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Firefox Now Sends Your Address Bar Keystrokes To Mozilla (howtogeek.com) 139

An anonymous reader quotes a report from How-To Geek: Firefox now sends more data than you might think to Mozilla. To power Firefox Suggest, Firefox sends the keystrokes you type into your address bar, your location information, and more to Mozilla's servers. Here's exactly what Firefox is sharing and how to control it. This change was made as part of the introduction of Firefox Suggest in Firefox 93, released on October 5, 2021. As part of Firefox Suggest, Firefox is getting ads in your search bar -- but that's not the only thing that will be news to longtime Firefox users. According to Mozilla, "Firefox Suggest acts as a trustworthy guide to the better web, surfacing relevant information and sites to help people accomplish their goals." In reality, what that means is, when you start typing in your address bar, you won't just see the standard search suggestions from Google or your current search default engine. You'll also see "Firefox Suggest" results pointing to web pages. Some of them are sponsored ads, but you can disable the ads.

Firefox Suggest is on by default. Mozilla's blog post on the subject says Firefox Suggest is an "opt-in experience," which was the case in September 2021 -- but it's now enabled by default in Firefox 93. However, as of Firefox 93's release in October 2021, Firefox Suggest is only enabled in the USA -- for now. It's worth noting that, for many years, Firefox and other web browsers have had search suggestions in their address bar. So, when you start typing "win" in your address bar, you may see suggestions for "Windows 11" and "Window repair." This is accomplished by sending keystrokes to your default search engine as you type in the search bar, as Mozilla's support site explains. Mozilla is also providing contextual suggestions, for which it needs more data, including the city you're located in and whether you're clicking its suggestions.

You can disable Firefox's suggested results, if you like. This will stop Mozilla from collecting the data you type in your search bar, and it will also disable the suggested results and ads. To do so, open Firefox and click menu [and then] Settings. Select "Privacy [and] Security" in the left pane, and scroll down to "Address Bar -- Firefox Suggest." Disable "Contextual suggestions" and "Include occasional sponsored suggestions" to stop Firefox from sending data to Mozilla.

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Firefox Now Sends Your Address Bar Keystrokes To Mozilla

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  • Here we go again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by doragasu ( 2717547 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @08:11AM (#61874755)

    C'mon Mozilla Foundation, you can do better. I can tolerate Firefox performance being worse than Chromium, but these kind of things are the ones that annoy me.

    • Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Informative)

      by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @08:28AM (#61874787)

      C'mon Mozilla Foundation, you can do better. I can tolerate Firefox performance being worse than Chromium, but these kind of things are the ones that annoy me.

      Absolutely. I use Firefox for a} extensions that prevent Internet snooping and b} to prevent Internet snooping.

      Firefox should leave the searching to the search engines.

      • Much like auto-correct on Android keyboards. Back-and-forth.

    • They are in it for money, and they know that the majority of people who still use Firefox won't stop using it because of this. So, that's that.

      Whenever I set up a new system, I always go through Firefox settings and turn off a bunch of stuff. Including pocket and javascript-in-pdf execution, which require going to about:config. This is just one more box to un-check for me.

      • I disagree. By now, the ONLY people who still use Firefox, are those who care.
        Everyone else has left for Chrome, some time ago. Maybe when they broke extensions. Or when they broke them again. Or when they became basically a Chrome knock-off.
        We're the only ones left.

        So they are killing ALL of their user base with this.
        And yes, they know this. Come on, you can't tell me they don't.

      • *and they know that the majority of people who still use Firefox won't stop using it because of this.*

        They are at their pitiful current market share, for making 1000 decisions just like this.

        For each they lost a few users. Now, they have almost none.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Mozilla seems to be in a bit of a downward spiral.

        They want to collect telemetry to try to figure out what people want and what features they can stop supporting and remove. Problem is many of their users turn that stuff off because they are privacy conscious, and they are alienating them.

        Mozilla also wants to become less dependent on search engines, particularly Google, for income. They tried Pocket but it's probably just too niche to be of interest to most people. They tried a phone OS, that failed pretty

        • Firefox for Android actually used to be great but they completely changed the UI a few months ago, against common sense and usability. It's really not that complicated, don't change the UI. It really feels like the folks at Mozilla are doing everything they can to piss off their users.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I'm okay with the new UI, but there are long standing issues.

            - Font sizes are messed up on Pixel devices and presumably many others. The UI itself breaks, as well as web sites.

            - The tab UI just isn't as quick and easy to navigate as Chrome.

            - Contributing fixes is extremely difficult, especially fixes to the rendering engine for Android.

      • Configuring Firefox using about:config = wasting time.

        Create or copy a user.js file in your Firefox profile pyllyukko for example [github.com] to alter settings.

        So if you update or reinstall Firefox, just copy your carefully customized user.js to a new profile.
    • by rpnx ( 8338853 )
      I hate to say this, but Microsoft Edge is the least evil browser right now.
    • by larwe ( 858929 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @09:24AM (#61874891)
      At some point, if Firefox is collecting the same telemetry etc. as Edge - it becomes a question of "why not just use Edge, since my privacy is hosed anyway?"
      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        Who do you trust more with your data? Mozilla, Google, or Microsoft?

        This isn't a difficult choice.

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @11:11AM (#61875145)

          Google obviously. The company who primarily derives all their revenue from your data has the best incentive to not share it much in the same way Coca Cola won't sell you their recipe.

          Be vary of companies collecting your data as a side gig.

          • *ba-dum TISS*

          • First time I installed Chrome on a test machine, it spidered through the whole filesystem, reading 20GB of data and wrote 4GB of logs. I immediately uninstalled it and never considered using it again. Tracking my behavior online isn't anywhere near as bad as scanning my whole computer.

            There is something to be said for how MUCH data is being collected, and I trust Google less than almost anyone else.

            • First time I installed Chrome on a test machine, it spidered through the whole filesystem, reading 20GB of data and wrote 4GB of logs.

              Yeah that's a great feature. Installing Chrome causes the Chrome Cleanup Tool to scan your system for malware that attempts to hijack Chrome. It's a single shot anti-virus scan that only reports positive hits back to Google and offers the user to quarantine / delete / ignore the offending malware.

              Precisely what you want, a browser that protects itself from the onslaught of malware that attempts to hijack it. I don't know why you don't want to promote an action that directly improves both your security and p

        • None of the above!

          The difficulty is artificial, because you're falsely limiting the choices.

          I trust an open source community project with NO need for nor interest in profit.

          My favorite financing model would be: Feature bounties. Like having a mini-kickstarter for every Bugzilla feature request (and bug).
          You want that thing? You pledge money, or shut up. And instead of a single target amount, every developer who wants to do it, can set the amount of money at which they are willing to do it.
          At some point, the

        • by larwe ( 858929 )

          Who do you trust more with your data? Mozilla, Google, or Microsoft?

          Even if there was an answer to that today (and it's not necessarily a slam dunk), two things: a) I have no idea what _any_ of those people are doing with my data today, but the people who are most likely to be selling it (as opposed to using it inhouse to improve their own Big Data datasets) are the smallest fish, i.e. Mozilla, and b) once the data is collected, there's no way to have any level of trust whatsoever as to what is going to be done with it in the future. The data could be acquired by Apple, Goo

        • Well, of the three, the most desperate, incompetent and most disingenuous is Mozilla.

        • I trust Thomas Dickey [wikipedia.org].
      • Why not fork Firefox/Chromium?
        All it takes is go through their change log, pick the commits you don't like, revert them, make sure it still works, and release.
        Start with this latest change alone, publish it on some key sites, and you already got the majority of FF users *overnight*.
        Let others send you links to commits that are bad, check that you agree, and little by little, you transform it into the browser we want.
        You can bet all of your data that some FF developers will approach you to come over and main

        • First we need a new name for the browser.
          • Redjackal?
          • Lonewolf?
          • Apium? (genus containing e.g. celery)
          • Bream? (a freshwater fish)
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Well for a start you couldn't call it Firefox, that name is trademarked by Mozilla. So you will have to rename it to FrozenShibaInu or something.

          Personally if I saw "FrozenShibaInu" made by "BAReFO0t" on some download site I'd close the tab. I'm not downloading that shit, I mean how many times have we seen someone release a wonderful new browser that turns out to be malware?

          Also I think you vastly underestimate the amount of work it will take to keep the browser building and working if you start ignoring co

    • Re:Here we go again (Score:5, Informative)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @09:48AM (#61874933) Homepage

      C'mon Mozilla Foundation, you can do better. I can tolerate Firefox performance being worse than Chromium, but these kind of things are the ones that annoy me.

      How exactly is a browser supposed to make "suggestions" without sending any keystrokes to a server?

      Simple solution: Turn off suggestions!

      • Re:Here we go again (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mrclevesque ( 1413593 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @10:18AM (#61874977)

        >Simple solution: Turn off suggestions!

        Exactly. Firefox isn't perfect but it's very customizable.

        And in the last update, they went back to using the word delete instead of remove in the menus and they also removed all the extra space they'd added in the drop down menus. So they are listening to a lot of user feedback too.

        • Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Interesting)

          by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @11:59AM (#61875255)

          Yeah... no. I've heard that argument go up in flames way too many times.

          They freaking killed extensions twice now. On mobile, almost all choice is gone. Can't install add-ons that Mozilla didn't pre-approve. They even killed about:config, *specifically" to take away choice. Same reason they are peddling their stupid "cloud" Mozilla account crap, that there are no alternatives to.

          They went full Apple. Never go full Apple.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I suppose to be fair most people send their keystrokes to Google or some other search engine, for the suggestions. Chrome does by default, except in Incognito Mode.

          It's apparently something users appreciate. Well, I have haven't turned it off in Chrome, or in Firefox where my default search engine (with suggestions) is Google.

        • Exactly. Firefox isn't perfect but it's very customizable.

          I question that. I explicitly turned off local storage, but Firefox kept storing content anyway. I found out the hard way that just disabling storage in the GUI doesn't work, and you have to also do stupid crap like setting storage limits for multiple different systems to zero. Also, that only works until the next version of Firefox where they rename all the settings, so after an update everything returns to the defaults and everything turns back on again... even though the GUI says that it's all off.

          I g

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Suggestions are usually made (at least by other browsers) by searching through the locally stored favourites, history, and cached searches. This usually reveals what the user wants based on past behaviour without the need to send data anywhere. Firefox is doing this so Mozilla can inject search results and advertising into the address bar.
      • Local Markovian matching with a locally stored address bar history would do it well. It would take local resources.

    • Friends ask me which browser I use Hey, you know all about computers. Which browser should I use?, and I don't have a consistent answer because of stuff like this. Seems like Chrome and Firefox leapfrog each other in do-not-want intrusive new "features" so whenever the one I'm using pushes me past the breaking point I switch over to the other as the least bad choice.

      Currently on Chrome and I suppose thanks to this new Firefox "feature" I'll remain on it for a few more versions, but it ma

      • by Teun ( 17872 )
        It's all about what is done with the search terms arriving on their server.
        Do they keep them indefinitely, do they share them with others?

        It is said google is so jealous of the data they gather that it is not shared but only used 'in house'.
        It maybe so but they collect so much data that it gets scary, I only use Chrome and Google where there is no other way to get what I want.

        So Mozilla better gives a good explanation what they do with the collected data.
    • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      > C'mon Mozilla Foundation, you can do better.

      It's to scan and filter gender binary search terms. It's for your own good... so you'll use it AND you'll like it zher!

  • by Luke Wilson ( 1626541 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @08:24AM (#61874775)
    > sends the keystrokes you type into your address bar to Mozilla's servers.
    > sending keystrokes to your default search engine
    It's probably doing the latter. The former sounds like sensationalism.
    • by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @08:29AM (#61874789) Journal

      If your default search engine is Google and it's sending them keystrokes you may as well just use Chrome. I fucking hate Chrome and Mozilla has hit fast forward on what seems to be their planned obsolescence.

      Maybe it's time for Mozilla to fucking die so FF can be reborn, again, as something better.

      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        Good luck with that. Browsers are complicated and no one is going to start a new browser from scratch. I seriously doubt anyone is going to pick up FireFox once Chrome has a chance to dominate the market.

        You might as well wave goodbye to web standards. Those won't matter once Chrome takes its place as the new IE6.

        • Yeah, sorry, but I solved that already.
          How? By killing off "web standards".

          It's just a freaking virtual machine by now. A shitty one.
          So we can just as well run qemu on a snapshotted RAM-cached image of any OS, and have the URL you enter in the address bar mount as a removable drive and execute inside a copy-on-write clone of that image.

          In fact I literally already programmed that. My prototype still needs the console and uses wget to get the removable image, and isn't optimized at all, but it still takes und

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Your keystrokes in the browser bar are always being intercepted. The change here is that Mozilla is getting them and monetizing them instead of Google of whoever. Lately I have been using DuckDuckGo but I am annoyed at how aggressively it is trying to monetize the keystrokes. It seems it want to send me to places I donâ(TM)t want to go.
  • Spyware (Score:3, Informative)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @08:38AM (#61874801)
    Dial the clock 10 years back, and this would be considered a spyware and Mozilla CEO would be on the national TV perp walked after a 6am raid.

    It is clear, Silicon Valley went all-out on evil, they are dumping toxic waste into fabric of our society and things are on fire. There needs to be heavy-handed and punitive regulation.
    • Re:Spyware (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @10:24AM (#61874997)

      It is clear, Silicon Valley went all-out on evil,

      which red state do you live in, comrade?

      gotta stop taking your talking points from faux news. stuff will kill you. literally.

    • Dial back the clock ONE year, and Mozilla would literally put up billboards, saying that they are the browser for people who don't want that sort of thing.

      I know, because i still remember those from the bus stops I passed on my way to work.
      Whoever modded this "troll", is himself a troll. Coarse words are not "trolling" just because they are coarse. If they are true, they are the appropriate thing to say!

  • by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @08:45AM (#61874815)

    Sadly, when you have billions of people who don't give a crap about who gets/shares their data (as evidenced by the number of people who consume Facebook), it isn't surprising that Mozilla feels like they can slide this in with only a few geeks taking umbrage.

    I'd switch to Chrome, but it's even worse there.

  • The same thing we always ask when a new feature gets announced in Windows:

    "Can you turn it off, and if, how?"

    • And the answer is: Yes, but only to make it go down easier, so you are locked in once it is removed. Because the switch WILL be removed.

      • We're still talking about a browser here, not something where I spend days and weeks creating content for in a vendor lock-in format I couldn't escape. Switching browsers takes literally seconds.

  • by burni2 ( 1643061 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @09:02AM (#61874837)

    So the next headline will be ..

    "Firefox user loss accelerating, .."

    And fucking nobody knows why!

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      I know why. It's because people who don't use it are jerking off like monkeys at the chance to tear it down!

      Take a look at this current non-issue. We've had the option to turn on search suggestions for years. No one once complained. Now it's suddenly an issue? How the hell did you think search suggestions worked?

      Chrome has for years done everything you seem to think Mozilla is doing but far, far, worse. Your solution? Switch to some flavor of Chrome? You'd think Google was paying you.

      People are incr

      • by burni2 ( 1643061 )

        Take it that way: Enough is enough and Mozilla has overstretched the patience of the users by knee jerk moves everybody knows the reaction off.

        Don't get the people that complain about Mozilla wrong, those people don't want to destroy Firefox, in contrast they care about it, because yes basically Firefox is a good browser however riddled with scars from Mozilla-Devs kneejerk moves. People that do complain want change ..

        And well: Some people complained about the search suggestion in the past, however now tho

    • Oh come on. You think they'll loose ALL two of their users?

    • Geeks are who promoted Firefox and their general abandonment speaks volumes. They are responsible for its adopt and leadership should take fucking note.

      Firefox is wallowing in cash and has no reason to care about geeks any more, or market share since they have plenty of loot for the short term anyway.

      I quit using it in protest to help it die so it may rise like the Phoenix browser (it's ancestor) did from the ashes of Netscape. I no longer advise anyone else to use it either. The code will live with or with

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @09:09AM (#61874865)

    You can modify your user.js (which override internal settings even when an extension tries to change them) or just add it one to your profile using this gist: https://gist.github.com/Aether... [github.com]
    It disables various phone home options and overrides URLs used to phone home, just in case.

    It's likely to be updated soon to include disable these new features.

    • by clovis ( 4684 )

      You can modify your user.js (which override internal settings even when an extension tries to change them) or just add it one to your profile using this gist: https://gist.github.com/Aether... [github.com]
      It disables various phone home options and overrides URLs used to phone home, just in case.

      It's likely to be updated soon to include disable these new features.

      That looks useful.
      Thanks for reminding me that slashdot isn't a completely lost cause.

    • Set these to "false" in your user.js file:

      "browser.urlbar.suggest (dot) quicksuggest"
      "browser.urlbar.suggest (dot) quicksuggest.sponsored"

      (Obviously, replace " (dot) " with a period -- frelling unsophisticated "ascii art" filter)

    • Sorry, but i didn't install Firefox to have a Windows installation experience.

      Dump that shit.

      Web's dead. Google killed it. Mozilla held out the longest, but ultimately snapped, and helped them.
      Time to go back to the pre-WWW Internet and use real applications again.

      9P for Linux anyone?

  • Anymore whenever I hear advertised some software or service is secure and respects your privacy I just assume the opposite is true.

    Granted it could well be the software or service actually is secure and respects your privacy and the people advertising it are proud of the fact. In reality that is basically never the case.

    Despite all of the privacy slogans for the average user Firefox offers as much privacy as Chrome or Edge which is to say none at all. I especially love how privacy is always from someone e

  • If I'm an unscrupulous dipshit working for Mozilla, I now have an in I can use to phish corporate users. If I know the layout of their corporate intranet from all these address bar entries, it makes it that much easier to pose as an insider IT guy.

  • What are Slashdotters' thoughts on Waterfox? I'm sure they're not beyond reproach either. I'd like to know what skeletons they have in their closet...

    • there was 'pale moon' (maybe still is?) - and I do remember trying it a while back.

      then, the key extensions I needed didnt' work or didn't always work. was too much of a PITA to keep things working.

      FF is done for, for those of us who want a truly customizable system. its why we started with FF.

      maybe palemoon or equiv is ok now? I did have to switch to chrome and chrome-like things (at work and home). the aged truly ancient ff I was running ran out of certs (must have really bad breath) so now that brows

  • It's high time that Firefox is forked. Look how much better LibreOffice is now.
    • by burni2 ( 1643061 )

      Use Waterfox watch Waterfox (acquired by ad company)

  • But I also believe in European socialism.

    Opera keeps getting more free why can't Firefox?
    • Opera is owned by Chinese investors:

      Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (Zhou Yahui) (48%)[7]
      Qifei International Development Co. Limited (Qihoo 360) (27.5%)[8]
      Keeneyes Future Holdings Inc (Zhou Yahui) (19.5%)[7][8]
      Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L.P. (5%)[8]

      • Does it hurt that they are doing better than American investors like *literally fucking Google*?

        Sorry, but your argument only works for the few people deluded enough to believe America is "not" just as evil.

        Corporations in America literally are fascist regimes with a minimal excuse of a veil of fake democracy to make it go down easier.
        So not any better than the oligarchic regime with minimal excuse of a veil of fake communism to make it go down easier, that China is.
        Bezos and Xi 'Winnie The Poo' Pingpong ar

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by burni2 ( 1643061 )

      Yeah, because of that annoyance I have disabled the auto-update and just download and install the full exe - however with Networking disabled.

      Just when FF starts and tries to display shit its closed and the data is deleted and all disabled about:config and pocket options are rechecked.

  • Nobody can tell me that they don't know that this equal suicide.

    Not too many years ago, maybe even just one, they literally advertised that they weren't doing this kind of shit.

    Have they been infiltrated by a Google mole? (Compare: Elop, the Microsoft mole @ Nokia) Did they snap, and go insane?

    I wish I could just drive over to wherever their HQ is, and ask them that *in person*, and not let them get away without a satisfying answer.

  • I'm not in the US, don't have the setting and so I just switched off ALL suggestions but I have still "Firefox suggest" items when typing into the address bar.

  • by Malays2 bowman ( 6656916 ) on Saturday October 09, 2021 @02:20PM (#61875689)

    We are now at a crossroads here with only two streets to go down:

    1- Keep dealing with an internet that is only going to get more user hostile, more government/corporation control freak friendly, more privacy invading, more manipulative, more everything that no sane decent person ever wanted.

    2- Start over from scratch, with a firmly enforced "Users' Bill of Rights" to prevent the aforementioned abuses.

    • I think you'd have an easier time inventing a new language to replace English.
    • Lots of people pay lip service to valuing their privacy but won't spend the time and effort to learn and safeguard it. Realistically, nobody's going to upend the current internet and start over, at least not in any substantial way that gains any traction. We're stuck with the system we have, whether we like it or not. So it's important to try and win the privacy battle on this front, even if it's a losing fight. Every concession we gain in favor of user rights now matters in the long term, even if ultimatel
  • For the last five years or so, their main purpose seems to have been to piss off as many people as possible. Are they trying to push themselves into oblivion, or something like that?
  • If you guys aren't using Edge, Chrome, and now Firefox, what are you using?
    • by burni2 ( 1643061 )

      1.) we use Firefox and want it to prevail and get better
      2.) we do this by expressing our concern about the crazy choices of Mozilla - the more crazy the more drastic it gets.
      3.) Waterfox

  • I, for one, welcome our new Rust overlords. Not! Way to mix leftist ideology with current NSA practices. Fucktards!
  • by burni2 ( 1643061 ) on Sunday October 10, 2021 @05:52AM (#61877177)

    I just recognized that there is the need for a central point of information, if you have more Firefox Forks please add them under here, and if available please also link to further information (for example: wiki):

    Waterfox
    https://www.waterfox.net/ [waterfox.net]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    A test(German Language) of what data Waterfox sends
    https://www.kuketz-blog.de/wat... [kuketz-blog.de]

    Palemoon
    https://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]
    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Librewolf
    https://librewolf-community.gi... [gitlab.io]
    A test(German Language) of what data LibreWolf sends
    https://www.kuketz-blog.de/lib... [kuketz-blog.de]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Iceweasel / Icecat - NOT UPDATED
    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Personally, I use Firefox ESR with the ghacks user.js [githubusercontent.com], which you need to configure manually and update when new releases hit. It's a pain to set up and they definitely let you trade convenience out for privacy if you're not careful (although maybe you want that), but ultimately it's the best solution I've found. A lot of the Firefox forks just don't do it for me; usually they're developed by a small team and security fixes can take a while to be ported over, and in Pale Moon's case specifically, compatibili

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