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Firefox Gets Privacy Boost By Disabling Proximity and Ambient Light Sensor APIs (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the welcome-change dept.

Stating with Firefox 60 -- expected to be released in May 2018 -- websites won't be able to use Firefox to access data from sensors that provide proximity distances and ambient light information. From a report: Firefox was allowing websites to access this data via the W3C Proximity and Ambient Light APIs. But at the start of the month, Mozilla engineers decided to disable access to these two APIs by default. The APIs won't be removed, but their status is now controlled by two Firefox flags that will ship disabled by default. This means users will have to manually enable the two flags before any website can use Firefox to extract proximity and ambient light data from the device's underlying sensors. The two flags will be available in Firefox's about:config settings page. The screenshot below shows the latest Firefox Nightly version, where the two flags are now disabled, while other sensor APIs are enabled.

3 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. What are these API for? by Chatterton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why does these API have been created for? I don't really se a use case for them :( What other API are being put in without any really interesting use-case?

  2. Stop putting the operating system in the browser. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    We don't need all these APIs. Just disable everything by default and provide just static web pages for 99% of web browsing and provide opt in explicit consent for the small amount of use case that actually need scripting. I'm tempted to fork the web and provide a modern equivalent of gopher.

    Waterfox and Pale Moon, if your listening, disable your APIs by default and get away from Mo$illa Spyfox.

  3. Why was this even possible? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why the hell would there even be APIs to allow websites to interrogate information about your machine?

    The answer to any website asking for anything more than the user agent should be no, sorry, fuck off.

    I can't imagine why any of this information should ever be given to a damned website.