Disable telemetry and data collection in mozilla Firefox Quantum (2018)
chefkochblog.wordpress.com
chefkochblog.wordpress.com
Best is irrelevant - it's not good enough.
I had the Preferences option Off for years and yet there was a laundry list of telemetry options enabled in about:config.
This is shady as fuck if you pardon my French. Completely unacceptable.
It’s not like they use it to build a profile of you, as goddamn chrome does.
I feel that whatever Mozilla does can never be good enough for some people, even though they are one of the most important players in the “fight” of OSS. Just think about it, linux is only usable as a desktop OS because most of the desktop apps migrated to the web - and firefox is the only free browser that is actually capable, as well as the only engine that is not google-controlled. We should support them as much as we can.
It’s great that you consent. In that instance it is fine. Many do not, and to proceed with the assumption of consent should be a crime.
What is done with the data is irrelevant. Spying without explicit consent is the problem.
Eh? Says who? Them?
So many times, companies have lied, cheated, made excuses. So many times "we don't", then they do.
So. Many. Times.
So I should just trust Mozilla, because... well, why?
And this doesn't even take into account new corporate owners, leveraging existing data in a new way. Or rogue elements in corps, employees stealing data for profit, or even data leakage due to misconfigured servers.
These thongs have all happened.
Corps have left dumps of entire client databases, credit cards, id, on open portals!
Over and over, again and again, we have been shown, never ever trust anyone with your data. Ever.
Disable "datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled" and Firefox will not send telemetry data around. But users cannot be expected to mess around in about:config, right? That why there is a checkbox in the Firefox preferences just for this. In the Privacy & Security tab.
Also, when you create a fresh Firefox profile (e.g. when you use it for the first time), it will open their privacy policy page, with a somewhat hidden button that brings you straight to those checkboxes. I don't like that it's a bit hidden now by default, and they could do better there (and actually did better in the past, where there was a very visible popup asking you about this stuff).
As for "they should test this!": Right, and they do have unit tests[2].
[1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t... [2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/compone...
https://chuttenblog.wordpress.com/2020/11/05/data-science-is...
Disabling telemetry is like refusing to register to vote: you minimise the chance of people doing bad things to you, but you also minimise the chance of people doing good things for you. Maybe that trade-off is worth it for you, maybe it isn't, but don't complain that the trade-off exists and don't get annoyed that other people choose differently.
At work I handle more sensitive data and there it's turned off (the basic stuff, without diving into about:config to make it completely silent).
On the other extreme, I also use Firefox during security assessments. My browser making noise on a network where I'm not supposed to be detected is not something I can have happen. Removing all URLs and disabling all telemetry settings in about:config used to be enough, but recently they added a new system and that URL doesn't seem to be in about:config, I guess it's hard-coded. With covid-19 our on-site assessments are on hold anyway, but sooner or later I'll need to disable that either in Firefox itself or in the proxy configuration (on localhost, which logs any requests I make).
It's already anonymous, no? Of course if you consider a CGNAT IP address not-anonymous then nothing can help you.
Similarly, it's not as if CGNAT is an anonymisation technology. Crooks would love it: download and upload whatever you want and nobody can ever tell it was you! No, ISPs log who used which IP and port at which time.
Processing the IP address and port number is essential for TCP to work, and even if you don't store it and filter it on your network's edge, it's still covered by privacy law–technically. A judge might not award you damages, but technically the processing (not storage) of personal data is also covered by privacy laws.
Of course, if they don't store it then I would consider it anonymous. The question to me is what they do with the data. But it's not correct to assume that it's anonymous just because you share an IP address with others, or to assume that everyone has CGNAT. Where I live a personal address is the default.
I am surprised, for a product that claims to be privacy focused to behave in this way. I am a Firefox user and have not disabled telemetry since I think it can help Firefox and I trust them no to do anything wrong with it. But I would have expected that unchecking the telemetry option would actually disable telemetry.
Create a customized version of Firefox that:
- has support for removing the top bar when tst or something similar is installed. It should probably be possible to disable/reneable it using a menu option and an optional toolbar button.
- actually disables all telemetry when you try to disable telemetry
- optional but recommended: a "getting started wizard" where you select your preferred search engine, if you want to install TST or Sidebery, and if you want to set memory consumption to sane defaults.
- otherwise works exactly like Firefox
- Charge $50 a year, possibly more.
I'd probably sign up immediately.
Questions:
Q: what if Mozilla finally gets it and implements this?
A: Fine, just go to the next thing they broke.
waterfox claims:
* Telemetry is removed
* Data collection is removed
tor goes much further
My idea here was taking the latest version of Firefox and just fix the worst problems. I'd still pay for it.
Tho that isn't mentioned in the article, and I'd be surprised if mozilla collects any data there (other than something like a hit count).
Of course, there are also the update checks, both for Firefox itself and extensions (both not mentioned in the article either, and probably a bad idea to disable this functionality unless some external source like a package manager does the updating for you).
No fingerprinting required.
Telemetry > General Data > Id is a GUID. ClientID is also a GUID.
You can clear the latter in about:config and it sticks, but clearing the former causes it to be regenerated on the restart.
I mean, that would be China++ level surveillance. Of course it doesn't include what sites you visited.
"How to disable all telemetry and data collection in mozilla Firefox Quantum"
[1] Currently "Disable All Telemetry and Data Collection in Mozilla Firefox Quantum"
I've gone through countless iterations trying to turn stuff off, but it still makes all kinds of requests.
I had to block it with Little Snitch.
On the other hand, plenty of other "privacy focused" companies are worse (apple is horrendous).
That preference has nothing to do with actually sending data to the mothership:
Also, it is a click-bait, out of date article without much truth to it, don’t believe everything you read online