Firefox should have just focused on privacy, security, and customization/personalization. It's a niche that isn't filled by anyone else. That wasn't going to make them rich the way selling out their userbase to advertisers will, but it would have made them loved and successful. Right now, people who want their privacy violated are better off using chrome.
Every time firefox pulls shit like this they piss off and alienate their users. What do they think is going to happen? If I were a Mozilla employee and my goal was to destroy firefox, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd be pushing for. I have no idea what firefox thinks it's doing, or if it's thinking about anything other than how to get more money from advertisers, but it shouldn't be hard see what exploiting users will lead to. Maybe they've already given up and their plan is to sell their users until they don't have any left.
Personally, I'll be exploring alternatives and forks and I'm looking to jump ship as soon as I can.
It's really hard to stick with Mozilla/Firefox due to things like these.
I updated my FF yesterday and at this point I make sure to check the settings for suddenly "opted-in" "features" I am not aware of. This one also was a big surprise.
If I want to get screwed and sold to the advertisement industry by my browser vendor, I'd simply use Chrome. So please stop it, Firefox.
https://librewolf.net/ - only a few tweaks to enable/disable to have sessions persist across quitting and re-opening
but - as with any software updates, us users always suffer in having to re-check over all options to see what things changed on us (if we're lucky and get an option)
I hope unchecking the setting really disables the feature. I have hard time trusting Mozilla now... or rather I should write "again".
On the other hand: there is a ticket [1] asking for container-based-extensions, so something like Grammarly (aka the keylogger) could work only inside a container. It's been there for years, nothing changes. Seems like people are not interested in this kind of privacy stuff.
Yeah, I can't say I didn't see this day coming, but it's still weird to think I'll be saying goodbye to Firefox after so long. I moved to Firefox from Netscape!
So sad to see that the Mozilla corporation completely lost its way.
I'm wondering if they are really surprised to have almost lost all of their market share when they go against their core values so easily...
The tldr that says it all:
One Mozilla developer claimed that explaining PPA would be too challenging, so they had to opt users in by default.
...
The way it works is that individual browsers report their behavior to a data aggregation server (operated by Mozilla), then that server reports the aggregated data to an advertiser's server. The "advertising network" only receives aggregated data with differential privacy, but the aggregation server still knows the behavior of individual browsers!
Legitimate question here: Is there a legit reason to Firefox over Chrome at this point? I mean, its not performance, its not convenience, and now its not even privacy. At this rate, it looks like Firefox is going to end up just like Chrome, but slower and less fully featured.
Manifest V2/V3 is a reason to still use Firefox.
There are still a lot of differences between the two browsers and a monoculture is still bad.
How ever I see the pull towards Chromium.
1. Chrome/Chromium's performance only recently became acceptable in 2022 when the Chromium team finally added support for tab discarding, many years after Firefox first had this feature. Tab discarding is essential for users who regularly have hundreds of tabs open. The Chromium team has historically not given a fuck about such users.
2. Firefox is vastly more configurable and extensible than Chrome/Chromium. For example, Tree Style Tab and Sidebery are far better for managing hundreds of open tabs than Tabs Outliner, the closest alternative for Chrome/Chromium. This difference, like the one above, is mostly relevant to power users.
Given that 20 years have passed since Firefox was first released, and 99.99% of web users nowadays are casuals who never have more than a couple tabs open and would sooner kill themselves than learn about the many useful ways Firefox can be configured via about:config, user.js, userChrome.css, userContent.css, etc., the answer to your question is probably no.
I use Firefox simply because the address bar UX is better. It prioritizes my history over search results, I almost never have more than 3-5 tabs open, so I rely heavily on typing a keyword in the address bar to go to a page in my history.
Another thing I rely a lot is Multi-Account containers, which makes it very to keep aspects of life separated.
This article makes a couple highly misleading claims about the privacy properties of the feature and its value - would suggest reading the docs to see how it actually works then forming an opinion
In particular saying you’re sending your activity to Mozilla is not accurate: you’re sending the output of a postcomputation step that makes it cryptographically infeasible for Mozilla to see your activity.
autoexec|1 year ago
Every time firefox pulls shit like this they piss off and alienate their users. What do they think is going to happen? If I were a Mozilla employee and my goal was to destroy firefox, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd be pushing for. I have no idea what firefox thinks it's doing, or if it's thinking about anything other than how to get more money from advertisers, but it shouldn't be hard see what exploiting users will lead to. Maybe they've already given up and their plan is to sell their users until they don't have any left.
Personally, I'll be exploring alternatives and forks and I'm looking to jump ship as soon as I can.
illiac786|1 year ago
https://andrewmoore.ca/blog/post/mozilla-ppa/
martin_a|1 year ago
I updated my FF yesterday and at this point I make sure to check the settings for suddenly "opted-in" "features" I am not aware of. This one also was a big surprise.
If I want to get screwed and sold to the advertisement industry by my browser vendor, I'd simply use Chrome. So please stop it, Firefox.
blibble|1 year ago
with this acquisition https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t... Mozilla is now an ads company
it's downhill only from here folks
out-of-ideas|1 year ago
but - as with any software updates, us users always suffer in having to re-check over all options to see what things changed on us (if we're lucky and get an option)
maccard|1 year ago
Even with this, it's still better than chrome.
prime17569|1 year ago
To disable it on macOS: Safari > Preferences/Settings > Advanced > Uncheck "Allow privacy-preserving measurement of ad effectiveness"
To disable it on iOS: Settings > Safari > Advanced (scroll all the way down) > Turn off "Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement"
pleasecalllater|1 year ago
On the other hand: there is a ticket [1] asking for container-based-extensions, so something like Grammarly (aka the keylogger) could work only inside a container. It's been there for years, nothing changes. Seems like people are not interested in this kind of privacy stuff.
The good news: the CEO salary is really nice...
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1497075
brador|1 year ago
BoredPositron|1 year ago
endemic|1 year ago
autoexec|1 year ago
nubinetwork|1 year ago
yencabulator|1 year ago
arp242|1 year ago
"Firefox added [ad tracking] and has already turned it on without asking you" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40954535 - Jul 2024 (164 comments)
Ad-tech setting 'Privacy-Preserving Attribution' is opt-out in Firefox 128 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 - Jul 2024 (185 comments)
greatgib|1 year ago
I'm wondering if they are really surprised to have almost lost all of their market share when they go against their core values so easily...
The tldr that says it all:
...anticensor|1 year ago
1GZ0|1 year ago
mogoh|1 year ago
subsection1h|1 year ago
2. Firefox is vastly more configurable and extensible than Chrome/Chromium. For example, Tree Style Tab and Sidebery are far better for managing hundreds of open tabs than Tabs Outliner, the closest alternative for Chrome/Chromium. This difference, like the one above, is mostly relevant to power users.
Given that 20 years have passed since Firefox was first released, and 99.99% of web users nowadays are casuals who never have more than a couple tabs open and would sooner kill themselves than learn about the many useful ways Firefox can be configured via about:config, user.js, userChrome.css, userContent.css, etc., the answer to your question is probably no.
shaan7|1 year ago
This ad stuff is very concerning, though :(
ChrisArchitect|1 year ago
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330
copywrong2|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
imajoredinecon|1 year ago
In particular saying you’re sending your activity to Mozilla is not accurate: you’re sending the output of a postcomputation step that makes it cryptographically infeasible for Mozilla to see your activity.
delichon|1 year ago