this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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Privacy

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Its the only thing making is a good choice, while people choose Brave, TorBrowser or Librewolf instead.

Come and join the discussion.

Firefox needs to have some courage. Get rid of all those fake funding by Ad companies. Block Ads and trackers by default. Actually. Dont use damn Google as that contract will run out anyways.

Chrome is the Google browser. Firefox simply offering nothing more (on the outside) than it.

What do you think? Do you use Firefox out of the Box? Or another browser?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firefoxes Bookmarks are privacy respecting

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh I meant all the features that might needlessly send things to a server like checking spelling as you type, recommending extensions and features as you browse, turning off search suggestions, changing search engine, turning off location requests and most autofills, suggestions from web and sponsors, turning off all data collection and use, enabling https-only mode, etc

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spell-check doesn't send things to a server in Firefox - that's Chrome (and only with a particular setting, IIRC).

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wasn’t sure about that one for FF, better safe than not. Good to know though, thanks for clarifying.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same for translations btw, Firefox didn't have built-in translations for a while because Mozilla had to painstakingly work on a research project to figure out how to do translation locally, on your machine, without sharing the page you're looking at with an external server.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Things like this make the arguments against FF getting funding from search engine companies seem even more shortsighted. That wasn’t a cheap effort at all, but well worth it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You have literally no idea what you're talking about. If can't do a simple internet search to check how Firefox's bookmarks or spellchecking work, not my problem

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Dont be mean please

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is exactly the case why Librewolf is nice. Mullvad browser is a joke, I use the VPN but the browser is not available as Flatpak and lacks the GUI settings page for enabling accounts and setting some switches.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can install Mullvad directly from its repo, not having account syncing ability or being able to turn certain things on or off is part of the security features. It’s the same for the Firefox Focus mobile browser. Mullvad is a midpoint between Librewolf and Tor Browser, incorporating letterboxing for anti-fingerprinting. If you want personal information saved for later sessions or synced, you need to use something else, like Librewolf or regular FF.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry but untrue. Firefox accounts are secure and opt-in. Private browsing is stupid and fingerprintable. So mullvadbrowser has its own fingerprint, and then also disabling private browsing will increase it.

There is no reason to do this. Private browsing is nice, an easily accessible amnesic session. But for a permanent profile just presetting

  • delete cache, history, session, downloads
  • delete cookies, dont save to disk

Is enough. Not saving stuff is irrelevant for websites targeting you.

Also, in private browsing container tabs dont work. This would make it useless for me.

Mullvadbrowser is like Torbrowser without Tor, Librewolf without PB too. They have probably the same hardening otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I hope you feel better after typing all that, because I didn’t need it.

Don’t know where all the “private browsing” stuff came in, as if I mentioned anything about using a browser’s “privacy mode”, because I didn’t.

You appear to have conflated some of what I said, but I honestly don’t care enough to figure out where. Use whatever you want, it doesn’t matter to me, but casting Mullvad browser as pointless when it just doesn’t fit your particular needs or preferences is just ignorant.

You asked what we’re using, that’s what I’m using.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No I didnt attack you or something? Huh?

I just said Mullvad is a new browser that simply copies Torbrowser but without Tor. And this is annoying as they are adding a new fingerprintable browser that is uselesd for many works because of PB, so people use plain firefox and think "privacy is uncomfortable".

Torbrowser is this "anonymity mix kit" that also forgets everything you did. I dont need that as for many threat models its not needed. But its the Torbrowser and thus has a shared fingerprint.

Switching off private browsing to then allow you to save sessions and pinned tabs for example, makes you stick out.

I wrote with the Mullvad Devs already and they dont care. They just copy torbrowser.

Librewolf is the better browser, its not branded and actually has GUI settings added. And they dont use private browsing, even though its amnesic by default, just like arkenfox.

It makes no sense to use Private browsing, and its a pain to deal with

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you done with your Ted talk?