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I know it's been the case for a while, but as time goes on I actually feel more like the product when I need to use Chrome. They aren't building it for me, the
by frumper 4y ago
I know it's been the case for a while, but as time goes on I actually feel more like the product when I need to use Chrome. They aren't building it for me, they're building it to sell me.
- charles_kaw 4y agoFirefox has done a wonderful job of building first class privacy features into their browser. It's fast, and responsive. They have some leadership issues, but the technical side of things seems to be doing well. I switched to it as my main browser a few years back and it's been fine and hiccup-free.
- ElemenoPicuares 4y agoBeen my daily driver for quite some time. Great dev tools for working with CSS Grids too for those front end folks out there. Download, install, disable everything related to pocket, install my password manager, and then I've got my ideal browser.
- user3939382 4y agoI’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no interest in getting rid of all the phoning home Firefox does, not even as an advanced or hidden config. I wish they cared as much about privacy at the technical level as they do in their marketing.
- deepstack 4y agointeresting, do want more information on this. Can someone who work for Mozilla care to comment on this? If this is true, then I would rather be using brave or ungoogled chrome build than Firefox.
- jefftk 4y agoThe big advantage of using Firefox that you don't get with Brave or UnGoogled Chromium is that you are supporting browser engine diversity.
- kreeben 4y agoTo what end and through what means, though? Do you really think Mozilla would never do anything nefarious with the data that they collect? They would never, ever, swear on their mother's grave, sell that data to a third party, is that what you believe?
- saagarjha 4y agoYou're replying to a comment about browser engine diversity, which is largely decoupled from privacy.
- bkberry352 4y agoNo, it's not true, anyone can opt out of telemetry at any time via about:preferences, you don't even need to go to about:config https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid
- muizelaar 4y agoWhat phoning home can't you disable in about:config?
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoI suspect the core issue isn't that you can't disable new privacy violations in Firefox, but that they're regularly added and default to being enabled, such that keeping them disabled is a regular full-time job. It'd be ideal if there was a single "don't phone home" switch that Firefox obeyed for all new telemetry features, but they don't. That being said, being upset Mozilla has a trash telemetry policy isn't a good excuse to use Chrome, a willfully compromised browser which has refused to implement industry-standard protections.
- danuker 4y agohttps://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/mozilla.html https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/mozilla.html
- encryptluks2 4y agoYou can also disable phoning home in Chromium.
- freediver 4y agoIt is problematic that phoning home is opt-out to begin with. A browser can not call itself privacy respecting if it is not zero telemetry by default.
- harikb 4y agoDo you have any reason to believe it is anything beyond a developer wanting to record usage and runtime issues?
- dataflow 4y agoI don't think moving the goalposts for Mozilla makes for a compelling argument.
- jakear 4y agoNo matter what it’s for, there should be a way for concerned users to disable it. I say this as someone who is pro telemetry in general.
- bkberry352 4y agoThere is a way and it's officially documented: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid just go into about:preferences
- user3939382 4y agoAgain here’s their traffic upon start and exit after doing that https://i.imgur.com/VFb1maZ.png https://i.imgur.com/VFb1maZ.png This is no extensions and all telemetry disabled.
- pessimizer 4y agoI have a reason to believe that it is a company wanting something beyond what many or most of the users would prefer.
- jonathankoren 4y ago> I have a reason to believe that it is a company wanting something beyond what many or most of the users would prefer. As an exmozillian I find this I have to wonder about your reasons for this. From why you think crash reporting, render time, and privacy preserving analytics aren't giving benefits that users prefer, all the way to characterizing MoCo as "a company".
- Pakdef 4y agoI disabled the web portal ping in the settings (about:config - network.captive-portal-service.enabled - set to false)... I don't think it phones home anymore... But I sure don't like the direction Firefox is going. I've been using it since the beginning and I'm finally thinking of switching. The funny thing is that I started using Firefox because of extensions.... and they basically blocked extensions on Firefox mobile... I know that you can make collections, but they made it as painful as possible.
- phyzome 4y agoAh, you'd better use Chrome, then. They hardly even claim to care about privacy!
- user3939382 4y agoI use Firefox, but I'm disappointed.
- yucky 4y agoIf only there were more than 2 options for browsers...
- prox 4y agoYou have Firefox and everything Chromium based, which is still Chrome as I understand it.
- yucky 4y agoAside from the other alternative listed below, even within the Chromium universe you have options like Brave and LibreWolf which are very privacy oriented - https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/
- MaxBarraclough 4y agoNot quite true, there are also the WebKit-based browsers: Safari, and some obscure ones such as GNOME Web.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoSafari requires MacOS and thus isn't a replacement unless you exclusively use Macs. Also, for all its supposed support of privacy features it doesn't allow you to use good ad blocking plugins like uBlock Origin. I only use the thing because it's the best for battery life, otherwise I think it's significantly inferior to both Chromium and Firefox.
- sensanaty 4y agoIt is unfortunate that it's enabled by default, but I just have NextDNS block any calls to and from `*.telemetry.mozilla.org`. 0 complaints from me after doing that
- bkberry352 4y agoUhh, you absolutely can disable telemetry, it's in the Privacy and Security section of about:preferences, see here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid . Disabling telemetry is also interpreted as a deletion request, so anything collected so far will be deleted.
- user3939382 4y agoHere's all telemetry and extensions disabled upon start and exit https://i.imgur.com/VFb1maZ.png https://i.imgur.com/VFb1maZ.png
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y agoAs a Firefox user for the past 8 years or so, the only thing that I switch to chrome for these days is searching in foreign languages. Translation is second class in Firefox compared to Chrome.
- neltnerb 4y agoYou don't have to periodically pop into chrome or chromium in order to get a website to work right? Just a few weeks back I couldn't place an order on a major airline with Firefox on Linux, Chromium on Linux, or Firefox on Windows. I had to do it with Edge on Windows. I feel like it's not that common, but it is definitely increasingly common as web designers build sites to the Chrome spec in order to get that "blink" tag to work. It's so weird to me that large companies charging thousands of dollars are okay with the situation, seems like a "needs a shakeup" situation.
- coldpie 4y ago> You don't have to periodically pop into chrome or chromium in order to get a website to work right? It's just anecdotal, but except for some very specialized web apps (think like 3D graphics demos), no, I've never had that happen.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y agoYes, it happens for me. Rarely, perhaps once every three months or so. For example, recently I bought train tickets to Macchu Picchu in Peru and I was only able to do so in Safari. It’s mostly aged government websites that don’t support Firefox
- teddyh 4y agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-translations/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-trans...
- antioppressor 4y agoGeneral populace has no idea what privacy is. Firefox is a burning house. Zero innovation is the word that best describes them. They did nothing to compete with Chrome. They just exist, try to survive, because for the past 10 years they did nothing to innovate. Total management change needed.
- smoldesu 4y agoReally? I use Chromium and feel nothing of the sort. I don't get any notifications asking me to "Try the new Chrome!" when I upgrade my OS, and I don't get my links hijacked when I try opening arbitrary files. It doesn't have a weird crypto scheme funding it, there's no weird virtue-signally marketing team ruining things with every update... Chrome is one of the few browsers that isn't pushing that stuff on you, at least when you remove the Google bits.
- stevage 4y agoOP said Chrome. You said Chromium.
- alexb_ 4y agoProbably an unpopular opinion here but Edge is surprisingly good. Feels like they are the only browser actually innovating.
- xnx 4y agoWhat areas do you find Edge different/better than Chrome?
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoBasically Edge is Chrome with all the privacy features other browsers have but Google refuses to implement.
- BudaDude 4y ago> privacy features other browsers have but Google refuses to implement I am willing to bet MS is collecting all that data instead.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoIs it possible to change the search bar in the new tab page from Bing to another search engine yet? It seemed like it was set to bing, couldn't be disabled, and only the address bar could be changed to another search engine.
- int_19h 4y agoNot quite, but there is a setting called "Search on new tabs uses search box or address bar". When set to "address bar", typing anything in that giant search textbox on the new tab page automatically switches focus to the address bar (which uses the default search engine you've configured), so you can just do Ctrl+T and type.
- encryptluks2 4y agoSure, the rewards, shopping assistant, multiple preloading pages and sending results to Microsoft is so much more privacy friendly.. if you ignore reality
- devmunchies 4y agoeven worse, you aren't the product, the rich data and access to users (via targeted ads) is the product. You are merely a mine-able resource. Another analogy would be we are cattle, but the product is the milk/meat, not the cow.
- hardwaresofton 4y agoImagine if you could sell an attractively priced laptop form factor that people could buy! Then you could get the data all the time, not just when users browse the internet. Or you could make browsing the internet almost synonymous with using the computer. Whichever works for you semantically.
- matt-p 4y agoThis! Weirdly I think this anti-cookie movement is actually really bad for smaller Web properties. They will no longer be able to track you much if at all. The likes of Google, Facebook, Tiktok or Snapchat will still be able to just fine though..
- thr0wawayf00 4y agoI think the internet is moving in this general direction more broadly because those huge companies you mentioned have an outsized influence in determining the future of the web.
- jeromegv 4y agoWe never agreed to be tracked in every part of our online life. The fact they are the little guys isn’t a compelling argument. Facebook is being hurt as much if more anyway
- themitigating 4y agoWhy would you think that anything is freely distributed by a company for your benefit? This is almost never the case and has been on longer than the internet.
- freediver 4y agoBuilding and maintaining a browser has a cost, and if it is not you, the user, paying for it, it has to mean that a third party is paying it for you.