this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2021
0 points (50.0% liked)

Firefox

17890 readers
18 users here now

A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1727907

'Offline' is currently the default which is explained in the source code:

"This is the scenario for the "offline" rollout. Firefox Suggest suggestions are enabled by default. Search strings and matching keywords are not included in related telemetry. The onboarding dialog is not shown."

Switching to 'online' would trigger a dialog that comes up when you start the browser. Only clicking 'Allow suggestions' on the dialog would opt you into the search query collection.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nlfx@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 years ago (1 children)

And how would that support your claim that this post is:

misinformation. No data is sent by default, you have to opt in.

The relevant parts from this code comment about the "offline" mode are:

Firefox Suggest suggestions are enabled by default.

The onboarding dialog is not shown.

Which correspond to the code I've already linked to.

      case "offline":
        enabled = true;
        defaults.setBoolPref("quicksuggest.shouldShowOnboardingDialog", false);
        defaults.setBoolPref("suggest.quicksuggest", true);
        defaults.setBoolPref("suggest.quicksuggest.sponsored", true);
        break;

The code you cited just says that users with locale "en-US" are enrolled in the "offline" mode.

Basically:

  • locale = "en-US" => "offline" => opt-out
  • locale != "en-US" => "opt-in" with all possible dark patterns to trick the user into accepting it: user has to click the small "Not now" text which does not look like a button on the top right corner to disable Suggest.

To summarize, the "offline" / "online" Suggest Scenario have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Firefox sends data to Mozilla or not, it only defines if the Suggest feature is opt-in or opt-out. Is this naming extremely confusing? Absolutely! But at this point it's clear that Mozilla has done everything possible to mislead users about what their "suggestions" really are.

So please, stop spreading misinformation while claiming that people trying to bring awareness about this awful "feature" are the ones providing false information. A code comment is not proof, your completely wrong interpretation of it even less so. If you don't agree, please link to the relevant source code which would contradict the one I've linked to.

[–] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -1 points 3 years ago

Can you read the below stuff?


This is the scenario for the “offline” rollout. Firefox Suggest suggestions are enabled by default. Search strings and matching keywords are not included in related telemetry. The onboarding dialog is not shown. online This is the scenario for the “online” rollout. The onboarding dialog will be shown and the user must opt in to enable Firefox Suggest suggestions and related telemetry, which will include search strings and matching keywords.


"offline" - Search strings and matching keywords are not included in related telemetry.

"online" - user must opt in to enable Firefox Suggest suggestions and related telemetry, which will include search strings and matching keywords