Slashdot Mirror
NYT: 'Firefox Is Back. It's Time to Give It a Try.' (nytimes.com)
Another high-profile endorsement for Firefox -- this time from the lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times. (Alternate link here).
The web has reached a new low. It has become an annoying, often toxic and occasionally unsafe place to hang out. More important, it has become an unfair trade: You give up your privacy online, and what you get in return are somewhat convenient services and hyper-targeted ads. That's why it may be time to try a different browser.
Remember Firefox...? About two years ago, six Mozilla employees were huddled around a bonfire one night in Santa Cruz, Calif., when they began discussing the state of web browsers. Eventually, they concluded there was a "crisis of confidence" in the web. "If they don't trust the web, they won't use the web," Mark Mayo, Mozilla's chief product officer, said in an interview.... After testing Firefox for the last three months, I found it to be on a par with Chrome in most categories. In the end, Firefox's thoughtful privacy features persuaded me to make the switch and make it my primary browser.
The Times cites privacy features like Firefox's "Facebook Container," which prevents Facebook from tracking you after you've left their site.
While both Chrome and Firefox have tough security (including sandboxing), Cooper Quintin, a security researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells the Times that Google "is fundamentally an advertising company, so it's unlikely that they will ever have a business interest in making Chrome more privacy friendly."
Remember Firefox...? About two years ago, six Mozilla employees were huddled around a bonfire one night in Santa Cruz, Calif., when they began discussing the state of web browsers. Eventually, they concluded there was a "crisis of confidence" in the web. "If they don't trust the web, they won't use the web," Mark Mayo, Mozilla's chief product officer, said in an interview.... After testing Firefox for the last three months, I found it to be on a par with Chrome in most categories. In the end, Firefox's thoughtful privacy features persuaded me to make the switch and make it my primary browser.
The Times cites privacy features like Firefox's "Facebook Container," which prevents Facebook from tracking you after you've left their site.
While both Chrome and Firefox have tough security (including sandboxing), Cooper Quintin, a security researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells the Times that Google "is fundamentally an advertising company, so it's unlikely that they will ever have a business interest in making Chrome more privacy friendly."
Firefox was ditched for the same set of reasons that Netscape was ditched:
- Both Firefox and Netscape had become or were perceived as slow and bloated compared to the competition. I vividly remember my eye twitching back in the late 90s during my phone tech support days when I heard a fellow phone jockey recommend Internet Explorer 3 to a customer over Netscape because it was 'so much faster'. This was back in the 28.8/56k dial-up era, so take that into account. Chrome is widely perceived to be faster and more powerful at running webapps than Firefox... and regardless of the reality, this perception goes top to bottom. Developers frequently choose to develop against Chrome and then test against Firefox... if they bother to test against Firefox.
- Privacy, browser configuration, and Internet safety are widely perceived to be 'too difficult'. This was as true in the 90s as it is today. People are intimidated by the reality of what it takes to be safe and private on the Internet and/or far too lazy to learn to configure their browser. Netscape and Mozilla have never quite made it as easy to 'click click click dubya dubya dubya' as their competition. Microsoft and Google both are much better at hand-holding... and leading their 'customers' down the garden path. Installing ad or script blockers *seems* more intimidating on Firefox than similar plugins for Chrome because Google has successfully 'App-Store-Ized' their plugin ecosystem.
- Netscape and Firefox have never been 'The Internet'. Microsoft did its damndest to make sure that Windows users all directly equated that blue 'e' icon with 'The Internet'. Google is its own damn verb. Both companies' marketing divisions have made very good pushes to make themselves synonymous with 'The Internet'.
- Netscape and Mozilla have never had a strong pre-install base. Every Windows Install since 95 has come with IE. Every Android device comes with Chrome. Most folks simply can't be assed to install another browser. Sad but true. If Firefox ever wants to become really relevant, it's going to have to get some kind of mainstream pre-install base going. We're not talking Linux distros here. They're going to have to pull off the Firefox equivalent of an 'Android OS' or 'Chromebook'. It's doable, but Mozilla is not strongly steered the way Microsoft was or Google is. Moz has a long history of dropping the soap far too often.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It's hard to filter out Facebook
The Facebook Container makes it easy.
Of course they can still see that you come from the same IP address, but if all Facebook traffic is passed through a proxy then it won't do them any good.
Tor is being integrated into Firefox. So once that happens Firefox can offer this out of the box and the Tor project will no longer have to maintain Tor Browser.
So is mine. It still shoves "pages recommended by pocket" in my face when I start typing in an address.
Why does chrome need 4 processes before it displays a home/start page?
It's been a few years since I looked, but as I recall:
For something that deals with as much untrusted data and code as a web browser, I'd want it to be compartmentalised as much as possible.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Install uMatrix. Now you have "NoScript" and much more (uMatrix = NoScript + RequestPolicy)
uMatrix is vastly superior to NoScript. I use uMatrix on Firefox.
So is mine. It still shoves "pages recommended by pocket" in my face when I start typing in an address.
Try setting these about:config values to stop Pocket:
browser.pocket.api = ""
browser.pocket.enabled = false
browser.pocket.oAuthConsumerKey = ""
browser.pocket.site = ""
extensions.pocket.api = ""
extensions.pocket.enabled = false
extensions.pocket.oAuthConsumerKey = ""
extensions.pocket.site = ""
In Cyberfox, it kills it dead here.
--
If this is paradise, I wish I had a shovel.
I have a different opinion.
Quantum made Firefox good again.
It's fast again and finally keeps its memory usage in check.
There are no plugins I was using before Quantum that either weren't updated to work with Quantum or that I actually missed.
For each feature that is kinda stupid and I don't care to use (like Pocket), you can disable it, plus there's another feature that actually is useful that alternatives don't have (like Containers).
And I love that privacy is actually a concern that Mozilla is caring about.
I don't value pockets functionality so i remove the icon. And I thought it was idiotic that it was integrated instead of left as a 3rd party extension.. but...
As far as I can tell, Pocket operates locally; while the pocket extension functionality in the browser does track you *locally*, its about as evil as the firefox "history" list, which is to say: not even slightly evil.
Neither Mozilla nor Pocket receives a copy of your browser history. The entire process of sorting and filtering which stories you should see happens locally in your copy of Firefox.
https://help.getpocket.com/art...
Near as I can tell, the list of all pocket recommends is sent to you. Your local browser then filters and sorts the list by comparing it to that. Your history and preferences aren't sent to pocket in this process.
Read how it works for yourself. What part specifically do you object to? What am I missing?
Pocket Privacy Policy
Snippet 1:
And above it in a separate paragraph:
and in that same paragraph:
They are collecting this information and telling you they aren't going to use it for anything bad; this always results in they sell your information at some point. I find it *really* hard to believe it's anonymous, as on mobile devices it captures your advertising ID on iOS and Android.
There's a reason people wanted this to stay as an extension.