Reminder to all fellow Firefox users, they recently added and enabled privacy-invading ad bullshit in your settings

Go to your privacy settings to remove it

@ben

Better - install LibreWolf

@ben @alice I would genuinely like to see a detailed explanation why this is bad. I immediately turned it off when I saw a post like this a week ago, but then reading about it, it seemed like it was done well. Decentralized anonymous list of who bought somrthing that the seller can reference.

Was this not done in a good privacy-respecting way? How? Why?

I tried searching, and the best I could find is a Lifehacker article that … doesn’t tell me much at all, just “it’s on by default!”

@jeffhatz I can't speak for anyone else but I just hate advertising. I consider it all to be dangerous/toxic enemy propaganda that is intentionally harmful to people's self esteem. They are using principles of mass psychology to financially manipulate us.

I, along with well over 50% of all internet users, go out of my way to block them as much as possible.

This has potential to benefit companies that use internet advertising, so I won't use it.

It's not a privacy thing for me.

@ben @alice

@ben Vaya jodienda

@ben i'd like to add that i went to my firefox settings the first time i saw a post like this, and the box was unchecked, pfew.
But then 2 days later I saw more posts about this and went: hey didn't my firefox update today? I went to the settings again and now the box was checked.
So maybe even check twice, everybody?

@ben
My FF is up-to-date (v128.0) and my settings options don't look like yours (but I'm on a desktop, not my phone):

@ben @alice I’m more than happy to disable it if it really is bad. I just don’t want to because of fearmongering.

If the industry can switch from creepy tracking to a good system, that’s a net good. Disabling the feature could in theory cause the plan to fail then we’re back to the status quo of a hellscape.

@alice If I wanted to look at ads I would check out the curated ads in print magazines that specialize in whatever specific field. These print magazines still exist and still make money because it's a more effective way to advertise, for example, $10,000 cameras to professional cinematographers.

By comparison, online ads are inherently shady and scammy and irrelevant to what I'm trying to accomplish.

@jeffhatz @ben

@jeffhatz @ben @alice The problem is that we don't consent to helping advertisers learn things about us. Not only not individually, but not even as part of an aggregate data set. It's really that simple. You cannot perform research on human subjects without their consent.

@sidereal

All online advertising, especially targeted advertising, is about identifying vulnerable people and exploiting their need.

Don't think "refrigerators" or "cars". Think "pay day loans" or "phony degrees".

@alice @jeffhatz
@ben

@jeffhatz @ben @alice here's a technical explanation for how it works: https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/blob/main/ppa-experiment/README.md
for what it's worth, as long as the claims from Mozilla are true, it really is privacy-preserving - especially since it's still an experiment, with no actual advertising companies yet rolled in

@ptrc @jeffhatz @ben @alice Unfortunately a nuanced take doesn't spread as much even here on the fediverse compared to a rage based toot speaking to what folks want to hear and evoking emotional responses 🌝

@ptrc And the "as long as" is exactly the problem. The user has no way to verify that, and no guarantees it stays that way.

@jeffhatz @ben @alice

@djh

Emotional response?

Those ass*** inserted a new draining system for the data I create as opt-out without advise.

We should pitchfork them.

Gnome-browser might become the next go to for the few that still battle for the basics. Until that community will be corrupted by VC-capital because it amassed enough user to abuse.

@ptrc @jeffhatz @ben @alice

@bitpickup @djh have you talked to any of "those ass***"? have you seen the code, what it does and what data it sends? the list of websites/organizations allowed to use the API?

introducing it silently, enabled by default, was quite shady, yes - but the actual experiment is not evil per se

but well, emotional response evoked successfully

@ptrc

> but the actual experiment is not evil per se

Dear "mozzarella firefox contributor, standard issue catgirl", thx for pointing out that you already have been brain washed enough to not realize what this consumerist capital society is all about and what kind of sell out the millionaire CEO's of mozilla by dining on a regular basis with their buddies in silicon valley have become.

@djh

@wonka

Even worse, they inserted a new feature as opt-out without a big sign and a "click here" at the first firefox start after installing that sh**. So what will they do the day they change the rules, they didn't even inform properly when they created new rules (features).

@ptrc @jeffhatz @ben @alice

@bitpickup @djh lmao

@bitpickup @djh do keep in mind that if the experiment actually goes through and advertising companies actually switch to PPAs instead of cookies and other, more privacy-invasive methods ( either willingly, or because Mozilla will disable third-party cookies in Firefox and make it even more annoying to track users ), then it's just a matter of a single checkbox to disable all data reporting - and even then, the data only gets collected if you actually see the ads, if you block ads, there's no ad views / clicks actually taking place

@bitpickup but sure, call me brainwashed if it makes you feel better

@ptrc

Why would I waste the only thing I really own, the time of my life, to talk to ass***?
🤔

I block them and everything they do and go on with my life.
Let them rott in their own parallel universe.

f*** em!

(but well, emotional response evoked successfully)
😇
@djh

@ptrc @bitpickup @djh why would they "switch to PPAs" instead of using PPAs in *addition* to tracking methods such as third party cookies and fingerprinting? google and apple already have "differential privacy" ad measurement, if there was somewhere a ad company that had in good faith discontinued other tracking method because "ad measurement" is all they need we probably would have heard about it.

imagine if all browsers disabled third party cookies AND removed the ad measurement feature!

@ptrc

"Brain washed" is just another descriptive term for "educated by the environment we live in". Please don't take it to personal.

It's just a reality expressed with certain provocative undertone.

If you are out here in the fediverse, even more having in mind the info of your profile, we are on the same page.

@bitpickup ah, i just noticed the edit; fwiw, i consider the past few ceos of mozilla to be a blight on firefox, even more so if all of this stuff is true: https://ia800407.us.archive.org/11/items/jyjfub/pdfsz1_text.pdf
i do however contribute to firefox - mostly because i like the product itself, not the corp behind it

@ptrc

Right now I'm wondering if sea monkey could be better option for me, yet again it's mozilla and there for will most likely sooner than later meddled with. And having in mind the "shady" practices that became kinda standard

@ptrc

Right now I'm wondering if sea monkey could be an alternative. But looking at the shady behavior by mozilla I will have to skip that idea all along I guess.

Like, I guess gnome browser (epiphany) might be the next go to in terms of backed up by an important community to expect it to last and thrive.
(until is has a big enough user base so corrupting it becomes interesting enough :( )

@ben "Ok at preserving privacy for now" is just false. It's collecting and potentially transmitting data you didn't want collected. That's not preserving privacy.

@dalias @ben exactly that!

Just like there's no harmless level of surveillance!

https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/112836091720164445

@dalias @ben +9001%

This shit needs to have consequences and I hope if not @EUCommission or @bsi then at least @noybeu to make this a costly #CeaseAndDecist for @mozilla !

Cuz #WhatYouAllowIsWhatWillContinue...
https://infosec.space/@kkarhan/112836758680291173

@dalias @ben Not to bag on Ben or anything but, I would also worry about what if marketers or nation-states figure out how to deanonymize the data and don't tell anyone! Firefox seems to have gone to a lot of effort to keep it anonymous, but what if they put the effort in the wrong places? There's people whose entire jobs is making algorithms for deanonymizing data.

@mcc @bitpickup @djh (somewhat) realistically, i'm hoping that Mozilla will move forward with third-party cookie blocking ( see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1898253 ), and continue working on the "Enhanced Tracking Protection", eventually forcing larger ad companies to use PPAs instead

@ptrc @bitpickup @djh To me this is a step backward. I would consider a system where my own web browser spies on me and reports the results of the spying to ad companies voluntarily objectively worse than a system where ad companies track me themselves using whatever means they have on their own computers. I am sincere about this. I do not want big brother to live in my own home.

@mcc @bitpickup @djh considering that the data doesn't go directly to advertisers, but to a magic anonymizing machine ran by Mozilla+ISRG, to me it feels more like Meta/other giant corp came to Mozilla, offering a lot of money to put tracking directly in the browser, and people at Mozilla tried to make it the least bad that they could (possibly against the will of executives); some would call it greedy, some would say it's ""necessary for Mozilla to survive""

@ptrc Okay, it goes indirectly to advertisers. So what? A company I trusted put an agent on my computer that acts on behalf of my enemy. Why does it matter whether they sent a lot of data or a little, or what path the data takes to get there?

"to me it feels more like Meta/other giant corp came to Mozilla, offering a lot of money to put tracking directly in the browser"

Yes, I agree, and that's the worst part of all. It looks very likely they literally sold me out

@ben Even more importantly for Linux users:

1. Check if the default settings have this turned off in your distribution.
2. Report a bug to your distributions bug database if it is turned by default on.

#firefox #linux #adware

@ben @vbabka For Fedora I think there was bug already ongoing (maybe even finished). Does OpenSUSE already have one?

@jarkko @ben I found this one https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1227974