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Comment by Dirlewanger | Hacker News Reader

How else is one supposed to react to this other than with cynicism? This is the nature of going on the Internet, you will be tracked whether you like it or not. No one is anonymous. The Internet, while being one of the greatest inventions by mankind, has succumbed like all the others to the maladies of greed. Unless some billionaire Elon Musk-esque figure funds a private service to actually not, really, no-for-real track you, it won't happen. Personal incentives motivate people, and until this hypothetical billionaire sees an incentive other than profit, it's not happening.

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> How else is one supposed to react to this other than with cynicism?

How about empowerment instead of cynicism?

Maybe it's possible to build browsers and advertising and mobile devices that don't relentlessly erode privacy. I work at Mozilla to help build that tech. I firmly believe the dystopian corporate future isn't the only option.

You should check us out: https://www.mozilla.org/mission

> Maybe it's possible to build browsers and advertising and mobile devices that don't relentlessly erode privacy.

That's nice a nice sentiment. I'd be less skeptical if Firefox didn't change my default search engine behind my back. (After updating Android from 31 to 36.)

If you changed the defaults, it was kept. If you never set a search engine, the shipped default was changed (and clearly mentioned as such in the release notes not to mention all over the press, so saying "behind my back" is quite funny).

Just to play devil's advocate, what if the default was the choice the user wanted?

Then he can switch it after having read the release notes pointing it out? The behind the back part was unwarranted, so the only thing that's remaining really is "I preferred the previous default" which doesn't quite jive with the "I'm skeptical regarding privacy" complaint that was made.

Then that's just bad design. If there was a possibility of them switching out the pre-determined defaults then the default choices should have been asked of the user from the beginning.

But then, it's hard to make money that way so I can understand why they wouldn't do that.

EDIT: you edited, but I agree the "behind the back" isn't quite right.

Presenting modal dialogs to the users on first run is considered terrible UX design with a high bounce rate.

The way you state it, you'd have to ask the user to verify every single setting in your app. That is problematic.

Making money doesn't even have to factor in. (Ok, if nobody uses the apps, you're not making money either, but you get what I mean)

I don't think I stated they should ask for every single setting in the app. Exaggerating to support your claim is not the way to go.

But, considering we're discussing a rather popular and commonly used feature that is front-facing in the browser; yes, they should ask up front which search engine provider you would prefer to use. Especially if they plan for the likelihood to change the default, which may be a user's preferred choice.

Also, since they were receiving money from Google to have it be the default search engine and they switched to Yahoo because they got another/better deal; it is about the money.

EDIT: another thought, if the choice provided has a high bounce rate then obviously it would just go with a determined default in that case. Hopefully it wouldn't prevent them from using the app because they declined to set preferences on first run. If they chose not to set the preference and the default later changes, then it's on them.

Internet Explorer 8 used to do this on first run - that is, prompting you to confirm your default search provider and whatnot. [1]

It sucked, because most people would open IE, expect the browser, instead get this dialog instead of the browser, and just click the "ask me later" button each time, thereby loading the browser with defaults. And then of course, it comes up again the next time you start the browser.

Back in my technician days, I dealt with a lot of tickets about this. Even a cursory glance at the window explains what it is and what it does, and it only takes like three clicks to finish the process and then never deal with it again. Most people didn't care, they just wanted the damn window out of their way so they could open the browser and do their job, so they select the option that leads to the lest friction - go away and ask me later.

The point being, what you suggest is not an improvement of the user experience. The number of people so invested in the default search engine that they make value judgments about what comes set by default is much lower than the people who would be annoyed by a prompt to set it.

Average users don't freaking read their screens. If they did, frontline tech support people would be nearly out of a job.

[1]:http://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/tutorials/100217d1285...

I'm not sure about the latest version since I rarely use it, but I'm fairly sure that feature existed beyond IE8. But that feature existed for those very people that complained about it, because they were also the types to complain about some setting or another that wasn't doing what they expected even though the browser asked for them to make that setting. It's you either get complaints at the beginning or the end. You will always, always have a percentage of people who not only don't understand how things work, they'll go out of their way to avoid learning how it works. You can't avoid that. The prompt is for people who may actually want to know how the software they are using actually works.

But hey, everybody has their opinion on the matter. I, for one, feel that if the app is going to have settings with defaults then the developers shouldn't be changing them at random times changing the experience of the user without prompting them. But if they are, then the user should be prompted at the beginning with an explanation that "hey! we may change this setting later so this is to make you aware of it" so that they can choose their own default that hopefully should never be changed again. My advocating for the prompt in the beginning isn't because I think it's a good idea, it's because I think changing settings that a user has been operating under without their consent is a bad idea. This is my proposed solution to what I feel is a bad idea.

There's default settings, and then there's "default" settings. I think of Debian's debconf and how there are different levels of prompts when installing a package.

A good compromise would be to ask on use. The first time someone searches say "What service do you want to complete this with?" and have Yahoo/Yandex pre-selected. Then never ask again.

The never asking again is the key part. IE's setup dialog is a problem because it's either answer a bunch of annoying questions now or answer a bunch of annoying questions later. It should be a choice of setup now or don't bother me again (unless I activate the setup wizard myself).

Doesn't IE offer "recommended" settings?

I woke up one day (after clicking update) to find my default search engine set to Yahoo and ads in my new tab page. You can mention it all you want in the release notes, but users don't expect nor want those kinds of things to change.

The only thing more behind-the-back than that is Chrome yanking Java (well, NPAPI) with no warning in Update 42

I had it set to DDG prior. After upgrade it was Yahoo.

I know that Hanlon's Razor tells me to suspect it was just a bug. But the current environment of money and politics makes it hard to ignore the alternative.

Feel free to revert back to 31 and write your own updates & bug fixes.

I actually did revert to 31 but only because 36 was unusably slow.

Come on, it's not really "behind your back" if it's something you can immediately see on the page. The search engine thing is the one thing you'd have to deal with as it just about pays for all of Mozilla.

I respect the work you do and mozilla does many great things - however, when I start freshly installed firefox (on ubuntu), I have already a google cookie set. Why?

Because google gives money to mozilla?

Cynicism? I react with annoyance to people who think that:

* Auto-updates to software with a high need for security patches are not important enough to ping a server, which (of course!) exposes your IP.

* Businesses aren't interested in collecting usage metrics for their software for non-nefarious reasons. Collection of metrics is one of the most amazing advances in software design in the last 20 years, after all.

* Businesses shouldn't have a profit motive: Ghostery found a way to both provide a service and make money off of the people who track others. Seems reasonable to me.

Cynicism is misplaced, here. Annoyance at blowing up a non-issue to the front page of HN is appropriate, though.

> important enough to ping a server, which (of course!) exposes your IP.

It's "of course" for you and me, but not for the vast majority if end users. Also, there's no reason this can't be done anonymously, even as a policy from the vendor that IPs are not logged.

> Businesses aren't interested in collecting usage metrics for their software for non-nefarious reasons

Absolutely some businesses have good intentions; also some have bad intentions and some have intentions that they think are non-nefarious but about which their customers disagree. A few thoughts:

* Many of these businesses are secretive about this behavior; if it's all ok and for the good, what are they hiding? Why don't they announce it to every customer when they start using the product?

* The collection of usage metrics goes way beyond what is needed, with many vendors collecting everything they can get their hands on.

* The bad actors damage everyone's reputations; consumers have no way to distinguish good guys from bad. If this was properly regulated, consumers might trust everyone more. The good guys should be pushing for regulation.

> Businesses shouldn't have a profit motive

I don't recall a criticism of profit, but maybe I overlooked it.

It's pointless to talk about what 'many businesses' do; we're having a discussion about some specific businesses. I also fail to see what the kerfuffle is because when I installed these anti-tracking plugins it was made quite clear to me, in plain English, that they would download updates from time to time.

The whole thing has an air of 'locksmiths - do they know too much about how we keep our doors closed?!'

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