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Just a PSA, that you really shouldn't be using Vivaldi or any closed source browser. As we know, companies that start off privacy/ethically focused (take Mozill
by turblety 2y ago
Just a PSA, that you really shouldn't be using Vivaldi or any closed source browser. As we know, companies that start off privacy/ethically focused (take Mozilla for example) eventually turn evil and start spying/tracking their users.
Vivaldi will eventually start doing this, and you'll have absolutely no idea because it's entirely closed source. No one knows what mischief they get up to.
TL;DR; Don't sign into your bank with Vivaldi
- onethought 2y agoThat’s right, the hill to die on is the browser’s openness. Not your OS, not your firmware. Not your hardware. It’s the browser
- turblety 2y agoThanks for raising closed hardware too, and I presume you are talking about the Intel ME (backdoor spyware [1] that Intel puts into all their chips via their closed source proprietary firmware). It's a complete blackbox, other CPU that no one knows entirely what it does, but has full access to your main CPU/memory/computer, and allows it to be remotely controlled by anyone with Intels signing keys. We need to open this too, or at least be transparent, and your points on closed firmware/hardware is really important. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
- fsflover 2y agoIntel ME is disabled and neutralized on my Librem 15.
- turblety 2y agoYou can never truly be sure as it's can't be entirely removed. There has to be a little bit remaining, just the first few modules or the machine will shut down after 30 minutes, but the Librem 15 is a beautiful machine and Puri.sm are really awesome.
- stavros 2y agoIt's a hill, I don't think anyone said it's the hill.
- loophol-rabbit 2y ago'Try to detect benefit cheats.' Or wait till the 1st one surrounded a mountain successful at a hight of 3,5km ;-)
- ryanmentor 2y agoAs a cat of nine lives, there are many hills I intend to die on
- mastazi 2y agowhataboutism is a logical fallacy.
- dr_sausages 2y ago[dead]
- Hamuko 2y ago>take Mozilla for example I thought Firefox was open source?
- isodev 2y agoThat's not it, Mozilla decided to leave the fediverse and has been loading Firefox with AI and opt-out tracking features. All while still being funded by Big G.
- fnord77 2y agomozilla is spying/tracking users now?
- turblety 2y agoYup [1]. They've basically left their core mission and just sell out now. 1. https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-feature https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-fea...
- yoavm 2y agoThings are more complex than that. Yes, they're engaged in creating an ads measurement technique that is actually very private (read the specs). No, they're not making money out of it. Yes, they've done a terrible job at explaining that to users.
- goldsteinq 2y agoGiving non-zero bits of information to advertisers is the opposite of private. They won’t stop using other methods of tracking, they’ll just use these bits as a part of your fingerprint.
- yoavm 2y agoAFAIK it gives advertisers aggregated data on the performance of the ads, such as "23% of the clicks on the ad end up buying the product". I would be enlightened to hear how this can be used as part of my fingerprint.
- goldsteinq 2y agoThe absolute best case is that it doesn’t actually help advertisers track users, so it’s net-zero to users: advertisers will still track us through other means, but at least Firefox doesn’t help them do it. If any part of the process leaks non-zero bits of information, it’s actively detrimental to privacy; otherwise it’s just not helpful to anyone other than advertisers. This also involves trust. The party doing aggregation has access to non-aggregated information and is able to sell it. As far as I understand, currently this party is ISRG, which has reasonably good reputation and probably won’t sell it. I don’t trust Mozilla to not silently add other aggregation providers though, as they did with this option itself. I’m also not sure that this data doesn’t pass through Mozilla servers, and I very much don’t trust Mozilla with it. To summarize my thoughts, 1. There’s no evidence that “PPA” improves privacy in any way; 2. You have to trust centralized third parties doing the aggregation, and the full set of parties you need to trust is not completely clear; 3. The only party who obviously benefits from “PPA” is advertisers, which tracks with the fact that the protocol was designed with heavy involvement from Facebook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpdSKD8-Rn0bWPTu4UtK54ks0yv2j22pA5SrAD9av4s/edit#heading=h.i060oca51sde https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpdSKD8-Rn0bWPTu4UtK54ks...; 4. So it’s at best neutral for users and at worst is actively detrimental.
- timeon 2y agoSince you are also mentioning Mozilla, what browser would you recommend instead?