18 ms·

Firefox tracking protection decreases page load time by 44%

491 points by randomwalker 11y ago

nugget 11y ago
I'm surprised that Mozilla didn't enable this feature by default. They're either serious about differentiating themselves on the privacy front, or not. It's the every day users who need this protection, not the more advanced users who probably already use an adblock extension.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Sanddancer 11y ago
  They're very cautiously dipping their toe in the water given the holy shitstorm that happened a couple years ago when they announced they were going to block third party cookies by default. I imagine that doing it this way means they can show metrics that blocking in this way doesn't meaningfully affect bottom lines.
  - silverwind 11y ago
    Still makes me wonder why Safari can block third party cookies by default, while Mozilla can't.
    - javery 11y ago
      Two reasons. 1. Because they always have. The precedence was set a long time ago. 2. Because Apple doesn't give a fuck what other people think.
    - mike_hearn 11y ago
      Safari doesn't. They advertise that they do but the policy is riddled with heuristic exemptions added in as they tried to fix broken websites. This (IMO dishonest) behaviour is what led to the Murdoch-driven blowup about Google and ad tracking a few years ago - Google was using one of these workarounds when the user had opted in to ad tracking and it ended up disabling more of the safari cookie blocking logic than they expected. This undocumented behaviour then became Google's fault somehow, although really Safari was just not doing what it claimed it would do.
jfoster 11y ago
Can anyone explain exactly what Firefox Tracking Protection does & doesn't do? The label "tracking protection" makes me think it might block analytics tools and retargeting/remarketing cookies, but this blog post seems to suggest that it might block advertising altogether.
- dm2 11y ago
  Yes, it does block advertisements. They just have a blacklist of sites that they block, it's not much more sophisticated than that from what I read. All of the localstorage, cookies, and other tracking across domains goes away if you filter requests like that. I'm sure they are doing more things, but they have to make sure it doesn't break a large number of sites, and if a site is broken it seems like an "all or nothing" allow/deny system, which is not ideal. I use uMatrix and it defaults to blocking all 3rd party scripts unless they're globally trusted or have been trusted in the past. This creates lots of problems for many websites. Most new websites I visit I have to enable some 3rd party scripts, refresh, make sure there are not any critical javascript errors in the console, then I can properly use the site. Normal users cannot be expected to do this, they must have it work the first time or they will freak out.
alkonaut 11y ago
In a not too distant future there will be a Mozilla browser with servo and a no tracking option. I'll leave chrome after several years and never look back.
dakrisht 11y ago
If you want to turn on (enable) tracking protection in FF, hit the following link https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-fir... Or do this: 1. in the address bar type about:config, press return 2. search for privacy.trackingprotection.enabled 3. change the value to true 4. all done
- dm2 11y ago
  Thanks, this works on Mobile Firefox versions also!
throwaway425 11y ago
I justed visited https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ and browsed the source, and they still have the Google Analytics tracking crap on their website. Strange for a company that claims to be "committed to your privacy."
- alexgrist 11y ago
  This again..
  - throwaway425 11y ago
    It's a valid objection. GA at this point is on most websites you visit. The data is forwarded to Google where it's processed and stored forever. GA is one of the biggest threats to privacy on the web, and any company claiming to care about your privacy should not be using it.
    - throwthrwo 11y ago
      Another major one is Cloudflare. They mitm connections to many sites (with the sites' permission), meaning they cannot be blocked. HN is behind Cloudflare.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      I find it very, very hard to get outraged over analytics code on a web browser site. And as previously mentioned every time someone brings up this idiotic factoid, Mozilla's use of GA isn't exactly standard.
      - throwaway425 11y ago
        You find it very, very hard to get outraged because you either use GA yourself and do not wish to acknowledge your complicity in the matter or you've simply failed to make the obvious leap from analytics to clickstream data. Google wants to know what web pages you visit, when, and how often, and a GA beacon that phones home that information placed on every web page is the easiest way for them to do it. EDIT: there are either a lot of angry GA users in this thread or Google apologists. Either was, I do believe Google is now or will soon use GA for clickstream tracking. I also believe this is why they offer to host frequently requested assets like JQuery.
kozukumi 11y ago
For those wondering what Firefox tracking protection is - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-fir... From my, very quick, tests it appears to work quite well as a poor man's adblocker as well. Nice!
- kibwen 11y ago
  Just last week I opted in to Firefox's multiprocess branch, and one of my biggest complaints is that this breaks pretty much every extension. I eagerly welcome this if it can replace Ghostery.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    Out of curiosity, which extensions are broken for you? I've been running multiprocess Firefox as well, and every extension that I use regularly still works. The only exception was Vimperator, so I had to write my own extension to give Vim keybindings[0], since none of the others support e10s. I'm curious which extensions have given you trouble, since Ghostery, NoScript, and uBlock all work for me (at least for the most part). EDIT: I forgot that some extensions may need to be disabled/re-enabled the very first time after enabling e10s[1]. [0] https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/electrovim https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/electrovim [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947030 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947030
    - kibwen 11y ago
      Ghostery's icon was still showing up in the UI, but the number always read 0 and it was clearly not blocking anything. The other two that were broken were FindBar Tweak (highlights ctrl+f results in the scrollbar like Chrome) and TileTabs.
    - sp332 11y ago
      http://arewee10syet.com/ http://arewee10syet.com/ Ad blockers, password managers, and download helpers seem to be the most commonly broken.
chippy 11y ago
"To enable Tracking Protection in Firefox 35 and later, visit about:config and set privacy.trackingprotection.enabled to true" Edits - This quote from the article is interesting, especially considering Google the worlds biggest advertising industry company also has a browser. "That Firefox is first and foremost a user-agent, not an industry-agent"
- nextos 11y ago
  Seems like a nice feature. I just enabled it and there's some overlap with ublock origin. That is, when I load some pages with tracking protection and ublock, the number of requests blocked by ublock is smaller (but still far from 0). After looking at Firefox log, it doesn't seem this feature blocks anything that was not blocked by ublock. But this might be wrong, I only tested a few sites, and I have no idea about the internals of these tools. More knowledgeable info would be appreciated.
  - riking 11y ago
    Yep, people looked and it's using filter lists, just less of them.
- eps 11y ago
  Way to butcher the quote. In full it has nearly the opposite meaning and it's far more intriguing - I believe that Mozilla can make progress in privacy, but leadership needs to recognize that current advertising practices that enable "free" content are in direct conflict with security, privacy, stability, and performance concerns -- and that Firefox is first and foremost a user-agent, not an industry-agent.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    I don't see how that's opposite
    - paulryanrogers 11y ago
stockholmsin 11y ago
How does this compare to something like Privacy Badger[1]? I haven't done any benchmarking, but if it causes similar slowdowns, it isn't bothersome and the benefits are definitely worth it. [1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
- chippy 11y ago
  I'd also like a comparison with ublock and/or ghostery. It appears that this becomes enabled after the blocking plugins.
  - hobarrera 11y ago
    ublock is more about ads, and this is tracking. While they usually come hand in hand, Facebook ads (eg: while on facebook) don't add additional tracking.
    - plorg 11y ago
      uBlock in 'Advanced User' mode[0] allows for significant, granular script and iframe blocking. 3rd-party default-deny mode, even in the absence of the EasyPrivacy list will give you a significant amount of control over external entities that are frequently used to track users across the web. It's also somewhat more intelligible than NoScript. I would argue that with Dynamic filtering (enabled for advanced users) the goal of uBlock is not limited to ads, but to any undesired content on the internet. I guess you could say the same about Adblock, though, so I guess YMMV. [0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-quick-guide https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...
    - gorhill 11y ago
      I specifically emphasize on the home page of the project [1]: "uBlock Origin (or uBlock₀) is not an ad blocker; it's a general-purpose blocker." It will report everything to the user -- including behind-the-scene network requests [2]. --- [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#philosophy https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#philosophy [2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Behind-the-scene-network-requests https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Behind-the-scene-netw...
solve 11y ago
Weird. If browsers can detect these trackers, could an alternative be to just de-prioritize the trackers, so they load last and won't slow down page load time (since I assume they're invisible anyway?)
- mbrubeck 11y ago
  This should be doable for well-written trackers like Google Analytics that use script tags with the "async" attribute. In fact, those are probably already likely to load after the main content. For ads or trackers that are embedded as img or iframe elements, I think this is also viable and could speed up page load time. For ads or trackers that use inline scripts or non-"async" script tags to load content, the web browser has to block while loading/running the script, or risk breaking the page. Otherwise things like document.write() would have incorrect results when the script runs later.
  - solve 11y ago
    So does this FF mode that blocks them entirely also risk breaking the pages?
    - mbrubeck 11y ago
      Yes, it does, though for slightly different reasons. Mainly, it can break pages with first-party scripts that depend on blocked third-party scripts. I've encountered and reported a few of these while testing the feature.
      - dm2 11y ago
        I wonder how difficult it would be to duplicate the Google Analytics object with blank functions for just such scenarios. Rather than "ga is undefined" the ga.whatever function would just return without sending any data. Do any third-party script blocking systems do this?
bobajeff 11y ago
I would love for Mozilla to find other means of funding online content besides advertising. In either case I'd love to see them take a hard stance on privacy and against tracking. They should block trackers that have no effect on website features and restrict and monitor the ones that do effect features. ...and this is another reason Mozilla needs to have their own search engine. They could have much greater influence on these this things if they had the ability to punish bad behaving websites.
- aroch 11y ago
  Apple is supposedly getting into the search engine business. It'd be great if they and Mozilla got together, both companies believe in user privacy and could complement each other in getting things down
  - bsder 11y ago
    Apple believes in user privacy. Your naïveté is touching.
    - matthewmacleod 11y ago
      And your condescension is irritating. Apple seems pretty solid on the protection of users' privacy. Devices are encrypted by default, for example, and there are robust protections from rogue applications in place. Is there are specific practice that Apple engage in that makes you think they are particularly reckless regarding users' privacy?
      - lern_too_spel 11y ago
        He's comparing Apple to Google. In that respect, Apple comes out looking pretty bad. Google's devices are also encrypted by default and have much more robust protections against rogue applications in place (both static and dynamic automated analysis of apps for malware, vs. just a human eyeballing it).
        11y ago
higherpurpose 11y ago
> Advertising does not make content free. It merely externalizes the costs in a way that incentivizes malicious or incompetent players to build things like Superfish, infect 1 in 20 machines with ad injection malware, and create sites that require unsafe plugins and take twice as many resources to load, quite expensive in terms of bandwidth, power, and stability. That's a good point. Reminds me of "coal energy is cheap"...except for the millions of people it's killing or the billions of dollars paid in healthcare costs. And that's without mentioning coal is usually heavily subsidized by taxpayer money. In the same way advertising that's more and more focused on monitoring everything you do or say online (thanks to all the companies that don't want to enable end-to-end encryption in their IM's - Google, Microsoft, etc) is causing a lot of harm as well.
- spydum 11y ago
  wait, what? How does custom tailored ads based on your usage patterns harm you? there is an awful lot of adtech hate because its easy to see how poorly implemented adtech can hinder performance, but i dont see how it is malicious in nature.
  - ahuth 11y ago
    The fact that an ad is custom tailored to you is concerning in and of itself...
    - manigandham 11y ago
      but people whine when they see ads that are not to their interests either. there is no way to win.
      - thesimpsons1022 11y ago
        advertise me computer shit cuz I'm on HN. don't store all my data and track me and store it in insecure databases which you handover to despots.
shockzzz 11y ago
so, this is adblock?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kibwen 11y ago
It's interesting to think of this as a nuclear option for Firefox. The only incentive they have not to turn it on immediately is that it could poison relationships with site owners such that they stop testing their sites on Firefox or outright block Firefox users, but if Firefox market share ever diminished to the point where site owners were already neglecting Firefox then I see no reason why Mozilla wouldn't damn the torpedoes, start aping Chrome's UA, and turn this on by default. It would be a compelling value proposition at the expense of a lot of mysteriously broken sites (though I wonder how many of those sites would be just as broken for Chrome users running AdBlock). It's also literally the only feature that Chrome can never, ever, ever, ever gain, due to obliterating Google's revenue model (which, actually, makes it intriguing to entertain the notion of Microsoft and Apple following suit for precisely this reason).
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Mozilla could also implement shims, to make sites continue to work. So if a site breaks because it makes a call to a tracking library but that's now throwing an error, just provide that same tracking library's functions, but obviously they won't do anything. This would at least fix sites that aren't going out of their way to break things.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    While the shim idea is interesting, I suspect we could get a lot of privacy and working websites by hard-caching anything that even remotely looks like jquery and all the other well-known js libraries. (and do the same thing for fonts). It's trivial to implement - just ship a list of hashes for every published js library on all the popular CDNs (+ anywhere else that comes to midn), and if a HTTP request returns a file that matches one of those hashes, put that URL on a hard cache list. (it would be worht experimenting if wildcarding all query strings is feasible) The only UI change needed would be a menu option to flush the cache for any files associated with current page, so the user can simply reload any website that hasn't figured out how to version their js files. This method wouldn't fix everything, of course, but it would cover a lot. Additionally, it's easy to use, no copyright is violated (the user still downloads any cached file at least once - firefox would only ship hashes). and it would be trivial to extend in the future.
ozh 11y ago
The following post has some facts: https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-the-effects-of-firefoxs-tracking-protection/ https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-...
heimatau 11y ago
After 10 minutes of using this. Everything feels faster. Lovely. +1 ;)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- bsdetector 11y ago
  > Advertising literally does make content "free", as in, you do not have to pay for it. Advertising only makes content free monetarily; there's no money exchanged with the viewer. It instead costs you time, attention, memory. And sanity. > $1000 per year seems like a reasonable charge for being able to search the web with the power of Google's search. This shows the power of advertising in abusing our brain's ability to put realistic costs on our time and attention. Google has $50 billion in revenue minus profit, and there's a billion people in just the US and Europe, so more like $50 per year for everything Google does, not just search. If you are only using search and not Android or gmail or youtube or docs the cost would be far less. Advertising is so insidious because its entire purpose is to prey on our foibles and weaknesses, and convincing us that our time is worth less... and that cigarettes are cool. Smoking pollutes your lungs with toxins, advertising pollutes your mind with jingles. There are times and places where advertising is necessary, but it's never free.
  - paulryanrogers 11y ago
    Advertising is a tool which, like any other, can be used for good or evil. But it's a good point that it's not free to the consumer.
    - zobzu 11y ago
      what's good in this case? enriching someone?
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
stblack 11y ago
Firefox: my new favorite browser.
arh68 11y ago
Is this more or is it less effective than a large /etc/hosts blacklist? It doesn't seem to be doing anything special like the Privacy Badger. The only relevant sections in the paper I saw were We implement an API based on Google Safe Browsing, a mechanism for efficient URL-based blocklist updates and lookups [9]. We use a subset of approximately 1500 domains from Disconnect’s privacy-oriented blocklist to identify these unsafe origins [10]. We update the blocklist every 45 minutes to minimize the effects of incorrect blocklist entries. Another open challenge is applying Tracking Protection only to third-party content. We can avoiding cross-site tracking by blocking content from high-volume sites such as facebook.com without breaking them when visited directly. Heuristics such as the Public Suffix List4 can help better determine the set of domains that are considered first- party. Would it hurt to copy their blacklist into /etc/hosts? I'd rather do it on the OS-level so I can use any browser I want, anyways.
- jmount 11y ago
  I "did the /etc/hosts" thing for a long time. But it seemed like some things hung and tool longer sometimes. Overall /etc/hosts was a big improvement. Where are the good lists and what is the current thing you map all the bad hosts to (is it localhost, or something else?)?
  - baghira 11y ago
    Relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9509930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9509930
  - sp332 11y ago
    It hangs because it waits to time out. It will fail faster if you set the IP to something impossible instead of merely unavailable.
    - the8472 11y ago
      0.0.0.0 works well for that purpose since it's invalid as a remote address
hrjet 11y ago
As a user of NoScript + Firefox and as a developer of a browser with an express goal of "privacy by default"[1], I am thrilled to see this getting more attention. The more people use privacy features, the more will website developers ensure that their products degrade gracefully when, for example, third-party scripts are disabled. Which will enable even more users to migrate towards a "privacy by default" configuration. And hopefully, this will be a positive feedback cycle. 1: https://gngr.info/doc/introduction.html https://gngr.info/doc/introduction.html
- ploxiln 11y ago
  I use ublock with firefox. I worry the opposite will happen: When a website doesn't work, you can look at the specific blocked domains and types of content and selectively unblock for the current domain, or you can be lazy and just turn off ublock for the current domain. I worry that if tracking/ad blockers become very popular, then websites that don't work will be rewarded with all the tracking/ad blocking being turned off by most people. I used to just use flashblock for click-to-play. I like the simplicity of that - it attacks the biggest problem in a totally generic way, and if the main content is flash, you can almost always just click on it.
  - the8472 11y ago
    for powerusers µMatrix may be a better choice than µBlock, it allows you to selectively allow/disallow specific content types from 3rd party domains. E.g. this thread's article requests a lot more than what it needs to be readable: http://i.imgur.com/wPML2lM.png http://i.imgur.com/wPML2lM.png
  - white-flame 11y ago
    A better option, and easier for users, would be for them to subscribe to a privacy setting upstream which configures popular sites for them. This would have to be non-canonical, such that popular upstream options that get influenced by advertisers can fall out of favor.
tiatia 11y ago
There is no place like 127.0.0.1 http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
CarloSanta4 11y ago
I find the second part of the post especially interesting. Money makes the world go round. Mozilla as we all isn't immnune to this. The problem however is the huge amount of control the handfull of big global players have gained and still gain. Small local businesses have no chance. Top pick at Google wins. Trend scouting and more importantly trend creation get's customers. Advertising works through our unconcious mind. We can't decide to ignore ads, they will influence us. Also, Mozilla will or if the deals are signed has already lost it's independence irreversibly. See also this small thread about the new advertising through suggested tabs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586073
devsquid 11y ago
Man, ads are great. They allow content to be targeted towards people that could potentially not afford the content and towards people that might not necessarily use the product normally. The world is already significantly divided by wealth. Assuming someone poor even has access to a service like Google, imagine if it was behind a paywall. Could they afford it? If not imagine how much of a life advantage someone wealthier has over those would can not afford it. Your idealistic 'superior' ad free world is as alienating and as segregated as Silicon Valley is...
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  How much would a Google search cost me if it wasn't ad supported?
  - ivank 11y ago
    Some numbers from 2009 say 1.18 cents/search: https://web.archive.org/web/20110201052634/http://billwarner.posterous.com/new-blog-post-how-much-does-a-single-search-c https://web.archive.org/web/20110201052634/http://billwarner... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110938
    - devsquid 11y ago
      Yea but the question is impossible to answer. Google would have had to balance many differ factors, both of which would have changed as they grew larger.
    - Moru 11y ago
      If google started taking money for searching they would quickly be marginalized.
      - bottled_poe 11y ago
        How exactly? I thought we are assuming that advertising would become worthless if everyone was blocking the ads...
dedalus 11y ago
But it seems likes the data set used was that of top 200 news sites. Its my experience that media sites have around 60% of the http requests made to third parties and hence the reduction you see in load time
- dedalus 11y ago
  It will be interesting to run the same analysis on bank websites which typically have the least amount of third party
chmars 11y ago
In desktop browsers (and some mobile browsers), you can use filters. On a mobile OS level, however, you cannot: There is probably not a single mobile app that does not connect to at least one ad, tracking etc. server. I hope that at least Apple will offer solutions on an OS level.
ck2 11y ago
Ghostery is your friend. Despite ironically being owned by an advertising company.
core2 11y ago
Any modification of content by browser, ISP or any third party should be illegal.
- keithpeter 11y ago
  Interesting... how would you enforce such a 'law' and how would you define the 'content' of a page when the appearance of a page in a Web browser depends on large numbers of history dependent transactions with several servers, possibly in different countries?
  - core2 11y ago
    Imagine cable operator or TV manifacture to do the same as Mozilla. They disable ads on all programs they stream. Do you think this is legal?
    - keithpeter 11y ago
      But the television program is broadcast from one transmitter and is chosen by the TV company. Defining the 'content' to be legally protected is easy then - it is what the broadcast transmitter sent. In the UK we have a system for monitoring the actual broadcast output of TV stations to ensure that they comply with certain rules, so there is an evidence base. TV broadcasting is (usually) organised on national territories so there is no doubt as to the laws that the broadcaster and viewer are operating under. My understanding is that the content of a typical Web news site is assembled from a number of different servers and the advertising content depends on the browsing history from one particular client as detected by scripts that are served from an advert server - the 'tracking' mentioned in the OA. My point is that deciding what the 'content' was that was protected might be difficult under those circumstances. Also which legal entity is going to do the 'protecting'? Suppose I'm reading The Verge: I'm sitting in the UK, and a lot of our internet traffic goes through a large interchange in Amsterdam. The Verge is based in US. See my point?
      - core2 11y ago
        I see your point, but here the problem is not only tracking, but ads serve. As a content provider, my content is "what the broadcast transmitter sent", this is a code sent from my server to the browser of the client. Now Mozilla and AdBlock extensions are modifying my code. It's very clear what I wish to send - my code, but this program is modifying my code. Superfish and other injection malware replace parts of my code with theirs, while ad blockers and Mozilla, just remove some of my code. As a content provider, ads or subscription (ad free) are my only ways to monetize. It's very hypocritical to disable ads and in the same time to make 97% of your money from Ad company. Almost all of Mozilla's revenue for 2013, the last year for which it has reported financials, came from search deals that make various providers, notably Google, the default in Firefox. Of the $314 million in revenue for 2013, $306 million, or 97%, came from the search deals. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2862717/mozilla-were-not-asking-for-donations-because-were-poor.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2862717/mozilla-were-no... They are abusing their dominate positions and basically stealing from websites. The product "Mozilla" will be very popular because of the feature "Disable Ads and Track". They could make tons of donations because of that. And websites, that actually create content will serve content for free. I'm aware with ambitions of ISPs in Europe to disable ads for mobile, in the same way as Mozilla. They hope to milk Google, just like Mozilla and AdBlock. http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7963577/google-ads-get-through-adblock http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7963577/google-ads-get-thro... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-amazon-taboola-pay-adblock-plus-to-stop-blocking-their-ads-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-amazon-taboo... http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/15/8610741/mobile-carriers-europe-block-ads-rumor http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/15/8610741/mobile-carriers-eu... I don't like tracking, bad ads and so on, but I don't believe some guys from Mozilla can decide what is good and what is not.
tenfingers 11y ago
This is no news to anybody that ever tried an ad blocker, a proxy/content filter or even a generic hosts file. The difference is very noticeable. In fact, it's the main reason I run such filters. The difference is not only in traffic saved/lower latency, but also much lower cpu usage. However, this it would be a bit hypocritical for Mozilla (and probably the reason why the filter is off by default). Firefox is not much better than Chrome when it comes to phoning home and privacy invading features. Heck, on mobile it's even worse. What about disabling by default "beacon.enabled" for a start? Contrarily to massive ad blocking, nobody would notice. Err, maybe these ad networks would? Oops. At every new Firefox release I do a tour of new settings/flags and it's saddening how many times I have to switch something off.
- rufugee 11y ago
  Can you elaborate further on the various ways Firefox phones home? I'd like to take steps on my machine to disable if possible. Thanks.
  - roryokane 11y ago
    I don’t have Firefox open now, but I remember there are three such options in Preferences > Advanced > the second tab from the left. I think two of them are checked by default – they involve sending anonymous usage information. You can uncheck the checkboxes to disable them. On the second launch after a new install or new profile creation, Firefox shows a notification bar about these settings with a button to quickly change them. I don’t remember how long ago those settings were added, nor whether they showed the notification bar for those updates.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Been using Noscript in Firefox for years now. Sometimes the number of domains that gets loaded in the background on certain sites is mind numbing.
  - jug 11y ago
    Personally I use Ghostery on Chrome right now but with this development by Mozilla, I'm inclined to switch. Feels good to use a browser with no corporate interests, and a simple feature to stop abuse of cookies by ~70% is just crazy. Too crazy to not be a built-in browser feature. Maybe I'm disrupting how news sites intend to work, but they're disrupting how the web was intended to work. Anyway, ... I got sidetracked. I meant to say that what's even "funnier" is that if I disable Ghostery for some domain temporarily, the number of trackers usually skyrocket even further, since now the scripts get to run more scripts. Yes, it's insane and honestly out of control.
mellavora 11y ago
I'm running noscript, ghostery, addblock, and a few others. pages might load faster, but not every page loads. Ironically, the linked article is one of them.
fonosip 11y ago
You can measure the page load times on this webapp http://ba.net/util/ping/any1.html http://ba.net/util/ping/any1.html

491 points by randomwalker 11y ago

I'm surprised that Mozilla didn't enable this feature by default. They're either serious about differentiating themselves on the privacy front, or not. It's the every day users who need this protection, not the more advanced users who probably already use an adblock extension.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Sanddancer 11y ago
They're very cautiously dipping their toe in the water given the holy shitstorm that happened a couple years ago when they announced they were going to block third party cookies by default. I imagine that doing it this way means they can show metrics that blocking in this way doesn't meaningfully affect bottom lines.
- silverwind 11y ago
  Still makes me wonder why Safari can block third party cookies by default, while Mozilla can't.
  - javery 11y ago
    Two reasons. 1. Because they always have. The precedence was set a long time ago. 2. Because Apple doesn't give a fuck what other people think.
  - mike_hearn 11y ago
    Safari doesn't. They advertise that they do but the policy is riddled with heuristic exemptions added in as they tried to fix broken websites. This (IMO dishonest) behaviour is what led to the Murdoch-driven blowup about Google and ad tracking a few years ago - Google was using one of these workarounds when the user had opted in to ad tracking and it ended up disabling more of the safari cookie blocking logic than they expected. This undocumented behaviour then became Google's fault somehow, although really Safari was just not doing what it claimed it would do.

jfoster 11y ago

Can anyone explain exactly what Firefox Tracking Protection does & doesn't do? The label "tracking protection" makes me think it might block analytics tools and retargeting/remarketing cookies, but this blog post seems to suggest that it might block advertising altogether.

dm2 11y ago
Yes, it does block advertisements. They just have a blacklist of sites that they block, it's not much more sophisticated than that from what I read. All of the localstorage, cookies, and other tracking across domains goes away if you filter requests like that. I'm sure they are doing more things, but they have to make sure it doesn't break a large number of sites, and if a site is broken it seems like an "all or nothing" allow/deny system, which is not ideal. I use uMatrix and it defaults to blocking all 3rd party scripts unless they're globally trusted or have been trusted in the past. This creates lots of problems for many websites. Most new websites I visit I have to enable some 3rd party scripts, refresh, make sure there are not any critical javascript errors in the console, then I can properly use the site. Normal users cannot be expected to do this, they must have it work the first time or they will freak out.

alkonaut 11y ago

In a not too distant future there will be a Mozilla browser with servo and a no tracking option. I'll leave chrome after several years and never look back.

dakrisht 11y ago

If you want to turn on (enable) tracking protection in FF, hit the following link https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-fir... Or do this: 1. in the address bar type about:config, press return 2. search for privacy.trackingprotection.enabled 3. change the value to true 4. all done

dm2 11y ago
Thanks, this works on Mobile Firefox versions also!

throwaway425 11y ago

I justed visited https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ and browsed the source, and they still have the Google Analytics tracking crap on their website. Strange for a company that claims to be "committed to your privacy."

alexgrist 11y ago
This again..
- throwaway425 11y ago
  It's a valid objection. GA at this point is on most websites you visit. The data is forwarded to Google where it's processed and stored forever. GA is one of the biggest threats to privacy on the web, and any company claiming to care about your privacy should not be using it.
  - throwthrwo 11y ago
    Another major one is Cloudflare. They mitm connections to many sites (with the sites' permission), meaning they cannot be blocked. HN is behind Cloudflare.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    I find it very, very hard to get outraged over analytics code on a web browser site. And as previously mentioned every time someone brings up this idiotic factoid, Mozilla's use of GA isn't exactly standard.
    - throwaway425 11y ago
      You find it very, very hard to get outraged because you either use GA yourself and do not wish to acknowledge your complicity in the matter or you've simply failed to make the obvious leap from analytics to clickstream data. Google wants to know what web pages you visit, when, and how often, and a GA beacon that phones home that information placed on every web page is the easiest way for them to do it. EDIT: there are either a lot of angry GA users in this thread or Google apologists. Either was, I do believe Google is now or will soon use GA for clickstream tracking. I also believe this is why they offer to host frequently requested assets like JQuery.

kozukumi 11y ago

For those wondering what Firefox tracking protection is - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-fir... From my, very quick, tests it appears to work quite well as a poor man's adblocker as well. Nice!

kibwen 11y ago
Just last week I opted in to Firefox's multiprocess branch, and one of my biggest complaints is that this breaks pretty much every extension. I eagerly welcome this if it can replace Ghostery.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, which extensions are broken for you? I've been running multiprocess Firefox as well, and every extension that I use regularly still works. The only exception was Vimperator, so I had to write my own extension to give Vim keybindings[0], since none of the others support e10s. I'm curious which extensions have given you trouble, since Ghostery, NoScript, and uBlock all work for me (at least for the most part). EDIT: I forgot that some extensions may need to be disabled/re-enabled the very first time after enabling e10s[1]. [0] https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/electrovim https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/electrovim [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947030 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947030
  - kibwen 11y ago
    Ghostery's icon was still showing up in the UI, but the number always read 0 and it was clearly not blocking anything. The other two that were broken were FindBar Tweak (highlights ctrl+f results in the scrollbar like Chrome) and TileTabs.
  - sp332 11y ago
    http://arewee10syet.com/ http://arewee10syet.com/ Ad blockers, password managers, and download helpers seem to be the most commonly broken.

chippy 11y ago

"To enable Tracking Protection in Firefox 35 and later, visit about:config and set privacy.trackingprotection.enabled to true" Edits - This quote from the article is interesting, especially considering Google the worlds biggest advertising industry company also has a browser. "That Firefox is first and foremost a user-agent, not an industry-agent"

nextos 11y ago
Seems like a nice feature. I just enabled it and there's some overlap with ublock origin. That is, when I load some pages with tracking protection and ublock, the number of requests blocked by ublock is smaller (but still far from 0). After looking at Firefox log, it doesn't seem this feature blocks anything that was not blocked by ublock. But this might be wrong, I only tested a few sites, and I have no idea about the internals of these tools. More knowledgeable info would be appreciated.
- riking 11y ago
  Yep, people looked and it's using filter lists, just less of them.
eps 11y ago
Way to butcher the quote. In full it has nearly the opposite meaning and it's far more intriguing - I believe that Mozilla can make progress in privacy, but leadership needs to recognize that current advertising practices that enable "free" content are in direct conflict with security, privacy, stability, and performance concerns -- and that Firefox is first and foremost a user-agent, not an industry-agent.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  I don't see how that's opposite
  - paulryanrogers 11y ago

stockholmsin 11y ago

How does this compare to something like Privacy Badger[1]? I haven't done any benchmarking, but if it causes similar slowdowns, it isn't bothersome and the benefits are definitely worth it. [1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

chippy 11y ago
I'd also like a comparison with ublock and/or ghostery. It appears that this becomes enabled after the blocking plugins.
- hobarrera 11y ago
  ublock is more about ads, and this is tracking. While they usually come hand in hand, Facebook ads (eg: while on facebook) don't add additional tracking.
  - plorg 11y ago
    uBlock in 'Advanced User' mode[0] allows for significant, granular script and iframe blocking. 3rd-party default-deny mode, even in the absence of the EasyPrivacy list will give you a significant amount of control over external entities that are frequently used to track users across the web. It's also somewhat more intelligible than NoScript. I would argue that with Dynamic filtering (enabled for advanced users) the goal of uBlock is not limited to ads, but to any undesired content on the internet. I guess you could say the same about Adblock, though, so I guess YMMV. [0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-quick-guide https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...
  - gorhill 11y ago
    I specifically emphasize on the home page of the project [1]: "uBlock Origin (or uBlock₀) is not an ad blocker; it's a general-purpose blocker." It will report everything to the user -- including behind-the-scene network requests [2]. --- [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#philosophy https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#philosophy [2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Behind-the-scene-network-requests https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Behind-the-scene-netw...

solve 11y ago

Weird. If browsers can detect these trackers, could an alternative be to just de-prioritize the trackers, so they load last and won't slow down page load time (since I assume they're invisible anyway?)

mbrubeck 11y ago
This should be doable for well-written trackers like Google Analytics that use script tags with the "async" attribute. In fact, those are probably already likely to load after the main content. For ads or trackers that are embedded as img or iframe elements, I think this is also viable and could speed up page load time. For ads or trackers that use inline scripts or non-"async" script tags to load content, the web browser has to block while loading/running the script, or risk breaking the page. Otherwise things like document.write() would have incorrect results when the script runs later.
- solve 11y ago
  So does this FF mode that blocks them entirely also risk breaking the pages?
  - mbrubeck 11y ago
    Yes, it does, though for slightly different reasons. Mainly, it can break pages with first-party scripts that depend on blocked third-party scripts. I've encountered and reported a few of these while testing the feature.
    - dm2 11y ago
      I wonder how difficult it would be to duplicate the Google Analytics object with blank functions for just such scenarios. Rather than "ga is undefined" the ga.whatever function would just return without sending any data. Do any third-party script blocking systems do this?

bobajeff 11y ago

I would love for Mozilla to find other means of funding online content besides advertising. In either case I'd love to see them take a hard stance on privacy and against tracking. They should block trackers that have no effect on website features and restrict and monitor the ones that do effect features. ...and this is another reason Mozilla needs to have their own search engine. They could have much greater influence on these this things if they had the ability to punish bad behaving websites.

aroch 11y ago
Apple is supposedly getting into the search engine business. It'd be great if they and Mozilla got together, both companies believe in user privacy and could complement each other in getting things down
- bsder 11y ago
  Apple believes in user privacy. Your naïveté is touching.
  - matthewmacleod 11y ago
    And your condescension is irritating. Apple seems pretty solid on the protection of users' privacy. Devices are encrypted by default, for example, and there are robust protections from rogue applications in place. Is there are specific practice that Apple engage in that makes you think they are particularly reckless regarding users' privacy?
    - lern_too_spel 11y ago
      He's comparing Apple to Google. In that respect, Apple comes out looking pretty bad. Google's devices are also encrypted by default and have much more robust protections against rogue applications in place (both static and dynamic automated analysis of apps for malware, vs. just a human eyeballing it).
      - 11y ago

higherpurpose 11y ago

> Advertising does not make content free. It merely externalizes the costs in a way that incentivizes malicious or incompetent players to build things like Superfish, infect 1 in 20 machines with ad injection malware, and create sites that require unsafe plugins and take twice as many resources to load, quite expensive in terms of bandwidth, power, and stability. That's a good point. Reminds me of "coal energy is cheap"...except for the millions of people it's killing or the billions of dollars paid in healthcare costs. And that's without mentioning coal is usually heavily subsidized by taxpayer money. In the same way advertising that's more and more focused on monitoring everything you do or say online (thanks to all the companies that don't want to enable end-to-end encryption in their IM's - Google, Microsoft, etc) is causing a lot of harm as well.

spydum 11y ago
wait, what? How does custom tailored ads based on your usage patterns harm you? there is an awful lot of adtech hate because its easy to see how poorly implemented adtech can hinder performance, but i dont see how it is malicious in nature.
- ahuth 11y ago
  The fact that an ad is custom tailored to you is concerning in and of itself...
  - manigandham 11y ago
    but people whine when they see ads that are not to their interests either. there is no way to win.
    - thesimpsons1022 11y ago
      advertise me computer shit cuz I'm on HN. don't store all my data and track me and store it in insecure databases which you handover to despots.

shockzzz 11y ago

so, this is adblock?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

kibwen 11y ago

It's interesting to think of this as a nuclear option for Firefox. The only incentive they have not to turn it on immediately is that it could poison relationships with site owners such that they stop testing their sites on Firefox or outright block Firefox users, but if Firefox market share ever diminished to the point where site owners were already neglecting Firefox then I see no reason why Mozilla wouldn't damn the torpedoes, start aping Chrome's UA, and turn this on by default. It would be a compelling value proposition at the expense of a lot of mysteriously broken sites (though I wonder how many of those sites would be just as broken for Chrome users running AdBlock). It's also literally the only feature that Chrome can never, ever, ever, ever gain, due to obliterating Google's revenue model (which, actually, makes it intriguing to entertain the notion of Microsoft and Apple following suit for precisely this reason).

MichaelGG 11y ago
Mozilla could also implement shims, to make sites continue to work. So if a site breaks because it makes a call to a tracking library but that's now throwing an error, just provide that same tracking library's functions, but obviously they won't do anything. This would at least fix sites that aren't going out of their way to break things.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  While the shim idea is interesting, I suspect we could get a lot of privacy and working websites by hard-caching anything that even remotely looks like jquery and all the other well-known js libraries. (and do the same thing for fonts). It's trivial to implement - just ship a list of hashes for every published js library on all the popular CDNs (+ anywhere else that comes to midn), and if a HTTP request returns a file that matches one of those hashes, put that URL on a hard cache list. (it would be worht experimenting if wildcarding all query strings is feasible) The only UI change needed would be a menu option to flush the cache for any files associated with current page, so the user can simply reload any website that hasn't figured out how to version their js files. This method wouldn't fix everything, of course, but it would cover a lot. Additionally, it's easy to use, no copyright is violated (the user still downloads any cached file at least once - firefox would only ship hashes). and it would be trivial to extend in the future.

ozh 11y ago

The following post has some facts: https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-the-effects-of-firefoxs-tracking-protection/ https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-...

heimatau 11y ago

After 10 minutes of using this. Everything feels faster. Lovely. +1 ;)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

bsdetector 11y ago
> Advertising literally does make content "free", as in, you do not have to pay for it. Advertising only makes content free monetarily; there's no money exchanged with the viewer. It instead costs you time, attention, memory. And sanity. > $1000 per year seems like a reasonable charge for being able to search the web with the power of Google's search. This shows the power of advertising in abusing our brain's ability to put realistic costs on our time and attention. Google has $50 billion in revenue minus profit, and there's a billion people in just the US and Europe, so more like $50 per year for everything Google does, not just search. If you are only using search and not Android or gmail or youtube or docs the cost would be far less. Advertising is so insidious because its entire purpose is to prey on our foibles and weaknesses, and convincing us that our time is worth less... and that cigarettes are cool. Smoking pollutes your lungs with toxins, advertising pollutes your mind with jingles. There are times and places where advertising is necessary, but it's never free.
- paulryanrogers 11y ago
  Advertising is a tool which, like any other, can be used for good or evil. But it's a good point that it's not free to the consumer.
  - zobzu 11y ago
    what's good in this case? enriching someone?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]

stblack 11y ago

Firefox: my new favorite browser.

arh68 11y ago

Is this more or is it less effective than a large /etc/hosts blacklist? It doesn't seem to be doing anything special like the Privacy Badger. The only relevant sections in the paper I saw were We implement an API based on Google Safe Browsing, a mechanism for efficient URL-based blocklist updates and lookups [9]. We use a subset of approximately 1500 domains from Disconnect’s privacy-oriented blocklist to identify these unsafe origins [10]. We update the blocklist every 45 minutes to minimize the effects of incorrect blocklist entries. Another open challenge is applying Tracking Protection only to third-party content. We can avoiding cross-site tracking by blocking content from high-volume sites such as facebook.com without breaking them when visited directly. Heuristics such as the Public Suffix List4 can help better determine the set of domains that are considered first- party. Would it hurt to copy their blacklist into /etc/hosts? I'd rather do it on the OS-level so I can use any browser I want, anyways.

jmount 11y ago
I "did the /etc/hosts" thing for a long time. But it seemed like some things hung and tool longer sometimes. Overall /etc/hosts was a big improvement. Where are the good lists and what is the current thing you map all the bad hosts to (is it localhost, or something else?)?
- baghira 11y ago
  Relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9509930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9509930
- sp332 11y ago
  It hangs because it waits to time out. It will fail faster if you set the IP to something impossible instead of merely unavailable.
  - the8472 11y ago
    0.0.0.0 works well for that purpose since it's invalid as a remote address

hrjet 11y ago

As a user of NoScript + Firefox and as a developer of a browser with an express goal of "privacy by default"[1], I am thrilled to see this getting more attention. The more people use privacy features, the more will website developers ensure that their products degrade gracefully when, for example, third-party scripts are disabled. Which will enable even more users to migrate towards a "privacy by default" configuration. And hopefully, this will be a positive feedback cycle. 1: https://gngr.info/doc/introduction.html https://gngr.info/doc/introduction.html

ploxiln 11y ago
I use ublock with firefox. I worry the opposite will happen: When a website doesn't work, you can look at the specific blocked domains and types of content and selectively unblock for the current domain, or you can be lazy and just turn off ublock for the current domain. I worry that if tracking/ad blockers become very popular, then websites that don't work will be rewarded with all the tracking/ad blocking being turned off by most people. I used to just use flashblock for click-to-play. I like the simplicity of that - it attacks the biggest problem in a totally generic way, and if the main content is flash, you can almost always just click on it.
- the8472 11y ago
  for powerusers µMatrix may be a better choice than µBlock, it allows you to selectively allow/disallow specific content types from 3rd party domains. E.g. this thread's article requests a lot more than what it needs to be readable: http://i.imgur.com/wPML2lM.png http://i.imgur.com/wPML2lM.png
- white-flame 11y ago
  A better option, and easier for users, would be for them to subscribe to a privacy setting upstream which configures popular sites for them. This would have to be non-canonical, such that popular upstream options that get influenced by advertisers can fall out of favor.

tiatia 11y ago

There is no place like 127.0.0.1 http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

CarloSanta4 11y ago

I find the second part of the post especially interesting. Money makes the world go round. Mozilla as we all isn't immnune to this. The problem however is the huge amount of control the handfull of big global players have gained and still gain. Small local businesses have no chance. Top pick at Google wins. Trend scouting and more importantly trend creation get's customers. Advertising works through our unconcious mind. We can't decide to ignore ads, they will influence us. Also, Mozilla will or if the deals are signed has already lost it's independence irreversibly. See also this small thread about the new advertising through suggested tabs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586073

devsquid 11y ago

Man, ads are great. They allow content to be targeted towards people that could potentially not afford the content and towards people that might not necessarily use the product normally. The world is already significantly divided by wealth. Assuming someone poor even has access to a service like Google, imagine if it was behind a paywall. Could they afford it? If not imagine how much of a life advantage someone wealthier has over those would can not afford it. Your idealistic 'superior' ad free world is as alienating and as segregated as Silicon Valley is...

toomuchtodo 11y ago
How much would a Google search cost me if it wasn't ad supported?
- ivank 11y ago
  Some numbers from 2009 say 1.18 cents/search: https://web.archive.org/web/20110201052634/http://billwarner.posterous.com/new-blog-post-how-much-does-a-single-search-c https://web.archive.org/web/20110201052634/http://billwarner... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110938
  - devsquid 11y ago
    Yea but the question is impossible to answer. Google would have had to balance many differ factors, both of which would have changed as they grew larger.
  - Moru 11y ago
    If google started taking money for searching they would quickly be marginalized.
    - bottled_poe 11y ago
      How exactly? I thought we are assuming that advertising would become worthless if everyone was blocking the ads...

dedalus 11y ago

But it seems likes the data set used was that of top 200 news sites. Its my experience that media sites have around 60% of the http requests made to third parties and hence the reduction you see in load time

dedalus 11y ago
It will be interesting to run the same analysis on bank websites which typically have the least amount of third party

chmars 11y ago

In desktop browsers (and some mobile browsers), you can use filters. On a mobile OS level, however, you cannot: There is probably not a single mobile app that does not connect to at least one ad, tracking etc. server. I hope that at least Apple will offer solutions on an OS level.

ck2 11y ago

Ghostery is your friend. Despite ironically being owned by an advertising company.

core2 11y ago

Any modification of content by browser, ISP or any third party should be illegal.

keithpeter 11y ago
Interesting... how would you enforce such a 'law' and how would you define the 'content' of a page when the appearance of a page in a Web browser depends on large numbers of history dependent transactions with several servers, possibly in different countries?
- core2 11y ago
  Imagine cable operator or TV manifacture to do the same as Mozilla. They disable ads on all programs they stream. Do you think this is legal?
  - keithpeter 11y ago
    But the television program is broadcast from one transmitter and is chosen by the TV company. Defining the 'content' to be legally protected is easy then - it is what the broadcast transmitter sent. In the UK we have a system for monitoring the actual broadcast output of TV stations to ensure that they comply with certain rules, so there is an evidence base. TV broadcasting is (usually) organised on national territories so there is no doubt as to the laws that the broadcaster and viewer are operating under. My understanding is that the content of a typical Web news site is assembled from a number of different servers and the advertising content depends on the browsing history from one particular client as detected by scripts that are served from an advert server - the 'tracking' mentioned in the OA. My point is that deciding what the 'content' was that was protected might be difficult under those circumstances. Also which legal entity is going to do the 'protecting'? Suppose I'm reading The Verge: I'm sitting in the UK, and a lot of our internet traffic goes through a large interchange in Amsterdam. The Verge is based in US. See my point?
    - core2 11y ago
      I see your point, but here the problem is not only tracking, but ads serve. As a content provider, my content is "what the broadcast transmitter sent", this is a code sent from my server to the browser of the client. Now Mozilla and AdBlock extensions are modifying my code. It's very clear what I wish to send - my code, but this program is modifying my code. Superfish and other injection malware replace parts of my code with theirs, while ad blockers and Mozilla, just remove some of my code. As a content provider, ads or subscription (ad free) are my only ways to monetize. It's very hypocritical to disable ads and in the same time to make 97% of your money from Ad company. Almost all of Mozilla's revenue for 2013, the last year for which it has reported financials, came from search deals that make various providers, notably Google, the default in Firefox. Of the $314 million in revenue for 2013, $306 million, or 97%, came from the search deals. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2862717/mozilla-were-not-asking-for-donations-because-were-poor.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2862717/mozilla-were-no... They are abusing their dominate positions and basically stealing from websites. The product "Mozilla" will be very popular because of the feature "Disable Ads and Track". They could make tons of donations because of that. And websites, that actually create content will serve content for free. I'm aware with ambitions of ISPs in Europe to disable ads for mobile, in the same way as Mozilla. They hope to milk Google, just like Mozilla and AdBlock. http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7963577/google-ads-get-through-adblock http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7963577/google-ads-get-thro... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-amazon-taboola-pay-adblock-plus-to-stop-blocking-their-ads-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-amazon-taboo... http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/15/8610741/mobile-carriers-europe-block-ads-rumor http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/15/8610741/mobile-carriers-eu... I don't like tracking, bad ads and so on, but I don't believe some guys from Mozilla can decide what is good and what is not.

tenfingers 11y ago

This is no news to anybody that ever tried an ad blocker, a proxy/content filter or even a generic hosts file. The difference is very noticeable. In fact, it's the main reason I run such filters. The difference is not only in traffic saved/lower latency, but also much lower cpu usage. However, this it would be a bit hypocritical for Mozilla (and probably the reason why the filter is off by default). Firefox is not much better than Chrome when it comes to phoning home and privacy invading features. Heck, on mobile it's even worse. What about disabling by default "beacon.enabled" for a start? Contrarily to massive ad blocking, nobody would notice. Err, maybe these ad networks would? Oops. At every new Firefox release I do a tour of new settings/flags and it's saddening how many times I have to switch something off.

rufugee 11y ago
Can you elaborate further on the various ways Firefox phones home? I'd like to take steps on my machine to disable if possible. Thanks.
- roryokane 11y ago
  I don’t have Firefox open now, but I remember there are three such options in Preferences > Advanced > the second tab from the left. I think two of them are checked by default – they involve sending anonymous usage information. You can uncheck the checkboxes to disable them. On the second launch after a new install or new profile creation, Firefox shows a notification bar about these settings with a button to quickly change them. I don’t remember how long ago those settings were added, nor whether they showed the notification bar for those updates.
digi_owl 11y ago
Been using Noscript in Firefox for years now. Sometimes the number of domains that gets loaded in the background on certain sites is mind numbing.
- jug 11y ago
  Personally I use Ghostery on Chrome right now but with this development by Mozilla, I'm inclined to switch. Feels good to use a browser with no corporate interests, and a simple feature to stop abuse of cookies by ~70% is just crazy. Too crazy to not be a built-in browser feature. Maybe I'm disrupting how news sites intend to work, but they're disrupting how the web was intended to work. Anyway, ... I got sidetracked. I meant to say that what's even "funnier" is that if I disable Ghostery for some domain temporarily, the number of trackers usually skyrocket even further, since now the scripts get to run more scripts. Yes, it's insane and honestly out of control.

mellavora 11y ago

I'm running noscript, ghostery, addblock, and a few others. pages might load faster, but not every page loads. Ironically, the linked article is one of them.

fonosip 11y ago

You can measure the page load times on this webapp http://ba.net/util/ping/any1.html http://ba.net/util/ping/any1.html