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To disable it in about:config

browser.search.serpEventTelemetry.enabled  =  false	
browser.search.serpEventTelemetryCategorization.enabled  =  false
  • Vincent@feddit.nl
    0·
    5 months ago

    Hmm, so what user-facing free software is at Firefox’s scale? I think Ubuntu has telemetry, for example (though I think they even have fewer users).

    • kbal@fedia.io
      0·
      5 months ago

      Ubuntu telemetry is fairly minimal, as of last time I used it a few years ago. Not remotely comparable to what firefox does. They just want to know what hardware you have, there’s no user behaviour tracking, and it’s fully opt-in (you have to deliberately turn it on when installing). KDE and Gnome have a little something like that as well now, I think. Almost everything else does not.

      Debian has a list (last updated 2023-10) of software among the 97000 packages they distribute which have been found to violate user privacy by “phoning home” for telemetry or other purposes:

      • gnome-calculator - fetches currencies
      • Firefox - multiple issues
      • Thunderbird - opt-out telemetry that is not yet patched for Debian
      • Chromium - phones home in various ways
      • syncthing - version check and lots more
      • cura - phones home in various ways, patched out in Debian
      • azure-cli - collects “anonymous” telemetry by default
      • glances - connects to several online services to discover public IP
      • webext-bulk-media-downloader - loads the website and sends version info
      • Golang - planning on implementing enabled-by-default telemetry
      • Vincent@feddit.nl
        1·
        5 months ago

        there’s no user behaviour tracking

        I mean, that depends on how you define user behaviour. It tracks which packages are frequently installed, for example, or how often people install Ubuntu in the first place. All of which I think is pretty legit, in my opinion, since that only involves aggregate user statistics that help prioritise work and detect common problems - but that’s essentially what Firefox is doing too.

        Debian is a great example of relatively commonly used free software that doesn’t really collect data btw.