Firefox - a promised land of privacy that never happened. Look elsewhere unless you're a coder with the ability to stop the enormous data mining.

[Dixel]

A collection of posts helping people realise Firefox is not what it claims to be, far from it.

Working solutions to block its telemetry can also be posted here.

[Guest]

A simple curiosity,why this crusade considering that you cannot use Firefox but only r3dfox?

It is not the same thing.

r3dfox has less inherent security than Firefox.
Note that I did not write that it has less privacy.

[Tripredacus]

No appropriate option for Yes/Indifferent. 

I only use it on one computer, it is v115 and uses HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript and uBlock Origin. 

Technically my Win98FE computer has Firefox installed, some early version like 0.9 iirc but this computer doesn't ever use it for going online, only internal network stuff.

[Dixel]

On 9/6/2024 at 8:57 AM, Sampei.Nihira said:

A simple curiosity,why this crusade considering that you cannot use Firefox but only r3dfox?

It's not "crusade", this topic is intended to state the obvious facts. Why I "can't use Firefox but only r3dfox"? You personally forbid me?

[Dixel]

On 9/6/2024 at 9:17 AM, Tripredacus said:

No appropriate option for Yes/Indifferent. 

You're welcome to add.

[Dixel]

On 9/6/2024 at 9:17 AM, Tripredacus said:

I only use it on one computer, it is v115 and uses HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript and uBlock Origin. 

HTTPS Everywhere is obsolete for a decade or so. All somewhat modern browsers don't need it. I'm pretty sure v.115, too, you're welcome to check.

On 9/6/2024 at 9:17 AM, Tripredacus said:

Technically my Win98FE computer has Firefox installed, some early version like 0.9 iirc but this computer doesn't ever use it for going online, only internal network stuff.

Non-relevant since it has nowhere to leak data to.

[Saxon]

"Firefox is spyware (extension recommendation scandal)"

"Upon visiting a targeted site, Firefox contacts services.addons.mozilla.org to get "extension recommendation" for the site, conveniently disclosing that you've just visited one of these sites."

"Mozilla is spying on whether you frequent the following sites: facebook.com, translate.google.com, youtube.com, wikipedia.org, reddit.com. The list can be seen in CFRMessageProvider.jsm where the recommended extensions are listed. If the browser determines you're using one of those sites a lot, it will phone home the next time you've visiting such site by automatically fetching the addon info (even when you don't interact with the recommendation button). If the telemetry is enabled, it should send a lot more info..."

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/anxfz8/firefox_is_spyware_extension_recommendation/

[Saxon]

"Firefox phones home about almost every single interaction you have with its UI

Firefox will send information about almost every basic operation that you do back to Mozilla.

This is tagged with a unique client ID and an ID for your current session, and any relevant information related to this action. By default, the following uses of the UI are reported to Mozilla[5]:

Performing a search

Clicking a top site item

Deleting an item from history

Blocking a site

Bookmarking a link

Removing a bookmark from a link

Opening a link in a new window

Opening a link in a new private window

Opening the new tab preferences pane

Closing the new tab preferences pane

Acknowledging a section disclaimer

Adding or editing a new TopSite

Requesting a custom screenshot preview

Session end

Impression stats

Click/block/save_to_pocket ping

Addon initialisation failure

Domain affinity calculation

Source link.

[Saxon]

On 9/6/2024 at 8:57 AM, Sampei.Nihira said:

r3dfox has less inherent security than Firefox.
Note that I did not write that it has less privacy.

How do we know it?

[Saxon]

"Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics

Firefox has been integrated with the spyware platform called "Google Analytics"[1]. Firefox has been confirmed to now send analytics to Google. According to a Firefox developer the spyware in Firefox is "extremely useful to us and we have already weighed the cost/benefit of using tracking." and that Firefox will not remove Google Analytics support entirely. Firefox's position on privacy is made very clear with this quote:

"Wanted to address your position though: We don't give the "data directly to Google". See the discussion here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=858839. The short version is: tl;dr: We now have an option to opt-out of Google doing anything with the data that Google Analytics collections on Mozilla websites. GA tracking is anonymous and at the aggregate level and we use it to improve the experience of our websites. We are collecting aggregate and non-identifiable data in numbers to ensure our development/UX changes are met well. We can respect privacy and still have analytics; in fact Mozilla's aim is for an experience that values user privacy and usability (I'd say Apple also wants UX that fits that mold, as an example). We need some data, anonymized and aggregated, to do this. "

The best takeaway to this is that Mozilla wants to pretend that including spyware in their program is somehow not a breach of privacy, and that Firefox could possibly be respecting user privacy while simultaneously collecting data on users and sending it to Google. It's strongly suggested reading the GitHub thread and the further anti-privacy statements the Mozilla employee makes while defending the spyware features in Firefox. It's very dangerous to assert that there is somehow a middle ground between respecting user privacy and datamining the user."

Source link.

 

[Saxon]

"Pocket — a privacy nightmare

Firefox has a Pocket button in its navigation bar, which allows you to "save any article, video or page from Firefox" and "View in Pocket on any device, any time." Let's see how it looks in terms of privacy — quoting from Pocket's privacy policy[3]: "In addition to the information that you provide to us when you register for a user account, we collect information about the URLs, titles and content of the web pages and other information you save to Pocket." So everything you conveniently put in "your" Pocket is being stored (of course, otherwise Pocket wouldn't work). "The types of information we collect includes your browser type, device type, device id, time zone, language, and other information related to the manner in which you access the Pocket Technologies. " So anytime you view a file in "your" Pocket, they know everything about the device you used to do it. "We may also use "pixel tags," "web beacons," "clear GIFs" or similar means (individually or collectively "Pixel Tags") in connection with emails that we send to our users in order to collect usage data." So, they are acting like any old tracking website, even in ways that have nothing to do with their functionality. "We may also share your device ID with third parties in connection with advertising campaigns. " And they work with advertisers too! Describing all of Pocket's violations would take up this whole article. There are similar services with better privacy policies, but in the end, they still store the things you view in "the cloud". A real privacy-based browser would not be integrated with them by default. Can be disabled in about:config[8]"

Source link.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

How do we know it?

The current version of Firefox has 11.5 percent Rust language in its code.
r3dfox at least from the Github languages statements has 0% Rust language.
So r3dfox is more exposed to memory bugs than Firefox.

Even Google Chrome has a small percentage of Rust (2.9%) in its code, in third-party libraries.

Edited September 8, 2024 by Sampei.Nihira

[vinifera]

i use redfox because librewolf never fixed x64 builds
and i have no issues so far... so why not use it ?

[UCyborg]

@Sampei.Nihira
I can't see GitHub mentioning Rust even on Mozilla's repo, just Other. What page are we looking at? Wouldn't rewriting Rust code be rather complex task?

I tried r3dfox several versions ago and noticed win32k lockdown is disabled for aesthetic reasons, using Windows' provided GUI elements instead of custom drawn ones. AFAIK, custom drawn ones are used for unified look across platforms and avoiding calls to win32k.sys on Windows to reduce potential attack surface.

Edited September 8, 2024 by UCyborg

[Guest]

10 hours ago, UCyborg said:

@Sampei.Nihira
I can't see GitHub mentioning Rust even on Mozilla's repo, just Other. What page are we looking at? Wouldn't rewriting Rust code be rather complex task?

I tried r3dfox several versions ago and noticed win32k lockdown is disabled for aesthetic reasons, using Windows' provided GUI elements instead of custom drawn ones. AFAIK, custom drawn ones are used for unified look across platforms and avoiding calls to win32k.sys on Windows to reduce potential attack surface.

If you want to make a comparison tween the programming languages code of Firefox and r3dfox:

https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/

As you will notice the programming languages code is updated to September 2024.

For the other question you ask,I have not been a programmer for at least 20 years (a Mesozoic era in this environment) so I cannot answer you exactly and prefer to leave the eventual answer to other MSFN members who have up-to-date expertise certainly better than mine.

The  conviction that a fork is identical to the derived browser that transpires (silently) in this forum is incorrect.
Then of course use in an operating system that is no longer supported outweighs in importance everything else.

For example, the code of Ungoogled Chromium is almost entirely in Python that of Supermium/Thorium is not.

 

P.S. I obviously haven't voted yet and probably won't vote.

Edited September 9, 2024 by Sampei.Nihira