023294c710c6b/app/src/main/java/org/mozilla/fenix/TelemetryMiddleware.kt https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/556fea5591acbde... [7] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/41a92a8d8b316446e21a2fc8a6eadec43e6f4799/app/src/main/java/org/mozilla/fenix/components/metrics/LeanplumMetricsService.kt#L224-L242 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/41a92a8d8b31644...