Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

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Maybe because Mozilla collects a massive amount of "telemetry" on users, in a way that is personally identifiable, despite zero need for it to be so?

https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t...

Or maybe it's because you can toss some money at Mozilla and they'll silently install a browser extension on behalf of an advertising company for a shitty TV show about a l33t haxx0r d00d?

By the way, the bugzilla report about that particular incident was locked, then made employee-only, then made public again...then restricted beyond employee-only...by a project manager...who used to work for advertising companies before she came over to Mozilla.

Or how about the fact that flipping on some of the anti-tracking features include munging the timezone, which means times in almost any website are wrong - which seems to be a poison pill to keep people from turning it on?

Edit with details regarding the extension controversy: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo...

> Maybe because Mozilla collects a massive amount of "telemetry" on users, in a way that is personally identifiable, despite zero need for it to be so?

Please point out how to personally identify a telemetry user.

I am a Firefox engineer who uses telemetry data, and know of no way to personally identify any of my users. Well, one way -- you can voluntarily put your email or other info into a crash report, though I know there was some talk of stripping that text field out because it's so rarely useful and touching any potential PII is like touching hot lava.

btw, Firefox crash reports no longer have an email address field, though they still have a comment field:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1688883

resistFingerprinting is a hidden setting. Mostly it's for Tor Browser. Supporting Tor Browser's threat model and not supporting yours might be disappointing. That doesn't make it a poison pill.

What is the browser extension incident you're referring to? Can you provide a link to an article or previous HN discussion?

They're referring to https://www.engadget.com/2017-12-16-firefox-mr-robot-extensi..., an event that occurred 5 years ago, was immediately rolled back after launch, and hasn't happened again.

>an event that occurred 5 years ago, was immediately rolled back after launch, and hasn't happened again.

It shouldn't have happened in the first place so no one gets any points for taking it down immediately. The fact it doesn't seem to have happened again also earns no points because again it should never have happened in the first place. At no point should your web browser silently install an addon/extension without your permission. That this same web browser wants to trot around afterwards and prattle on about how secure and open they are makes it even worse.

nonsense.

about:telemetry shows you all that is collected and none of it is PII, a unique fingerprint maybe...

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