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"To enable Tracking Protection in Firefox 35 and later, visit about:config and set privacy.trackingprotection.

by 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
    Conflict arises because content isn't truly free. Someone pays of their free time or gets paid to produce by advertising or subscribers. Tools that deliver the content while bypassing payment will drive payment elsewhere or erode the incentive to produce.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    The author's point is threefold: 1) Firefox should be software that serves its computer user's interests. 2) The Mozilla corporation is pressured (to whatever degree) to turn Firefox into software that serves the entertainment and advertising and surveillance industry's interests. 3) Sometimes Mozilla bends to industry interests rather than user interests. This is a bad thing. When you excerpted that quote, you changed the author's statement into: "Firefox serves the interests of computer users, rather than industry titans." Understand? :)
    - sukilot 11y ago
      #2 comes from your own mind or other sources (DRM standards), not from the quoted material.
      - simoncion 11y ago
        #2 comes directly from the quoted material: "[Mozilla's] leadership needs to recognize that current advertising practices that enable "free" content are in direct conflict with security, privacy, stability, and performance concerns..." Not to be crass, but read between the lines. All statements have context. That one sits in the context of a world where browser makers have spent many years removing infoleaks from their browsers, much to the chagrin of advertisers and surveillers.
derefr 11y ago
The thing I don't understand: why not just make the "Do Not Track" switch set this, as well as sending the eponymous header? The user has stated an intent to not be tracked... so help them accomplish that! (In the same sense, I'm surprised that "incognito browsing" windows don't implicitly download a Tor "component" and route through it, the same way DRMed <video> elements implicitly download the Adobe DRM component.)
- LukeShu 11y ago
  The GNU IceCat web browser (derivative of Firefox) does that with Tor.
- wldcordeiro 11y ago
  I think it may still be in development so they haven't added a preference to the about:preferences dialog yet.
- tempestn 11y ago
  There are many caveats* to consider when routing through Tor. It would be a bad idea to just silently do so when the user engages private mode. Incorporating Tor as a 'super-private' mode or whatever would be great, but it should be possible to use normal private mode without it. *In particular the information that you share with the exit node. Especially if you're not aware you're using Tor, it would be easy to share identifiable information.

by chippy 11y ago

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
  Conflict arises because content isn't truly free. Someone pays of their free time or gets paid to produce by advertising or subscribers. Tools that deliver the content while bypassing payment will drive payment elsewhere or erode the incentive to produce.
- simoncion 11y ago
  The author's point is threefold: 1) Firefox should be software that serves its computer user's interests. 2) The Mozilla corporation is pressured (to whatever degree) to turn Firefox into software that serves the entertainment and advertising and surveillance industry's interests. 3) Sometimes Mozilla bends to industry interests rather than user interests. This is a bad thing. When you excerpted that quote, you changed the author's statement into: "Firefox serves the interests of computer users, rather than industry titans." Understand? :)
  - sukilot 11y ago
    #2 comes from your own mind or other sources (DRM standards), not from the quoted material.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      #2 comes directly from the quoted material: "[Mozilla's] leadership needs to recognize that current advertising practices that enable "free" content are in direct conflict with security, privacy, stability, and performance concerns..." Not to be crass, but read between the lines. All statements have context. That one sits in the context of a world where browser makers have spent many years removing infoleaks from their browsers, much to the chagrin of advertisers and surveillers.

derefr 11y ago

The thing I don't understand: why not just make the "Do Not Track" switch set this, as well as sending the eponymous header? The user has stated an intent to not be tracked... so help them accomplish that! (In the same sense, I'm surprised that "incognito browsing" windows don't implicitly download a Tor "component" and route through it, the same way DRMed <video> elements implicitly download the Adobe DRM component.)

LukeShu 11y ago
The GNU IceCat web browser (derivative of Firefox) does that with Tor.
wldcordeiro 11y ago
I think it may still be in development so they haven't added a preference to the about:preferences dialog yet.
tempestn 11y ago
There are many caveats* to consider when routing through Tor. It would be a bad idea to just silently do so when the user engages private mode. Incorporating Tor as a 'super-private' mode or whatever would be great, but it should be possible to use normal private mode without it. *In particular the information that you share with the exit node. Especially if you're not aware you're using Tor, it would be easy to share identifiable information.