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Firefox 52 Borrows One More Privacy Feature From the Tor Browser (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla engineers have added a mechanism to Firefox 52 that prevents websites from fingerprinting users using system fonts. The user privacy protection system was borrowed from the Tor Browser, where a similar mechanism blocks websites from identifying users based on the fonts installed on their computers, only returning a list of "default fonts" per each OS. While sabotaging system font queries won't stop user fingerprinting as a whole, this is just one of the latest privacy-related updates Mozilla has added to Firefox, taken from Tor. Back in July 2016, Mozilla engineers started the Tor Uplift project, which aims to improve Firefox's privacy features with the ones present in the Tor Browser.
if you don't have anything to hide, why worry about privacy?
...says the Anonymous Coward...
Hello Trump Security Council member 003421
I'm glad that you have taken interest in comrade geekmux. He has been speaking ill of Our Glorious Leader Trump for quite some time now. He will need to be sent to the Re-Edumucation Camps as soon as possible. In addition, we have reason to believe that he enjoys watching Adult Videos where interracial couples are engaging in illegal (since the racial purity act of 2019) coupling. Please be aware of the serious implications this might have on our "Christian" nation.
Please ignore the fact that the single largest denomination/sect in the US is Catholic... and as soon as you bring this fact up... "ohh no, we shouldn't become a 'Christian nation of the Catholic denomination'- nation" is said...
I'm sorry... For daring to think about facts and logic, I'll send myself to the re-edumucation camp later this evening... but please remember to enjoy trolling people who think privacy is at all important.
Everyone has something to hide. You wouldn't be happy if your bank statements arrived printed on the back of a postcard. You want that information hidden inside an envelope for your privacy.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Where do I begin...
If Firefox developers really care about privacy:
- Telemetry would NOT be enabled by default
- Safebrowsing should NOT be there (- it calls home to google for every site you visit)
- The ability to disable Javascript should NOT require installation of an extension. This option used to be there more than a couple of years ago.
- about:permissions should be a menu item.
- Get rid of the stupid intrusive 'gear' button tracking crap when you visit about:blank. The page should be completely blank!
- Go to about:blank and search for http, and search for 'social'. All this calling home to Facebook and Google garbage should NOT be there!
- Geo tracking should NOT be in a browser, and should NOT be enabled by default.
This would be just the start...
I've been wondering why browsers don't do this for years now. I mean really, it was what, several years ago when it was demonstrated how thoroughly they could fingerprint a browser based off a number of characteristics, including the font list. Why on earth would my OS's entire font list be something that my browser would broadcast to any site that asked for it?!
Browsers should work the other direction: Only give information that is needed, and in the case of fonts, just give me the site. If I have a particular font, great, if not, it gets rendered in whatever I have. I'm not concerned.
Z