Annoyed with FF yet?

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BigEasy
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by BigEasy »

Little more about FF and privacy:
Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit
https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/ ... n-firefox/
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davidmedin

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by davidmedin »

No major browsers are without ads or spyware now.

Everybody has to make money in this world. Even people who work in the opensource community. You just can't live off goodwill alone.
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by BigEasy »

Where is "make money"?
About a year ago, Mozilla announced a strategic investment in Cliqz GmbH
There is spend money. For what?
delivers recommendations and other information, such as news, weather, and sports, directly into the address bar as you type
May be someone will happy to see some nonsense flickering in his address bar. I don't know...
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thx-1138
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by thx-1138 »

davidmedin wrote:No major browsers are without ads or spyware now.

Everybody has to make money in this world. Even people who work in the opensource community. You just can't live off goodwill alone.
Huh?! :shock:
Hey, maybe the gcc guys should also add ads in the compiler - they also can't live off goodwill alone...
While at it, why not also add spyware in the kernel - hey, Microsoft does it already since decades it seems... :lol:

...and before Mozilla started using dubious practices with FF (which i sincerely hope that they will abandon), exactly how did they 'earned their living' for approx 15 yrs?

There are 4 billion people with access to the net currently. Firefox has around 12.5% of the marketshare.
That is, 500 million people / possible 'targets' for the Mr. Robot ad$...

Poor Hollywood producers...we should feel sorry for them having to deal with the global economic crisis, especially now that it's Xmas days...
lmuserx4849

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by lmuserx4849 »

The link below is interesting, it seems to show the various ways Mozilla is going to use our telemetry data. The one below talks about Mozilla telling us what addons we might like. Ay Caramba!

Add-on recommendations for Firefox users: a prototype recommender system leveraging existing data sources

Collecting data in any fashion or disturbing employees would be unacceptable in a business setting. They are on the clock and being paid to work. Do businesses use Firefox? Do they compile it themselves, and are there options to not include these addons? If so, can we do that too? I'd like a barebones Firefox with no telemetry data.

Mozilla is soooo concerned about enhancing a users experience and making FF unique for each user. What if the user's experience would be enhanced without all the interferences. They just want a fast, reliable, safe browser. Rather than push this tech on them, allow the user the joy of exploring and finding out for themselves.

Looks like they are considering doing the opposite. Isn't the data already telling Mozilla what the users want, by the fact they aren't opting in.
Mozilla ponders making telemetry opt-out, 'cos hardly anyone opted in

A slashdot thread recommended compiling FF yourself. Why doesn't a distro's do it? HHHmmmm.... ;-)

Does Firefox behave this way on mobile devices and eat up minutes on a data plan.

Maybe I'll go back to lynx :-)
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by Spearmint2 »

I'd like a barebones Firefox with no telemetry data.
go into about:config area and search on terms like telemetry, onboard, http, and investigate some of those with the very long strings in them too. Remove what you don't want, and you have what you do.
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by Moem »

lmuserx4849 wrote: I'd like a barebones Firefox with no telemetry data.
Have you tried Waterfox or PaleMoon? They're pretty much that.
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trapperjohn

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by trapperjohn »

Maybe I'll go back to lynx
Hurray! I like this idea best.
sammiev

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by sammiev »

Spearmint2 wrote:
I'd like a barebones Firefox with no telemetry data.
go into about:config area and search on terms like telemetry, onboard, http, and investigate some of those with the very long strings in them too. Remove what you don't want, and you have what you do.
^^^
This is great. Thanks!
lmuserx4849

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by lmuserx4849 »

Moem wrote:
lmuserx4849 wrote: I'd like a barebones Firefox with no telemetry data.
Have you tried Waterfox or PaleMoon? They're pretty much that.
Not yet. This should be a great opportunity for those projects. I'll put them on my list to try. Thanks.

I just got a tablet and was hoping to use the same browser, and at this moment, it is still firefox. It seems like every update you have to review everything. The attitude of many projects these days is leaning towards take it or leave it, and less configurable.
lmuserx4849

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by lmuserx4849 »

Spearmint2 wrote:
I'd like a barebones Firefox with no telemetry data.
go into about:config area and search on terms like telemetry, onboard, http, and investigate some of those with the very long strings in them too. Remove what you don't want, and you have what you do.
How do businesses do it though? Are they compiling it without telemetry, or do they have customized prefs.js.

I tried Chrome for the first time. And the first thing I started looking for was additional configuring.
about:about == chrome://chrome-urls
about:config == chrome://flags

The layout is really nice and they have a description of every available and unavailable option. The one negative, they'll list it as enabled, disabled, some value, or default, but they don't tell you what the default is. The best I can tell, you have to go to the source code to find out.

I which firefox had better doc for their parms. It would make it so much faster. Some of the names you can guess, but you may still have to look up what the values/enumerations mean. I have a couple of links at mozilla, but they don't have all parms.

ghacks.net has some of the best info for staying current on what FF is doing. They have a FF privacy/security github project that uses user.js. You can read about it here https://www.ghacks.net/2017/04/30/firef ... s-changes/. There are some things you just can't change or it just breaks some sites horribly. I use the net mainly for education, reading, and mundane stuff.

The main reason I haven't gone to FF 57 in production is the lack of addons and stability, for me on LM 17.3/KDE. It was a clean install of FF with changes only made via FF GUI. I want to see how addon developers are being treated and what they think too.
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Spearmint2
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by Spearmint2 »

How do businesses do it though? Are they compiling it without telemetry, or do they have customized prefs.js.
They tend to use RedHat Enterprise Editions, and that comes with paid support, so I'd guess RedHat helps them with that.
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by BG405 »

I'm surprised no-one seems to have commented on the pop-up questions they have started using. It's intrusive & such annoyances are amongst my reasons for moving on from MS Windows and proprietary software in general.

Now, if I could stop those 3 or so add-ons from opening a web page when they are updated, causing me to lose my place .. :x
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Spearmint2
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by Spearmint2 »

What popups? I've not seen such, but I did change my FF setup immediately on update.
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aes2011
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by aes2011 »

Spearmint2 wrote:What popups? I've not seen such, but I did change my FF setup immediately on update.
Still waiting to see any pop-ups. I install ublock origin, set it to advanced user and maybe that's why I don't see any pop-ups.

Some extensions do open their respective home pages in a new tab immediately after they're installed but just the one time. greasmonkey is one. IIRC, Stylish used to do so as well. So even there, no pop-ups.
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BG405
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by BG405 »

My terminology probably wasn't quite right; I mean the banners at the top of the webpage asking about your satisfaction with Firefox etc.. Not separate pop-ups, those are blocked. I apologize for the confusion.
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by aes2011 »

BG405 wrote:My terminology probably wasn't quite right; I mean the banners at the top of the webpage asking about your satisfaction with Firefox etc.. Not separate pop-ups, those are blocked. I apologize for the confusion.
Do you keep seeing these things? I may have but it seemed like a one-off event, not persistent. And I can't recall doing anything to prevent them from reappearing.
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BG405
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Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by BG405 »

I've only seen one so far on each machine I think, maybe two on the netbook .. if they were using these notifications to announce security issues I would not mind but for user feedback, that brings back too many bad memories I'm afraid. It's a demonstration of FF's built-in telemetry at least. Perhaps I'm over-reacting.
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sammiev

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by sammiev »

Spearmint2 wrote:What popups? I've not seen such, but I did change my FF setup immediately on update.
I'm with you, not seeing any thing as such.
otacon14112

Re: Annoyed with FF yet?

Post by otacon14112 »

If someone else mentioned these already, then I apologize.

When FF57 was inflicted upon us, I knew I needed a different browser, but I liked FF, so I looked if there was a FF fork, a browser similar to FF. Pale Moon and Basilisk are derived from FF, and they use the same plug-ins FF did. Pale Moon is an updated browser that resembles FF4-28, and Basilisk is an updated version of FF29-56.

In fact, Basilisk is brand new.

http://www.palemoon.org/

http://basilisk-browser.org/
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