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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

1. does it still require me to use pulseaudio to compile it. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661

2. does it still send DNS data to third parties for analytics. https://www.ghacks.net/2018/03/20/firefox-dns-over-https-and...

3. Am i still required to build Pocket when I build Firefox? are we still forbidden from removing pocket?

4. Is telemetry still shipped on by default? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/24/mozilla_considers_m...

Then no, its certainly not time for me to try firefox.

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At the risk of stating the extremely obvious to the Linux user that likes to build their browser from source: I don't think the advice in the article was intended for you.

1. Yes. The bug you linked to is prominently marked "RESOLVED WONTFIX."

2. We are not sending DNS data to third parties "for analytics." We are openly and transparently conducting a DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) experiment with a very small portion of users running Nightly test builds of Firefox. The experiment places a massive notification banner in the browser window with prominent buttons to disable or accept the experiment.

The details on DoH and how it improves both security and privacy are explained by Lin Clark in https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/05/a-cartoon-intro-to-dns-ove... (HN discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17196415).

3. Firefox is Free Software, under an OSI-approved license. You're not "required" to build pocket, nor can or would we "forbid" you from removing it when you build Firefox.

...but you could also save yourself a lot of time and just toggle the "disablePocket" group policy: https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/READ...

Still seems like a really bizarre thing to get hung up on when the extent of "Pocket in Firefox" is a toolbar icon and a section of the new tab page, both of which can be hidden with 1-2 clicks, after which they're completely inert. But hey, whatever floats your goat.

4. Yes, we gather a limited amount of telemetry by default. Unlike other modern platforms, this is always available for your own inspection (see about:telemetry and https://telemetry.mozilla.org/), and you can opt-out with a single checkbox. We actually reduced the telemetry we gather last year: https://medium.com/georg-fritzsche/data-preference-changes-i...

So to summarize: “1-2 clicks” for 3 and “1-2 clicks” for 4. Are these clicks hidden behind the scary disclaimer I get when I enter “about:config”?

I think you are being defensive and completely underplaying the effort required by saying “1-2 clicks”.

Dude, these things should be opt-in and not opt-out.

What browser do you recommend?

OP would probably recommend you to write your own browser.

That would be great. However, the webs standards are bloated as hell. I know you were probably being factitious. However, I think it's a big problem that web standards have gotten so complicated.

The browser would also have to backward compatible, and handle mal-formatted and bloated code written by god who knows. There are features that are the antithesis of privacy and disabling some of the features breaks quite a few sites. Sadly, the web is no longer linked documents, but has full blown apps. It's honestly freaking insane.

You can take something like CEF and build the browser UI around it and avoid this nefariousness.

how many sites are you able to render, since you must use Netscape Navigator?

They mean, as an alternative to Chrome, which is undoubtedly less open then Firefox.

So, genuine question, what do you use, then? GNU IceCat?

> they mean, as an alternative to Chrome, which is undoubtedly less open then Firefox

Chromium is just as open as Firefox.

I would bet quite a lot that most of their readers are using Chrome and not Chromium.

Chromium still comes with lots of googly bits

https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium

This looks great. Why isn't it available on debian via apt? It seems strongly aligned with debian's values.

Completely agree with what you said, but what do you suggest instead?

The vim-like browsers that use a Qt-WebKit or WebKit backend are great! https://www.qutebrowser.org/ https://luakit.github.io/ https://fanglingsu.github.io/vimb/ There are other projects like http://midori-browser.org/ https://www.falkon.org/ https://www.seamonkey-project.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/

This sums it up nicely. I refuse to use Firefox until they remove Pocket, it's an absolute tragedy that it was ever included by default and forced onto a user base that never asked for it.

What's your problem with them including a technology they own in their browser?

It was acquired so that Mozilla could create a new revenue stream with recommended & sponsored content. To rephrase, they forced a feature on me so that they could sell ads.

Gotcha, that's reasonable.

And thanks for answering and not just dismissing the question.

First, they didn't own Pocket when it was first integrated. Second, for years Firefox removed features like tab groups in order to make the browser easier to maintain because that functionality could be added as a plugin. Then they force everyone to use a plugin for a proprietary service? It was very hypocritical of them and I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that.

pocket.enabled in about:config, set the value to “false”.

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