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See what’s changing in Firefox: Better insights, same privacy (blog.mozilla.org)

submitted 6 months ago by neme@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

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To disable it in about:config

browser.search.serpEventTelemetry.enabled  =  false	
browser.search.serpEventTelemetryCategorization.enabled  =  false

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 20 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Never mind the controversy about telemetry in general, which I suppose has its uses even if it's too often over-used. This telemetry in particular — collecting data about how many times you searched for things involving shopping, travel, real estate — is ridiculous, and cannot be justified by vague platitudes about enhancing the browsing experience.

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

collecting data about how many times you searched

I don't think this stores how many times you specifically have searched for something - just how many times something has been searched for in general. In other words, nobody will be able to tell anything about you from this data.

(Which is very different from e.g. the data Google collects about you and shares with its partners.)

[–] blii@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

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.

it's kinda ridiculous to see them emphasise this but get called out as if they are doing so. if anything they seem to be taking the most privacy focused approach I've come across, going forward as a decent example. Also makes me appriciate that they look for other feedback than user comments cause that seems like a notoriously unreliable source of info for data-driven decisions

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Speaking of large numbers of user comments, I was just reading the hacker news discussion. Whatever you think of that site, it's full of the sort of people who used to be the core of the Firefox user base. People who would help their friends and family get it installed. Web developers who made sure their site works with more than one browser engine. People who know enough to be offended by changes like this one. People who Mozilla needs to reach if it wants to have a future in the web browser market.

Comments elsewhere are similarly negative. I encourage everyone who cares about Firefox to turn off all the telemetry, or perhaps even consider moving to one of the forks such as Librewolf. If they notice enough of a drop in incoming data collection after this latest move, perhaps there's still a chance that Mozilla will get the message that they need to change course before it's too late.

[–] blii@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I think I share your view about course correction needed but if anything this seems to be a step in the right direction, I really do not see how Mozilla is being unreasonable (with this feature). To have a chance at the market outside of core geeks some telemetry is needed, and if we truly think that anonymoused (not connected to session, IP, or user, only distinguishable from others by timestamp of when data was recieved) counters based on a few narrow categories, then I think the userbase is a part of the problem.

should we really protest when they are doing it right? are we not being unreasonable if we take the stance that no telemetry is allowed?

the only step in a more privacy-direction I can see this feature taking is if it is opt in by default, but this being so incredibly trivial non identifiable info, I think maybe it's better for all parties for those to just use Librewolf then