STOCKHOLM, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Vienna-based advocacy group NOYB on Wednesday said it has filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Mozilla accusing the Firefox browser maker of tracking user behaviour on websites without consent.
NOYB (None Of Your Business), the digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, said Mozilla has enabled a so-called “privacy preserving attribution” feature that turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites without directly telling its users.
Mozilla had defended the feature, saying it wanted to help websites understand how their ads perform without collecting data about individual people. By offering what it called a non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking, it hoped to significantly reduce collecting individual information.
Hope this results in Firefox changing it to be opt in and not result in Firefox going the way of the dodo - We can’t have Chromium be the only option, and without somebody developing base Firefox, the forks are going to die off
I could see tor browser continuing to be developed. There are enough users who are technical enough to take on a browser project.
Please stop taking the dark path, firefox…
doesn’t sound good
Oh the Firefox fanboys be downvoting. What’s that now, guys? Do you think you’re still better than Chrome/Google? Didn’t think so!
Would’ve been a different story if Mozilla backpedaled and apologized by not allowing this to happen. But they’re defending it, which means they INTENDED it. You’ve got nothing, fanboys.
Fuck Firefox.
Show 'em, that’ll teach these nasty fanboys! Reads like writing that got you a big dopamine rush.
I agree, commenting “Use Firefox!!!1!11” on every post remotely related to (other) browsers doesn’t help anybody, just like commenting “Use Linux!!!1!11” on every post about a vulnerability in Windows doesn’t contribute anything meaningful at all.
Look, I also disagree with what Mozilla is doing here and yes, they 100% deserve the flak they are getting for it. But - like most things in life - it’s not black and white. Firefox could still be less intrusive to your privacy than Chrome (I’m not saying it necessarily is, but it could be that way). A different example: your mail provider could track every time you login to your account, or it could analyze and track the content of every email you receive. One is clearly worse than the other, right?
Which browser(s) do you recommend/use?
Hopefully this makes some of the Firefox shills finally realize it’s time to change our recommendations.
I’ve heard so much shit lately about Firefox, it has become a sinking ship and I’m eager to see who picks up the shards and runs with it.
And what else should be recommended?
The choice is basically between Firefox or skinned Chromium.
Do you really want to experience first-hand just why Internet Explorer was this hated?
Here’s a hint: de facto monopoly on browser market that allowed them to control the web standards back then and their ideas were not good.it has become a sinking ship and I’m eager to see who picks up the shards and runs with it.
I don’t think you have any idea how much work it takes to create a new browser.
I think there’s kind of a 3rd choice, WebKit.
Chrome was great, till it wasn’t. IE always was bad. Edge is chromium.
Firefox has stayed closer to “don’t be evil” than many companies. Is say far more than the other options.
I think there’s kind of a 3rd choice, WebKit.
That’s where Chromium came from originally, so not really 3rd.
I was thinking WebKit was closer to Netscape in origin.
You made me go look it up. 😉 and I think we’re both wrong…. (Here’s my edit…. Poster above is right. I read it wrong, so only I am wrong on the origin of WebKit)
Below from Wikipedia:
WebKit started as a fork of the KHTML and KJS software libraries from KDE.
On April 3, 2013, Google announced that it had forked WebCore, a component of WebKit, to be used in future versions of Google Chrome
WebKit is really only available on Apple devices in any meaningful way.
Completely agree. I understood WebKit to be a different browse engine than chromium or Firefox.
While chromium and Firefox have wider platform options, there’s “kind of” a 3rd runner even though locked to apple.
I agree Linux and open source is king.
Hopefully this makes some of the Firefox shills finally realize it’s time to change our recommendations.
There’s still nothing better, you just have to be careful to block all their moneymaking bullshit attempts like save-your-shit-into-our-pocket and virginity-preserving assfucking. I use Fennec on android, though.
There are forks, like libre wolf (desktop) and mull (Android) that don’t ship with some of the bullshit, Firefox ships.
LibreWolf is better, includes ublock and no tracking by default.
There are good chromium based browsers too, I’m not aware of Vivaldi having any major controversies or shady business decisions in recent years, it has a built in adblock thats independent of chromium’s upstream.
If you disqualify every browser due to its upstream having issues then you should probably revert to using CURL or something convoluted like what richard stallman does. Every browser that exists today is a fork of some browser that previously was good but started to suck.
No they won’t. They’ll double down by saying “UH YEAH BUT UH, NOT AS BAD AS GOOGLE!” like that is going to make it sound better.
Turning the feature on by default is bad, but I don’t think that legal complaints are the way to go as well as the aggressive tone of NOYB. Firefox is the only browser developed and maintained professionally which has the potential of offering some privacy on the web. Given the importance of web browsers volunteer work just won’t cut it with the amount of features and security concerns that a browser needs.
NOYB would’ve done much better by talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option. If the was the case, then good that there’s a complaint, but the article does not indicate the any of this happened.
talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option
Fuck that, they know what they’re doing and they know what the right thing is. Mozilla is the enemy for some time now, Firefox’s development is basically held hostage by a shitty corporation and a toothless foundation.
Right, but what other browser are you going to use?
Gee…
Waterfox Ice Dragon Chromium LibreWolf
Shall I go on?
Firefox Firefox Chromium Firefox
Fixed that one for you.
Netscape Communicator, Netscape Communicator, KHTML, Netscape Communicator
“B… but Mozilla fights for privacy and the free internet!!!11!!11!!”
Well deserved
