STOCKHOLM, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Vienna-based advocacy group NOYB on Wednesday said it has filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Mozilla accusing the Firefox browser maker of tracking user behaviour on websites without consent.
NOYB (None Of Your Business), the digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, said Mozilla has enabled a so-called “privacy preserving attribution” feature that turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites without directly telling its users.
Mozilla had defended the feature, saying it wanted to help websites understand how their ads perform without collecting data about individual people. By offering what it called a non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking, it hoped to significantly reduce collecting individual information.
All the naysayers in these comments read like shills and if they aren’t, they really should read how the tracking in question works. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution?as=u&utm_source=inproduct
While it was kinda lame for Mozilla to add it with it already opted-in the way they did, they were still completely open about how it works from the start with a link right next to the feature in settings (the same link pasted above) and it’s far less invasive than the other mainstream browsers.
It can be turned off too, easily. It requires unchecking a checkbox. No jumping through 10 different menus trying to figure out how to turn it off, like a certain other browser does with its monstrous tracking and data collection machine.
With ublock origin it’s also moot, since ublock origin blocks all the ads anyways.
Call me a fanboy if you want, I wont care. Firefox is still the superior browser in my opinion.
Call me a fanboy if you want,
I will.
It can be turned off too, easily.
Same for Chrome.
With ublock origin it’s also moot, since ublock origin blocks all the ads anyways.
This is a non-argument; uBO ins’t even developed by Mozilla, so they don’t deserve credit for it.
Is there any opportunity to rage about Firefox that you don’t take? Seriously, so predictable
Nah. Turning that feature on by default already set in stone for me their willingness to test the waters. If you don’t think auto-enabling anti-privacy features is a problem I don’t know what to tell you. It may be “small” right now, but just wait and see what else they will try to sneak in.
Use Librewolf and Mull instead.
I use Mull on my phone. Haven’t gotten around to playing with Librewolf but it is on my list of things to do.
I don’t consider the addition to be an anti-privacy feature however. I’d like to see someone change my mind about that.
Any company that is willing to enable options (such as advertising) without users permission/consent is anti privacy. While it may not be a big deal for you now, wait to see what else they try to explain away. You act as if ublock is just automatically installed for users, thus making this not a big deal. what about the thousands if not millions of users on default firefox? The fact that Mozilla did this without letting the user know it is on by default, is inherently anti privacy. Hell I would argue turning it on by default is inherently anti privacy. Especially when they try to explain it away on reddit when they faced backlash. “There has to be a reason our users are upset? Am I the bad guy? No it’s the users who are bad!” It is a reminder that no company is your friend. This is a test to see what they can and cannot get away with. A test to see if the users notice/if enough would really jump ship to create an impact on their product.
I jumped ship as soon as this feature was found. Fuck that.
Librewolf is fantastic, it’s FOSS Firefox. I have had absolutley no issues getting firefox extensions to work with librewolf.
Oh, but when you say you can easily turn off all the crypto crap from Brave, the bitches start crying. And second, for some bitches, it seems like firing an employee who has cancer is better somehow than donating against same-sex marriage. There are levels of evil, and I know who’s the lesser evil between the two.
All the naysayers in these comments read like shills
Amusing people of what you are guilty of. Sounds familiar…
This is just the beginnings of the enshittification of FF. There are others out there, Ladybird for example, deserves our attention being built completely from scratch engine and all. Though it’s not slated to become fully usable until 2026 because, they’re building the engine from scratch lol
I think a big part of the problem is that they didn’t show anyone a notification or an onboarding dialog or whatever about this feature, when it got introduced.
Firefox is still the superior browser in my opinion.
or the least bad, as I have been thinking about it lately
I think a big part of the problem is that they didn’t show anyone a notification or an onboarding dialog or whatever about this feature, when it got introduced.
Right. Not only didn’t they notify anybody, but they took to Reddit to defend the decision not to notify anybody:
we consider modal consent dialogs to be a user-hostile distraction from better defaults, and do not believe such an experience would have been an improvement here.
Which is strange, because Mozilla has no problem with popups in general.
Yeah, as I said it was pretty lame how they added it in. I will repeat that I think it’s still not as bad as how other mainstream browsers add unwanted features but I’m out of the loop there and could be wrong.
Strange, only once do I recall seeing a pop up from Firefox, which was letting me know another browser was trying to become my default browser which I did not do or want. So in that case it was useful, as it was Edge and I did not want Edge to be my default browser. That was years ago, back when I still used Windows. Not saying it doesn’t happen of course, you have links I could check which I assume show it does, but I have not personally witnessed it happen in a long time.
The answer will always from now on be ‘yes’, for every annoying privacy invading toggle you have to change, it is in the best interest of the software creators to force you to do it in the way that benefits them most.
Our opinions are no longer as important as their ability to harvest our data.
While it was kinda lame for Mozilla to add it with it already opted-in the way they did
That’s really the rub here. Reading the technical explainer on the project, it’s a pretty good idea. The problem is that they came down on the side of “more data” versus respecting their users:
Having this enabled for more people ensures that there are more people contributing to aggregates, which in turn improves utility. Having this on by default both demands stronger privacy protections — primarily smaller epsilon values and more noise — but it also enables those stronger protections, because there are more people participating. In effect, people are hiding in a larger crowd.
In short, they pulled a “trust us, bro” and turned an experimental tracking system on by default. They fully deserve to be taken to task over this.
Pest vs Cholera situation here…
Firefox should do an opt-in and they usually open new page with major updates with a pretty whats new changelog.
Just make it a headline topic ffs.
Regarding it’s just clicking this one textbox:
Remember: Businesses also use Firefox. If you want to protect even a shred of your co-workers or clients you need to set up a fuck-load of tools to mass-disable this one little checkbox.
If it’s added as already opted in, I assume they pop something up to make it clear what’s been added and enabled, and how it affects the user’s privacy, with a link to the settings to change it if desired?
If so, that’s not too bad, no.
If they added it and didn’t make it clear, or worse yet didn’t call attention to it at all, that would piss me off.
They didn’t, just like every other mainstream browser does. It was pretty lame. It was in the change notes but I don’t know too many people that read those anymore. Their explanation of the system and the ease to turn it off placated me. I have the feature on and have had it on since the day it was released.
Turning the feature on by default is bad, but I don’t think that legal complaints are the way to go as well as the aggressive tone of NOYB. Firefox is the only browser developed and maintained professionally which has the potential of offering some privacy on the web. Given the importance of web browsers volunteer work just won’t cut it with the amount of features and security concerns that a browser needs.
NOYB would’ve done much better by talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option. If the was the case, then good that there’s a complaint, but the article does not indicate the any of this happened.
talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option
Fuck that, they know what they’re doing and they know what the right thing is. Mozilla is the enemy for some time now, Firefox’s development is basically held hostage by a shitty corporation and a toothless foundation.
So what, are we giving Mozilla a free pass to do anything now? Is the new bar “not quite as shitty as Google”?
NOYB has the right to send a complaint if it think a company infringe upon right to privacy. Mozilla isn’t entitled to special treatment or special notice before filling a complaint.
Mozilla should have expected this. They claim to defend users privacy so they should understand why consent for data collection is important. Also there was public outcry and criticism of opt-out, and yet they haven’t backed down.
If Mozilla resolve these issues, NOYB could ask for the complaint to be dropped. I hope they do resolve this, and do drop the complaint.
NOYB would’ve done much better by talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option. I
It has been already vastly demonstrated by Mozilla, that going to them and talking to them about how they shouldn’t do shitty things doesn’t work.
If it takes legal action to even try and save the browser, I’m all for it.
Okay, but what if after all this legal action Mozilla decides that it’s no longer worth serving the privacy conscious crowd? Which browser will you use then?
Things only happen in a desirable direction if there is dialogue. Linus made the decision about making Linux GPL but he is against aggressive enforcement. He thinks it’s much smarter to go and slowly convince the offending parties that it’s in their benefit.
Okay, but what if after all this legal action Mozilla decides that it’s no longer worth serving the privacy conscious crowd? Which browser will you use then?
Firefox.
Just because the execs decide to stop serving the software, doesn’t mean the copies (and source code!) already out in the wild will automagickally stop functioning. You’ll still be able to visit websites the day after, the month after, the year after… And there’s still the devs, since they’re not the execs.
By the time there’s issues, there’ll still be the forks. Someone will have already step up to fork and keep the work on their own, too; the name just weighs enough that someone will want to be “the next Firefox” (not “the next Mozilla”). Or even better, the devs (obvs not the execs) will have jumped ship into any one of the various alternative projects such as ladybird, or might even have started a new project from scratch, hopefully intending for it to be a leaner and better browsr.
Hopefully this makes some of the Firefox shills finally realize it’s time to change our recommendations.
I’ve heard so much shit lately about Firefox, it has become a sinking ship and I’m eager to see who picks up the shards and runs with it.
Hopefully this makes some of the Firefox shills finally realize it’s time to change our recommendations.
There’s still nothing better, you just have to be careful to block all their moneymaking bullshit attempts like save-your-shit-into-our-pocket and virginity-preserving assfucking. I use Fennec on android, though.
There are forks, like libre wolf (desktop) and mull (Android) that don’t ship with some of the bullshit, Firefox ships.
LibreWolf is better, includes ublock and no tracking by default.
There are good chromium based browsers too, I’m not aware of Vivaldi having any major controversies or shady business decisions in recent years, it has a built in adblock thats independent of chromium’s upstream.
If you disqualify every browser due to its upstream having issues then you should probably revert to using CURL or something convoluted like what richard stallman does. Every browser that exists today is a fork of some browser that previously was good but started to suck.
The problem is that Librewolf’s continued existence depends on Firefox continuing to exist. And while I like Vivaldi (but not its closed-sourceness), if all browsers end up being Chromium-based, Google still has an effective monopoly on web standards.
And what else should be recommended?
The choice is basically between Firefox or skinned Chromium.
Do you really want to experience first-hand just why Internet Explorer was this hated?
Here’s a hint: de facto monopoly on browser market that allowed them to control the web standards back then and their ideas were not good.
it has become a sinking ship and I’m eager to see who picks up the shards and runs with it.
I don’t think you have any idea how much work it takes to create a new browser.
I think there’s kind of a 3rd choice, WebKit.
Chrome was great, till it wasn’t. IE always was bad. Edge is chromium.
Firefox has stayed closer to “don’t be evil” than many companies. Is say far more than the other options.
I think there’s kind of a 3rd choice, WebKit.
That’s where Chromium came from originally, so not really 3rd.
Labybird is a completely new upcoming open source browser, complete with its own from scratch engine
Theres also Servo an open source engine led by the Linux Foundation
You’re talking about the wrong thing. The Mozilla Foundation is and has been acting a fool in recent years. Firefox, the open source program, is doing mostly OK. Obviously the two are closely connected, but they’re definitely not the same thing, and this matters when discussing policy.
“B… but Mozilla fights for privacy and the free internet!!!11!!11!!”
Well deserved
Show 'em, that’ll teach these nasty fanboys! Reads like writing that got you a big dopamine rush.
I agree, commenting “Use Firefox!!!1!11” on every post remotely related to (other) browsers doesn’t help anybody, just like commenting “Use Linux!!!1!11” on every post about a vulnerability in Windows doesn’t contribute anything meaningful at all.
Look, I also disagree with what Mozilla is doing here and yes, they 100% deserve the flak they are getting for it. But - like most things in life - it’s not black and white. Firefox could still be less intrusive to your privacy than Chrome (I’m not saying it necessarily is, but it could be that way). A different example: your mail provider could track every time you login to your account, or it could analyze and track the content of every email you receive. One is clearly worse than the other, right?
Which browser(s) do you recommend/use?