Firefox Starts Blocking Third-Party Cookies By Default (venturebeat.com) 69
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today announced a slew of privacy improvements. The company has turned on Enhanced Tracking Protection, which blocks cookies from third-party trackers in Firefox, by default. Mozilla has also improved its Facebook Container extension, released a Firefox desktop extension for its rebranded Lockwise password keeper, and updated Firefox Monitor with a dashboard for multiple email addresses. Mozilla added basic Tracking Protection to Firefox 42's private browsing mode in November 2015. The feature blocked website elements (ads, analytics trackers, and social share buttons) based on Disconnect's tracking protection rules. With the release of Firefox 57 in November 2017, Mozilla added an option to enable Tracking Protection outside of private browsing. (Tracking Protection was not turned on by default because it can break websites and cut off revenue streams for content creators who depend on third-party advertising.)
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does it really do that?
Re:But it still keylogs by default... (Score:5, Insightful)
No it doesn't. You can also download and compile the browser yourself. I don't get how that Slashdot meme began
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Unless you can explain in better detail about what you mean, you are a dumbnut!
And Anonymous Cowards are just that, cowards!
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Lots of myths about Google seem to persist.
- The track your every move online, logged in or not
- Chrome is spyware, everything you type, every site you visit etc. is sent to Google
- Even if you change the default search engine all your searches still get sent to Google
- Android is always listening and sending live audio back to Google
- Google reads your email
- Google sells your data
- All the privacy controls are fake and do nothing
It's not just paranoia and stupidity though, it seems to be organized. Look a
Been a while since I've used Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
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I have been using Firefox exclusively for a long time, specifically because of its privacy features.
It sounds like they are focusing on privacy as their primary competitive offering. And I, for one, approve.
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It sounds like they are focusing on privacy as their primary competitive offering. And I, for one, approve.
I don't. And thankfully, Firefox is not all about privacy.
Privacy is too easy. Just integrate some form of blocker and yay, privacy, "look, I am better than Chrome". And in fact, there are many Chromium forks with privacy features built-in, one doesn't need Firefox for that.
When you are fighting against Chrome, you obviously need some privacy features, built-in or with extensions, but that's not what will make you competitive. For me, when your only argument is that you are better than one of the worst offe
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When you're competing with (hardly "fighting against") Google Chrome, all you really need to do is be patient and wait for Google to shoot their product in the foot.
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I moved to Chrome because it ran every window and tab in its own exclusive space, which improves security by a lot. Now, since Firefox does the same thing, and has better containerization to keep Facebook, YouTube, and other data-sloppy things hemmed in, it might just be best to move back to it.
I do like how Chrome encrypts your settings when syncing, though. Wish Firefox offered that, so even if one's account was compromised, the synced stuff would be still protected.
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Firefox also encrypts sync data.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/
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Firefox is pretty damn good now. Since they ditched the old add-on system and implemented per-tab processes performance has increased dramatically. It's also got good privacy protection built in, e.g. stuff to block canvas fingerprinting.
It also supports add-ons for mobile, which Chrome doesn't. So you can have ad-block on mobile.
Why not sell ad space directly to advertisers? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Tracking Protection was not turned on by default because it can break websites and cut off revenue streams for content creators who depend on third-party advertising.)
Why write "content creators" instead of perfectly good "authors" or "publishers"?
And why don't these authors/publishers offer ad space directly to advertisers, as on Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net] and Read the Docs [readthedocs.io], instead of having to go through a third-party programmatic exchange?
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"What about bloggers, journalists, videographers, musicians, podcasters etc..?"
All of these are authors.
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Why write "content creators" instead of perfectly good "authors" or "publishers"?
"Content Creators" is more succinct than authors/publishers/videographers/animators/bloggers/vloggers/froggers/doggers/bookies/camgirls/FortniteBRstreamers/etc. It uses two clear words to capture a huge, diverse group.
And why don't these authors/publishers offer ad space directly to advertisers, as on Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net] and Read the Docs [readthedocs.io], instead of having to go through a third-party programmatic exchange?
Why the fuck would I want to create a separate advertising department when I can create a Google Ads account in three steps?!?
You have a weird sense of the type of efficiencies that content creators want.
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"Content Creators" is more succinct than authors/publishers/videographers/animators/bloggers/vloggers/froggers/doggers/bookies/camgirls/FortniteBRstreamers/etc.
An "author" is anyone who creates a work of authorship regardless of medium. (Source: Title 17, US Code, section 101) This includes videographers, animators, bloggers, etc.
Why the fuck would I want to create a separate advertising department when I can create a Google Ads account in three steps?!?
To avoid the risk of being deplatformed by Google. Or because you just launched and don't yet have enough traffic to qualify to create such an account. Or because a lot of your readers block Google Analytics and AdSense as known trackers, and you want something to serve in case Google's ad server is unreachable.
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Pedantic. Most people read it in the first rather than third sense of this definition [dictionary.com].
You'd think content creators would want to protect their readers from the same. If it's really that much effort then there's a business opportunity for someone somewhere.
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You'd think content creators would want to protect their readers from the same.
Not if allowing readers to be tracked extracts three times the CPM [pineight.com] compared to protecting readers.
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Why the fuck would I want to create a separate advertising department when I can create a Google Ads account in three steps?!?
You have a weird sense of the type of efficiencies that content creators want.
Simplicity is nice. But why do google route ads through their third-party server. Why not have your server pick up ads from Google and serve them out directly? That way, no blocking and the content creator get the same simplicity.
Fortunately, they won't do this, so we can keep our browsers ad-free. No sympathy for those depending on ads. Set up a webshop and sell something, if money is what you want. Loosing the cat videos is a low price to pay for loosing the ads.
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And why don't these authors/publishers offer ad space directly to advertisers, as on Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net] and Read the Docs [readthedocs.io], instead of having to go through a third-party programmatic exchange?
Because trying to manage everything yourself is a PITA, especially for small businesses who don't have dedicated departments for these things?
(I ruthlessly block stuff, mind you; just saying that I understand the motivation to use third party stuff.)
Re:Why not sell ad space directly to advertisers? (Score:5, Interesting)
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If such a service exists, I will seriously consider it for my website.
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Having advertisers run scripts serverside is exactly what the industry is moving towards, since you can't block that.
https://exde601e.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
It's like jumping from the frying pan into the fire - not a good idea.
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Oh, I can block that. If the content server also serves ads, then the ads aren't third-party.
But they are still ads. Scripts can be recognized and blocked. Videos don't autostart here, and sound is muted. The sites I browse rarely use video anyway. If they fall back on banners, block images of a certain size, or located in a certain folders. "/ads/"
If they get really good at hiding ads, run text through a bayesian spamfilter and kill "advertising speech". For images, block the ones with garish colors. Only
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Videos don't autostart here
Not even this video [pineight.com]? It's not WebM, MP4, GIF, or APNG. It plays with only JPEG and CSS. What about these three floating videos [pineight.com]?
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the ad company could say "please run this script on your server each hour; it downloads new static gifs that you can serve yourself to your customers"
I doubt that advertisers would readily trust the publisher's self-reported view and click statistics.
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Redirects work to count clicks but not impressions.
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Most ad are sold by clicks.
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An advertiser buying clicks still wants to know click-through rate in order to estimate impressions, especially if the ad is for increasing awareness of a brand rather than direct response.
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Isn't that what Pocket is for? (Score:2)
I don't believe for a second that what Pocket shows you is based on popularity.
I'm giving Firefox another try (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't blame Chromium engine for this one sided web. I blame Google and Chrome browser for basically making up their own standards like Microsoft once did with Internet Explorer. I finally decided it was time to stop complaining and do something about it. I uninstalled Chrome and installed Firefox and I plan to work through any obstacles that might cause me to go back to Chrome. Users should at least try to ween themselves off Chrome and possibly even Google services. Its time to even out the web for the greater benefit of not making it the Google web.
Bad summary (Score:1)
Firefox is blocking third party cookies from known trackers by default, not all third party cookies by default. TFA says this and Mozilla says this on their blog posts from today. TFS somehow mangles this.
Mozilla is using the Disconnect list to determine known trackers: "For new users who install and download Firefox for the first time, Enhanced Tracking Protection will automatically be set on by default as part of the ‘Standard’ setting in the browser and will block known “third-party tra
It would be awesome if... (Score:2)
...Chromium did the same!!
Taking responsibility for ads on your page (Score:2)
Back in the 20th century, the web was intended to bring in pictures and other content from 3rd parties. After all, when storage is cheap and content is relatively static, it's significantly more expensive to host your entire web site than it is to just link to off-site images.
These days, I would prefer for sites to route ALL content through their own domain so I know who to blame if the web site is "abusive."
So instead of foo.com calling images, scripts, and videos from bar.com, baz.com and foocdn.com, it
Of two minds... (Score:2)
On the one hand, this is great for most people. On the other, it's like as ad-blockers took off... it made companies find ways around it whereas before people who had opted in weren't that much in an arms race.
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Can your readers buy a 1-day subscription for 25 cents? If not, watch them Ctrl+W.
Yet Another Update From FireFox. (Score:1)