I’m currently on 115.12.0esr and the feature is absent.
helenslunch@feddit.nl
on 13 Jul 2024 22:56
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It’s always been in their privacy policy. There just wasn’t a checkbox.
slazer2au@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 19:06
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… I don’t know of this is satire or not.
There is now a feature labeled “Privacy-preserving ad measurement” near the bottom of your Firefox Privacy settings. I recommend turning it off, or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.
Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
on 13 Jul 2024 19:13
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The fact that both me and you are questioning whether this is satire or not worries me greatly.
azdle@news.idlestate.org
on 13 Jul 2024 19:16
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Definitely satire, the context from earlier:
Firefox is worse than Chrome in their implementation of ad snitching, because Chrome enables it only after user consent.
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
on 13 Jul 2024 20:14
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I mean, have you met people? They could be completely serious when posting that lol.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub
on 13 Jul 2024 21:52
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I mean, have you met people?
I mean… I try not to
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
on 14 Jul 2024 00:20
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Same same. Also for like the same reason.
AtariDump@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 14:01
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azdle@news.idlestate.org
on 14 Jul 2024 17:46
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[edit: To be clear, I assume the part that OP is not sure if it’s satire or not is “or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.”] The emphasis in
Firefox is worse than Chrome
is in the original. To me that clearly implies that they are of the opinion that in general Google & Chrome are worse on privacy than Mozilla & Firefox. The comment at the end is just tongue in cheek snark alluding to the fact that in this particular case google did better for privacy in Chrome than Mozilla in Firefox.
or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.
Montagge@lemmy.zip
on 13 Jul 2024 19:18
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Absolute clown shoes
just_another_person@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 19:28
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The updates don’t sound like satire. Some of this is crazypantsrants
Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
on 13 Jul 2024 19:06
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librewolf ftw
Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 00:52
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well at least there are good forks for the browser out there. how long until they start going chrome route?
Feels like google realized that once normies realize how shiti they are, they will run for firefox which by then hopefully will be a properly gutted front end for an ad company.
InstallGentoo@lemmy.zip
on 13 Jul 2024 20:45
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GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml
on 14 Jul 2024 09:27
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I am on flatpak 128 as well and it isn’t there
unskilled5117@feddit.org
on 13 Jul 2024 20:00
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I haven’t looked into the technicals much further than the support page.
The way i read it, it sounds like the companies will get some general data if their ads work without a profile about you being created. I would be fine with that. What I don’t like is the lack of communication to users about it being enabled.
PPA does not involve websites tracking you. Instead, your browser is in control. This means strong privacy safeguards, including the option to not participate.
Privacy-preserving attribution works as follows:
Websites that show you ads can ask Firefox to remember these ads. When this happens, Firefox stores an “impression” which contains a little bit of information about the ad, including a destination website.
If you visit the destination website and do something that the website considers to be important enough to count (a “conversion”), that website can ask Firefox to generate a report. The destination website specifies what ads it is interested in.
Firefox creates a report based on what the website asks, but does not give the result to the website. Instead, Firefox encrypts the report and anonymously submits it using the Distributed Aggregation Protocol (DAP) to an “aggregation service”.
Your results are combined with many similar reports by the aggregation service. The destination website periodically receives a summary of the reports. The summary includes noise that provides differential privacy.
This approach has a lot of advantages over legacy attribution methods, which involve many companies learning a lot about what you do online.
PPA does not involve sending information about your browsing activities to anyone. This includes Mozilla and our DAP partner (ISRG). Advertisers only receive aggregate information that answers basic questions about the effectiveness of their advertising.
This all gets very technical, but we have additional reading for anyone interested in the details about how this works, like our announcement from February 2022 and this technical explainer.
verdigris@lemmy.ml
on 13 Jul 2024 20:29
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Given that it collects no additional user data, and the API in question is a new standard that will require sites to opt in, I think making it an opt-out is sensible. I guess they could make a popup about it, but I really think this concern is baseless FUD from people who haven’t read the details.
sanpo@sopuli.xyz
on 13 Jul 2024 20:40
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I think making it an opt-out is sensible
Why? I’m not in the business of making ad companies’ jobs easier.
Let’s be real, there’s no way PPA is going to be as valuable as the data that can be gathered by state of the art ad tech. So the ad companies that adopt this will be making a compromise to do so. How is this tech making their lives easier?
Also they have no incentive to develop this tech, so why would they? It’s not like Mozilla is doing work for them that they would have done anyway. If anything they’re probably worried that the tech will take off and then legislation will follow to force them to use it.
unskilled5117@feddit.org
on 13 Jul 2024 21:06
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I personally am fine with making it opt-out, but I think it should be handled differently. This technology requires users trust, to have any chance of being successful. Enabling it without informing the user is not the way to gain it.
I would have put a little pop up explaining that they are trying to create a privacy preserving technology to measure ads with the goal of replacing privacy invasive technology. If the user doesn’t like it, it can be disabled in the settings afterwards.
ID411@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 13 Jul 2024 21:07
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I wouldnt say it’s baseless, but there does seem to be a certain motivation with some people, every time Firefox makes a misstep.
ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
on 14 Jul 2024 13:39
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No, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t trip GDPR because it’s not collecting any additional personal data.
mouse@midwest.social
on 15 Jul 2024 13:04
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I agree with this. I understand that the majority of users also don’t read release notes and some don’t even install add-ons, with this being enabled by default this would provide them with a more anonymous ad experience.
ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
on 13 Jul 2024 21:05
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My question is why Mozilla is trying to help advertisers at all instead of telling them to fuck off.
Telling advertisers to fuck off works if your goal is to create a niche product tailored to people who care deeply about privacy already. But Mozilla is very much all about trying to make things better for everyone on the internet, regardless about their opinions (or lack thereof) on privacy and ads.
Mozilla has recognised that advertising isn’t going anywhere, so there’s two options:
Reject ads wholesale and become irrelevant.
Push for a better alternative that can improve privacy while still keeping the engine that drives the internet intact.
What other major player would ever push for privacy preserving attribution? Hint: no one. While I get that many people here want 0 ads (myself included), PPA is a great step in the right direction, and could have a huge positive impact if it’s shown to work and other companies start adopting it.
And guess what? You can still turn it off, or use adblockers. Unlike Chrome, Firefox won’t restrict you in that regard.
ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
on 13 Jul 2024 21:28
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Telling advertisers to fuck off works if your goal is to create a niche product tailored to people who care deeply about privacy already.
Reject ads wholesale and become irrelevant.
Absolute nonsense. How does rejecting ads or even including a default adblocker make Firefox any less relevant? I would hope most people would be more than happy to use a platform free from ads.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 21:46
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Have you used the Internet before? Or used it without a clue how services are usually paid for? You sound a bit clueless. The day they do that, a lot of websites stop working and nagging the user to turn off adblock, which I see all the time (as an advanced user who expects it). If I was a normie who didn’t understand this it might be quite confusing. This is obviously the reason basically no mainstream browser has done this or would do it.
yogurtwrong@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 20:25
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Oh come on now everyone knows what an adblocker is. It’s right in the goddamn name: ad blocker, the thing that blocks ads.
Even if they don’t know how to disable it they can just google it. And if they lack the skill to do that too, they couldn’t have succeeded installing Firefox in the first place.
Stop trying to justify clearly unethical decisions because you used to like the entity who made the decision
TrickDacy@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 20:33
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Understanding something doesn’t mean you support it. Sad so many people can’t understand this or how normal people operate.
mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
on 13 Jul 2024 22:19
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If a revenue stream breaks just with one browser, deny access of this browser.
This obv. would render firefox impractical over time and therefore irrelevant.
Yes, there are free websites and apps.
But you may have to ask yourself why or how these sites keep going.
So while yes - ads can be shown - the user decides if he wants to engage further with the site at hand.
There are ad blockers as plugins for firefox.
My point is: We shouldnt point at mozilla and blame them. They try to align interests I suppose. And I trust them with the anonymous data - I could even check it within its sources if I wanted.
More nonsense. If you’ve ever used a text browser, or a browser without javascript enabled, the vast majority of websites still work fine (Basically just mainstream social media garbage / fascist platforms that aren’t worth your time anyways breaks). If advertisers want to break their sites on non-compliant browsers, it’s as simple as changing your useragent and they have no way of knowing, assuming javascript is disabled. This is pointless hypothetical FUD with little existing precedence (Only thing I can think of is Apple blocking linux useragents that one time) so you can find a way to not hold Mozilla accountable for being a shit platform that’s supporting ad culture again.
mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
on 14 Jul 2024 00:01
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More nonsense.
Is everything you put up to address my comment.
I did use a text browser. But you apparently fail their purpose. I pipe <html/> into it so that I can’t be fooled by such propaganda-spitting guys… (…).
… fascist platforms that aren’t …
You implied bad about me, so I reason this post with that.
… changing your useragent …
Sounds harder than triggering a flag for a feature which aims at serving you, the user.
Your next sentence, minus the next propaganda, makes me wonder:
This is pointless hypothetical FUD with little existing precedence (…) so you can find a way to not hold Mozilla accountable for being a shit platform that’s supporting ad culture again.
By “This” you mean the topic? I already prompted you my point of view; You didn’t address it.
You falsely accuse Mozilla of pushing advertisements down ones throat. Obv. wrong.
This undermines my point which I made in order to aid your shortcomings I saw.
You implied bad about me, so I reason this post with that.
Not at all. I was referring to Xshitter and Facebook. I wasn’t trying to imply you were a fascist. Sorry if it seemed that way.
Sounds harder than triggering a flag for a feature which aims at serving you, the user.
Clarify?
You falsely accuse Mozilla of pushing advertisements down ones throat.
My argument in this thread was that Mozilla is supporting ad culture, though I suppose serving targeted ads regardless of anonymity can still be considered “pushing advertisements down ones throat”. Regardless, pocket already exists to push ads down my throat, should I wish it to ;)
mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
on 14 Jul 2024 00:34
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Clarify?
You suggested that one can change user agents, once (and here is room for debate) firefox is not working properly. At least this is what I carry around from our convo!
Regardless,
Yeah, because you still managed to propagate assumptions which may be hard to reason about objectively.
pocket already exists to push ads down my throat, should I wish it to ;)
That’s about available sources.
But I agree that just 5% of articles within their topics do not force cookies.
If Mozilla would reside in the EU Pocket would have much higher quality (since I think to recall these sources are hand picked).
ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
on 14 Jul 2024 13:34
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it’s as simple as changing your useragent and
Good luck getting the average user to bother with that. But oh wait, the average user would not turn off javascript either, because dealing with that all day is very bothersome. How do I know? Been driving umatrix in whitelisting mode for years. I’ve got used to it, but every time someone sees that I need to reload sites multiple times to unbreak them they are visibly and audibly disgusted. What’s even worse is that they connect this with the fact that I use firefox, even after I tell them this is a fucking addon, and they think Firefox is like that by default.
Because Firefox is funded by ads, whether it’s the PPA ads outlined in this post, or search referrals from Google. Default adblocking would kill the revenue stream. Maybe Firefox could continue on with volunteers and donations, but not anywhere near its current staffing level. Eventually the engine would fall further and further behind and fewer and fewer people would use it.
To clarify… Making a browser is relatively easy and there’s lots of successful projects that do so without significant revenue. But making a rendering engine is really fucking hard and requires a ton of money to maintain.
Firefox has been funded by ads from the beginning, and has had sponsored tiles (aka ads) since around 2014 I think?
I personally think there’s a difference between selling ads and selling your data too. I’m going to go on a limb and say you see no distinction.
EmilieEvans@lemmy.ml
on 13 Jul 2024 21:22
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They are one of them. June 2024: Mozilla has acquired Anonym, […]. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla […] deliver effective advertising solutions.
umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml
on 13 Jul 2024 21:20
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It looks it it would be fun to mock the report generation API, and returns tons of garbage data (possibly negative numbers).
ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
on 14 Jul 2024 13:42
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At that point why not just mock google’s various data mining services’ APIs?
mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
on 13 Jul 2024 22:41
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It appears in the release notes, though.
Previously you would have been tracked.
Now they try to anonymously return data to the tracker. So I do not see a reason to uncheck that flag.
Admittedly I am interpreting this feature from my gut. And you provide the sources I would have asked for.
Appreciated.
refalo@programming.dev
on 14 Jul 2024 17:23
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The vast majority of people do not read release notes or even know they exist.
There is nothing positive about what has been done here.
Anonymouse@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 03:30
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Thank you for a thoughtful post with citations and quotes. After reading the whole page by Mozilla, it seems like they’re taking steps to show advertisers how they can get what they want while preserving people’s privacy. I can live with that. They’re trying to build a win-win scenario.
I’ll still block ads. I’ll still reject cookies, but I feel like it’s a reasonable feature THAT I CAN SHUT OFF. I’m still in control of my browser! Great!
5redie8@sh.itjust.works
on 14 Jul 2024 15:45
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Agreed, just frustrating to find out about this here and not an obvious pop up alert somewhere
MonkderDritte@feddit.de
on 14 Jul 2024 16:15
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including the option to not participate.
Which is useless if you’re not informed about it.
eager_eagle@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 20:08
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I see this as them giving companies a more privacy-preserving alternative to tracking. And just another privacy setting to opt out for us.
Read that instead of someones rant about it, which imo seems a bit obtuse.
Junkernaught@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 13 Jul 2024 21:11
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This sounds fine, I’ve no problem emitting telemetry as long as it is 100% anonymous and can’t be traced to individuals
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
on 13 Jul 2024 21:14
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Same, although I have lingering paranoia that any data recorded by this might be traced back to me by making inferences when combined with other data; however, unlike the OOP, I will say I don’t really know what I’m talking about.
reversebananimals@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 23:41
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Well I do have a problem with that. Since we don’t see eye to eye, dont you agree then that it should have been opt in instead of a hidden opt out?
Junkernaught@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 14 Jul 2024 00:23
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Let’s be honest, opt in telemetry features will collect so little data they might es well not exist.
Considering that ot is supposed to reduce user tracking by tracking ads directly, it’s a net gain for everyone.
smpl@discuss.tchncs.de
on 13 Jul 2024 23:05
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Did you ironically preserve the utm_source parameter?
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
on 14 Jul 2024 00:19
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No lol, I just didn’t notice and also didn’t expect it to be there. :|
ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
on 13 Jul 2024 20:40
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This almost sounds like a hoax. But assuming it’s true…
Install LibreWolf. It’s Firefox without the infuriating Mozilla stupid.
devilish666@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 20:48
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So… finally Mozilla has slowly but surely going into the dark side huh…
I’m not surprised anymore, they even had telemetry code inside android apps from waaay back then (although seems for debugging purpose)
In the end I’m not justify all company bc they need money for survive & exist, although i don’t like the way they do it
ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
on 13 Jul 2024 21:24
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Mozilla has been bad actors since at least 2017, they implemented a piece of malware called Cliqz on a small number of German user’s installs that recommends various services based on browser history (aka tracking and advertising); so I’d hardly call this a new development, or Mozilla “just now” falling to the dark side (and that’s not even mentioning pocket and DoH to cloudflare, which are still enabled by default).
doodledup@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 23:09
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This isn’t ad tracking though. Do you even know how this works?
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip
on 14 Jul 2024 02:04
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Mull or Fennic although Fennic needs a lot of settings changed for privacy
ooterness@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 21:57
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You can disable this “feature”:
Visit about:config
Set “dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled” to false
dvdnet62@feddit.nl
on 14 Jul 2024 05:14
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if you just uncheck the button. you don’t need to Visit about:config
MisterFrog@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 14:05
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Is this “feature” enabled mobile yet?
ooterness@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 17:23
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Sadly, Firefox mobile got rid of about:config, and I can’t find any relevant options in the regular settings.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 00:15
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Yeah I couldn’t find it either. Thanks for your help!
wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
on 13 Jul 2024 21:57
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Is it tracking you or tracking ads? If it was the latter and it is made public, that is information I’m sure we would all be interested in
OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
on 14 Jul 2024 00:47
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It was funded through a deal with an ad company. It did not become an ad company itself until much more recently. jwz had a succinct and memorable response to the the absurd idea that really it's been ad-funded all along and that this makes things okay:
You are just another of those so-predictable people saying, "The animal shelter has always had a kitten-meat deli, why are you surprised?"
Yes, Mozilla started making absolutely horrific funding and management decisions many years ago. Today, they have taken this subtext and turned it into the actual text.
fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
on 13 Jul 2024 23:48
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That’s certainly a quote that will stick with me.
fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works
on 13 Jul 2024 23:14
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Browser development might not be sustainable with user donations, but it sure as hell is sustainable when you get 400 million bucks by Google every year.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de
on 14 Jul 2024 00:50
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Firefox has never tried to run on donations though.
Donations are a tiny fraction of Mozilla’s income. Firefox and related projects are their money earners for their actually charitable projects, pulling in at least half a billion or so a year.
Not saying that the CEO pay is adequate or something, but your take is literally ignoring the article you yourself quoted.
SunDevil@lemmy.ml
on 14 Jul 2024 10:57
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I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure all donations go to The Mozilla Foundation. I believe the foundation is the decision-making power for the corporation.
Either way, yes, Mozilla sold their soul to Google (specifically, giving preference to Google Search) in exchange for sustainability (read: survival). Rather difficult to compete in a market where Google and Apple collectively hold upwards of 85% market share for something they provide “free.”
Presumably that is about Mitchell Baker… A woman… who was there since the beginning when the company was failing…
The new CEO is also a woman and a temp CEO, who I’m guessing will again be replaced by an existing employee. Which guy are you referring to?
What browser projects are you assisting with or donating to?
Are you assisting with any open source projects at all?
The biggest problem with the oss community is that as a developer, you need to accept always that you’ll get treated like absolute dirt by the community.
One of my projects went FrontPage on many major Linux sites, and I ended up dropping it because I got tired of the abuse.
You’ll get plenty of people contributing nothing to your project or competing ones, but they’ll tell you the 50 different ways you suck
I donated back when Firefox was in beta. They were a dying company back then.
Are you saying open source developers shouldn’t be rewarded at all?
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
on 14 Jul 2024 17:18
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Non-profits of the scale that Mozilla is need good talent to continue to exist. Good talent needs to be paid close to market rates to work for non-profits, and retaining good talent requires even better pay and benefits than just what will get good talent in the door
No matter how much or how little the talent at a nonprofit is paid people will go “why are they paying the CEO a $1 million dollar salary? They could hire 6-8 developers for that much!” “Why are they paying developers 100k/year? Can’t they accept 80k for the privilege of working for such an important bastion of the open internet?”
15 million a year is a lot but it’s also 1/3 the median CEO pay rate. They have to pay the CEO at least semi-competitively to retain them
jol@discuss.tchncs.de
on 14 Jul 2024 13:18
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Ah interesting. I didn’t know. I started using Firefox as a kid around version 2.
I totally want Firefox to make money, but I wonder if donations couldn’t be a significant part of that pie today. It seems a lot more people would prefer to donate to Firefox than Mozilla.
I would be happy to donate. But, the reality is… donations don’t work in my experience. One of my projects went FrontPage on all the major tech sites (and even was mentioned in Linux format magazine).
I got $300 in donations.
$250 was from a person I knew…
Backend projects often get screwed more, and I guess you probably need to hope you get supported by companies like Redhat ultimately. This may be why in my case. But backend projects always have people dissing them (frontend projects just need to look good and markety)
I think what’s more important is that it’s open source to be honest. We’re actually lucky we still have Mozilla honestly.
In Mozilla browser days (after Netscape), id imagine it would have been a struggle to get a good pay. The people still there I suspect took a massive risk, and could have moved to lots of other companies like Google instead quite easily
I think they deserve to get rewarded…
jol@discuss.tchncs.de
on 14 Jul 2024 15:45
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I feel like Mozilla could have been what NextCloud is today. Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions. It could be all neatly integrated into Firefox, and you would pay a premium to use them without self hosting. The only thing they did was create Firefox VPN, and the only reason most people use VPNs is because of scammy marketing.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
on 14 Jul 2024 17:04
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Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions.
When Mozilla was founded the idea of hosted webapps didn’t exist. Quite the frankly web standards didn’t yet exist to allow such a thing to exist. Those were the days when you’d use Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight just to view media content on the web.
But I do agree, they could be investing right now into feature rich hosted services, but they’ve only half-assed any paid services they’ve tried to integrate and then dropped them because they couldn’t get enough users to make it worth continuing the effort (mostly due to the half-assed effort they put in to start with)
jol@discuss.tchncs.de
on 14 Jul 2024 22:04
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Exactly because Mozilla was around to see the Internet grow and mature they should have been fit to create such a suite.
Yes… Similarly, there are lots of browsers that failed too… KHTML for instance is what Chrome and safari was based off…
They have a huge number of projects they tried… Including their own mobile phone OS which they were actively shipping (it’s a pity it didn’t survive, would have been nice to have a 3rd OS)
It’s really a risk / time payoff here. The reality is, when you see projects like this, there are 20 more which fail.
When you have limited resources, things like Firefox VPN actually make sense, because its low risk (there’s a lot of competitors, but its fast to implement).
An office suite takes a huge amount of resources, and is a lot of work.
VPN’s do have their uses. But, I agree… 99% of it is scum marketing
Iceblade02@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 16:59
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Yeah. I want to donate directly towards the development of FF, but I can’t. I know several other people who of a similar disposition.
phantomwise@lemmy.ml
on 14 Jul 2024 14:41
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« Ad funded » ? Don’t they mean « Google funded » ?
doodledup@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 23:08
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They haven’t added ad tracking. That’s a fake news. You should read up on how it actually works.
reversebananimals@lemmy.world
on 13 Jul 2024 23:40
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I’ve read up on how it works and it says it’s tracking how well or badly ads perform when shown to me. That’s tracking ads, otherwise called ad tracking.
What now?
Eylrid@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 00:44
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It’s tracking how well ads perform without tracking individual users. Tracking ads isn’t the problem. Tracking users is the problem. Before this the only way to track ad performance was by tracking users. This is a way to track ad performance without tracking users.
hcbxzz@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 01:38
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Tracking ads is also a problem, just a different one. The whole point of ads is to manipulate your behavior. There’s plenty of reason to not want to make that more effective
I still don’t want advertisers to know if their ads were effective on me
doodledup@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 02:23
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It’s not tracking you. It’s not the same.
sudo@lemmy.today
on 14 Jul 2024 00:54
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There are people that use Firefox who also get served ads?
vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org
on 14 Jul 2024 00:58
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Literally every browser has this option, and it gives users a choice. If you use an ad blocker, it has this option as well and has had it for several years now.
doodledup@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 02:24
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This is the first browset to implement something like that. I don’t know what you’re talking about and you don’t either apparently.
vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org
on 14 Jul 2024 07:00
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Safari refers to it as “Privacy-Preserving Ad Measurement”, and Chrome includes an option as part of its “Privacy Sandbox.” Please have the decency to do a basic google search before being an asshole :)
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
on 14 Jul 2024 17:41
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The big difference between Privacy Sandbox (previously Topics API and before that FLoC) and PPA is that Google’s “solution” still tracks the user while Mozilla’s just tracks the ads and gives aggregate data to the advertiser
ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
on 14 Jul 2024 13:43
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Not this option, but generally I agree. Currently I don’t think this is bad, and in the longer term we will see if this leaks any identifyable data.
Jolteon@lemmy.zip
on 14 Jul 2024 01:49
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I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s personally identifiable at all, just aggregate.
BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 16:19
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IMO, that’s splitting a hair.
For a browser that supposedly respects user privacy, the fact that this is opt-out rather than opt-in really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’m going to reconsider my monthly recurring donation to Mozilla, especially if they keep this up.
homicidalrobot@lemm.ee
on 14 Jul 2024 19:09
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Adjust isn’t google adservices. The difference is staggering, actually, and way more than a hair’s split on identifying information not being included.
BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 19:30
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I can’t help but see it as the foot in the door.
I understand that Mozilla needs money, but I can’t make everyone who uses Firefox commit to donating money to keep them from having to do things like this to stay afloat.
But them going down this path makes me not want to donate at all.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip
on 14 Jul 2024 19:15
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I hate to break it to you but you aren’t a significant source of income for Mozilla. You are the product not the customer.
BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 19:25
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I never said I was, just that I wanted to support the browser that respects my privacy, and this move is making me reconsider it.
As long as it’s open source someone will be able to find a way to turn it off, either by an addon or by patching and compiling the source code.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip
on 14 Jul 2024 02:03
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Noice
I guess librewolf is the future
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 15 Jul 2024 14:13
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Librewolf still makes lots of connections to Mozilla. While Basilisk annihilates them fully
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip
on 15 Jul 2024 15:14
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No telemetry though which is the big one
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 23 Jul 2024 08:09
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Not exactly telemetry, but looking at Mozilla privacy policy makes you assume their every domain must be blocked
slug@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 07:44
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weirdly if you search “website advertising preferences” in the firefox setting search bar nothing comes up, you have to manually scroll to find it
MrShankles@reddthat.com
on 14 Jul 2024 18:56
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For everyone trying to find the setting— On my android phone, there’s a setting called “data collection”. Mine were already all off, so idk who it affects
JohnOliver@feddit.dk
on 14 Jul 2024 15:22
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WTF… i thought this was just click bait but went to check on my phone as i am not at my PC right now
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
on 14 Jul 2024 17:45
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It was on for me too, wtf…
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip
on 14 Jul 2024 19:14
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Use Mull
Swarfega@lemm.ee
on 14 Jul 2024 19:21
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Just checked mine and it’s all disabled
khorak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 14 Jul 2024 19:23
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Mine was off, just checked.
randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
on 15 Jul 2024 13:03
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I know, that’s awful. I also turn it off. But that’s actually different than the new feature mentioned in this post. This has existed for years already (I think)
laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 13:28
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These are old options. I checked these off long ago.
pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io
on 15 Jul 2024 13:43
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I’m using mull fork of Firefox which doesn’t even have these settings, the tracking features are completely removed from the browser.
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 15 Jul 2024 14:12
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This browser still makes lots of unsolicited connections to Firefox on each launch. Regardless of the settings you’ll choose. There are no single good browser on Android.
pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io
on 15 Jul 2024 14:51
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I mostly see telemetry requests getting blocked in my firewall. Is there anything else I’ve missed?
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 23 Jul 2024 08:08
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Does your browser make connections on launch when you haven’t even opened anything? That should not happen.
Mozilla has to generate enough revenue to continue developing their products somehow. It would be nice if donations were enough to cover those development costs but that simply isn’t the case. Because of this the ad networks are a necessary “evil”.
The setting from the original post is for sites in general, it’s not specifically about Mozilla sites. I’m not sure how having this option relates to their revenue, unless Google put it in their search contract with them?
Edit: Wait, I see people mentioning Mozilla acquired an ad company?
laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 13:27
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When writing my previous post I had started writing a list of suggested strategies; but I changed my mind about posting that. I’m not a member of Mozilla. I don’t know what particular challenges they face, and my expertise are not in not-for-profit fundraising. So although I do have ideas, I don’t really want to get into a trap of trying to defend my half-arse ideas against people picking them apart. It’s beside the point. The point is just that it is achievable, as evidenced by other organisations achieving it.
I will say though that they could at least just mention on the Firefox ‘successful update’ page that Firefox is supported by donations, and give a link. A lot of people really like Firefox; and I think that if Firefox asked for donations, they would get more donations.
Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de
on 14 Jul 2024 21:59
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Most data can be de-anonymized with some clever tricks. I don’t know about Mozilla but the others definitely try to keep it just anonymous enough to later be correlated with the rest of your profile.
Also, it might be annonymized for this dataset, by adding more ‘annonymized’ datasets stuff can be correlated
laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 13:26
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The issue is that I already knew about cookies. I don’t want my browser to phone home (or anywhere else) without my consent.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 14:13
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Anonymous data collection at scale is a myth.
Anonymous data collection on me when assembled will say that I’m a 40-49yo unmarried college-educated male working in one area in a certain industry and living in another area.
Only one person meets all those criteria, and it’s me.
Contravariant@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 18:16
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Cookies are a non-issue. They store data only locally and can be edited and removed at will. With third party isolation on by default there’s really no reason to worry about them much anymore. And if you do just install cookie auto-delete to clean things up.
This variant is definitely worse because the data is no longer just local.
shadycomposer@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 22:21
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As someone who works on data anonymization, I never trust anonymization.
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 15 Jul 2024 14:10
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There is no “anonymous” data. All telemetry should ALWAYS be opt-in, not opt-out. Otherwise all the words about privacy browser are garbage lies. And they are. Mozilla always lies to its users.
barsquid@lemmy.world
on 15 Jul 2024 14:33
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It needs to be opt-in to be acceptable. Opt-out is not acceptable.
MonkderDritte@feddit.de
on 14 Jul 2024 16:32
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Main dev of open source Ladybird browser not liking homosexuals or whatever:
Community: Boo!
Mozilla acquiring an ad tech company and implementing it now:
Community: well, they have to (and whatever).
I sense some mental dissonance.
refalo@programming.dev
on 14 Jul 2024 17:16
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if by “community” you mean the majority of users… I think you are backwards in both of those. Most don’t care about what Andreas did, and most firefox users are outraged at this.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip
on 14 Jul 2024 19:13
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I would call it a vocal minority
offspec@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 20:04
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Cognitive dissonance? Not supporting bigotry is wholly unrelated to this issue. Also who calls gay people homosexuals? Just say gays like a normal person ffs
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 15 Jul 2024 13:57
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Lol ladybird browser Dev is a homophobe? Could you send some evidence, I want to see this joke. Also, yeah, that’s really funny that people are ready to attack anybody with wrong political opinion, but when anybody is attacking them with ads/tracking/MITM they’ll find a thousand excuses for that fucked up behavior. Evils should be treated equally – mitigated and hated. There is no excuse for a single ad/tracker a person haven’t asked for. Same as there is no excuse to hate gays
MonkderDritte@feddit.de
on 15 Jul 2024 14:00
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Could you send some evidence
No i can’t. All i know is that there was some uproar about this a week ago.
Vivaldi is not private, or open source. It is also a fork of Chromium. If we are going to name forks, then Librewolf or GNU Icecat are better browsers by a mile.
SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
on 15 Jul 2024 12:09
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Name anything Vivaldi specifically (not Chromium-wide) has done to screw over their users. I can’t name a single thing, while I can name many Anti-User things Firefox has done.
Unfortunately, open-source becomes nearly meaningless when the cost to produce a fork becomes so prohibitive and the open-source project starts acting like a for-profit company.
Lemongrab@lemmy.one
on 15 Jul 2024 17:20
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I can say the same thing about Librewolf, as they haven’t done anything to screw over their users either.
Vivaldi just does not have strong ad-blocking, fingerprinting protections, or privacy a preserving measures in general. Here is a comparison between some browsers: privacytests.org
divergency@scribe.disroot.org
on 15 Jul 2024 13:53
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LibreWolf and Icecat still make lots of unsolicited connections to Mozilla servers. The only maintained project that seems to solve it is Basilisk. It even uses its own add-on store.
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
on 14 Jul 2024 20:40
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threaded - newest
It’s always had it.
I’m currently on 115.12.0esr and the feature is absent.
It’s always been in their privacy policy. There just wasn’t a checkbox.
… I don’t know of this is satire or not.
The fact that both me and you are questioning whether this is satire or not worries me greatly.
Definitely satire, the context from earlier:
I mean, have you met people? They could be completely serious when posting that lol.
I mean… I try not to
Same same. Also for like the same reason.
People. What a bunch of bastards
How is that obviously satire?
[edit: To be clear, I assume the part that OP is not sure if it’s satire or not is “or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.”] The emphasis in
is in the original. To me that clearly implies that they are of the opinion that in general Google & Chrome are worse on privacy than Mozilla & Firefox. The comment at the end is just tongue in cheek snark alluding to the fact that in this particular case google did better for privacy in Chrome than Mozilla in Firefox.
Absolute clown shoes
The updates don’t sound like satire. Some of this is crazypantsrants
librewolf ftw
I keep hearing Tor is the thing now.
and ungoogled-chromium for the chrome fans 👍
<img alt="Frightened Hamster.jpeg" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/08429466-d25f-45e3-ac8c-ba6e9534090c.jpeg">
Is google corrupting Mozilla?
jwz.org/…/mozilla-is-an-advertising-company-now/
why are you doing this to me?!
well at least there are good forks for the browser out there. how long until they start going chrome route?
Feels like google realized that once normies realize how shiti they are, they will run for firefox which by then hopefully will be a properly gutted front end for an ad company.
No. This is a privacy-protecting option that gathers no additional information about you or your hardware.
The other link posted in reply is overblown fear-mongering from Mozilla’s single biggest hater because they bought an ad company.
What information are they gathering then?
A single number per ad campaign of how many times an ad view resulted in a visit or purchase.
Mozilla’s announcement about it explains it pretty well: …mozilla.org/…/privacy-preserving-attribution
Then why aren’t they putting it up front and shouting from the rooftops about the new “privacy protecting feature”?
In which version is this?
Claim was this happened in ff 128, released july 9. I am currently on 128, and I found it turned on for me.
Yes. Just checked, was turned on.
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I am on flatpak 128 as well and it isn’t there
I haven’t looked into the technicals much further than the support page.
The way i read it, it sounds like the companies will get some general data if their ads work without a profile about you being created. I would be fine with that. What I don’t like is the lack of communication to users about it being enabled.
Given that it collects no additional user data, and the API in question is a new standard that will require sites to opt in, I think making it an opt-out is sensible. I guess they could make a popup about it, but I really think this concern is baseless FUD from people who haven’t read the details.
Why? I’m not in the business of making ad companies’ jobs easier.
Let’s be real, there’s no way PPA is going to be as valuable as the data that can be gathered by state of the art ad tech. So the ad companies that adopt this will be making a compromise to do so. How is this tech making their lives easier?
Also they have no incentive to develop this tech, so why would they? It’s not like Mozilla is doing work for them that they would have done anyway. If anything they’re probably worried that the tech will take off and then legislation will follow to force them to use it.
I personally am fine with making it opt-out, but I think it should be handled differently. This technology requires users trust, to have any chance of being successful. Enabling it without informing the user is not the way to gain it.
I would have put a little pop up explaining that they are trying to create a privacy preserving technology to measure ads with the goal of replacing privacy invasive technology. If the user doesn’t like it, it can be disabled in the settings afterwards.
I wouldnt say it’s baseless, but there does seem to be a certain motivation with some people, every time Firefox makes a misstep.
The GDPR does not think so, does it?
No, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t trip GDPR because it’s not collecting any additional personal data.
I agree with this. I understand that the majority of users also don’t read release notes and some don’t even install add-ons, with this being enabled by default this would provide them with a more anonymous ad experience.
My question is why Mozilla is trying to help advertisers at all instead of telling them to fuck off.
Telling advertisers to fuck off works if your goal is to create a niche product tailored to people who care deeply about privacy already. But Mozilla is very much all about trying to make things better for everyone on the internet, regardless about their opinions (or lack thereof) on privacy and ads.
Mozilla has recognised that advertising isn’t going anywhere, so there’s two options:
What other major player would ever push for privacy preserving attribution? Hint: no one. While I get that many people here want 0 ads (myself included), PPA is a great step in the right direction, and could have a huge positive impact if it’s shown to work and other companies start adopting it.
And guess what? You can still turn it off, or use adblockers. Unlike Chrome, Firefox won’t restrict you in that regard.
Absolute nonsense. How does rejecting ads or even including a default adblocker make Firefox any less relevant? I would hope most people would be more than happy to use a platform free from ads.
Have you used the Internet before? Or used it without a clue how services are usually paid for? You sound a bit clueless. The day they do that, a lot of websites stop working and nagging the user to turn off adblock, which I see all the time (as an advanced user who expects it). If I was a normie who didn’t understand this it might be quite confusing. This is obviously the reason basically no mainstream browser has done this or would do it.
.
.
Oh come on now everyone knows what an adblocker is. It’s right in the goddamn name: ad blocker, the thing that blocks ads.
Even if they don’t know how to disable it they can just google it. And if they lack the skill to do that too, they couldn’t have succeeded installing Firefox in the first place.
Stop trying to justify clearly unethical decisions because you used to like the entity who made the decision
Understanding something doesn’t mean you support it. Sad so many people can’t understand this or how normal people operate.
If a revenue stream breaks just with one browser, deny access of this browser.
This obv. would render firefox impractical over time and therefore irrelevant.
Yes, there are free websites and apps. But you may have to ask yourself why or how these sites keep going.
So while yes - ads can be shown - the user decides if he wants to engage further with the site at hand.
There are ad blockers as plugins for firefox.
My point is: We shouldnt point at mozilla and blame them. They try to align interests I suppose. And I trust them with the anonymous data - I could even check it within its sources if I wanted.
More nonsense. If you’ve ever used a text browser, or a browser without javascript enabled, the vast majority of websites still work fine (Basically just mainstream social media garbage / fascist platforms that aren’t worth your time anyways breaks). If advertisers want to break their sites on non-compliant browsers, it’s as simple as changing your useragent and they have no way of knowing, assuming javascript is disabled. This is pointless hypothetical FUD with little existing precedence (Only thing I can think of is Apple blocking linux useragents that one time) so you can find a way to not hold Mozilla accountable for being a shit platform that’s supporting ad culture again.
Is everything you put up to address my comment.
I did use a text browser. But you apparently fail their purpose. I pipe
<html/>into it so that I can’t be fooled by such propaganda-spitting guys… (…).You implied bad about me, so I reason this post with that.
Sounds harder than triggering a flag for a feature which aims at serving you, the user.
Your next sentence, minus the next propaganda, makes me wonder:
By “This” you mean the topic? I already prompted you my point of view; You didn’t address it. You falsely accuse Mozilla of pushing advertisements down ones throat. Obv. wrong. This undermines my point which I made in order to aid your shortcomings I saw.
Not at all. I was referring to Xshitter and Facebook. I wasn’t trying to imply you were a fascist. Sorry if it seemed that way.
Clarify?
My argument in this thread was that Mozilla is supporting ad culture, though I suppose serving targeted ads regardless of anonymity can still be considered “pushing advertisements down ones throat”. Regardless, pocket already exists to push ads down my throat, should I wish it to ;)
You suggested that one can change user agents, once (and here is room for debate) firefox is not working properly. At least this is what I carry around from our convo!
Yeah, because you still managed to propagate assumptions which may be hard to reason about objectively.
That’s about available sources. But I agree that just 5% of articles within their topics do not force cookies. If Mozilla would reside in the EU Pocket would have much higher quality (since I think to recall these sources are hand picked).
Good luck getting the average user to bother with that. But oh wait, the average user would not turn off javascript either, because dealing with that all day is very bothersome. How do I know? Been driving umatrix in whitelisting mode for years. I’ve got used to it, but every time someone sees that I need to reload sites multiple times to unbreak them they are visibly and audibly disgusted. What’s even worse is that they connect this with the fact that I use firefox, even after I tell them this is a fucking addon, and they think Firefox is like that by default.
Because Firefox is funded by ads, whether it’s the PPA ads outlined in this post, or search referrals from Google. Default adblocking would kill the revenue stream. Maybe Firefox could continue on with volunteers and donations, but not anywhere near its current staffing level. Eventually the engine would fall further and further behind and fewer and fewer people would use it.
To clarify… Making a browser is relatively easy and there’s lots of successful projects that do so without significant revenue. But making a rendering engine is really fucking hard and requires a ton of money to maintain.
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Mozilla Corp is fully owned by a non profit, so there’s no owners getting rich off of any excess profits.
I’d love for nothing more than for there to be a viable alternative!
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Firefox has been funded by ads from the beginning, and has had sponsored tiles (aka ads) since around 2014 I think?
I personally think there’s a difference between selling ads and selling your data too. I’m going to go on a limb and say you see no distinction.
They are one of them. June 2024: Mozilla has acquired Anonym, […]. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla […] deliver effective advertising solutions.
blog.mozilla.org/…/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar…
It looks it it would be fun to mock the report generation API, and returns tons of garbage data (possibly negative numbers).
At that point why not just mock google’s various data mining services’ APIs?
It appears in the release notes, though. Previously you would have been tracked. Now they try to anonymously return data to the tracker. So I do not see a reason to uncheck that flag.
Admittedly I am interpreting this feature from my gut. And you provide the sources I would have asked for. Appreciated.
The vast majority of people do not read release notes or even know they exist.
There is nothing positive about what has been done here.
Thank you for a thoughtful post with citations and quotes. After reading the whole page by Mozilla, it seems like they’re taking steps to show advertisers how they can get what they want while preserving people’s privacy. I can live with that. They’re trying to build a win-win scenario.
I’ll still block ads. I’ll still reject cookies, but I feel like it’s a reasonable feature THAT I CAN SHUT OFF. I’m still in control of my browser! Great!
Agreed, just frustrating to find out about this here and not an obvious pop up alert somewhere
Which is useless if you’re not informed about it.
I see this as them giving companies a more privacy-preserving alternative to tracking. And just another privacy setting to opt out for us.
Instead of a reactive social media post, here’s how it works.
The only real alternative to this conflict of interest between companies and customers is an independent browser.
A more privacy-preserving alternative to tracking does not sound privacy-preserving to me.
it’s like a drizzle is a dryer alternative to a thunderstorm
surely I’d prefer none, but if I had to choose…
Go to the librewolf shop and walk out in a rain coat.
Moot point. Librewolf won’t exist without Firefox.
What are you talking about? No one called the existence of Firefox into question.
Here’s the page about it:
…mozilla.org/…/privacy-preserving-attribution
Read that instead of someones rant about it, which imo seems a bit obtuse.
This sounds fine, I’ve no problem emitting telemetry as long as it is 100% anonymous and can’t be traced to individuals
Same, although I have lingering paranoia that any data recorded by this might be traced back to me by making inferences when combined with other data; however, unlike the OOP, I will say I don’t really know what I’m talking about.
Well I do have a problem with that. Since we don’t see eye to eye, dont you agree then that it should have been opt in instead of a hidden opt out?
I do agree with that :)
Let’s be honest, opt in telemetry features will collect so little data they might es well not exist.
Considering that ot is supposed to reduce user tracking by tracking ads directly, it’s a net gain for everyone.
Did you ironically preserve the utm_source parameter?
No lol, I just didn’t notice and also didn’t expect it to be there. :|
This almost sounds like a hoax. But assuming it’s true… Install LibreWolf. It’s Firefox without the infuriating Mozilla stupid.
So… finally Mozilla has slowly but surely going into the dark side huh…
I’m not surprised anymore, they even had telemetry code inside android apps from waaay back then (although seems for debugging purpose)
In the end I’m not justify all company bc they need money for survive & exist, although i don’t like the way they do it
Mozilla has been bad actors since at least 2017, they implemented a piece of malware called Cliqz on a small number of German user’s installs that recommends various services based on browser history (aka tracking and advertising); so I’d hardly call this a new development, or Mozilla “just now” falling to the dark side (and that’s not even mentioning pocket and DoH to cloudflare, which are still enabled by default).
This isn’t ad tracking though. Do you even know how this works?
Mull or Fennic although Fennic needs a lot of settings changed for privacy
You can disable this “feature”:
Visit about:config
Set “dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled” to false
if you just uncheck the button. you don’t need to Visit about:config
Is this “feature” enabled mobile yet?
Sadly, Firefox mobile got rid of about:config, and I can’t find any relevant options in the regular settings.
Yeah I couldn’t find it either. Thanks for your help!
Is it tracking you or tracking ads? If it was the latter and it is made public, that is information I’m sure we would all be interested in
Seems to be the latter.
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Here’s a take by a Mozilla employee :
fosstodon.org/@gabrielesvelto/112779506156690032
It was funded through a deal with an ad company. It did not become an ad company itself until much more recently. jwz had a succinct and memorable response to the the absurd idea that really it's been ad-funded all along and that this makes things okay:
That’s certainly a quote that will stick with me.
Browser development might not be sustainable with user donations, but it sure as hell is sustainable when you get 400 million bucks by Google every year.
Firefox has never tried to run on donations though.
You’re actually wrong. They did when they started.
I know because I donated
The funny thing is that the people who complain most about stuff like this, tend to be the people who contribute the least.
If you don’t like them making money to support development, you’re more than welcome to work full time on developing it for free
Why would I donate to them if they are going to advertise at me either way?
You’re not supporting development, you’re supporting a rich guy getting richer:
…locals.com/…/firefox-money-investigating-the-biz…
Donations are a tiny fraction of Mozilla’s income. Firefox and related projects are their money earners for their actually charitable projects, pulling in at least half a billion or so a year.
Not saying that the CEO pay is adequate or something, but your take is literally ignoring the article you yourself quoted.
I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure all donations go to The Mozilla Foundation. I believe the foundation is the decision-making power for the corporation.
Either way, yes, Mozilla sold their soul to Google (specifically, giving preference to Google Search) in exchange for sustainability (read: survival). Rather difficult to compete in a market where Google and Apple collectively hold upwards of 85% market share for something they provide “free.”
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Rich guy?
Presumably that is about Mitchell Baker… A woman… who was there since the beginning when the company was failing…
The new CEO is also a woman and a temp CEO, who I’m guessing will again be replaced by an existing employee. Which guy are you referring to?
What browser projects are you assisting with or donating to?
Are you assisting with any open source projects at all?
The biggest problem with the oss community is that as a developer, you need to accept always that you’ll get treated like absolute dirt by the community.
One of my projects went FrontPage on many major Linux sites, and I ended up dropping it because I got tired of the abuse.
You’ll get plenty of people contributing nothing to your project or competing ones, but they’ll tell you the 50 different ways you suck
I donated back when Firefox was in beta. They were a dying company back then.
Are you saying open source developers shouldn’t be rewarded at all?
Non-profits of the scale that Mozilla is need good talent to continue to exist. Good talent needs to be paid close to market rates to work for non-profits, and retaining good talent requires even better pay and benefits than just what will get good talent in the door
No matter how much or how little the talent at a nonprofit is paid people will go “why are they paying the CEO a $1 million dollar salary? They could hire 6-8 developers for that much!” “Why are they paying developers 100k/year? Can’t they accept 80k for the privilege of working for such an important bastion of the open internet?”
15 million a year is a lot but it’s also 1/3 the median CEO pay rate. They have to pay the CEO at least semi-competitively to retain them
Ah interesting. I didn’t know. I started using Firefox as a kid around version 2.
I totally want Firefox to make money, but I wonder if donations couldn’t be a significant part of that pie today. It seems a lot more people would prefer to donate to Firefox than Mozilla.
Yeah. Maybe I’m just old (I’m 40).
I would be happy to donate. But, the reality is… donations don’t work in my experience. One of my projects went FrontPage on all the major tech sites (and even was mentioned in Linux format magazine).
I got $300 in donations.
$250 was from a person I knew…
Backend projects often get screwed more, and I guess you probably need to hope you get supported by companies like Redhat ultimately. This may be why in my case. But backend projects always have people dissing them (frontend projects just need to look good and markety)
I think what’s more important is that it’s open source to be honest. We’re actually lucky we still have Mozilla honestly.
In Mozilla browser days (after Netscape), id imagine it would have been a struggle to get a good pay. The people still there I suspect took a massive risk, and could have moved to lots of other companies like Google instead quite easily
I think they deserve to get rewarded…
I feel like Mozilla could have been what NextCloud is today. Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions. It could be all neatly integrated into Firefox, and you would pay a premium to use them without self hosting. The only thing they did was create Firefox VPN, and the only reason most people use VPNs is because of scammy marketing.
When Mozilla was founded the idea of hosted webapps didn’t exist. Quite the frankly web standards didn’t yet exist to allow such a thing to exist. Those were the days when you’d use Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight just to view media content on the web.
But I do agree, they could be investing right now into feature rich hosted services, but they’ve only half-assed any paid services they’ve tried to integrate and then dropped them because they couldn’t get enough users to make it worth continuing the effort (mostly due to the half-assed effort they put in to start with)
Exactly because Mozilla was around to see the Internet grow and mature they should have been fit to create such a suite.
Yes… Similarly, there are lots of browsers that failed too… KHTML for instance is what Chrome and safari was based off…
They have a huge number of projects they tried… Including their own mobile phone OS which they were actively shipping (it’s a pity it didn’t survive, would have been nice to have a 3rd OS)
It’s really a risk / time payoff here. The reality is, when you see projects like this, there are 20 more which fail.
When you have limited resources, things like Firefox VPN actually make sense, because its low risk (there’s a lot of competitors, but its fast to implement).
An office suite takes a huge amount of resources, and is a lot of work.
VPN’s do have their uses. But, I agree… 99% of it is scum marketing
Yeah. I want to donate directly towards the development of FF, but I can’t. I know several other people who of a similar disposition.
« Ad funded » ? Don’t they mean « Google funded » ?
They haven’t added ad tracking. That’s a fake news. You should read up on how it actually works.
I’ve read up on how it works and it says it’s tracking how well or badly ads perform when shown to me. That’s tracking ads, otherwise called ad tracking.
What now?
It’s tracking how well ads perform without tracking individual users. Tracking ads isn’t the problem. Tracking users is the problem. Before this the only way to track ad performance was by tracking users. This is a way to track ad performance without tracking users.
Tracking ads is also a problem, just a different one. The whole point of ads is to manipulate your behavior. There’s plenty of reason to not want to make that more effective
I still don’t want advertisers to know if their ads were effective on me
It’s not tracking you. It’s not the same.
There are people that use Firefox who also get served ads?
Literally every browser has this option, and it gives users a choice. If you use an ad blocker, it has this option as well and has had it for several years now.
This is the first browset to implement something like that. I don’t know what you’re talking about and you don’t either apparently.
Safari refers to it as “Privacy-Preserving Ad Measurement”, and Chrome includes an option as part of its “Privacy Sandbox.” Please have the decency to do a basic google search before being an asshole :)
Chrome’s privacy sandbox is a very different protocol from Mozilla’s PPA protocol. I haven’t read about Safari’s variant so I don’t know if that’s a copy/paste of Chrome’s or it’s own protocol
The big difference between Privacy Sandbox (previously Topics API and before that FLoC) and PPA is that Google’s “solution” still tracks the user while Mozilla’s just tracks the ads and gives aggregate data to the advertiser
Not this option, but generally I agree. Currently I don’t think this is bad, and in the longer term we will see if this leaks any identifyable data.
I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s personally identifiable at all, just aggregate.
IMO, that’s splitting a hair.
For a browser that supposedly respects user privacy, the fact that this is opt-out rather than opt-in really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’m going to reconsider my monthly recurring donation to Mozilla, especially if they keep this up.
Adjust isn’t google adservices. The difference is staggering, actually, and way more than a hair’s split on identifying information not being included.
I can’t help but see it as the foot in the door.
I understand that Mozilla needs money, but I can’t make everyone who uses Firefox commit to donating money to keep them from having to do things like this to stay afloat. But them going down this path makes me not want to donate at all.
I hate to break it to you but you aren’t a significant source of income for Mozilla. You are the product not the customer.
I never said I was, just that I wanted to support the browser that respects my privacy, and this move is making me reconsider it.
As long as it’s open source someone will be able to find a way to turn it off, either by an addon or by patching and compiling the source code.
Noice
I guess librewolf is the future
Librewolf still makes lots of connections to Mozilla. While Basilisk annihilates them fully
No telemetry though which is the big one
Not exactly telemetry, but looking at Mozilla privacy policy makes you assume their every domain must be blocked
weirdly if you search “website advertising preferences” in the firefox setting search bar nothing comes up, you have to manually scroll to find it
For everyone trying to find the setting— On my android phone, there’s a setting called “data collection”. Mine were already all off, so idk who it affects
WTF… i thought this was just click bait but went to check on my phone as i am not at my PC right now
<img alt="" src="https://feddit.dk/pictrs/image/826aa076-517a-41f4-a3e1-8aa2256e54df.webp">
I’m on 128 on my phone. I just checked and both of those are disabled for me.
Same
double same
Triple same.
I’m on 128 on my phone and it was on for me, I definitely didn’t turn those on myself. wtf.
Idk what 128 is on a phone, but my galaxy s21 had everything still off. Guess I’ll have to keep an eye on it
build number (version) of Firefox, which is the software in question.
“Galaxy S21” is the model name for a physical Samsung phone, which isn’t relevant to the topic.
Oh, heard that. I’m on 128 on my phone too and they were all disabled
Here’s the info about it: mzl.la/3AcmG8q
I’m using Mull.
It was on for me too, wtf…
Use Mull
Just checked mine and it’s all disabled
Mine was off, just checked.
I know, that’s awful. I also turn it off. But that’s actually different than the new feature mentioned in this post. This has existed for years already (I think)
These are old options. I checked these off long ago.
I’m using mull fork of Firefox which doesn’t even have these settings, the tracking features are completely removed from the browser.
This browser still makes lots of unsolicited connections to Firefox on each launch. Regardless of the settings you’ll choose. There are no single good browser on Android.
I mostly see telemetry requests getting blocked in my firewall. Is there anything else I’ve missed?
Does your browser make connections on launch when you haven’t even opened anything? That should not happen.
Here’s the information about it. It’s anonymous and It can be turned off …mozilla.org/…/privacy-preserving-attribution?as=…
That somehow makes it better?
Edit typo
Yes. The problem with cookies was that they could be used to track and identify you. If this can’t do that, then what’s the issue?
The problem is supporting ad networks.
Edit: /s because apparently it wasn’t obvious. Anonymous is obviously better.
Mozilla has to generate enough revenue to continue developing their products somehow. It would be nice if donations were enough to cover those development costs but that simply isn’t the case. Because of this the ad networks are a necessary “evil”.
The setting from the original post is for sites in general, it’s not specifically about Mozilla sites. I’m not sure how having this option relates to their revenue, unless Google put it in their search contract with them?
Edit: Wait, I see people mentioning Mozilla acquired an ad company?
Yes. Yes, they did.
Jesus.
<img alt="you were the chosen one meme" src="https://media.makeameme.org/created/you-were-the-5ad4ad.jpg">
Supporting ad networks is not a ‘necessary’ evil. There are many not-for-profit organisations that do not use ads for revenue raising.
What would you suggest then? They’ve been unable to sustain themselves via donations alone.
Fire their ceo that they’re paying 6 million a year
When writing my previous post I had started writing a list of suggested strategies; but I changed my mind about posting that. I’m not a member of Mozilla. I don’t know what particular challenges they face, and my expertise are not in not-for-profit fundraising. So although I do have ideas, I don’t really want to get into a trap of trying to defend my half-arse ideas against people picking them apart. It’s beside the point. The point is just that it is achievable, as evidenced by other organisations achieving it.
I will say though that they could at least just mention on the Firefox ‘successful update’ page that Firefox is supported by donations, and give a link. A lot of people really like Firefox; and I think that if Firefox asked for donations, they would get more donations.
Most data can be de-anonymized with some clever tricks. I don’t know about Mozilla but the others definitely try to keep it just anonymous enough to later be correlated with the rest of your profile.
Edit: typos
Also, it might be annonymized for this dataset, by adding more ‘annonymized’ datasets stuff can be correlated
The issue is that I already knew about cookies. I don’t want my browser to phone home (or anywhere else) without my consent.
Anonymous data collection at scale is a myth.
Anonymous data collection on me when assembled will say that I’m a 40-49yo unmarried college-educated male working in one area in a certain industry and living in another area.
Only one person meets all those criteria, and it’s me.
Cookies are a non-issue. They store data only locally and can be edited and removed at will. With third party isolation on by default there’s really no reason to worry about them much anymore. And if you do just install cookie auto-delete to clean things up.
This variant is definitely worse because the data is no longer just local.
.
As someone who works on data anonymization, I never trust anonymization.
There is no “anonymous” data. All telemetry should ALWAYS be opt-in, not opt-out. Otherwise all the words about privacy browser are garbage lies. And they are. Mozilla always lies to its users.
It needs to be opt-in to be acceptable. Opt-out is not acceptable.
Community: Boo!
Community: well, they have to (and whatever).
I sense some mental dissonance.
if by “community” you mean the majority of users… I think you are backwards in both of those. Most don’t care about what Andreas did, and most firefox users are outraged at this.
I would call it a vocal minority
Cognitive dissonance? Not supporting bigotry is wholly unrelated to this issue. Also who calls gay people homosexuals? Just say gays like a normal person ffs
Lol ladybird browser Dev is a homophobe? Could you send some evidence, I want to see this joke. Also, yeah, that’s really funny that people are ready to attack anybody with wrong political opinion, but when anybody is attacking them with ads/tracking/MITM they’ll find a thousand excuses for that fucked up behavior. Evils should be treated equally – mitigated and hated. There is no excuse for a single ad/tracker a person haven’t asked for. Same as there is no excuse to hate gays
No i can’t. All i know is that there was some uproar about this a week ago.
The community is VERY MUCH against the decline of Mozilla
“It’s okay, we can enshitify a little.” - the board at Mozilla probably.
Just a taste. We can stop at any time.
just the tip. We’ll just soak the ad tracking for a bit.
It’s better to apologize than to ask permission, right babe? Right!?
"You dimwitted plebs are too stupid to meaningfully opt-in, so we made it opt-out."
Oh shit. Now that I have checked, it was turned on by default on mine too.
What’s wrong with you mozilla ?? Firefox was supposed to be the alternative
It has not been the alternative for a while now IMO. I have been using LibreWolf.
They have gone corrupt, they’re full-on techbros now
And they wonder why their market share is decreasing.
The only major browser that actually seems to care about their users is Vivaldi, sadly.
Vivaldi is not private, or open source. It is also a fork of Chromium. If we are going to name forks, then Librewolf or GNU Icecat are better browsers by a mile.
Name anything Vivaldi specifically (not Chromium-wide) has done to screw over their users. I can’t name a single thing, while I can name many Anti-User things Firefox has done.
Unfortunately, open-source becomes nearly meaningless when the cost to produce a fork becomes so prohibitive and the open-source project starts acting like a for-profit company.
I can say the same thing about Librewolf, as they haven’t done anything to screw over their users either.
Vivaldi just does not have strong ad-blocking, fingerprinting protections, or privacy a preserving measures in general. Here is a comparison between some browsers: privacytests.org
Here is some reading for you (if you want):
privacytests.org/vivaldi.html
avoidthehack.com/review-vivaldi-browser
LibreWolf and Icecat still make lots of unsolicited connections to Mozilla servers. The only maintained project that seems to solve it is Basilisk. It even uses its own add-on store.
reddit.com/…/who_are_adjust_the_mobile_marketing_…
Whatever it is, it’s been around for at least 3 years.
What’s the behavior before this option was added? Would website track you or not?
They definitely didn’t just stop tracking you because this option exists.
Librewolf