 In case you're using Firefox on mobile - so myself and like four others - disabling Firefox' new Facebook data collection feature is quite a bit harder than on desktop, but it can be done: 1. Go to Done. This only works on Android, because Firefox on iOS is just a Safari skin. 199 comments
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@thomholwerda does it also work for all 2 people who use firefox on ios
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16 July at 9:24 | Open on nede.re
 @thomholwerda i use firefox on mobile because i need ublock origin >_> so thank you @eniko Yeah I use Firefox on Android for uBlock when I'm not at home (where we have a Pi-Hole to block all ads on our entire network), and because I use Firefox on desktop, and use the tab sharing feature a lot. @thomholwerda @eniko samesies, it's the tab sharing feature that keeps me on Firefox tbh. @dorian @thomholwerda @eniko so there are the 3 of you and I've just done it too so that's 100% of the FF android user base done now @thomholwerda @eniko I have my phone rooted and I use AdAway to block all ads. @thomholwerda FYI, the first setting is under "general.aboutConfig.enable" on Firefox for Android. So search for "aboutConfig" not "about:config". @thomholwerda @natarasee ah, thanks very much for the clarification. I hadn't picked up that there were two separate toggles to check (my general one was already set to False). Now done 👍 @thomholwerda I can't even open chrome://geckoview/content/config.xhtml - it just assumes I meant to enter an https:// address and f's it up  @dtwx @thomholwerda If you paste it in, you have to manually add the prefix of `chrome://` again. At least in non-In Private Mode, that was necessary - it seemed to paste in fine in In Private Mode, though it... apparently kept those options around outside of In Private Mode based on checking in non-In Private Mode. @dtwx @thomholwerda that happened to me too when I tried to copy and paste, but typing it in seems to work @thomholwerda It's ghastly how much telemetry people keep putting in stuff these days, it is beyond a joke now. Telnet BBS for the win! 😅 @thomholwerda i use it! and i even bullied my dad into also doing that! also wth facebook?! @melunaka @TudbuT It's developed in cooperation with Facebook. https://www.osnews.com/story/140247/i-told-you-so-mozilla-working-with-facebook-to-weaken-firefox-privacy-and-anti-tracking-features/  @tunguska @Matheo_bis @servo @thomholwerda @melunaka @TudbuT but servo's only the webengine you need to build a browser around it and who would do that and who can gaurantee that they won't add telemetry to it 😿  @thomholwerda  @thomholwerda Wow. Even on the supposedly highly privacy-conscious "Firefox Focus" that option was still set to True.  @thomholwerda@exquisite.social bigger wtf is they hid about:config on mobile?? i remember just being able to go to it.. @thomholwerda @Lana @thomholwerda do you feel Fennec slower than FF? @thomholwerda thank you so much ive just looked for it in the settings but couldn't find it so figured maybe they didn't implement it on phones. putting this opt out option out of sight is really a shame. @thomholwerda Thank you for the tip. (But it is just incredible that we have to go through all that just to disable something that should at least have been an opt-in, or shouldn’t have existed at all. 😬)  @thomholwerda @thomholwerda@exquisite.social thank you! I've been trying to figure out how to do it and assumed it just hasn't made it to mobile yet.  Heh, a lot of us started using only Firefox somewhere along the way. Thank you! @angelastella Same! Any other browser is just wrong for my usage pattern. I'm worried about the future of Firefox. 😐 Me too. I'm waiting for some viable third option to mature. (Contributing code to a modern browser it's way above my pay grade.)  @thomholwerda So this is what the Mozilla people mean when they say "it's fine, it's opt-out!" ... o_0  @thomholwerda and, just asking to anyone, what about duck duck mobile browser? Does it worth it?  @thomholwerda you can also just jump straight to the private attribution option and turn it off in the chrome:// url  @BratschCbra @thomholwerda Yes. Everything ad tech is relevant. Always. https://interaktiv.br.de/ausspioniert-mit-standortdaten/en/index.html  @thomholwerda Done. But pretty shit that `false` is not the default. Really unimpressed, @mozilla Privacy intrusion by stealth: the moral equivalent of peeking through people's bathroom windows.  @simon_brooke @thomholwerda @mozilla But don’t worry, we’re the ones peeking through your bathroom window, and we will only make sketches of what we see in our sketchbook. We will write down your name or address on the opposite page, so everything will be anonymous unless someone steals the book. Yeah, and this will not make any of the people across the street with binoculars go away. We will ask them nicely to buy copies from our sketchbook, though.  @thomholwerda and in that case there is an option in Advanced for Safari to opt out (if it applied) @thomholwerda Thanks! do I need to turn the aboutConfig setting back to false after doing this? @bumblebeedc @thomholwerda I had the same question. I toggled it back to false after making changes.  @thomholwerda not an issue on Fennec F-Droid! but thanks for sharing, I know of people who will need it…  @thomholwerda Edit: Answering myself, it IS on Firefox Focus, the supposedly super-private edition of Firefox, for fuck's sakes... 🤦  @thomholwerda Also, I don't understand - Chrome? Why is the direction to enter "chrome" in a browser that isn't Chrome? The term "chrome" historically refers to the UI elements of the browser itself, i.e. everything other than the websites it displays. It's been in use since long before Google started making a browser and called it Chrome, but it's been confusing people since then. See the second bullet point under "Computing" in this article: @thomholwerda couldn't get the about:config to work. Until I found that it's only available in Firefox Beta, not in the official released version: https://droidwin.com/cannot-access-aboutconfig-in-firefox-android-fixed/ @SchepBernard @thomholwerda if you follow OP's steps you can enable about:config in Firefox (not beta nor nightly)  @thomholwerda Or just use Mull.
  @thomholwerda holy hell thank you for showing how to enable about:config all on it's own! I've wanted that for years now. @thomholwerda interesting. I would've thought that that wasn't active or that it didn't even exist! Thanks for the tip. @thomholwerda another possibility: use the Firefox-beta app, which has about:config enabled by default @thomholwerda@exquisite.social  @thomholwerda @yacc143@mastodon.social @thomholwerda@exquisite.social this time, the spyware is in the browser itself: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/112775362045378963 @thomholwerda I've just found that the submission option is also enabled on the desktop. @thomholwerda that is only a temporary solution. The long term solution is: i gave this exact same advice to how to deactivate it on the desktop but instead recommending Librewolf @thomholwerda Thanks! I, sigh, thought it was too good to be true to assume it was just part of the other visible ad related toggle in preferences.   @thomholwerda @thomholwerda Thanks for posting this. I don't understand step 3. I went to the thing of step 1, found the thing of step 2 and clicked "toggle" to change it. In the same search field, I found the thing of step 4 as well, and changed it to false. Can someone confirm that I did this okay? (I have no idea what these things are, and I hate that they make it nearly impossible for non-tech people to have privacy.)  @bebatjof @thomholwerda Yup, you did everything that was needed to be done. Firefox android (stable) disabled about:config altogether which was enabled in step1 and you can use about:config or the thing from step1 to do the same. I think step1 has more advanced settings and about:config doesn't have those, that's the only difference I could find. Honestly, I am tired of changing this and that option as they continue to do these things and refuses to make it easy to disable them.   @thomholwerda thanks for the tip ! I may be the fifth person to use it ! cc @tut_tuuut  @thomholwerda Since Firefox sometimes will not let you paste the  @catsalad @thomholwerda I'm just wondering. Does Focus use encrypted DNS by default or would a VPN block it?   @thomholwerda@exquisite.social Thanks mate, I was wondering about this :raritywink:  @thomholwerda Firefox mobile strips the chrome:// scheme of the URL when you paste it into the bar, so it ends up being interpreted as a search query. This can be fixed by typing in chrome:// at the beginning of the URL before pressing enter. @thomholwerda hopefully @fdroidorg 's fennec (firefox with telemetry and proprietary stuff removed) autormatically does this  @thomholwerda ya know what, fuck it, I'll just uninstall it. It's by far the worst mobile browser I've ever used anyway 😂   @thomholwerda Thx! Worked like a charm. I haven't had a FB login since 2014 or so. Are they still tracking me? @thomholwerda done, thanks! These companies are so sneaky these days about grabbing our data. @pikachu_sensei WTF? Firefox usually is is good for privacy. Thank you for the tip. accessibility.blockautorefresh = True  @thomholwerda Hold on, has it been specifically confirmed that this feature is *active* in Firefox mobile? I heard reports that the checkbox was in nightly but not shipping 128 and assumed that meant the feature isn't in shipping 128 either, but maybe I gave Firefox too much credit. @mcc @thomholwerda fwiw the instructions on that page don't mention that it's buried under "Advanced" in the iOS settings and on the "Advanced" tab in Mac OS @mcc @thomholwerda it seems like it should be possible to send fake conversion events from a surrogate script that gets pulled in by a uBlock Origin rule...anyone got an example of a script actually doing this on a live site? @dmarti @thomholwerda Maybe a good first step would be a browser extension that just identifies whether "please phone home later" codes of Google, Apple, or Firefox/Facebook formats are seen and which ones. I think it would be interesting to do a survey of popular websites and identify which of these are making use of the "ad measurement"/browser phonehome capabilities. @dmarti @thomholwerda This entire technology class and the details of its implementation have been way under-reported even in webtech blogs, which normally are falling over themselves to give tutorials on every new browser feature. It's weird considering that theoretically this technology is useless unless somewhere an engineer with a website implements it (maybe there's a separate adtech information ecosystem I don't read?) @mcc @thomholwerda For the Google stuff you don't need an extension, you can check for an attestation file under .well-known https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/relevance/enrollment (just going by market share that seems like it will be the most common one—so far it looks like the Firefox ad tracking feature has resulted in more fediverse+Reddit+Hacker News+LWN posts than actual ads) @dmarti @thomholwerda According to Firefox the "ad measurement" feature in 128.0 is not generally available yet. It's locked behind this thing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Origin_Trials which means each site using the feature has to be individually approved. I don't know if Firefox publishes the lists of who's enabled for which origin trials. They assert the feature is only for "experiments" about whether the feature gathers useful data, but I'd be very curious if Facebook sites are among the ones "experimenting".  It's not dissimilar from pinky-swearing not to abuse the system: https://github.com/privacysandbox/attestation?tab=readme-ov-file#core-privacy-attestations @mcc  @thomholwerda I believe that going in "developer mode" also activate about:config. Also, Fennec on F-droid seems to either not have that tracking "feature" or it's not updated yet.  @thomholwerda Mozilla is making brave browser look better and better every day. I switched to just try it out when I heard Mozilla bought the ad company... I think I might stay with Brave for a bit. @thomholwerda thanks! The instructions worked for me. Now I hope the it has the intended effect 🫠 Changed it in my Firefox Klar, thanks :) Fennec (F-droid) doesn't have this field in about:config at all... I assume/hope they just removed that data collection feature completely?  @thomholwerda I don't even know what I just did but if it keeps Facebook out of my shit, I'll trust you, random internet stranger. Thank you.  @thomholwerda thanks, the toggle is so obscure it reminds me of HHGTTG where Arthur Dent is told the plans to demolish his house have been "on display in his local planning office" and he says "I went there and found them 'on display' at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused toilet with a sign on the door saying 'beware of the leopard'!"  |
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