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Firefox 72 Arrives With Fingerprinting Blocked By Default, Picture-in-Picture on macOS and Linux (venturebeat.com) 49

Posted by msmash from the browser-updates dept.
Mozilla today launched Firefox 72 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Firefox 72 includes fingerprinting scripts blocked by default, less annoying notifications, and Picture-in-Picture video on macOS and Linux. There isn't too much else here, as Mozilla has now transitioned Firefox releases to a four-week cadence (from six to eight weeks).
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Firefox 72 Arrives With Fingerprinting Blocked By Default, Picture-in-Picture on macOS and Linux More

Firefox 72 Arrives With Fingerprinting Blocked By Default, Picture-in-Picture on macOS and Linux

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  • Speeding up releases (Score:3)

    by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @10:49AM (#59595268) Homepage

    so that they can get new features in the hands of users before anyone can ask, "Hey, is that really a good thing?"

    • How else will they catch up to the Chrome releases? I mean the stable release is 79 and Firefox is only at 72.

    • so that they can get new features in the hands of users before anyone can ask, "Hey, is that really a good thing?"

      This is a very good thing. Everybody should be using it.

    • so that they can get new features in the hands of users before anyone can ask, "Hey, is that really a good thing?"

      lol firefox sux theyre always behind chrome lol firefox sux they release too fast

      lol firefox sux ill use a browser which does everything i hate worse

      When it comes to the peanut gallery, Firefox can never win.

    • Also must be why they recently removed the ability to disable update checks. I hate getting the damn pop-up reminders all the damn time (so much for reducing annoying notifications).

  • Move to ESR (Score:4, Interesting)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @11:09AM (#59595344)

    The enlightned /. users should move en-masse to ESR, and leave the less enlightened peons to Gamma-test firefox for us.

    Is the only way to be sure...

    Otherwise, what's left? Edge for Win/Mac/Linux changing every six months? Chrome For win/Mac/Linux changing every 8 weeks? Safari only for mac changing 'whenevur' Apple feels like it? Vivaldi, waterfox, palemoon (god bless them) not being supported by many sites and corporate tools?

    ESR it is for me, and has been since ESR 38.

    • https://www.waterfox.net/ [waterfox.net] is better
      • I use both; convenient for running multiple logins to the same site for cases where private window's lack of history, etc. is unwanted/unneeded.

    • The enlightned /. users should move en-masse to ESR, and leave the less enlightened peons to Gamma-test firefox for us.

      Or the vast majority of us "enlightened" people could reaslise that we're not using Firefox to type mission critical launch codes into the nuclear football and just happily use it without problems like we did with every other release.

    • Debian already do this to me ;P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qubezz ( 520511 )
      I was on ESR, and Firefox wanted an update. The problem, it did not update to another ESR, it updated to 72, which nuked my user profiles and massive customization - In a push to grab more information for their cloud data mining experiment. Advertisements for their sync services popping up in dialogs. Assholes. Had to reinstall a working ESR and will not be taking any "upgrades".

  • ... less annoying notifications, ...

    Do you actually mean less-annoying or fewer annoying notifications or both?
    'Cause there's a difference.

  • Gripe (Score:4, Informative)

    by GerryHattrick ( 1037764 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @11:33AM (#59595428)
    I default to Firefox. Only one complaint - I post 'family' stuff on lightly-protected passworded .pdfs (to save my ancestors from USian religionists). But alone of the browsers, Firefox allows 'print and copy' from these passworded/protected files. OK, I've added a copyright notice - but why not respect the usual mild constraints?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      Makes sense to me. Anything that can be viewed on screen can be printed out anyway simply by screenshotting it and as for copying , well I presume you've heard of OS copy functionality whether GUI or command line?

      • Yes, that's their formal excuse too. But for most non-tecchies, the lack of a non-print choice means no printing. And screenshots copy only one page, which makes it awkward for 200 pages of ancient manuscript. If I could find a more robust and easily implemented protection, I would. Thanks, 'Firefox'.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          I'm struggling to think of a use case where you're happy for people to read something on screen but not print it out.

    • Re:Gripe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quarrel ( 194077 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @11:58AM (#59595532)

      The pdf protected bits are an abomination and should not be respected by anything.

      Why stop someone copy-pasting from it, when I can (somewhat slower), copy type it to the next window? Why stop me "printing" it, when I can choose to print the window it is in trivially (print screen->paste->print)? They're silly hurdles that can be overcome by simple programs that just flip the bits, so stop no one that is savvy at all, but are a usability pain to lots of people.

    • But alone of the browsers, Firefox allows 'print and copy' from these passworded/protected files.

      So all the other browsers have a problem in that they don't allow authorised users to do authorised stuff? I mean even password managers with all their encryption happily allow print and copy. All you have is a document that the user has already proven they have credentials to access.

      I have enough trouble with document classification at work, please don't remove even more functionality to make users life a living hell. If you're passing passwords around in a password protected PDF its clear you already prio

      • I don't even get this complaint, this isn't browser security issue. If FF can bypass weak PDF password controls, any other program can too, so exactly where is the problem? Not FF. The complaints seems based on premise security is about restricting user. If you don't want to print your PDFs by accident, unplug your printer I guess? Or make encrypted folder that any program needs password to even open, probably a hell of alot safer. But I don't think he's contemplated USian jesus freaks with quantum decrypte

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AntiSol ( 1329733 )

      Because "respecting these mild constraints" would give you a false sense of security. Including these "controls" does not prevent the actions that it purports to prevent, you can still copy portions of the text, take screenshots, etc, because having these protections actually work is not something that's technically possible.

      Chrome "respecting" these controls encourages non-technical and unknowing users to think that the document is "protected" and can't be copied or whatever, leading them to make mistakes

  • Won't this break a ton of websites? (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @11:49AM (#59595498)
    Lots of websites use Fingerprinting to identify your computer as part of 2 factor authentication schemes. If the site can't fingerprint you then you're prompted to complete 2FA every single time, which gets real old real fast. Especially if your ISP and/or cell phone company blocks the emails.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quarrel ( 194077 )

      They can still drop cookies on you (unless you choose to disallow them), so this should not be much of an extra hurdle.

    • No. Websites use cookies for that. The only thing websites use fingerprinting for is to some degree anti-bot sites.

      And as with everything people complain about when it comes to Firefox, rather than post on Slashdot they could just RTFM and white-list their site or turn the feature off.

      • Yup. And by my book standard-enabled anti-fingerprinting is absolutely wonderful, with flaw of custom anti-fingerprinting being it tends to stand out, even if less unique than total fingerprint it's still relatively distinguishing at least "weakly".

      • No. Websites use cookies for that. The only thing websites use fingerprinting for is to some degree anti-bot sites.

        No, they use them for tracking users between sites.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ftobin ( 48814 )

        I've definitely heard of sites like Vanguard allowing for fingerprinting substitute for cookies. Someone had the browser always clear cookies, but Vanguard didn't require a 2FA login for coming from an "unknown" source:

        I actually administer one of these systems and can shed some light here. When you successfully 2FA and select the "trust/remember this computer" option, a nonce (number used once) is generated and stored on your computer in the form of a cookie. We also take a fingerprint of a variety of fac

  • I heard Steve Gibsonâ(TM)s podcast tease this last year, that Mozilla was working on âoesuper privateâ browsing mode, which would fire up Tor browser in a new window. What happened to that effort? DDG search turned up only https://www.techradar.com/news... [slashdot.org]â>this for âoerecentâ news
  • the pop up "This site is using a cookie". I think it is only in Europe.

    Still I wish they introduced the feature to block this. Why should I click it dozens of times per week?
  • Free software = communism! (but anti-communists enjoy using it!)

  • Oooh, sweet, fingerprinting scripts are blocked. Let's try this out. Update Firefox, double-check settings that fingerprinting protection is enabled. Hop on over to EFF's Panopticlick web page. Start test.

    Um, nope. Fingerprint is unique: "...our browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 197,585 tested in the past 45 days. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 17.59 bits of identifying information."

    That doesn't look like any fingerprinting was blocked

    • That web page just keeps blinking the ceylon eye beside the "fingerprinting", so I assume that (a) the website is broken or (b) that it cannot fingerprint me.

    • Try something. Click on "Show full results for fingerprinting". Not open a new tab and go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org] again there, without closing the previous tab.

      Does the new result still say your fingerprint is unique? If it successfully fingerprinted you then it should say that your fingerprint is the same as 1 other recent test. Unless they saw that your fingerprint matched another one and just assumed it was the same person, which would sort of defeat the purpose of the test.

      Remember - there are

  • Nice work Firefox. That's all I'm here to say... I'm a fan!

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