I don't have first-hand experience with any of the new features, so I'm speculating here. But it doesn't look like any of the new stuff in Oreo interests me very much.
When settings like telemetry are on a preferences page, average users won't navigate to the page.
Yeah, I've noticed this myself. It baffles me a bit, because when I use a program for the firs time, the very first thing I do is examine everything on the options pages.
But then, the first thing I do when I get a new appliance or device is read the instructions (often before completely unpacking it), so I'm admittedly a freak.
This sort of thing is where prepaid credit cards really shine. Use them, and only load them with the amount of money needed for the purchase. Worst case, your losses would be limited to just that amount.
That entirely depends on who is collecting the data. With some organizations, such as Microsoft or random developers that I've never heard of, there is no amount of telemetry that is acceptable to me at all.
With others (I used to count Mozilla among these, but I'm not so sure anymore), I have enough trust in them that I'm OK with quite a lot of telemetry.
There are also things that are never OK no matter who you are: lists of files on my system, what applications I have installed or run, the contents of any file that the application does not own, etc.
Well, I still use it because -- as flawed as it is -- I haven't found anything that meets my needs better. 57 looks to be changing that equation, though. We'll see.
Considering how many people here have complained about how the Mozilla devs "don't know what we really want!! Why are they doing X??", this should be something they should consider doing.
The remaining Firefox users are pretty vocal and forceful about their desires. Mozilla doesn't need telemetry to find out what people want. They're being told outright every day.
Indeed. I always cringe when telemetry is represented as "critical" in some way.
Even setting aside the politics of privacy, it's far from clear to me that telemetry has been, on the whole, all that much of a benefit in terms of software quality. Generally speaking, software quality has been declining for years, and I often see objectively bad decisions being made on the basis of telemetry.
Good use for telemetry: getting a better understanding of how your software is malfunctioning. Bad use for telemetry: using it to make or justify "user experience" decisions.
Its sad that one setting is already making enough cry that they are talking about other browsers.
It's not this one setting -- this is more like another piece of straw being loaded on the camel's back. If this were the only unpleasant thing Mozilla was doing with Firefox, there wouldn't be such an outcry.
If so, then what do you prefer to replace JavaScript?
Personally, I'd love for there to be no replacement for JavaScript at all. That's why I love NoScript so much: it lets me disable it everywhere, but still lets me selectively enable scripts for the few sites that both require it to function and that are critical to me.
But I understand that I'm in the minority on this issue.
Not really. How you develop trust is to make it opt-in.
However, their transparency about this -- and the fact that they are providing a mechanism to opt out -- makes this less awful than it would otherwise be. It may not be trust-destroying (depending on how obvious they make the data collection and how easy they make the opt-out), but it's certainly not trust-enhancing.
and are about to protest that the above mentioned items are of no value. Nevertheless, the fact remains, that those things are the things that people want their phones for.
Indeed. I was not going to make any such protest -- if fact, I implicitly acknowledged what you said when I said "It depends on what you're using it for".
What is legally required is inadequate. That's why I say that if all you are doing is meeting the legal requirements, you aren't taking the issue seriously.
I didn't write the OS, I'm using one of the many ROMs that are available. They manage this issue. Over the years, I've used a few different flavors on a couple of different phones and, except very early on, I have never had any issues with this.
And if the Linux kernel has a vulnerability that was exploited, Home Depot would be on the hook for billions of dollars? Or if the software from a vendor included a unpatched 3rd party library (such as OpenSSL?)
Yes. Home Depot is the one representing that their systems are safe. If that turns out to be untrue, then Home Depot is the one responsible. They can turn around and reclaim damages from whoever it was that put them in that situation.
It may seem unworkable, but it isn't really. It's as close to fair as we can get. What's more fair than holding the party that damaged you responsible for that damage? Otherwise, the situation is that nobody is effectively responsible and these sorts of things will only continue and get worse as time goes on. Nothing will change unless companies are at risk of losing serious money unless they change things.
If you're using Ice Cream Sandwich or later then you can disable any app, even the ones that carriers make uninstallable. You can also root the thing and physically delete the app from storage.
Home Depot would be the party responsible from the customer's point of view -- in other words, Home Depot would be on the hook for making things right (or as right as possible).
If the underlying cause was because a company Home Depot uses messed up, then Home Depot sues them to recover their losses (including whatever they had to pay to customers). And so on and so forth.
That sounds great in theory, but if companies face more lawsuits the costs will be passed on as higher prices.
I'm perfectly OK with that.
Going to arbitration is almost always better than going to court.
That all depends on the arbitrator and how the contract is worded. If the contract says that the results of arbitration cannot be appealed in court, then it's an unacceptable risk -- particularly if you're dealing with a major corporation, where the fairness of the arbitrator is very much in doubt.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have first-hand experience with any of the new features, so I'm speculating here. But it doesn't look like any of the new stuff in Oreo interests me very much.
A lack of sufficient alternatives.
Firefox started losing market share the moment they switched to the 'release every five minutes and don't allow users to stick to old versions' model.
This. Rapid-release has been a pretty terrible thing across the board, not just with Firefox.
When settings like telemetry are on a preferences page, average users won't navigate to the page.
Yeah, I've noticed this myself. It baffles me a bit, because when I use a program for the firs time, the very first thing I do is examine everything on the options pages.
But then, the first thing I do when I get a new appliance or device is read the instructions (often before completely unpacking it), so I'm admittedly a freak.
Telemetry helps improve usability - if interpreted correctly.
This is the key. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to interpret telemetry data correctly.
Seamonkey is probably a good alternative for many people. Personally, though, I don't want an "application suite". I just want a browser.
This sort of thing is where prepaid credit cards really shine. Use them, and only load them with the amount of money needed for the purchase. Worst case, your losses would be limited to just that amount.
I was speaking narrowly about "kill switches", not about general access.
what kind of telemetry might be acceptable?
That entirely depends on who is collecting the data. With some organizations, such as Microsoft or random developers that I've never heard of, there is no amount of telemetry that is acceptable to me at all.
With others (I used to count Mozilla among these, but I'm not so sure anymore), I have enough trust in them that I'm OK with quite a lot of telemetry.
There are also things that are never OK no matter who you are: lists of files on my system, what applications I have installed or run, the contents of any file that the application does not own, etc.
Well, I still use it because -- as flawed as it is -- I haven't found anything that meets my needs better. 57 looks to be changing that equation, though. We'll see.
Considering how many people here have complained about how the Mozilla devs "don't know what we really want!! Why are they doing X??", this should be something they should consider doing.
The remaining Firefox users are pretty vocal and forceful about their desires. Mozilla doesn't need telemetry to find out what people want. They're being told outright every day.
submit feedback linking to Slashdot articles so that our comments are hopefully read.
No need. I guarantee there are quite a lot of Mozillians who regularly read /.
Indeed. I always cringe when telemetry is represented as "critical" in some way.
Even setting aside the politics of privacy, it's far from clear to me that telemetry has been, on the whole, all that much of a benefit in terms of software quality. Generally speaking, software quality has been declining for years, and I often see objectively bad decisions being made on the basis of telemetry.
Good use for telemetry: getting a better understanding of how your software is malfunctioning. Bad use for telemetry: using it to make or justify "user experience" decisions.
Its sad that one setting is already making enough cry that they are talking about other browsers.
It's not this one setting -- this is more like another piece of straw being loaded on the camel's back. If this were the only unpleasant thing Mozilla was doing with Firefox, there wouldn't be such an outcry.
If so, then what do you prefer to replace JavaScript?
Personally, I'd love for there to be no replacement for JavaScript at all. That's why I love NoScript so much: it lets me disable it everywhere, but still lets me selectively enable scripts for the few sites that both require it to function and that are critical to me.
But I understand that I'm in the minority on this issue.
This is how you develop trust.
Not really. How you develop trust is to make it opt-in.
However, their transparency about this -- and the fact that they are providing a mechanism to opt out -- makes this less awful than it would otherwise be. It may not be trust-destroying (depending on how obvious they make the data collection and how easy they make the opt-out), but it's certainly not trust-enhancing.
They really are lowering their standards.
and are about to protest that the above mentioned items are of no value. Nevertheless, the fact remains, that those things are the things that people want their phones for.
Indeed. I was not going to make any such protest -- if fact, I implicitly acknowledged what you said when I said "It depends on what you're using it for".
If updates are mandatory, and they use an update to intentionally brick your device, then the end result is identical to having a kill switch.
Yes, the mechanisms are different, but for this sort of issue, it's a distinction without a difference.
What is legally required is inadequate. That's why I say that if all you are doing is meeting the legal requirements, you aren't taking the issue seriously.
I didn't write the OS, I'm using one of the many ROMs that are available. They manage this issue. Over the years, I've used a few different flavors on a couple of different phones and, except very early on, I have never had any issues with this.
And if the Linux kernel has a vulnerability that was exploited, Home Depot would be on the hook for billions of dollars? Or if the software from a vendor included a unpatched 3rd party library (such as OpenSSL?)
Yes. Home Depot is the one representing that their systems are safe. If that turns out to be untrue, then Home Depot is the one responsible. They can turn around and reclaim damages from whoever it was that put them in that situation.
It may seem unworkable, but it isn't really. It's as close to fair as we can get. What's more fair than holding the party that damaged you responsible for that damage? Otherwise, the situation is that nobody is effectively responsible and these sorts of things will only continue and get worse as time goes on. Nothing will change unless companies are at risk of losing serious money unless they change things.
If you're using Ice Cream Sandwich or later then you can disable any app, even the ones that carriers make uninstallable. You can also root the thing and physically delete the app from storage.
The way this should work is pretty obvious.
Home Depot would be the party responsible from the customer's point of view -- in other words, Home Depot would be on the hook for making things right (or as right as possible).
If the underlying cause was because a company Home Depot uses messed up, then Home Depot sues them to recover their losses (including whatever they had to pay to customers). And so on and so forth.
That sounds great in theory, but if companies face more lawsuits the costs will be passed on as higher prices.
I'm perfectly OK with that.
Going to arbitration is almost always better than going to court.
That all depends on the arbitrator and how the contract is worded. If the contract says that the results of arbitration cannot be appealed in court, then it's an unacceptable risk -- particularly if you're dealing with a major corporation, where the fairness of the arbitrator is very much in doubt.