2 ms·

To understand what's wrong with this, consider what happens when you change a word: Giving a browser access to see any request you ever make is not good for pr

by cxr 4y ago

To understand what's wrong with this, consider what happens when you change a word: Giving a browser access to see any request you ever make is not good for privacy. Sounds silly, right? That's why people take issue with what you're saying. People who use content blockers often don't (and shouldn't) see things as "my browser" plus "the extensions I use—which my browser should protect me from, not unlike the way it protects me from random pages out on the Web". We're talking about user agents. Where content blockers like uBlock Origin are concerned, the combination of Firefox + uBlock Origin _is_ the user agent. Firefox alone is not. Think of it like hiring an actual live (i.e. human) agent who should act on your behalf and take care of things. Consider that if you put it this way, when asked if Firefox is sufficient/adequate/reliable enough to perform that role on its own, the majority of relevant* users would respond in a way that reveals that the answer is decidedly a "no". Related: <https://www.w3.org/TR/html-design-principles/#priority-of-constituencies https://www.w3.org/TR/html-design-principles/#priority-of-co...> * I'm overconstraining to emphasize the types of discriminating users who install content blockers. In fact, though, the qualifier is unnecessary because in a literal sense the majority of users agree, since they aren't choosing Firefox to begin with.

charcircuit 4y ago
The browser and extensions are made by different people. It makes sense to want to give different people different amounts of permission. If we could choose between a reality where both the ad blocker and ad blocker extention creator had access to your browsing history or a reality where only the browser did don't you see how it would be better to live in the second reality if the adblocker worked just as well? Similarly for seeing requests we can make it even more granular than just the browser. For example if someone exploits the V8 JIT and gains code execution in a tab it shouldn't be able to see the requests being made in another tab.
- cxr 4y ago
  Consisting of multiple parts "made by different people" describes virtually every piece of desktop software. > If we could choose between a reality where both the ad blocker and ad blocker extention creator had access to your browsing history or a reality where only the browser did don't you see how it would be better to live in the second reality if the adblocker worked just as well? No. My agent is uBlock Origin with a very large dependency attached (Firefox). The value of your proposition is null. Your response amounts to a form of begging the question, anyway.

by cxr 4y ago

charcircuit 4y ago

The browser and extensions are made by different people. It makes sense to want to give different people different amounts of permission. If we could choose between a reality where both the ad blocker and ad blocker extention creator had access to your browsing history or a reality where only the browser did don't you see how it would be better to live in the second reality if the adblocker worked just as well? Similarly for seeing requests we can make it even more granular than just the browser. For example if someone exploits the V8 JIT and gains code execution in a tab it shouldn't be able to see the requests being made in another tab.

cxr 4y ago
Consisting of multiple parts "made by different people" describes virtually every piece of desktop software. > If we could choose between a reality where both the ad blocker and ad blocker extention creator had access to your browsing history or a reality where only the browser did don't you see how it would be better to live in the second reality if the adblocker worked just as well? No. My agent is uBlock Origin with a very large dependency attached (Firefox). The value of your proposition is null. Your response amounts to a form of begging the question, anyway.