New Firefox Suggests Ways To Get More Out of the Web (cnet.com) 199
Starting Tuesday, Firefox will nudge you to try out options designed to make the web more interesting, more useful or more productive. From a report: Mozilla's new Firefox 64 keeps an eye on what you're up to and prompts you to try extensions and features that could help you with that activity, the browser maker said. For example, if you open the same tab lots of times, it could suggest you pin it to your tab strip for easier future access. Other suggestions include installing the Facebook Container extension to curtail the social network's snooping, a Google Translate extension to tap into Google's service, and the Enhancer for YouTube extension to do things like block ads and control playback on Google's video site.
The feature could help you customize Firefox more to your liking -- something that could help you stick with the browser in the face of Google Chrome's dominance. And that, in turn, could help Mozilla pursue its push toward a privacy-respecting web that's not just effectively controlled by Chrome.
The feature could help you customize Firefox more to your liking -- something that could help you stick with the browser in the face of Google Chrome's dominance. And that, in turn, could help Mozilla pursue its push toward a privacy-respecting web that's not just effectively controlled by Chrome.
First Priority (Score:2, Interesting)
In today's age, the first and foremost priority should be to stop the surveillance. Everything else is secondary.
Re: First Priority (Score:1)
First priority is always not to do the opposite of the smart thing
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In today's age, the first and foremost priority should be to stop the surveillance. Everything else is secondary.
Second priority should be, stop filling your browser with stupid shit that nobody cares about.
"if you open the same tab lots of times, it could suggest you pin it to your tab strip for easier future access."
First, no. Just fucking No. That's what bookmarks are for.
And second, What the Fuck does that even mean? If I "open a tab"? What the fucking fuck. If I "open a tab" it's blank, and then I navigate to some web site.
Here, let us snoop on you to enhance your privacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Mozilla snooping if data never leaves device? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really "snooping" if neither the activity logs associated with this feature nor any information identifiably derived therefrom leaves the user's device? And if so, why should it be deemed objectionable?
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...Is it really "snooping"...
Yes. It is the collection of data, data that is not used for the primary reason I use the browser. I give Mozilla a foothold on my device, I do not expect Mozilla to collect data within that foothold for use outside the reason why I use Mozill'a product.
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I was wondering, do you think Netscape does that?
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The data are still ON the device and therefore vulnerable to examination. This is similar to "undo close tab" is a security risk (in that the knowledge of previously opened tabs remains on the device/in-memory even after the tabs are closed). The feature works even when in private mode, which is supposed to never retain history.
Not a huge deal, but it's something you have to consider. If I lived in a country where videos of cats wearing pajamas was considered objectionable content, and Firefox kept a rec
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This is similar to "undo close tab" is a security risk (in that the knowledge of previously opened tabs remains on the device/in-memory even after the tabs are closed)
Never really thought of it that way. The fix is simple. When I accidentally close a tab I know within an awshitasecond I messed up (thank you websites that 9 times out of 10 you open a new tab for links, but that 1 in 10 always has me closing the parent tab).
The fix is 2 fold:
1) Only save one closed tab
2) After 5 minutes forget about the closed tab.
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When I accidentally close a tab I know within an awshitasecond I messed up
We do use Ctrl+Alt+Tab for that, don't we?
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I acknowledge there exist a minority of WWW users who browse all incognito all the time, with no browser history, no password manager, no back button, and never logging into any website. But there's a continuum between that and the present sitaution of surveillance capitalism.
On snooping and Firefox respecting our freedom (Score:3)
Historically, anonymized data turns out to be not as anonymous as it was claimed to be. Put differently, de-anonymization is more possible than people try to lead others to believe it is. One example is the 2006 AOL search data [wikipedia.org] which AOL anonymized and purposefully published with high-minded goals—to help researchers. It turned out that the query
Re:Is Mozilla snooping if data never leaves device (Score:5, Informative)
[citation needed]
It's right there in the TFA:
The suggestions are prompted by Firefox itself. Mozilla doesn't know what you're up to.
It will have a pre-existing list of recommendations, it won't query Mozilla "what recommendation(s) do you have for facebook.com" when/if you go there. They'll probably know if you install the extension, but not whether it's because you didn't want it or you don't use Facebook.
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There are so many ways to gather information on people without "gathering information on people." Depending on how they've implemented this, they can absolutely reconstruct what information generated certain recommendations.
If you go to "get addons" in Firefox, it will query the Firefox servers to get information about the addons and little thumbnails and logos for them. If these are not included with whatever data Firefox uses to generate the recommendations - congratulations, Mozilla now knows what addons
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What's your solution? Have all extensions automatically installed with Firefox?
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How does the meat bag come to know what exists and what is even wantable in the first place?
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So if Mozilla doesn't tell me what I want, how will I ever know?
Does your computer always wag you, or just when you browse the internet?
Use the source, Luke (Score:2)
You appear to claim that only a "naive child" would believe that extension suggestion in Firefox, which is distributed as free software, does not exfiltrate your habits. Of the following scenarios, which are you claiming is the case?
A. That the published source code of Firefox contains code to exfiltrates your habits
B. That the executable contains code to exfiltrate your habits not present in the published source code
Re:Here, let us snoop on you to enhance your priva (Score:5, Informative)
I opened it today, and it popped up a little piece about new "content blocking" for privacy.
I clicked to the second page, and it demanded that I turn on javascript to see the content . . . .
noscript notes "trackertest.org" as having been blocked . . .
hawk
installing the Facebook Container? (Score:1, Redundant)
Sounds creepy (Score:2, Interesting)
Will it help me turn it off? (Score:4, Interesting)
If i dismiss enough of these stupid unsolicited popups, will it tell me how to turn the feature off in about:config?
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Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
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It turns out that a majority of people prefer cruft -- if it's useful. That's how Chrome has taken over the web from Firefox - they put in the cruft people want but don't know they want.
Firefox can be stubborn and continue to service us luddites that fight for total privacy in all ways whatsoever, or they can survive.
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It turns out that a majority of people prefer cruft -- if it's useful. That's how Chrome has taken over the web from Firefox - they put in the cruft people want but don't know they want.
Firefox, or any other browser for that matter, could easily recapture the web browser market by blocking auto-play videos.
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Firefox, or any other browser for that matter, could easily recapture the web browser market by blocking auto-play videos.
Maybe for the small segment of tech geeks like you and me, but not for everyone else. I've set this up for dozens of friends and family members over the years. And even after walking them through how to play videos, everyone of them either swithed to a browser that played them by default or asked me to switch the browser to play them automatically.
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>"Firefox, or any other browser for that matter, could easily recapture the web browser market by blocking auto-play videos."
Firefox already does (Chrome does NOT, because it can only block NON-MUTED VIDEO). In Firefox, you just have to turn it on. Has been in several versions for months. Perhaps they just need to market that feature?
media.autoplay.default;1
media.autoplay.allow-muted;false
Block autoplay by default: Double-click the media.autoplay.default preference and set it to 1
Some people suggest y
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They have to build in the cruft. The extension language isn't powerful enough to do anything since they've downgraded their extension support. Most of the extensions that made firefox worth using for me don't work after the downgrade.
The few plugins that have been ported or replaced aren't feature complete compared to their pre-downgrade versions. The extension authors who haven't given up on firefox have forum pages listing dozens on firefox feature requests for features that need to be added back befo
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Orwell calls it "Pre-Chrome"
Please stop (Score:4, Insightful)
I've given up on Firefox, so I shouldn't care, but please stop.
Last time I updated Firefox, it had "suggestions by pocket". To turn these off, it took ten minutes of googling to fix it, and then they still came back after another update.
Maybe I'm weird, but I thought the best browser is one that simply works, works fast, and then allows for extensions to do whatever extras that I want. This worked really well for firefox in the beginning, but now it is caught in the same trap of so many other programs. Power users want to be able to control things. Average users just want something that works. Do any of these features help either set of users?
Re:Please stop (Score:5, Insightful)
>"I've given up on Firefox, so I shouldn't care, but please stop. [...]This worked really well for firefox in the beginning, but now it is caught in the same trap of so many other programs."
And so you use what? Chrome? Then you are caught in the trap of not being allowed to choose what options you want at all (in many cases). In addition to whatever other things Google wants to shove in their binary. Don't get me wrong, I hate this new "feature" (just like Pocket and other such crap), but one can turn it off easily in preferences. Chrome, on the other hand, is SUPREMELY hostile to user choices and control compared to Firefox...
>"Maybe I'm weird, but I thought the best browser is one that simply works, works fast, and then allows for extensions to do whatever extras that I want."
Firefox does simply work. And it is fast. NO browser allows extensions to do whatever extras they want anymore. That model was incompatible with security, performance, and stability. Mozilla HAD to do something to move the browser forward. I just wish there were more UI API's. They are coming along, though... although too slowly for my taste.
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I agree with all these points, and think you're exactly right because without Firefox, Chrome will eventually become the new IE6. The main issue I have is with the browser moving forward. If I install a browser, I like it to stay the same. I really don't like my menus moving or getting an update that says "Pocket suggests these sites based on what I thought was secret browser history". I don't care if Firefox has a browser for with all the new feature sets.
I guess there's still Pale Moon.
Please, don't. (Score:4, Informative)
...Mozilla's new Firefox 64 keeps an eye on what you're up to and prompts you ...
Please do not do this. The last thing I need is yet another program trying to make "suggestions" to me.
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>"Please do not do this. The last thing I need is yet another program trying to make "suggestions" to me."
Then turn it off in preferences. At least we still have control.
Firefox just resurrected Clippy (Score:1)
Please, No Interuptions (Score:2, Informative)
I spend a lot of time these days preventing software from interrupting me or dealing with the interruptions that I cannot figure out how to prevent. It would appear, Neo, that we are now working for the machines.
Oh dear (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh dear, some clown has reinvented Clippy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If there one useless annoyance that the WWW does *not* need, it's ****ing Clippy.
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It looks like you're trying to send Nigerian Spam.
Would you like help?
Don't show me this tip again
prompts you to try extensions (Score:3)
This will be interesting. (Score:3)
Generally speaking computer geeks -- the kind of people who find themselves dragooned into giving other people technical support even when that's not their job -- tend to value customization-friendliness a lot more than normal people, who just want things to work in a predictable and stable way.
Really superficial things like wallpapers and ringtones aside, features intended to empower users to shape their user experience in functional ways tend not to have much market impact, although arguably they should have more.
Even computer geeks don't have an unlimited appetite for customization, or not all of them, at least. But we tend to act as if other people do.
Re:This will be interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even computer geeks don't have an unlimited appetite for customization, or not all of them, at least. But we tend to act as if other people do.
I think it's more like "don't fuck with our workflows and muscle memory just because you've decided DVORAK is the future". I still prefer a desktop which is fairly reminiscent of Windows 95, menu bar w/classic start menu at bottom, system tray in bottom right, mix/max/quit buttons in upper right, alt-tab to switch applications, single-click to select/focus, double-click to launch. You want tiles? Cool. Ribbons? Cool. Spinning cubes? Cool. Follow focus? Cool. Mouse gestures? Cool. I don't want to be the grumpy old fart that decided it's good enough for me, so it's good enough for everybody and touchscreens and virtual desktops are an abomination. I understand that you might even have UX studies that support that if an average person was starting from scratch this would be easier and better.
I'm just asking people to accept that if you already know how to do it then in most cases it's very little effort to keep doing it. For example I drive a manual transmission car, if you write it out like a process it seems like I'm doing a lot of work to gauge the RPM, push the clutch, shift gears up/down and release the clutch. I seem to remember it was a little tricky in the beginning. But after 20+ years of driving that way I'm not consciously thinking about it at all. An automatic wouldn't make my driving experience any measurably better. I understand that in the real world you have production volumes and all that but with software a "classic" menu system is just a bit of old, proven and nearly feature complete code but you're throwing it out simply because it's not fashionable anymore. And you're doing it because you need to take away the choice to force your vision on everybody else. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
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This condescending-UI-design shxt that is forced upon us has got to stop.
For 25 years we've had a ubiquitous File-Edit-View-...-Help menu based UI that worked really well, then the artsy-fartsy graphic design people started getting into UI design and create things around fashion trends instead of what works well. So nowadays we now have ended up with desktop applications that hide all options under a single hamburger menu even when run on 4k monitors, corporate websites with generic full screen looping auto
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"customize Firefox more to your liking" (Score:2)
WTF?? Then why did they spend the last years or ripping everything I liked out? (From the status bar to XUL extensions)
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Remember when Firefox was "just a browser" (Score:4, Insightful)
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just no (Score:1)
I need a web browser that doesn't try and think for itself.
Curl, lynx, or custom coding it are looking more attractive all the time.
Suggestions?
Re:just no (Score:5, Interesting)
Suggestions?
A thousand times, Seamonkey, a 20 year old browser with a familiar face that works as good as ever.
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It even replicates 20 year old memory leaks like Firefox used to.
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Still a superior browser. Even does email pretty well, so you don't have to download a separate program for that. And its web page composer is a bit more convenient than notepad. And even funnier is that it's a smaller download than Firefox! What's all the bloat for?
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Still a superior browser. Even does email pretty well, so you don't have to download a separate program for that
OMG bloat!
I used to use seamonkey quite a lot. Firefox Quantum put an end to it. It has long since stopped being a superior browser when the competition is significantly faster and loading webpages and far more crash resistant.
2 years ago I would have been right with you with your recommendation. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view) times change.
Hello, Clippy (Score:1)
"Hi! It looks like you are just trying to browse in peace. Would you like me to just randomly pop up like the ads you are probably using Firefox to avoid?"
Great Feature, Guys! (Score:4, Informative)
about:preferences
Scroll down to Browsing section.
Uncheck "Recommend extensions as you browse"
There! I made it even better!
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Or go to about:config
find browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr
and make it false
(what a long/non-descriptive/cryptic preference name)
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Yep, either type about:preferences in the location bar, or go Options...General through the menus. You'll land in the same spot.
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Re-read your question - no, about:config is the "scary" settings (more in-depth, with low-level and experimental options), about:preferences is the "regular" one.
Really? (Score:3)
Live Bookmarks (Score:4, Informative)
I really, REALLY hate that they're killing this feature, but this addon promises to restore it: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07... [ghacks.net]
Here's the official GitHub: https://github.com/nt1m/livema... [github.com]
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Man, I thought they killed that feature way back when they axed RSS.
I loved that feature - let me see all the FARK, Slashdot, Cnet, and other techie article headlines with a click and hover & it auto-updated so I didn't have to even visit the actual pages, just picked the story I wanted right from the bookmarks.
I switched to Chrome way, way back after FF made it near impossible for some of my other workflows, extensions, etc to work properly. I also got tired of having to track down an extension or two
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Personally, I'm trying out Miniflux [miniflux.app]. My reasoning is that if Mozilla pisses me off even more and I want to jump to a different browser, I won't have to worry about finding a new RSS reader extension or other solution.
After making so many extensions incompatible (Score:2)
they want to suggest new ones?
Are the new ones from sources that donated money to Mozilla?
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Again... first question with a FF update is ... (Score:2)
Why can't Firefox ... (Score:2)
Clippy precedent (Score:2)
Browser that keeps an eye on you? (Score:2)
Does it also report such activity back to the Mozilla?
Hate how they block http (Score:1)
works (Score:2)
Hey, it works great. It just suggested I try Chrome.
Now with Clippy! (Score:2)
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