See what’s changing in Firefox: Better insights, same privacy | The Mozilla Blog
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Innovation and privacy go hand in hand here at Mozilla. To continue developing features and products that resonate with our users, we’re adopting a new a

With the latest version of Firefox for U.S. desktop users, we’re introducing a new way to measure search activity broken down into high level categories. This measure is not linked with specific individuals and is further anonymized using a technology called OHTTP to ensure it can’t be connected with user IP addresses.

Let’s say you’re using Firefox to plan a trip to Spain and search for “Barcelona hotels.” Firefox infers that the search results fall under the category of “travel,” and it increments a counter to calculate the total number of searches happening at the country level.

Here’s the current list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel.

Having an understanding of what types of searches happen most frequently will give us a better understanding of what’s important to our users, without giving us additional insight into individual browsing preferences. This helps us take a step forward in providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs, without us stepping away from the principles that make us who we are.

We understand that any new data collection might spark some questions. Simply put, this new method only categorizes the websites that show up in your searches — not the specifics of what you’re personally looking up.

Sensitive topics, like searching for particular health care services, are categorized only under broad terms like health or society. Your search activities are handled with the same level of confidentiality as all other data regardless of any local laws surrounding certain health services.

Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings. We also don’t collect category data when you use Private Browsing mode on Firefox.

The Copy Without Site Tracking option can now remove parameters from nested URLs. It also includes expanded support for blocking over 300 tracking parameters from copied links, including those from major shopping websites. Keep those trackers away when sharing links!

    • jaspersgroove@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      There’s no trick to it. If you don’t agree with the terms of service, feel free to not use the product. There’s dozens of other free web browsers out there if you think you can find a better one.

      • Canary9341@lemmy.mlEnglish
        10·
        6 months ago

        Any other contract in everyday life would be invalid under these terms; consent must be affirmative and informed. “I have read and accept the terms” is a crude lie that should be illegal but is tolerated for convenience, and which allows to justify all kinds of abuses.

        The mozilla case is even worse, because they’ve even bragged about how they respect affirmative consent by asking their users if they allow telemetry (they’ve never really fully complied), and about being respectful of privacy in general. They deserve to be criticized for it, and that’s what people are doing here, but your responses of “if you don’t like it go away, the competition is worse” only legitimizes bad behavior.

            • jaspersgroove@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              6 months ago

              I comprehended it just fine, doesn’t change the fact that yes, it really is that simple. If you don’t like what a company is doing, don’t use their products. It’s not “legitimizing bad behavior”, it’s communicating with the company in the only language that a company that isn’t charging you for their product could possibly understand: market share. Nobody at Mozilla gives a shit about what some tiny niche fraction of their userbase is bitching about on Lemmy, they give a shit about whether or not they’re getting stomped into the dirt by chrome.

              You guys are just having a giant, meaningless circlejerk.

      • meseek #2982@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        This is the most toxic take that literally empowers companies to do whatever the fuck they want. Don’t want to buy gas here, go drive 200 kms to another one there’s plenty of gas stations. Drive there only to see that company doing the exact same thing. Because as a company, why wouldn’t you?

        You can’t kill the myth that competition handles itself and that if a company does a dick move, another company won’t and will get all the sales and traffic. That doesn’t happen. Outside of monopolies and basic price fixing, competitors have long realized that while they aren’t friends with each other, you are all their collective enemy. Waging war against you is all in their collective interests.

        All that goes without saying that privacy at all its levels should always be a fundamental human right and not a “feature.” We need to be building on top of that model, not plugging privacy in when it suits them.

        • jaspersgroove@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Yes, please continue to shout about how the nonprofit company that gives you open source software for free is ruining your life by making a feature of a product that you are not obligated to use in the first place opt out instead of opt in lol

            • jaspersgroove@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              Read your own link, dipshit.

              The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in.[7]