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Comment by lol768 | Hacker News Reader

This is odd because https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.mozilla.klar is already part of F-Droid and appears exactly the same .. but with a different name.

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> " Firefox Klar is a version of Firefox Focus for Germany, Austria and Switzerland with user activity tracking disabled by default." [1]

> "For clients that have "send anonymous usage data" enabled Focus sends a "core" ping and an "event" ping to Mozilla's telemetry service. Sending telemetry can be disabled in the app's settings. Builds of "Focus for Android" have telemetry enabled by default ("opt-out") while builds of "Klar for Android" have telemetry disabled by default." [2]

[1]: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.klar/

[2]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Telemet...

What's special about Germany, Austria and Switzerland that they don't get the user activity tracking?

Laws that make this kind of tracking without explicit opt-in a crime. As it should be everywhere.

I don't know but assume its a similar issue as with Google Analytics. In Germany, you are not allowed to use default configured Google Analytics. User IPs are PII for our data protection laws (it is possible for someone on earth to know who is probably behind that IP like telcos). As a consequence, we need to disable IP tracking:

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...

Really strict data privacy laws with a regulatory environment that doesn't play games and heavily leans towards consumer rights. In Germany at least, you're also required to obtain double opt-in and record extensive documentation of the entire opt-in process just for email marketing. If you overstep your bounds and draw the attention of regulators in Germany, it has all the comfort of the Eye of Sauron staring at you[2].

[1] https://blogs.oracle.com/marketingcloud/email-marketing-clar...

[2] Lord of the Rings reference. Most apt description I can think of for the dread that comes at the mere thought of pissing off German regulators in this area.

Enforced strict privacy laws.

Could be related to having a history of having to deal with mass surveillance, see stasi.

Their governments care about privacy.

Looks to me like that app patches out the Gecko webview.

Oh, it uses Webkit? Huh

Required for iOS or Apple won't allow it on the store.

Why hasn't the EU charged Apple for abusing the monopoly position? Didn't they do that to Microsoft, or has Apple sweetened them up in some other way?

Technically, Apple does not have a monopoly, unless you want to argue they are the monopolist of the market for iOS devices. They don't even have a majority market share of smartphones in most jurisdictions. That being said, I still believe it is an abuse of market position, and I'm not sure how we can fight it.

In most parts of the EU Apple has a marketshare around or below 15%. That’s about the same that Windows Phone 7 had at its peak.

So, think about how much of a monopoly position Windows Phone 7 had, and try to imagine Apple had that. You can probably imagine why Apple is not in any shape to abuse their position.

Gecko/Webview is a compile-time switch and both the F-Droid and Play Store builds use Webview. The iOS version is Webview-only or Apple wouldn't allow it on the App store.

I think you meant WebKit for the iOS version?

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