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It would be possible to implement telemetry that would answer these questions in mostly unobjectionable fashion, but without more information one can see how th

It would be possible to implement telemetry that would answer these questions in mostly unobjectionable fashion, but without more information one can see how this could be described as "scary". I certainly hope that forms aren't just being sent back home to Mozilla as-is. However, a monthly ping with statistics like "out of between 50 and 200 documents, between 10 and 50 of them used javascript" wouldn't harm anything. They could even add a random error to the statistics...

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
I often do not have a problem with the information telemetry collects: I take issue with the entitlement to it a new breed of awful app developers have. They think they have the right to use my device for information collection without my permission. If Firefox occasionally showed me a report on some metrics it collected and asked me if I was okay sending it to Mozilla, I'd probably be fine with it. However, the choice to take it without my consent will always be opposed.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  Do they do that? It's been a long time since I installed Firefox, but as far as I can tell there are very visible settings for controlling the telemetry that they collect.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    There are settings, however, they are enabled by default to silently send telemetry, and they also implement new ways of collecting telemetry, with new settings to opt out of it, on an "every few months" basis. So it's a constant battle of monitoring what behavior they're up to and turning it off.
tjoff 5y ago
It would be possible to figure this out without any sort of telemetry at all. It really feels like a forced way to try and shoe-horn something good to say about telemetry when it is something everyone that deals with PDFs have known since forever. And if that is the best they have to show for it ...
- roca 5y ago
  How would you figure this out without telemetry? A Web crawl could tell you how many PDF documents on the Web use forms, but it won't tell you often your users encounter those documents --- many documents aren't on the public Web, and some documents will be encountered far more often than others.
  - blondin 5y ago
    > How would you figure this out without telemetry? the way the world has done it forever... a survey? it is concerning. if Firefox is doing it, they are all doing it. i am not going to be opening PDFs in browsers. this is ridiculous.
    - roca 5y ago
      A survey for this is going to be useless for getting unbiased data.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      A survey would be heavily biased. Telemetry will have much less bias (there is still some since people who disable telemetry have their usage ignored) With better data you can make improvements that help more actual users instead of just focusing on what vocal minorities think.
  - tjoff 5y ago
    The vast majority of questions like that are quite obvious. Now what you might miss is that in some country where special circumstances led to an unusual high use of a certain feature. But this is not that case. More importantly, even with telemetry. Is the JavaScript adding something or is it solely used for tracking? Is it appreciated by the users? Maybe 80% of input validation is so broken that they only serve to block legitimate input and waste cpu-cycles. More than telemetry you need common sense. It is not apparent how the telemetry influenced this in any way.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

I often do not have a problem with the information telemetry collects: I take issue with the entitlement to it a new breed of awful app developers have. They think they have the right to use my device for information collection without my permission. If Firefox occasionally showed me a report on some metrics it collected and asked me if I was okay sending it to Mozilla, I'd probably be fine with it. However, the choice to take it without my consent will always be opposed.

InitialLastName 5y ago
Do they do that? It's been a long time since I installed Firefox, but as far as I can tell there are very visible settings for controlling the telemetry that they collect.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  There are settings, however, they are enabled by default to silently send telemetry, and they also implement new ways of collecting telemetry, with new settings to opt out of it, on an "every few months" basis. So it's a constant battle of monitoring what behavior they're up to and turning it off.

tjoff 5y ago

It would be possible to figure this out without any sort of telemetry at all. It really feels like a forced way to try and shoe-horn something good to say about telemetry when it is something everyone that deals with PDFs have known since forever. And if that is the best they have to show for it ...

roca 5y ago
How would you figure this out without telemetry? A Web crawl could tell you how many PDF documents on the Web use forms, but it won't tell you often your users encounter those documents --- many documents aren't on the public Web, and some documents will be encountered far more often than others.
- blondin 5y ago
  > How would you figure this out without telemetry? the way the world has done it forever... a survey? it is concerning. if Firefox is doing it, they are all doing it. i am not going to be opening PDFs in browsers. this is ridiculous.
  - roca 5y ago
    A survey for this is going to be useless for getting unbiased data.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    A survey would be heavily biased. Telemetry will have much less bias (there is still some since people who disable telemetry have their usage ignored) With better data you can make improvements that help more actual users instead of just focusing on what vocal minorities think.
- tjoff 5y ago
  The vast majority of questions like that are quite obvious. Now what you might miss is that in some country where special circumstances led to an unusual high use of a certain feature. But this is not that case. More importantly, even with telemetry. Is the JavaScript adding something or is it solely used for tracking? Is it appreciated by the users? Maybe 80% of input validation is so broken that they only serve to block legitimate input and waste cpu-cycles. More than telemetry you need common sense. It is not apparent how the telemetry influenced this in any way.