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I don't understand why this is news? Spyware watchdog posted about this years ago. It's been in there at least since 2016, and every time you open Firefox (not
by cookiengineer 5y ago
I don't understand why this is news?
Spyware watchdog posted about this years ago. It's been in there at least since 2016, and every time you open Firefox (not start!) it will happily broadcast its geo position information to their geolocation backend. The same goes for the WebRTC related STUN servers, which are always connected to when Firefox starts.
I mean, come on folks. Never trust any software blindly. Use MITM proxy to verify. Use a host firewall like opensnitch.
For the moment the best alternative is ungoogled chromium with ublock origin, even though the CSP headers cannot influence the DNS resolver mechanics in the CEF code.
I am still busy forking webkit into retrokit and it's a shitload of work to remove these tracking features. [1] But a project like this needs more privacy like minded people.
I mean, even the TOR people kind of gave up on this. Just look at their codebase, trying to stub everything anew with upstream changes.
There's no point in trying to race against chrome in "whose browser has the most features", you can't win anyways. I don't care about WebGL or WebGPU, I don't care about WebRTC, I just want privacy back.
[1] https://github.com/tholian-network/retrokit https://github.com/tholian-network/retrokit
- aembleton 5y agoIf you prefer Firefox to chrome, then the best alternative is librefox. Librefox is Firefox without all of the tracking: https://github.com/intika/Librefox/ https://github.com/intika/Librefox/
- Rerarom 5y agoWhy is this being downvoted?
- prox 5y agoThanks! Haven’t heard of it. I prefer a hardened Firefox above Chrome.
- tareqak 5y agoLibrefox is unmaintained: https://github.com/intika/Librefox/issues/141 https://github.com/intika/Librefox/issues/141 . https://librewolf.net/ https://librewolf.net/ is a fork of that.
- cookiengineer 5y agoMinor detail: Note that librefox/librewolf are not forks, but a patchset (similar to ungoogled chromium). So the base of the source code is still upstream firefox. [1] [1] https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/source/-/tree/main/patches https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/source/-/tree...
- fsflover 5y agoI think IceCat is a better alternative: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/.
- mathfailure 5y agoIt is abandonware. The page you linked has a 'latest release' button leading here: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ just look at dates.
- the_gipsy 5y ago> I am still busy forking webkit into retrokit and it's a shitload of work to remove these tracking features. Why not fork Firefox? Or just disable the tracking?
- cookiengineer 5y ago> Why not fork Firefox? > Why not fork Electron/Chromium/nwjs? Tried it and gave up. It's impossible. Repotools, manifests and submodule fatigue and other things make it close to impossible to host all the code yourself and build it, because many parts of the build toolchain and codebase contain includes via git/https URLs these days. That's why I went with WebKit, because there I clone a single repo, install the dependencies/libraries, build it and have a running Browser. Without having to have internet all the time, without dozens of repos that are out of my control.
- ranguna 5y agoYou don't have to do it alone. Checkout librewolf.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nsajko 5y ago> For the moment the best alternative is ungoogled chromium with ublock origin > I am still busy forking webkit Why choose to base your browser on Webkit instead of on Chromium? Is your point that Chromium get's more development, so it's harder to keep up with it? Am I wrong to think that Chromium is ahead of Webkit in terms of security? I know that this would be offset to some degree by your changes that decrease the attack surface, but couldn't you have done that for Chromium/Blink instead?