It just baffles me that someone could find the Firefox community on Lemmy (a niche of a niche) and not be aware of how Facebook et al track users. It’s like arriving in Mexico for vacation and being surprised they speak Spanish.
Despite being very interested in privacy and security, I had never heard of Mull (I initially thought people were referring to Mullvad browser, which has no mobile version), though I do sometimes use Tor browser (not as a daily driver, just enough to drive “normal” traffic to help obfuscate traffic for those who need it).
So if you found both Mull and Lemmy, you’re probably interested in privacy, which means you probably know that SM companies track their users a ton.
I did come at the start of the API nonsense, but I had already been looking at alternatives for some time, the API announcement was the final nail in the coffin. I have been interested in privacy well before I same to Reddit, and I have never had my email connected to any Reddit accounts, and I would regularly delete Reddit accounts after a year or two. I don’t know how typical I am, but I like to to a lot of Lemmy users are similarly privacy oriented since otherwise Lemmy is just a worse Reddit (fewer users, more bugs, etc).
I had already been looking at alternatives for some time, the API announcement was the final nail in the coffin.
That’s me too. My point was that we all start somewhere and you saying that reinforces it. We are never going to get people to come over to the dark side (even though we have cookies) by making them feel unwelcome.
When DDG released this there were posts on Spezit about ‘this privacy app is trying to track me’ all because of how it is worded. It is quite similar to the ‘DDG is blocking a quadrillion requests from Branch’ (some of Spezits analytics). The exact scenario is different (Branch just repeatedly tried to connect when it was blocked. Resulting in, well, making your logs a mess.), but this is DDG not being specific about what is actually happening vs. what their warnings say. It was reported to them and they never responded.
Ah, interesting. The wording is quite clear to me, but I’m also quite familiar with how the web works. Perhaps just changing “app” to “page” is enough to make it clear that the page is the one attempting the tracking.
I’ll probably continue using FF w/ uBlock Origin for now because I’m not exactly sure what Mull adds on top (vague “settings from Tor”). But if you have a comparison, I’d be very interested. I don’t mind Mozilla’s analytics (and I’ve opted out of the things that matter), but I am interested in avoiding fingerprinting as much as possible, so I think sticking with FF is the better way to go.
They build from source so some proprietary blobs are removed, and use some of the arkenfox preferences. PrivacyResistFingerprint is on by default for instance.
In that link there is a link to a comparison between Mull and Firefox, as well as other Android browsers.
Mull is a privacy focused Firefox fork for Android. I don’t think DivestOS has a presence here, though they do on Mastodon.
Due to DDG’s incorrect wording it is easy to see that someone might be confused and think Mull/Firefox was tracking them.
We all started somewhere, I think it is fine here.
Facebook, and other GAFAM tracking is insidious, many do not know this, or are just learning it.
It just baffles me that someone could find the Firefox community on Lemmy (a niche of a niche) and not be aware of how Facebook et al track users. It’s like arriving in Mexico for vacation and being surprised they speak Spanish.
Many, like me and yourself, came here during the API nonsense.
OP is not only on Firefox, but on the more privacy focused Mull. To me those things are not mutually exclusive.
Despite being very interested in privacy and security, I had never heard of Mull (I initially thought people were referring to Mullvad browser, which has no mobile version), though I do sometimes use Tor browser (not as a daily driver, just enough to drive “normal” traffic to help obfuscate traffic for those who need it).
So if you found both Mull and Lemmy, you’re probably interested in privacy, which means you probably know that SM companies track their users a ton.
I did come at the start of the API nonsense, but I had already been looking at alternatives for some time, the API announcement was the final nail in the coffin. I have been interested in privacy well before I same to Reddit, and I have never had my email connected to any Reddit accounts, and I would regularly delete Reddit accounts after a year or two. I don’t know how typical I am, but I like to to a lot of Lemmy users are similarly privacy oriented since otherwise Lemmy is just a worse Reddit (fewer users, more bugs, etc).
That’s me too. My point was that we all start somewhere and you saying that reinforces it. We are never going to get people to come over to the dark side (even though we have cookies) by making them feel unwelcome.
When DDG released this there were posts on Spezit about ‘this privacy app is trying to track me’ all because of how it is worded. It is quite similar to the ‘DDG is blocking a quadrillion requests from Branch’ (some of Spezits analytics). The exact scenario is different (Branch just repeatedly tried to connect when it was blocked. Resulting in, well, making your logs a mess.), but this is DDG not being specific about what is actually happening vs. what their warnings say. It was reported to them and they never responded.
ETA: Mull is awesome
Ah, interesting. The wording is quite clear to me, but I’m also quite familiar with how the web works. Perhaps just changing “app” to “page” is enough to make it clear that the page is the one attempting the tracking.
I’ll probably continue using FF w/ uBlock Origin for now because I’m not exactly sure what Mull adds on top (vague “settings from Tor”). But if you have a comparison, I’d be very interested. I don’t mind Mozilla’s analytics (and I’ve opted out of the things that matter), but I am interested in avoiding fingerprinting as much as possible, so I think sticking with FF is the better way to go.
This is the link to Mull info https://divestos.org/pages/our_apps#mull
They build from source so some proprietary blobs are removed, and use some of the arkenfox preferences. PrivacyResistFingerprint is on by default for instance.
In that link there is a link to a comparison between Mull and Firefox, as well as other Android browsers.