LWD

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Firefox version 126 introduces search data telemetry collection and enhanced copy without site tracking option ( blog.mozilla.org )

With the latest version of Firefox for U.S. desktop users, we’re introducing a new way to measure search activity broken down into high level categories. This measure is not linked with specific individuals and is further anonymized using a technology called OHTTP to ensure it can’t be connected with user IP addresses....

LWD ,

It looks like they're just searching for people who will respond positively to their foregone decision to add the Shopping tool. I don't know how else to read that post, especially with how the team is interacting with the responses.

(Is that AI-generated spam in the replies too?)

LWD ,

Tor is Firefox, why are you calling it "a shit-quality browser" while defending Mozilla so hard

LWD ,

Lemmy has quite a few unfortunately invasive qualities of its own, including generally needing an email address from you (Reddit does not), having poor privacy and data retention practices, and generally being very messy with who gets to decide what happens with your data and how easily it can be scraped.

Sure, Reddit sells it... But Lemmy gives it to any web scraper for free.

LWD , (edited )

...And attitudes like this towards privacy will keep Lemmy from progressing to a point where those issues will be fixed.

I have a fundamental problem with giant corporations scraping user data without user consent. That's a system-level issue. It doesn't become "good" just because they get to scrape without consent for free.

LWD ,

I have a few suggestions for development concerns off the top of my head:

  • Scrub post metadata* after users request its deletion
  • Auto-purge deleted content* rather than letting it sit behind a "deleted" flag (something Facebook got a ton of flak for doing)
  • Auto-purge deleted media*
  • Consider seriously limiting opening data wide for scraping, since the problem is non-consensual scraping, not payment for non-consensual scraping

* either immediately or, to prevent spam, after some time

LWD ,

If we take "unlimited unauthenticated API access shouldn't be possible" for granted, I'm unfortunately not all that technically competent about what can be done next.

The first thing that comes to mind is treating website access and app access differently, maybe limiting app API access by default for people who haven't logged in.

Or creating a separate bot API that's rolled out across all servers at some point in the future... And I know federation could pose some serious chokepoints here so that's where my speculation ends.

LWD ,

You can multi-select regular tabs to add them to a collection, but not private ones. And even if you did add each private tabs to a collection one at a time, the "open tabs" option only opens them as regular tabs, not private ones.

Instead of private tabs, have you considered

  • using the "delete browsing data on quit" option in Firefox, or
  • downloading a second browser like Mull with that option enabled for your "private tabs" instead of Firefox?
LWD ,

Pretty much any email masking tool that gives you more than 5 domains for free, especially considering several do this for free (Addy, DDG, Ironvest).

LWD ,

Any idea why pravda(.)me, with 33 users, is listed as the 4th biggest Mastodon server when I sort by users on that site?

LWD ,

You're right, it was a mobile UI issue with the columns/column labels. It's showing the active number, but with the "users" header. It works all right in desktop mode.

LWD ,

You've got two options:

  • Fight back with ad blockers. Tubular or ReVanced on Android, uBlock Origin on PCs.
  • Pay up. (This is the unethical option.)
LWD ,

What's the best browser to recommend to people who want to dump Brave but either can't or won't switch to Firefox, due to things like unoptimal behavior of sites like YouTube while playing games, for example?

The best I've come up with is Thorium, a de-Googled Chromium fork, optimized for speed.

LWD ,

Live streams will stutter badly when a game is going on, something I have experienced in Firefox but not Chrome.

And of course Chromium has billions of dollars at its disposal while Mozilla can't even accept donations from users for Firefox so it's not exactly surprising that the browser with worse funding and management doesn't run as well.

LWD ,

To paraphrase Louis Rossman, he doesn't need the fraction of a penny he'd get from you wasting your time, and if YouTube wants your money then they should earn it.

LWD ,

Good for Mozilla owning up to two bugs and already reversing one. Sometimes accidents happen.

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    LWD ,

    Are you using it? You don’t have to, although I understand it offers quite the proposition in terms of value.

    You may also need to worry about anti-cheat systems and how much access they give themselves to your system.

    LWD ,

    Never underestimate the power of a company to exploit you. Maybe they won’t, but nobody saw AI getting trained on every word we write either.

    (Gaben, if you’re reading this and you mean no harm, then tighten up your privacy policy).

    Under the FISA expansion, what exactly should I worry about, how do I manage privacy?

    Hello everyone, with the unfortunate passing of the FISA expansion, I was left with a few questions. I tried to research it, and to me, it seems like they are beefing up surveillance with routers and ISPs (correct me if I’m wrong.) Aside from having businesses stalk you when you use their WiFi (connected with ISPs.)...

    LWD ,

    How do you figure you need to trust it more than both your ISP and your government? I understand how it gets as much data as your ISP traditionally does, and that means you need to trust it as much as an ISP…

    …But I have a very poor opinion of any ISP that operates on regional monopolies (as is common in the United States), and those are probably linked directly to the NSA a la PRISM anyway. I imagine a VPN, even a mediocre one outside the Eyes countries’ jurisdiction, frustrates this.

    LWD ,

    Last time I checked, Ukraine is fighting a war against a Russian invasion.

    During World War II, the US censored pictures of dead soldiers until 1943. And that was without a war happening on American soil.

    LWD ,

    “The people being invaded need to behave better” is one way people justify brutality against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. And despite the argument working better on Hamas, I reject it there too.

    In both situations, the chaos is being caused by the invading country, and the onus is on the invader to leave.

    You said “LOL” about Ukraine not getting to join the EU, but that was the same attitude the US and Israel had towards UNESCO for daring to admit Palestine as a member state in 2011.

    LWD ,

    In Gaza, I think the claim is “The invasion doesn’t stop the corrupt Hamas government from stealing food”…

    Again, the solution is the invading country leaves and stops interfering.

    LWD ,

    I’m guessing that due to the small size of Lemmy and the political nature of this post, there might be a lot of visitors who aren’t aware of how bad Telegram is at protecting privacy.

    From TechCrunch:

    Telegram has disclosed names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels

    It shouldn’t have had that data available to begin with…

    LWD ,

    That didn’t stop you from speculating earlier.

    LWD ,

    In 2014, Ukraine overthrew a corrupt Russian puppet president and called for a new election. Instead of participating, the puppet fled, and Ukrainians discovered his palace.

    Were you aware of this?

    LWD ,

    It’s interesting how the biggest comments either pretend there is no war, or remove Ukrainian self-determination from discussion of it.

    Seems kind of like those people who try to lump in Palestinians in Gaza with some imaginary monolith of “all Muslims” in the middle east.

    LWD , (edited )

    It removed a Russian puppet leader. Now there is no foreign puppet in charge of the country. This alone is a huge change, doesn’t sound like it’s “merely” a shift.

    Edit: more significant than even I thought.

    Using LGBT rights and antisemitism (and even censorship!) as a metric, I’m pretty sure you would agree that leaning towards “pro western” values is preferable to what Russia is doing in their country and to their puppet states.

    LWD ,

    Ukrainians wanted Yanukovich, the most unpopular and probably most corrupt Ukrainian president, gone.

    Despite attempts to treat Ukrainians as lesser beings by pointing to an imaginary puppet master, they did this on their own accord, and only 4.9% of them wanted him to return.

    LWD ,

    I think you misunderstand me. The Ukrainians made their own choice in 2014. There was no US “coup”. That’s the year Russia’s puppet was removed, and the year Putin turned to an invasion.

    LWD ,

    Apparently people like you have bought so deeply into imperialist thought that you can’t fathom anybody being independent outside of a great national power.

    Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania, therefore Oceania must have been responsible.

    LWD ,

    The call proves nothing.

    For comparison, white supremacists believe Jews are engineering the end of the “white race” because of a piece of paper in an SPLC office. This also proves nothing.

    LWD ,

    Are you anti genocide?

    theintercept.com/…/welcome-to-chechnya-gay-men/

    LWD ,

    Have you tried a fresh Firefox profile to make sure this is a browser issue and not a configuration mistake?

    LWD ,

    Expounding on previous suggestions…

    “On iOS” is rough because you’re at the mercy of whatever incredibly limited experience Apple allows. Safari is the only real browser on your phone and it can be subjected to limited ad blocking, followed by your system (phone or tablet) with something like AdGuard.

    If you’re on a particular home WiFi network, you can also add your own DNS filter using something like PiHole.

    LWD ,

    Just the world’s biggest election between a popular, incumbent president associated with the color orange and religious nationalism, versus a disorganized opposition. And fake news is a problem.

    LWD , (edited )

    AI insights, screenshot here.

    It’s probably feeding the page or selection context into, if their other behavior is any indicator, ChatGPT on your behalf. (And when Mozilla tried to push that on developers, they hated it.)

    I’ve looked through the Mozilla blog post about the sidebar, but for some reason they don’t mention it, including when people ask.

    Mozilla has been obsessed with AI. Between all their investments and their purchase of a trend-chasing AdTech company, FakeSpot.

    On a post by the FakeSpot founder about AI:

    We must wake up to this revolution, this Enlightenment v2 of our times. It will require ingenuity, novel approaches and risk calculations with a pioneering spirit. We will need to work together on new protocols, foundational elements and beyond; innovations and standards that that will be used for generations to come. Let’s meet these challenges head-on, together, ensuring that the future of AI benefits all of humanity.

    According to a semi-hidden post by the same guy, FakeSpot was also trying to get into NFT shilling:

    As crypto enthusiasts and web3 believers, we… brought our Fakespot model and mission in protecting consumers into the NFT world.

    And before all that? Figuring out how to scrape data better.

    Ah Mozilla.

    LWD ,

    I’m not the person you asked, but one big standout feature for me is tab groups. It’s a little tedious compared to the Google Chrome implementation, but it works.

    LWD ,

    It could function as a nicotine patch for people who have a Schüllian obsession with Twitter.

    LWD ,

    I have so many bookmarks that Firefox punishes me for it on mobile devices – by making folder organization as tedious as possible, and not showing tags at all.

    Safest way of using WeChat on Android?

    I live in Canada. My girlfriend is Chinese (also living in Canada), and while we are able to communicate via SMS, her mobile carrier isn’t the best, and so there have often been issues for us with regular texting. She expressed a strong preference to use WeChat, at least as a backup option for when texting fails us. While I...

    LWD ,

    Probably an iPhone user.

    Or otherwise concerned about using an app banned by the state.

    LWD ,

    If you’re in the US and mostly worried about one app, you can probably devote a Work folder via an app like Shelter to a GF.

    LWD ,

    Don’t all providers have the ability to filter things?

    Personally I have very few problems with DNS providers filtering out malware, that sounds like a benefit to me.

    LWD ,

    I can do this in like 5 seconds with my PiHole and not only am I not a network engineer, I would encourage people to never employ me as such.

    So for an actual business that has a bigger budget than me ($0) and more hours to devote to it than me (.02), shouldn’t it be less of a problem?

    Lemmy.ml: Shouldn't Firefox have a built-in UI to export and import addon data?

    Addons have to implement their own ways to backup and import data, it can be very tedious to do so when using multiple or switching profiles. It wouldn’t be possible to just copy and paste profile folders, like from Firefox Nightly to regular Firefox (since the Firefox version is too new), from Firefox to Floorp, or vice versa...

    LWD ,

    As an independently developed tool, I bet it already exists.

    I don’t think things would be purpose built to allow it in Firefox, or the line between backup/restore and synchronization would start to blur, and that opens a whole new world of problems.

    Are you running a Tor Relay?

    Hiya, so been on the lookout for different services that I could help host for others to benefit from. I think TOR is a great project, and I’d like to contribute. So been thinking about hosting a TOR relay lately, and wondering how people’s experience is with running one? Please correct me if I’m wrong - but as far as I...

    LWD ,

    All you need is a web browser running Snowflake to help people connect to Tor!

    snowflake.torproject.org

    relay.love

    LWD ,

    Correct. This is one article that goes over a multi-hop VPN that’s sort of relevant regarding how you, as somebody in the middle of this process, would not see what is being relayed even if you’re closer to the end-user.

    (Obviously this isn’t quite as far as Tor goes, but at least it explores the principle.)

    https://invisv.com/img/relay.png

    LWD ,

    It’s a valiant effort to allow functionality for window tiling, but like the name suggests it’s for arranging things on a screen. It can’t really facilitate two windows behalf as if they’re one window split in two.

    LWD ,

    Floorp is just using Side View? I didn’t realize.

    LWD ,

    I was just curious because I’m pretty sure Sidebery is used in their implementation of a sidebar, in a not-so-under-the-hood way.

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