@privacyguides collaborators, it’s time to review the recommendation of Firefox as a good browser option…
From: @sarahjamielewis
https://mastodon.social/@sarahjamielewis/113245689258934184
I fully understand this to be a controversial take, but I think it is important to acknowledge that not all advertisement is the same. While I dislike all forms of advertisement, I only take issue with non ethical ones, which are based on surveillance. I don’t have any ethical concern with contextual advertisement which is how some search engines provide advertisement, such as giving advertisement for food when searching for food.
But it is also critically important that extensions remain a part of the browser, to give a certain level of control to the person navigating the web instead of just allowing any website to freely track our activities.
I don’t know what the path forward is for Mozilla. Google is unlikely to be able to fund Mozilla the way it has until now as a recent ruling which has deemed google as a monopolistic actor clawing at its default status everywhere it can. This was a major founding source for Mozilla. They need to figure out financing and while it is easy to criticize, we must also recognize the challenge it is to give sustainable and important funding sources to Mozilla. I really wish I had an answer… Can it somehow depend exclusively on its users for donations? Should It sell support services? Should it branch into more lucrative areas? If yes, which ones? It may need to be a combination thereof but for now, I’m personally blinded. We need to get together on this, because if we can’t help Mozilla, can we help anyone who might fall into this situation?
Fuck advertisers at this point.
Maybe in 1999 I was still with you, but they’ve continually shown, not just disregard for out concerns, but a flat out “fuck you” malicious adversarialism.
So fuck all advertisers at this point. Every fucking last one of them.
I will block them every way I can. I will poison their tracking. I will do everything I can to fuck with them.
Don’t be an apologist for their bullshit.
And if you bring up the “well websites will cost you then”. That’s a whole lotta not my problem. If you want to host a server, that’s your problem how to pay for it.
I currently pay for my internet, and you want me to subsidize your ads by paying my ISP to deliver those ads.
I also pay for my own VPS, and related services, for stuff I want to do, such as provide some services to family and friends. Should I serve ads to them to subsidize my server costs?
I don’t think there’s a reality where advertising disappears entirely. However I do think there is one where advertising is simply less-invasive, which is what companies like Mozilla, Brave, and Ad Nauseum advocate for.
@helenslunch @BearOfaTime Advocating for less intrusive advertising while tracking their users.
What?
@helenslunch that’s what Mozilla is doing with their “less intrusive advertising” they’re tracking their users at the same time.
“Mozilla has enabled a so-called privacy preserving attribution (PPA) feature that turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites without directly telling its users.”
Not really. The browser is tracking the user. All user activity remains local in the browser.
When a user interacts with an ad or advertiser, a record of that interaction is… sent to two independently operated services.
The browser should not be aiding it, regardless of how nice it acts. The most important extensions - by a fucking mile - are ad-blockers. They represent a crystal clear separation of websites delivering data versus what the user chooses to do with it. All threats to that distinction are a foot in the door for losing control of how your computer does what you want.
Quite frankly Mozilla’s been an obstacle to Firefox for many years. I don’t trust them and I don’t like them. This is yet another desperate pivot that squanders some of their vanishing goodwill and market share.
Agreed. Nothing wrong with contextual advertising.
And if they succeed at their goal than maybe, one day, we can finally get wrid of those horrible cookie banners.
Just linking the blog post for reference:https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/
If a company is unethical, they will ignore the Mozilla standard. If a company is ethical, they don’t need the Mozilla standard, as they can adopt their own tracking-free methods of serving ads.
I have been told repeatedly by Firefox advertisement advocates that PPA only affects people that don’t use ad blockers, so it allegedly only affects people that are already blasted by tracking networks to the fullest extent possible, while people who use ad blockers wouldn’t see the supposedly less invasive ads anyway. So it’s either 100% tracking to 110% tracking, or 0% tracking to 0% tracking. Seems like a lose-lose scenario for both sides of the equation.
I have to disagree for 2 reasons:
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What’s the alternative? We cant evaluate browsers in a vacuum.
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Every browser is supported by ads. Advertising has been a part of Firefox since its inception. Im not sure why people are only just now realizing this, I’ve been saying it for years. I dont know that there’s another feasible way to fund development.
We can easily recommend one of the many Firefox forks. Personally I’ve been enjoying Zen browser, which has telemetry disabled and cannot be enabled.
Otherwise we’ll have to wait for Ladybird to be finished.
@helenslunch @jecogeo Mullvad Browser is an excellent alternative to Firefox as well, it’s a fork of the Tor Browser built to help avoid mass surveillance.
Mullvad is great but also breaks ~20% of sites.
If those sites are designed to break in the presence of privacy protection, is that a bug or a feature?
Ask that question again when it’s a site that you need to use.
Well then I guess it’s just a question of whether or not I’m willing to suspend my morals/privacy to access this hypothetical thing I hypothetically need. But in that case, how hard is it really to just dig up and use your OS’ default browser?
That’s up to you
@Reddfugee42 @helenslunch its a feature, they want to steal your data, or serve you personalized ads, or reveal your identity to nullify your privacy.
Websites that respect your privacy don’t require you to give up anything to use their services. Such as Mullvad.
@helenslunch I haven’t had any issues using Mullvad Browser for browsing any website but I have experienced websites that block MullvadVPN when WireGuard obfuscation is turned “On”. When setting it to “Automatic” or “Off” it resolved the issue.
Haven’t experienced any websites breaking since. 🫠
Edit: With the exception to banks because banks but that’s a given with their hate for all VPN’s.
How about Reddit or DeviantArt? I’ve noticed issues with each of those
@LWD Reddit works just fine as long as I don’t have TOR turned on and its not behind another VPN as well, they don’t take kindly to TOR and double VPN. I just accessed Reddit to verify and it does work just fine.
I don’t normally use DeviantArt but…I just checked and it blocks you if you have Ads blocked in the DNS content blocker. Looks like they really want to get you those advertisements. Otherwise I can access Deviantart with Mullvad as well.
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not all advertisement is the same
Yes it is.
I’m not a gamer, but if I wanted to start gaming companies have turned me off from even trying. What is this shit that you pay (PAY) for a game, but you don’t own it? Gamers need to walk away from this en mass.
PG lists Brave, which is developed by a literal ad company. Not defending/condemning Mozilla’s recent decisions but being involved in ad industry is clearly not a dealbreaker for PG maintainers/contributors.
I’m honestly more surprised Vivaldi is not listed as an alternative. 1Password is recommended as a password manager, so Vivaldi being closed source should not be the problem.
