5 ms·

I think the argument is that things like Firefox need to share some data with third parties to function correctly. The remote web server needs to know what page

I think the argument is that things like Firefox need to share some data with third parties to function correctly. The remote web server needs to know what page you want, your login details etc. That's not to say there's other things that Firefox does that isn't privacy focused, but it's accepted that Firefox has to share some data at some point to function. Audacity, however, doesn't. It's a standalone application. It works on local files. It has worked perfectly fine like this for decades. And now a new owner has come in and changed that within weeks. That's not okay. The same complaints are being made about other software doing similar. For example, Microsoft's attempt to make all Windows accounts online. We've had 30+ years of Windows without online accounts. Why should that change? and most importantly, why must it be forced upon unsuspecting users? I do agree with you, though, that anybody can call it anything they want, and that doesn't make it true. But it's also fair to be suspicious of unnecessary changes that, on their own may seem innocuous, but together lead to something far worse.

chaosite 5y ago
What the GP was saying was that there was no essential technical reason for Firefox to send telemetry data to Mozilla (unless you're connecting to Mozilla). And yet, Firefox does this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid
- weikju 5y ago
  1) that's whataboutism 2) people complain about Firefox as well and many are avoiding Firefox as a result, blocking Firefox's connection to Mozilla with various tools, etc.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    > people complain about Firefox as well Not nearly as vehemently as with Audacity.
    - Ygg2 5y ago
      Look mate, the ten people that use Firefox are not going to be as vocal.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      If Firefox had told people they would collect data for law enforcement there would be more noise there as well. There are good and legitimate reasons for collecting user data, but many of us think it should be voluntarily, minimal and at least not shared with anyone for anything but its original purpose. In fact we had a very interesting court case in Høgsterett (kind of Supreme Court) here last week where it was finally decided that the police could not aquire biological samples from the university of Oslo to help in a missing person investigation as the person in question had not agreed to it, so obviously some very influential judges in one civilized country do agree. ----- That said, between the I Robot extension, mandatory data collection and the gutting of the extension system Mozilla seems to be on a multi year marathon effort to play all their cards into Googles hands. Firefox is still my main browser though but to a large degree because the alternatives aren't quite there for me as a power user.
      - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
        Yes it certainly seems as though Mozilla (or at least their executives) have been bought and sold by Google. At this stage they seem to be toeing the line for plausible deniability of Google's monopoly, while being thoroughly defanged from doing anything to reduce the actual monopoly.
        skinkestek 5y ago
        Just for thr record: I'm not saying anyone should drop Firefox for a Chromium browser - that would be even worse. I am saying I want - authorities to look into these dealings - someone to create a (paid?) unborked version of modern Firefox - or a "vetted" safe version of Pale Moon or something - Google to be split into number of chunks
        5y ago
  - csmpltn 5y ago
    > "that's whataboutism" So what? The counter argument is that people are being hypocritical with their criticism towards Audacity here. Why are you okay with some applications collecting telemetry, but not with others?
  - chaosite 5y ago
    Yeah, I agree. Mozilla toes the line, and there are many instances where they got push back for straying too far. But wouldn't you agree that HN would go apeshit if Mozilla tried to introduce a "law-enforcement" clause like Audacity did?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- laurowyn 5y ago
  Yes, and I agreed with that in my comment. My point is that the software already hands out some data by its core function, so users are generally accepting of losing a little more data as long as it seems reasonable. It's the psychology of "well, it's already sharing some data. what's the harm in a little more?" There will always be people that want minimal data sharing, and I'm one of them, but the vocal minority are exactly that - the minority. The majority of users don't actually care, which is why the data harvesting industry is as big as it is - plenty of data out there to harvest.
  - chaosite 5y ago
    Agreed, we are conditioned to have different expectations from software which inherently deals with the network, like a web browser, than software which is inherently offline like a audio editing program.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    > "The majority of users don't actually care" … They don't care until it directly affects them personally somehow, and then suddenly they instantly forget that it happened because they allowed it to happen, and they make a huge noise about it as if it's the first time they heard about it.
jeroenhd 5y ago
Firefox is tracking users pretty aggressively by default, though. Telemetry on by default, experiments on by default, opening a "you've updated Firefox" page with trackers unless you've gone into about:config, the list goes on. Firefox tries better to anonymize the data collected and is a more reliable company than whoever really owns Audacity these days, but as a Firefox user, I'm pretty annoyed with the amount of settings I need to change to my Firefox installs to keep my data out of the hands of Mozilla of all people, who claim to value my privacy so much. I can only assume those Mozilla pages telling me I've pressed the update button collect my full IP address for at least logging purposes, as every website does by default. This stuff doesn't need to be on the web, they could easily launch a local HTML file with the same contents.

chaosite 5y ago

What the GP was saying was that there was no essential technical reason for Firefox to send telemetry data to Mozilla (unless you're connecting to Mozilla). And yet, Firefox does this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid

weikju 5y ago
1) that's whataboutism 2) people complain about Firefox as well and many are avoiding Firefox as a result, blocking Firefox's connection to Mozilla with various tools, etc.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  > people complain about Firefox as well Not nearly as vehemently as with Audacity.
  - Ygg2 5y ago
    Look mate, the ten people that use Firefox are not going to be as vocal.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    If Firefox had told people they would collect data for law enforcement there would be more noise there as well. There are good and legitimate reasons for collecting user data, but many of us think it should be voluntarily, minimal and at least not shared with anyone for anything but its original purpose. In fact we had a very interesting court case in Høgsterett (kind of Supreme Court) here last week where it was finally decided that the police could not aquire biological samples from the university of Oslo to help in a missing person investigation as the person in question had not agreed to it, so obviously some very influential judges in one civilized country do agree. ----- That said, between the I Robot extension, mandatory data collection and the gutting of the extension system Mozilla seems to be on a multi year marathon effort to play all their cards into Googles hands. Firefox is still my main browser though but to a large degree because the alternatives aren't quite there for me as a power user.
    - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
      Yes it certainly seems as though Mozilla (or at least their executives) have been bought and sold by Google. At this stage they seem to be toeing the line for plausible deniability of Google's monopoly, while being thoroughly defanged from doing anything to reduce the actual monopoly.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        Just for thr record: I'm not saying anyone should drop Firefox for a Chromium browser - that would be even worse. I am saying I want - authorities to look into these dealings - someone to create a (paid?) unborked version of modern Firefox - or a "vetted" safe version of Pale Moon or something - Google to be split into number of chunks
        5y ago
- csmpltn 5y ago
  > "that's whataboutism" So what? The counter argument is that people are being hypocritical with their criticism towards Audacity here. Why are you okay with some applications collecting telemetry, but not with others?
- chaosite 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree. Mozilla toes the line, and there are many instances where they got push back for straying too far. But wouldn't you agree that HN would go apeshit if Mozilla tried to introduce a "law-enforcement" clause like Audacity did?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
laurowyn 5y ago
Yes, and I agreed with that in my comment. My point is that the software already hands out some data by its core function, so users are generally accepting of losing a little more data as long as it seems reasonable. It's the psychology of "well, it's already sharing some data. what's the harm in a little more?" There will always be people that want minimal data sharing, and I'm one of them, but the vocal minority are exactly that - the minority. The majority of users don't actually care, which is why the data harvesting industry is as big as it is - plenty of data out there to harvest.
- chaosite 5y ago
  Agreed, we are conditioned to have different expectations from software which inherently deals with the network, like a web browser, than software which is inherently offline like a audio editing program.
- blooalien 5y ago
  > "The majority of users don't actually care" … They don't care until it directly affects them personally somehow, and then suddenly they instantly forget that it happened because they allowed it to happen, and they make a huge noise about it as if it's the first time they heard about it.

jeroenhd 5y ago

Firefox is tracking users pretty aggressively by default, though. Telemetry on by default, experiments on by default, opening a "you've updated Firefox" page with trackers unless you've gone into about:config, the list goes on. Firefox tries better to anonymize the data collected and is a more reliable company than whoever really owns Audacity these days, but as a Firefox user, I'm pretty annoyed with the amount of settings I need to change to my Firefox installs to keep my data out of the hands of Mozilla of all people, who claim to value my privacy so much. I can only assume those Mozilla pages telling me I've pressed the update button collect my full IP address for at least logging purposes, as every website does by default. This stuff doesn't need to be on the web, they could easily launch a local HTML file with the same contents.