10 ms·

Meh, the feature is easily deactivable, the settings are clear and extensive. As far as ads go, it's one of the best implementations. Firefox still has no alte

by Adrig 5y ago

Meh, the feature is easily deactivable, the settings are clear and extensive. As far as ads go, it's one of the best implementations. Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space (don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad). Mozilla has done a lot for the web, I can give them some slack for exploring different revenue models. Still, I'm going to keep on eye for this kind of practices in the future. I don't want them to get too comfortable with it.

daptaq 5y ago
Knowing Mozilla, the option will be changed and renamed every version and will have to be re-enabled manually again and again.
- e3bc54b2 5y ago
  And eventually, Mozilla's 'telemetry' will tell them that 95% users never opt out, and that'll justify removing the opt out option entirely.
  - roca 5y ago
    There's still a Preferences option to opt out of "Play DRM-controlled content", even though I'm sure <5% of people opt out of that. Some options stick around for the sake of principle.
    - smitop 5y ago
      It's disabled by default. Enabling DRM installs a non-free binary from Google, and the user is prompted to install it when a website attempts to play DRM media: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm
      - msdrigg 5y ago
        I wondered why they set it up like this. TIL
  - aembleton 5y ago
    That might be just the motivation needed to create a fork.
atoav 5y ago
Like pocket which weirdly enough keeps reappearing in my browsers bar?
veltas 5y ago
> don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad Brave
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Outsider here: whats wrong with brave? I haven’t touched it but have no reason to distrust it, happy for you to change that for me though
- _8j50 5y ago
  Brave is based on Chromium, it lacks some of the privacy centric features that are found in Gecko browsers. 1st party isolation,tracker blocking, containers, anti fingerprinting measures and SNI encryption are some things I can think of right now (maybe chrome as caught up now?) Plus, Google controls Chromium and Firefox is literally the only alternative now. They push changes that are against or in in ignorance of of web standards because they can. Downstream browsers like brave,edge and opera basically have to accept whatever Google says. This isn't good for the web at all. Frankly there should be an anti-trust suit against Google for this because it is very anti-competitive.
  - my123 5y ago
    You also have Safari (and GNOME Web on Linux) using the WebKit engine, developed by Apple as an alternative... But that's not available on Android or Windows (the WebKit port exists there, but no good UI frontend as far I know)... which are the two big platforms. (because Apple doesn't care enough about those I guess?)
    - deepstack 5y ago
      Wasn't Chrome originally a fork of WebKit when G and A are still buddy buddy?
      - my123 5y ago
        Yes it was. WebKit and Blink then diverged massively after the fork.
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      GNOME WebKit definitely isn't Safari. A lot of websites that work in Safari were broken in WebKit last time I tried it. It does replicate a lot of buggy behaviour in Safari so from what I can tell you can be reasonably sure that your website works in Safari if it works in WebKit, but that's the only use I've found for it so far. As for a good UI on Windows, I think you should be able to compile GNOME's WebKit browser for Windows. It'll look terribly out of place like any GNOME application in a different environment, but I think it should work well enough to use?
leodriesch 5y ago
This just makes me worry a little bit that Firefox will take a similar route to Brave and introduce multiple streams of revenue into the browser, disguised as features that the user would want. E.g. Brave Rewards, Brave VPN, Sponsored Wallpapers. These just clog up the interface and make it feel sketchy. I just want a normal FOSS browser, but I also understand the whole financing issue.
- Hendrikto 5y ago
  Financing is only an issue because they make it one. Mozilla has tons of money, but they just 1. spend too much of it, 2. on the wrong things, 3. and always want more.
  - johnsea 5y ago
    Maybe if they would spend it on the right things, Google would stop paying?
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      Sad to say but this thought has struck me too.
    - account42 5y ago
      I that case, Google not paying would be good for Firefox.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  I’ve used Brave as my daily driver for years, and not once have I ever been even mildly inconvenienced by the optional BAT token feature. If it helps fund the browser, I’m glad- that’s better for me. I understand why people dislike it, but the outrage seems superfluous.
  - ev1 5y ago
    I largely lost my trust in Brave after the absolute shitshow where they were hard-redirecting domains globally that you hand entered through their affiliate link redirects - you'd enter example.com and the browser would be hardcoded to not load example.com
ssss11 5y ago
We all know regular users don’t change settings. At the least it needs to be opted out by default.
- jve 5y ago
  From the article ai understand you must opt in to make this available: These suggestions — which aim to enhance and speed up your searching experience — are only enabled when you provide access to new data types. People complain when the default is opted-in. Now someone makes something that by default is opted-out and... people still complain. They ask that when someone uses telemetry, that would be shown upfront. When someone does that, they ask it to be disabled by default. And when we get disabled by default, where do we go? Remove the feature, ofcourse :) Ads, privacy and telemetry is a hot cake topic on HN. That button is actually a cheap way to support mozilla, if anyone cares.
  - greyhat 5y ago
    It was on by default for a lot of users.
jedisct1 5y ago
> Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space Safari.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  Safari’s privacy is a joke considering you can’t install browser extensions like UBlock Origin to thoroughly block trackers and other spyware. Not to mention it’s the most buggy and poorly developed rendering engine, breaking more websites than any other major browser. And it’s not even cross platform. Hardly a competitor as far as I’m concerned.
  - Tepix 5y ago
    Safari was the only browser to ship with 3rd party cookies disabled by default. Without Safari there'd be tons of websites that required 3rd party cookies to work. These days there are very few. 3rd party cookies make pervasive tracking much, much easier.
- Adrig 5y ago
  Fair enough, but I wouldn't call a software locked to an ecosystem "user-centric". Firefox on Android is a lifesaver in a sea of opportunistic alternatives
- 3r8Oltr0ziouVDM 5y ago
  It's not even open source.
ravenstine 5y ago
How many things are we going to need to deactivate in 5 years from now? First Pocket, then this; what next? Thanks a lot for mismanaging your budget like seemingly every other non-profit, Mozilla.
- jamienicol 5y ago
  What's wrong with pocket?
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Pocket is fine I think. The problem is mostly the way they introduced it.
    - jamienicol 5y ago
      What do you mean by that?
- soundnote 5y ago
  http://dpldocs.info/this-week-in-d/Blog.Posted_2021_09_06.html#adam%27s-rant http://dpldocs.info/this-week-in-d/Blog.Posted_2021_09_06.ht... Pocket is a good thing. It provides a reason for Mozilla/Firefox to exist.
krageon 5y ago
> easily deactivable Such a thing should not exist in the first place. It is predatory and wrong. > Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space It is no longer in that space, because it contains advertising tech now.
deepstack 5y ago
>(don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad) Just wonder the reason? Is it because it support the monopoly of google rendering engine? Or other reasons?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- morganvachon 5y ago
  Not OP but I've avoided Brave from the beginning because of its reliance on an ad-fueled crypto scam to generate revenue. If you're trying to avoid Mozilla's new ad-based revenue scheme, moving to a browser that is wholly funded by tracking your browsing and showing you ads while pretending to "pay" you with cryptocurrency that they never actually pay out, seems like a step backwards.
  - sieabahlpark 5y ago
    Mozilla is woke. It's a failing company and a failing browser.
    - Griffinsauce 5y ago
      What exactly do you think this adds to the discussion?
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    Except that's not at all what Brave is doing. They tried to innovate a new way to pay for content. It's complex, but it's not a scam. Brave seems more trustworthy than FF to me right now.
    - acatton 5y ago
      Wikipedia (and its sources) tends to disagree with you and agree with GP. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brave_(web_browser)&oldid=1048671064#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brave_(web_browse...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kome 5y ago
> Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space (don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad). Vivaldi perhaps https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ ? It is still a chrome derivative, but it feel less shady and less spyware than Brave. And it's pretty good and configurable. Firefox remain my first and main browser tho. I never ever used "proper" chrome, not even one day.
- morganvachon 5y ago
  Vivaldi is not open source so that's an immediate "no" from me. I'm fine with using closed source tools from time to time, but a web browser is just too important and intertwined in my life to trust a closed source offering. In a perfect world we'd have nothing but fully open source software funded by support contracts and commercial interest in offering superior software, but the world isn't perfect and so we have to compromise sometimes. But the browser is one place I draw the line.
  - soundnote 5y ago
    Vivaldi does keep their source out in the open for inspection, it's just not licensed so that it'd be forkable.
    - morganvachon 5y ago
      Not all of it. > Of the three layers, only the UI layer is closed-source. This means that roughly 92% of the browser’s code is open-source coming from Chromium, 3% is open-source coming from us and only 5% is our UI closed-source code. https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/
jarofgreen 5y ago
> the feature is easily deactivable Except they have used the language of "not now" and hidden the link away instead of making it a button with equal prominence to the yes button. That's not the behaviour of an organisation which thinks its users will be happy with what it's doing, it's the behaviour of an organisation which is trying to trick them.
AndyMcConachie 5y ago
defaults matter
pronik 5y ago
Just imagine the meltdown if Google or Microsoft built that in. Somehow, Mozilla always get the slack and a couple of months down the road they are the saviour of the privacy world yet again.
- IanSanders 5y ago
  Google and Microsoft did much worse and got away with it
  - pronik 5y ago
    Microsoft maybe, they seem to be the tech bubble darling right now. Google is officially "The Evil(tm)" right now.
    - toastal 5y ago
      Says who? Seems like neo-EEE with their current porfolio of GitHub, Copilot, Codespaces, Sponsors, NPM, Azure, VS Code, and WSL.
      - pronik 5y ago
        I do agree and do not trust Microsoft one inch. But I've read a lot of "Windows 10 + WSL + VSCode is the ideal dev environment" sentiments on this very site. Along with "Microsoft has changed" vibes.
        skinkestek 5y ago
        They appeared to have changed but have changed back it seems and is now ripe for another lawsuit or two for abuse of monopoly power. Just take Google Chrome first.
- genrilz 5y ago
  Google and Microsoft do build that in. Google Chrome's default search engine is Google, so the search suggestions come from Google. I am not sure that Google includes sponsored results in those suggestions, but at the very least they do harvest your data to advertise to you better in the future. Microsoft does the same thing by making Bing their default search engine. Like with Firefox, you have to change your preferences if you want privacy.
bpoyner 5y ago
Is it easy to deactivate though? I checked the group policy template provided by Mozilla, I don't see how deactivate it across the organization.
arc-in-space 5y ago
>easily deactivable Each time I install Firefox, I end up wasting a non-trivial amount of time carefully working my way through the settings in order to disable the pile of defaults that are as 'easy' to deactivate as they are infuriating. When updating the browser, some of these changes get rolled back, and some of them become more difficult to adjust, either by being removed from the options menu, or by being obscured in about:config - maybe the name has changed for no reason, or maybe the behaviour now depends on an entirely different configuration value. A particularly obscene case is the auto-updater, which has gotten so bad that I have literally given up on figuring out how to disable it. (At least on Windows; firefox-esr on debian is, so far, free of this insanity) (Ever noticed how forced automatic updates in software get pushed by security fanaticism, but mostly exist to steal your data and ruin your day while they're at it?) You, apparently, see an easily-deactivable feature in a clear and extensive settings menu. I see an ever-growing eldritch labyrinth, built solely to prevent me from having a straightforward internet browsing experience, all the while the browser's performance is slowly but surely - and noticeably - worsening in the new versions. Anyway, screw you, Mozilla. At this point I'm only using firefox because I don't see much of a choice either.
- ziddoap 5y ago
  >Ever noticed how forced automatic updates in software get pushed by security fanaticism, but mostly exist to steal your data and ruin your day while they're at it?) Would you mind expanding on this one so I can better understand what you mean? I'm guessing the "ruin your day" part is that you have to interrupt your workflow for some minutes? But it's not entirely clear to me how automatic updates "mostly exist to steal your data" -- excepting software which is already stealing your data anyways (so I don't understand how automatic updates factor in). Does manually updating somehow protect your data from being stolen in a way that automatic updates don't? Or you just don't update?

by Adrig 5y ago

daptaq 5y ago

Knowing Mozilla, the option will be changed and renamed every version and will have to be re-enabled manually again and again.

e3bc54b2 5y ago
And eventually, Mozilla's 'telemetry' will tell them that 95% users never opt out, and that'll justify removing the opt out option entirely.
- roca 5y ago
  There's still a Preferences option to opt out of "Play DRM-controlled content", even though I'm sure <5% of people opt out of that. Some options stick around for the sake of principle.
  - smitop 5y ago
    It's disabled by default. Enabling DRM installs a non-free binary from Google, and the user is prompted to install it when a website attempts to play DRM media: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm
    - msdrigg 5y ago
      I wondered why they set it up like this. TIL
- aembleton 5y ago
  That might be just the motivation needed to create a fork.

atoav 5y ago

Like pocket which weirdly enough keeps reappearing in my browsers bar?

veltas 5y ago

> don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad Brave

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

Outsider here: whats wrong with brave? I haven’t touched it but have no reason to distrust it, happy for you to change that for me though

_8j50 5y ago
Brave is based on Chromium, it lacks some of the privacy centric features that are found in Gecko browsers. 1st party isolation,tracker blocking, containers, anti fingerprinting measures and SNI encryption are some things I can think of right now (maybe chrome as caught up now?) Plus, Google controls Chromium and Firefox is literally the only alternative now. They push changes that are against or in in ignorance of of web standards because they can. Downstream browsers like brave,edge and opera basically have to accept whatever Google says. This isn't good for the web at all. Frankly there should be an anti-trust suit against Google for this because it is very anti-competitive.
- my123 5y ago
  You also have Safari (and GNOME Web on Linux) using the WebKit engine, developed by Apple as an alternative... But that's not available on Android or Windows (the WebKit port exists there, but no good UI frontend as far I know)... which are the two big platforms. (because Apple doesn't care enough about those I guess?)
  - deepstack 5y ago
    Wasn't Chrome originally a fork of WebKit when G and A are still buddy buddy?
    - my123 5y ago
      Yes it was. WebKit and Blink then diverged massively after the fork.
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    GNOME WebKit definitely isn't Safari. A lot of websites that work in Safari were broken in WebKit last time I tried it. It does replicate a lot of buggy behaviour in Safari so from what I can tell you can be reasonably sure that your website works in Safari if it works in WebKit, but that's the only use I've found for it so far. As for a good UI on Windows, I think you should be able to compile GNOME's WebKit browser for Windows. It'll look terribly out of place like any GNOME application in a different environment, but I think it should work well enough to use?

leodriesch 5y ago

This just makes me worry a little bit that Firefox will take a similar route to Brave and introduce multiple streams of revenue into the browser, disguised as features that the user would want. E.g. Brave Rewards, Brave VPN, Sponsored Wallpapers. These just clog up the interface and make it feel sketchy. I just want a normal FOSS browser, but I also understand the whole financing issue.

Hendrikto 5y ago
Financing is only an issue because they make it one. Mozilla has tons of money, but they just 1. spend too much of it, 2. on the wrong things, 3. and always want more.
- johnsea 5y ago
  Maybe if they would spend it on the right things, Google would stop paying?
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Sad to say but this thought has struck me too.
  - account42 5y ago
    I that case, Google not paying would be good for Firefox.
FractalHQ 5y ago
I’ve used Brave as my daily driver for years, and not once have I ever been even mildly inconvenienced by the optional BAT token feature. If it helps fund the browser, I’m glad- that’s better for me. I understand why people dislike it, but the outrage seems superfluous.
- ev1 5y ago
  I largely lost my trust in Brave after the absolute shitshow where they were hard-redirecting domains globally that you hand entered through their affiliate link redirects - you'd enter example.com and the browser would be hardcoded to not load example.com

ssss11 5y ago

We all know regular users don’t change settings. At the least it needs to be opted out by default.

jve 5y ago
From the article ai understand you must opt in to make this available: These suggestions — which aim to enhance and speed up your searching experience — are only enabled when you provide access to new data types. People complain when the default is opted-in. Now someone makes something that by default is opted-out and... people still complain. They ask that when someone uses telemetry, that would be shown upfront. When someone does that, they ask it to be disabled by default. And when we get disabled by default, where do we go? Remove the feature, ofcourse :) Ads, privacy and telemetry is a hot cake topic on HN. That button is actually a cheap way to support mozilla, if anyone cares.
- greyhat 5y ago
  It was on by default for a lot of users.

jedisct1 5y ago

> Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space Safari.

FractalHQ 5y ago
Safari’s privacy is a joke considering you can’t install browser extensions like UBlock Origin to thoroughly block trackers and other spyware. Not to mention it’s the most buggy and poorly developed rendering engine, breaking more websites than any other major browser. And it’s not even cross platform. Hardly a competitor as far as I’m concerned.
- Tepix 5y ago
  Safari was the only browser to ship with 3rd party cookies disabled by default. Without Safari there'd be tons of websites that required 3rd party cookies to work. These days there are very few. 3rd party cookies make pervasive tracking much, much easier.
Adrig 5y ago
Fair enough, but I wouldn't call a software locked to an ecosystem "user-centric". Firefox on Android is a lifesaver in a sea of opportunistic alternatives
3r8Oltr0ziouVDM 5y ago
It's not even open source.

ravenstine 5y ago

How many things are we going to need to deactivate in 5 years from now? First Pocket, then this; what next? Thanks a lot for mismanaging your budget like seemingly every other non-profit, Mozilla.

jamienicol 5y ago
What's wrong with pocket?
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Pocket is fine I think. The problem is mostly the way they introduced it.
  - jamienicol 5y ago
    What do you mean by that?
soundnote 5y ago
http://dpldocs.info/this-week-in-d/Blog.Posted_2021_09_06.html#adam%27s-rant http://dpldocs.info/this-week-in-d/Blog.Posted_2021_09_06.ht... Pocket is a good thing. It provides a reason for Mozilla/Firefox to exist.

krageon 5y ago

> easily deactivable Such a thing should not exist in the first place. It is predatory and wrong. > Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space It is no longer in that space, because it contains advertising tech now.

deepstack 5y ago

>(don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad) Just wonder the reason? Is it because it support the monopoly of google rendering engine? Or other reasons?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
morganvachon 5y ago
Not OP but I've avoided Brave from the beginning because of its reliance on an ad-fueled crypto scam to generate revenue. If you're trying to avoid Mozilla's new ad-based revenue scheme, moving to a browser that is wholly funded by tracking your browsing and showing you ads while pretending to "pay" you with cryptocurrency that they never actually pay out, seems like a step backwards.
- sieabahlpark 5y ago
  Mozilla is woke. It's a failing company and a failing browser.
  - Griffinsauce 5y ago
    What exactly do you think this adds to the discussion?
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Except that's not at all what Brave is doing. They tried to innovate a new way to pay for content. It's complex, but it's not a scam. Brave seems more trustworthy than FF to me right now.
  - acatton 5y ago
    Wikipedia (and its sources) tends to disagree with you and agree with GP. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brave_(web_browser)&oldid=1048671064#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brave_(web_browse...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kome 5y ago

> Firefox still has no alternative in the privacy / user-centric space (don't mention Brave, I'm gonna get mad). Vivaldi perhaps https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ ? It is still a chrome derivative, but it feel less shady and less spyware than Brave. And it's pretty good and configurable. Firefox remain my first and main browser tho. I never ever used "proper" chrome, not even one day.

morganvachon 5y ago
Vivaldi is not open source so that's an immediate "no" from me. I'm fine with using closed source tools from time to time, but a web browser is just too important and intertwined in my life to trust a closed source offering. In a perfect world we'd have nothing but fully open source software funded by support contracts and commercial interest in offering superior software, but the world isn't perfect and so we have to compromise sometimes. But the browser is one place I draw the line.
- soundnote 5y ago
  Vivaldi does keep their source out in the open for inspection, it's just not licensed so that it'd be forkable.
  - morganvachon 5y ago
    Not all of it. > Of the three layers, only the UI layer is closed-source. This means that roughly 92% of the browser’s code is open-source coming from Chromium, 3% is open-source coming from us and only 5% is our UI closed-source code. https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/

jarofgreen 5y ago

> the feature is easily deactivable Except they have used the language of "not now" and hidden the link away instead of making it a button with equal prominence to the yes button. That's not the behaviour of an organisation which thinks its users will be happy with what it's doing, it's the behaviour of an organisation which is trying to trick them.

AndyMcConachie 5y ago

defaults matter

pronik 5y ago

Just imagine the meltdown if Google or Microsoft built that in. Somehow, Mozilla always get the slack and a couple of months down the road they are the saviour of the privacy world yet again.

IanSanders 5y ago
Google and Microsoft did much worse and got away with it
- pronik 5y ago
  Microsoft maybe, they seem to be the tech bubble darling right now. Google is officially "The Evil(tm)" right now.
  - toastal 5y ago
    Says who? Seems like neo-EEE with their current porfolio of GitHub, Copilot, Codespaces, Sponsors, NPM, Azure, VS Code, and WSL.
    - pronik 5y ago
      I do agree and do not trust Microsoft one inch. But I've read a lot of "Windows 10 + WSL + VSCode is the ideal dev environment" sentiments on this very site. Along with "Microsoft has changed" vibes.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        They appeared to have changed but have changed back it seems and is now ripe for another lawsuit or two for abuse of monopoly power. Just take Google Chrome first.
genrilz 5y ago
Google and Microsoft do build that in. Google Chrome's default search engine is Google, so the search suggestions come from Google. I am not sure that Google includes sponsored results in those suggestions, but at the very least they do harvest your data to advertise to you better in the future. Microsoft does the same thing by making Bing their default search engine. Like with Firefox, you have to change your preferences if you want privacy.

bpoyner 5y ago

Is it easy to deactivate though? I checked the group policy template provided by Mozilla, I don't see how deactivate it across the organization.

arc-in-space 5y ago

>easily deactivable Each time I install Firefox, I end up wasting a non-trivial amount of time carefully working my way through the settings in order to disable the pile of defaults that are as 'easy' to deactivate as they are infuriating. When updating the browser, some of these changes get rolled back, and some of them become more difficult to adjust, either by being removed from the options menu, or by being obscured in about:config - maybe the name has changed for no reason, or maybe the behaviour now depends on an entirely different configuration value. A particularly obscene case is the auto-updater, which has gotten so bad that I have literally given up on figuring out how to disable it. (At least on Windows; firefox-esr on debian is, so far, free of this insanity) (Ever noticed how forced automatic updates in software get pushed by security fanaticism, but mostly exist to steal your data and ruin your day while they're at it?) You, apparently, see an easily-deactivable feature in a clear and extensive settings menu. I see an ever-growing eldritch labyrinth, built solely to prevent me from having a straightforward internet browsing experience, all the while the browser's performance is slowly but surely - and noticeably - worsening in the new versions. Anyway, screw you, Mozilla. At this point I'm only using firefox because I don't see much of a choice either.

ziddoap 5y ago
>Ever noticed how forced automatic updates in software get pushed by security fanaticism, but mostly exist to steal your data and ruin your day while they're at it?) Would you mind expanding on this one so I can better understand what you mean? I'm guessing the "ruin your day" part is that you have to interrupt your workflow for some minutes? But it's not entirely clear to me how automatic updates "mostly exist to steal your data" -- excepting software which is already stealing your data anyways (so I don't understand how automatic updates factor in). Does manually updating somehow protect your data from being stolen in a way that automatic updates don't? Or you just don't update?