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Comment by Despegar | Hacker News Reader

As always when it comes to Firefox and privacy, the question is why isn't it on by default?

Because it may cause some websites to break and they're aiming to provide a good user-experience for the majority of the population. If they turn this on by default without users knowing the risks of sites not working correctly, they'll unfairly blame Firefox, bad mouth it, and switch to Chrome/Edge/Safari/etc.

That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

I don't think you've turned on very strict anti-tracking in a browser if you think that's a weak reason. The setting can really break websites, making them unusable or whole blocks of content don't load. Before this update I used to use Privacy Badger and it also broke websites all the time.

I don't believe Safari has anything like what Firefox or Privacy Badger offers built in. So you wouldn't be able to use your default experience with Safari as a comparison.

I had to turn it off in Firefox. It was breaking stuff like image uploaders on ebay.

You can disable it on a per website basis. That's what I do. It protects me from random websites and websites I don't trust. I also find that it speeds up page load because it's loading less ad tech.

Safari has been leading on the privacy front for more than a decade. They were first to block third-party cookies by default (which led to the FTC collecting a scalp from Google when they bypassed it), blocking trackers with ITP by default, and blocking fingerprinting by default [1].

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/new-safari-privacy-features-on-mac...

Firefox anti fingerprinting breaks a lot of legitimate web features because they can be used for fingerprinting. Most notably every timestamp on the internet no longer shows the date in your timezone and every single website thinks you are a bot and blocks you or captcha spams you.

>> Because it may cause some websites to break and they're aiming to provide a good user-experience for the majority of the population. If they turn this on by default without users knowing the risks of sites not working correctly, they'll unfairly blame Firefox, bad mouth it, and switch to Chrome/Edge/Safari/etc.

> That's the stated reason but it's pretty weak to me. Safari hasn't had to make similar compromises.

Safari's the only browser engine available on iPhones, and its users can't easily switch to another. That means more websites test compatibility with it, and its users are locked in even if they don't.

Apple more market power than Mozilla, so it doesn't need to compromise as much (and get get away with being a bit of a bully). Firefox is forced to tread lightly in comparison.

When I switched to Firefox, I tried enabling uMatrix and strictly blocking as much as possible.

My guess is that about half of sites had issues of one sort or another. So many load javascript from 3rd parties, or other domains under their control, that strict blocking quickly breaks the browser experience.

Decentraleyes gives you a local cache of 3rd party scripts that you need to keep activated. Otherwise, their content probably isn't worth viewing anyway if they're so bloated that they need to pull in 20+ scripts from across the net.

I’ve used PrivacyBadger as an extension providing a similar service and it frequently breaks as it mis-identifies important third party scripts as trackers.

Because there's no user choice possible on iOS, if you don't like Safari, you just have the choice of another Safari-skinned browser doing exactly the same as the original.

No, this really is the reason. Anti-fraud systems embedded in checkout pages use fingerprinting, for example, and break if blocked. Site breakage very quickly drives users to other browsers.

Because it causes every website to non stop nag you with captchas and half of websites to change time zones to something not useful for you.

Possibly to avoid the kind of cat-and-mouse dynamics that played out when MS enabled Do Not Track by default in IE10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track#Internet_Explorer...

We can only wonder.

Individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.[1]

[1]https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/

Because they're all but funded by Google.

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