Octopus Overlords

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:27 pm I have both Firefox and Chome. I think I use Chrome 95% of the time, and only occasionally will i bring up Firefox for special occasions.

Kraken wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:34 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:27 pm I have both Firefox and Chome. I think I use Chrome 95% of the time, and only occasionally will i bring up Firefox for special occasions.

Opposite here. Firefox is my daily driver; I use Chrome when FF chokes on some javascript, as it does every now and then.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 5:17 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 4:34 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:27 pm I have both Firefox and Chome. I think I use Chrome 95% of the time, and only occasionally will i bring up Firefox for special occasions.

Opposite here. Firefox is my daily driver; I use Chrome when FF chokes on some javascript, as it does every now and then.

do you have examples of websites with this problem? i have never run into this with Firefox.

Lassr wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:40 am the NWS Doppler radar motion loop, for some reason that does not work in Firefox at home.

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:49 am Still rockin' Vivaldi here on PC. On mobile mostly Chrome as the Vivaldi beta still has issues with LastPass.

The version you want to be running (ie: that is safe from the vulnerability) is Firefox 72.0.1 and Firefox ESR 68.4.1 or higher. Firefox browsers for mobile devices are not known to be affected.

As I shared in the internal message sent to our employees today, our pre-COVID plan for 2020 included a great deal of change already: building a better internet by creating new kinds of value in Firefox; investing in innovation and creating new products; and adjusting our finances to ensure stability over the long term. Economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic have significantly impacted our revenue. As a result, our pre-COVID plan was no longer workable. Though we’ve been talking openly with our employees about the need for change — including the likelihood of layoffs — since the spring, it was no easier today when these changes became real. I desperately wish there was some other way to set Mozilla up for long term success in building a better internet.

But to go further, we must be organized to be able to think about a different world. To imagine that technology will become embedded in our world even more than it is, and we want that technology to have different characteristics and values than we experience today.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 3:37 pm I'm dusting off this old chestnut to recommend Thorium - The fastest browser on Earth.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:53 pm Firefox is what i'm still using, but i have a Chromium installation on my work PC for work-related purposes - i'll replace it with Thorium

Exodor wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:55 pm

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:53 pm Firefox is what i'm still using, but i have a Chromium installation on my work PC for work-related purposes - i'll replace it with Thorium

You could just use Edge - it's been Chromium based for years now.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 3:10 am Still using Vivaldi after switching a couple to three years ago, but have been getting the itch to switch again recently.

Will check out Thorium, but having used Edge at work for the past 2 years, I actually like it and use it on my personal laptop now.

Doesn’t feel as ‘snoopy’ as Chrome, but is it?

Any reasons more people (here) aren’t using it?

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 3:10 am but having used Edge at work for the past 2 years, I actually like it and use it on my personal laptop now.

Doesn’t feel as ‘snoopy’ as Chrome, but is it?

Any reasons more people (here) aren’t using it?

ZDNet.com wrote: …

Then along came an apparently impartial referee to offer a truly grim assessment.

Professor Douglas Leith, from the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, decided to examine web browser privacy in some detail. Detail is what academics do.

His conclusions made for bracing reading.

Leith studied how all the main browsers communicate with backend servers. He described his results like this: "We find that the browsers split into three distinct groups from this privacy perspective. In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex."

I confess to feeling more than one volt of jolt here. Not only is Edge said to be one of the two least private browsers, but Firefox and Chrome are at the same level?

And there I was believing you could trust Google no more than you can toss a tennis ball at a whale and expect it to see it again. And there I was thinking Edge had wonderful built-in privacy, mostly because Microsoft said it had and I'm monstrously gullible. And there I was trying Edge and finding it a very likable, speedy browser.

The issue, as far as Leith is concerned, is that Edge (and Yandex, if that is your browser bent) doesn't link to browser installations, but the device's hardware.

Because of this, says Leith: "Both send persistent identifiers than can be used to link requests (and associated IP address/location) to backend servers."

The ultimate effect is that, over time, the data collected can reveal your identity. Which doesn't sound ideal. Especially as there's apparently nothing the user can do to prevent it.

I thought it was time to contact Microsoft for its view and receive an identifiable response.

I sense the company isn't happy. It wonders the research -- performed, oh no, on a Mac -- adequately compared like to like.

A company spokeswoman told me: "Microsoft Edge sends diagnostic data used for product improvement purposes, which includes a device identifier. On Windows, this identifier enables a single-click ability to delete the related diagnostic data associated with the device ID stored on Microsoft servers at any time (from Windows settings), something which is not offered by all vendors."

She added: "Microsoft Edge asks for permission to collect diagnostic data for product improvement purposes and provides the capability to turn it off at any later point. This diagnostic data may contain information about websites you visit. However, it is not used to track your browsing history or URLs specifically tied to you."

So that settles it. Surely you're regularly turning your permissions on and off. Or perhaps not.

Of course, all human wailing about privacy rarely does too much good.

Most people have no idea how and how often their data is being laundered, nor to whom. Most have given up, believing it's all out there, all the time, even as we rail against our domestic conversations being recorded by Alexa and her sisters.

Tech companies have insisted they're getting better at this privacy thing. They've even started to (say they) care.

Ultimately, though, it seems they still prefer to know everything about us. In a discreet, respectful way, of course.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 3:10 am Still using Vivaldi after switching a couple to three years ago, but have been getting the itch to switch again recently.

Will check out Thorium, but having used Edge at work for the past 2 years, I actually like it and use it on my personal laptop now.

Doesn’t feel as ‘snoopy’ as Chrome, but is it?

Any reasons more people (here) aren’t using it?

n the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex."

Exodor wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 9:07 pm

In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex."

Placing Firefox on the same level as Chrome as far as privacy is utterly laughable.

School of Computer Science & Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland wrote:We study six browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Brave Browser, Microsoft Edge and Yandex Browser. For Brave with its default settings we did not find any use of identifiers allowing tracking of IP address over time, and no sharing of the details of web pages visited with backend servers. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all share details of web pages visited with backend servers. For all three this happens via the search autocomplete feature, which sends web addresses to backend servers in realtime as they are typed. In Chrome a persistent identifier is sent alongside these web addresses, allowing them to be linked together. In addition, Firefox includes identifiers in its telemetry transmissions that can potentially be used to link these over time. Telemetry can be disabled, but again is silently enabled by default. Firefox also maintains an open websocket for push notifications that is linked to a unique identifier and so potentially can also be used for tracking and which cannot be easily disabled. Safari defaults to a choice of start page that potentially leaks information to multiple third parties and allows them to preload pages containing identifiers to the browser cache. Safari otherwise made no extraneous network connections and transmitted no persistent identifiers, but allied iCloud processes did make connections containing identifiers.

From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are qualitatively different from the other browsers studied. Both send persistent identifiers than can be used to link requests (and associated IP address/location) to back end servers. Edge also sends the hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft and Yandex similarly transmits a hashed hardware identifier to back end servers. As far as we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the search autocomplete functionality that shares details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers that appear unrelated to search autocomplete.

In an update posted to its blog on November 1, Mozilla announced that Firefox 120 will feature at least 200 new Android extensions. When it debuts in December, Firefox mobile will be backed by a “fully open” extension ecosystem. Mozilla is encouraging developers to migrate to this ecosystem and create extensions to resolve recurring internet browsing problems.

The extension ecosystem aims to address recurring annoyances such as ads and cookie consent forms, enhancing the user experience on Firefox mobile.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 3:37 pm I'm dusting off this old chestnut to recommend Thorium - The fastest browser on Earth.

Essentially, this is the best-performing fork of Chromium I've ever used, minus all the cruft typically included by most other browsers, which also provides some terrific improvements for privacy and security.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 5:26 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 3:37 pm I'm dusting off this old chestnut to recommend Thorium - The fastest browser on Earth.

Essentially, this is the best-performing fork of Chromium I've ever used, minus all the cruft typically included by most other browsers, which also provides some terrific improvements for privacy and security.

OK, I am typing this using Thorium. Since I am not knowledgeable about such things, do you think it's as safe as say Edge, or Vivaldi or the like, for me to install my Bitwarden extension? The download page for the browser looks...sketchy.

It IS noticeably faster than the other browsers I've used though.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 5:52 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 5:26 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 3:37 pm I'm dusting off this old chestnut to recommend Thorium - The fastest browser on Earth.

Essentially, this is the best-performing fork of Chromium I've ever used, minus all the cruft typically included by most other browsers, which also provides some terrific improvements for privacy and security.

OK, I am typing this using Thorium. Since I am not knowledgeable about such things, do you think it's as safe as say Edge, or Vivaldi or the like, for me to install my Bitwarden extension? The download page for the browser looks...sketchy.

It IS noticeably faster than the other browsers I've used though.

Absolutely, as it's basically an open source, better optimized Chromium fork minus any corporate bloat and telemetry. Broadly speaking, open source software tends to be considered more secure than proprietary counterparts. But this is also why its web site seems less well-polished and orchestrated as compared to the likes of Microsoft, as the video I posted about it observed, so don't let that particular aspect put you off.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Nov 10, 2023 1:23 am Github always gives me a headache.

I've never understood exactly what the appeal in a 'faster' browser is. In practice, it's usually the difference between a split second and a split second and a half every ten minutes. None of them are really 'slow' unless you've got a slow connection/hardware.

Google wants to convince you its service is private while simultaneously collecting your intimate data and preventing competitors from doing the same. IP Protection walls off your data from the rest of the internet while sealing Google’s surveillance apparatus on your side of the wall.