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Mozilla Launches Firefox Focus, a Stripped-Down Private Browser For iOS (venturebeat.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the what-more-do-you-need dept.

Krystalo quotes a report from VentureBeat: Mozilla today launched a new browser for iOS. In addition to Firefox, the company now also offers Firefox Focus, a browser dedicated to user privacy that by default blocks many web trackers, including analytics, social, and advertising. You can download the new app now from Apple's App Store. If you're getting a huge feeling of deja vu, that's because in December 2015, Mozilla launched Focus by Firefox, a content blocker for iOS. The company has now rebranded the app as Firefox Focus, and it serves two purposes. The content blocker, which can still be used with Safari, remains unchanged. The basic browser, which can be used in conjunction with Firefox for iOS, is new. Firefox Focus is basically just an iOS web view with tracking protection. If you shut it down, or iOS shuts it down while it's in the background, the session is lost. There's also an erase button if you want to wipe your session sooner. But those are really the only features -- there's no history, menus, or even tabs.

35 comments

  1. Nice by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    Nice. If "stripped down" means none of the useless bells and whistles, just simple functionality, I'm all for it.
    The privacy part doesn't hurt, too.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Nice by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      They probably just removed the UI. Or made it so low contrast you can't see it anyway.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re: Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CLI web browser? That is just crazy enough to work!

    3. Re: Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lynx anyone?

    4. Re: Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used it to search on web on android, shitty limited mobile plan.

    5. Re: Nice by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      A CLI is a still a UI, even if it's not a GUI.

      It will just do what it thinks you want, or what it thinks you *should* want.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. PC version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there a PC version of it?

    1. Re:PC version? by SeaFox · · Score: 2

      They should release it for other platforms and call it Phoenix.

    2. Re:PC version? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      They should release it for other platforms and call it Phoenix.

      That name is already taken by a BIOS manufacturer. How about "firebird"?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:PC version? by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      Ah, you're right. I forgot about the reason that happened.

  3. Worth noting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Worth noting that without encryption this doesn't hinder people on your local network, your ISP or, say, the NSA from being able to see what you're doing online.

  4. Check the setting before you use by wafflemonger · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

    It phones home by default. Turn off telemetry if that bothers you.

    1. Re:Check the setting before you use by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      "Telemetry" isn't necessarily antithetical to privacy. It just means companies can see how their users collectively use their products. Effective telemetry really has no use for personally identifiable data anyhow, because it's most often analyzed collectively. For instance, you might look at percentage of users who keep x number of tabs open on average, or how long those tabs tend to stay open, or how often a user digs into advance settings. Knowing things like this can help to design better user interfaces... Okay, maybe that's a bad example with Mozilla, but you get the idea.

      Unfortunately, we can thank Microsoft for turning "telemetry" into a dirty word by stuffing it down users' throats and not giving people a way of opting out.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:Check the setting before you use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is not Telemetry, not even with MS. The problem is being quiet about it, not telling the user what data is sent, when it's sent, and enabling it by default. I have no reason to trust even Mozilla that their telemetry data is innocent. Until they provide a clear specification of the telemetry data, and a UI to verify it, I will assume that they'll log and send home every single keystroke, every visited site, every single click

    3. Re:Check the setting before you use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Until they provide ..., and a UI to verify it, ...

      UI provided by them could show anything they want.

      A better setup would be not phoning home directly, but instead sending the messages to another, replaceable component. This would mean you could replace the default phone-home implementation with a third-party implementation, or even implement it yourself, and thus avoid conflict of interests. Even better if the default component would be such, possibly provided by the platform itself.

  5. Apple by DarkOx · · Score: 2

    Why bother, until Apple allows someone to build a browser that isn't just a thin wrapper around their one webkit library who cares?

    I mean what is the point, its as if you can offer much in terms of experience on a phone. Its probably the one place where a web browser really should be stripped of just about any UI other than a combine address/search bar, which is the trend everywhere anyway. As far as 'privacy' you are one IOS update away from Apple deciding to break it utterly by having webviews cache update typed word suggestions, or otherwise spew data all over the place.

    Its all a big waste of time really.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    1. Re:Apple by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Apple is bound to make some distinct changes over time, if their marketing aim is to sell you privacy, rather than selling your privacy, they will need to make series of background changes to promote that, including listing warnings on apps from the store. They can not sell your privacy if they take a commission on apps that sell your privacy. The big question is what kind of market premium can be charged for privacy assurance, 25%, 50% or even 100%, this over troll works like Windows anal probe 10. That privacy premium will not be cheap but many will pay for it, seriously who wants to prostitute their private life to get some bullshit token fuck all discount.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The effort is also parasitical on Mozilla's core product, since none of the effort spent helps to improve the actual Firefox browser. This is a completely separate thing, and judging by the fact that Firefox's development isn't going as fast as it should, and Firefox still regularly hangs and crashes, Mozilla shouldn't be distracted by things like this.
      I won't deny that Iphone users might find this software useful, but the average Firefox user runs Windows on his desktop and Android on his phone. Let the Apple users take care of themselves. Even the overhead at Mozilla of just presiding over it is wasted. Even if they spent no development on it, it has to come up in meetings, be on the website, and so on. For zero benefit of the typical Firefox user and for zero benefit to Firefox's code base.

    3. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "...and Firefox still regularly hangs and crashes,..."
      Um, I've been using Firefox ever since it was NCSA Mosaic, and in over 20 years, I can count the times that it crashed on one hand, with a couple of fingers left over. (It is indeed so rare for me, that instances stand out. The last time, about two years ago, was an Ad for AT&T on BestBuy.)
      Now before I get into "You're doing it all wrong...", well, are you doing it all wrong? Do you have a favorite set for years, of Extensions and Plugins, that you simply can't do without? Maybe that is your problem. Or maybe, on whatever platform and versions that you don't mention directly, because griping and not details are all important on Slashdot, you have a hardware problem. What other applications crash regularly, and under what circumstances? (For some reason, when I exceed 17GB in Virtual Memory, I start getting Beachballs. Yes, a Mac. But since I pay attention to Memory Management, once some application starts sucking Memory, I just quit it and start again. Usually, it's Safari. I very rarely Shut Down, just Sleep, but still, maybe every four months or so, I Reboot just out of principle. Uptime on my Server Mac Mini, is, just a moment... 484 days...)
      Or maybe it's the choice of Websites that you go to. Can you pin any of them down as being particularly troublesome?
      And if you are still viewing Adobe Flash, well, you are just plain hopeless.

      I'm pretty good at troubleshooting, as are many others here. There are those that aren't, (Ahem, discussions.apple.com), so some personal research is involved.
      But I can infer that you are a Windows/Android User, and not a particularly knowledgeable one:
      "I won't deny that Iphone users might find this software useful, but the average Firefox user runs Windows on his desktop and Android on his phone."
      So what the fuck are you are you doing in this conversation? Oh, I get it, "...because griping and not details are all important on Slashdot,...", you just had to shit on something that you can't have, Loser.

      And yes, I'll be trying this new Firefox Focus on my iPad, because Shiny.

    4. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incredibly this app doesn’t work on an iPhone 5, ok on a 5s.

      Weird

    5. Re:Apple by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      I have 4GB of RAM on my primary 64 bit workstation. Firefox overeats the RAM (sometimes more than 60%) forcing the machine into a cruel hours-long swap-trashing before eventually killing firefox anyway unless I invoke firefox with a memory limitation. Even with the limit, firefox just crashes when it is exceeded.
      I also have 2GB of RAM on my primary 32 bit laptop. Firefox happily uses just 20% of the RAM and never crashes, ever.
      Same OS on both (although 64 bit on the 64 bit machine), and nearly identical usage. Firefox 64 bit memory handling seems to still be buggy.

    6. Re:Apple by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Firefox overeats the RAM (sometimes more than 60%) forcing the machine into a cruel hours-long swap-trashing before eventually killing firefox anyway unless I invoke firefox with a memory limitation. Even with the limit, firefox just crashes when it is exceeded.

      Forgot to mention: this happens at *least* once a week, either way. Often twice a week if I have other memory intensive processes running (usually don't).

    7. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why they started calling a web browser without Gecko (or Servo) "Firefox" is way beyond me.
      And now there's even two of them! Oh my, when will this madness ever stop? :-(

    8. Re:Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm running it on Win7, I don't use extensions or plug-ins, have no web pages set to open on start-up, the only setting I changed from the default was the new tab page, which I set to empty, and it crashes about twice a month. It's also the only application I use that regularly crashes; the previous crash in another application than Firefox was Morrowind, about six months ago. Is that enough detail, you arrogant prick?

  6. Re:I don't want a god damn fucking "app". by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    For that you would need hardware without the walled app garden.
    No phone home to the gov or mil, no demands to use the cloud, no SJW corrections, no junk encryption.
    Any modern laptop that boots into a more freedom supporting OS.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  7. PC version known as Firebird. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Firebird will protect your data, only runs for a moment and not long enough to allow any kind of 3rd appkicatiin to steal data. Im waiting for a Firefox server application tgat i can use something like a client to remotely login so as if im browsing locally from a foreign country.

      On the obverse, a virtual machine Linux sandbox with a vpn and Firefox is all you can trust, as a local application server.

  8. The Importance of Lying. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i disagree. Telemetry is a stream of data going from you to everybody who's fishing in the upstream. A determined adversary might use machine learning / statistical modeling to correlate it with other streams of data from the user, that he might get access to in next N years. A state-sponsored adversary will do all of that in bulk and cross-reference it with alooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of data.

    EVERY extra piece of data, describing whatever state your computer has, that leaves your computer without explicit need is terrible practice, in every way.

    Its a good idea to fake all unique identifiers, or generate a new set of them per some event. So that asus motherboard reports that its gigabyte, mac address on all wireless cards are randomised on disconnect... browser reports a bsd system with mutilated firefox as win10 with edge.. browser itself does random searches invisible to the user and clicks things etc.

  9. Focus by Firefox gone by Culture20 · · Score: 1

    "Focus by Firefox" no longer exists in Apple's app store, just Firefox Focus.

  10. Works well by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

    I downloaded it and I like it. I did immediately turn off the "anon stats phone home" stuff.

  11. and yahoo is baked in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no way change it's default search engine which is yahoo. And we all know how great yahoo is on privacy. *rolls eyes*

    At least you can tap the search/address "button" and manually type in duckduckgo which does a much better job of respecting your privacy.
    But DDG by default is a bit leaky. You don't get the full benefit of DDG privacy until your tweak it's settings and let it store a cookie on your system.

    This little browser is putting a bandaid over your cancerous gunshot wound.