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   Jeff Martin (cuchaz@gladtech.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jul-2024 05:52:30 JST Jeff Martin

   Yup, it's true. Firefox 128 includes new adtech features that are opt-in by default and announced with very little fanfare, so most people might not even know they're there. :blobcatverysad:

   Well, this is me telling you they're there. You might want to go ahead and take a minute to opt out.

   Here's the little helpful explainer from Mozilla about how it all works:

   https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution

   My read seems to be: Mozilla says website surveillance is generally bad and should be defended against. Cool. No notes. Firefox actually has a lot of nice anti-tracking and privacy features there and that's the main reason why I like Firefox.

   But, and I swear I'm not even joking a little bit here, Mozilla goes on to say that advertisers might be happier if Firefox itself just tracked you directly and sent activity reports back to them.

   Doesn't that sound great?

   Now, to Mozilla's credit, they claim to anonymize the activity reports. And you can still meaningfully opt out of the whole system.

   But WTF, mate?! I use Firefox *because* it fights against adtech. Or at least it used to. Now, Mozilla just lets adtech right in the front door and hopes you won't notice? :blobcat_thisisfine:

   Well, we noticed. Mozilla is damage and we need to route around it.

   • Embed this notice
     Børge (forteller@tutoteket.no)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jul-2024 08:03:59 JST Børge

     in reply to

     • Servo

     @cuchaz They're also on the fediverse: @servo

   • Embed this notice
     Jeff Martin (cuchaz@gladtech.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jul-2024 08:04:00 JST Jeff Martin

     in reply to

     There's hope tho.

     In Mozilla's earlier days, they jettisoned a totally new web browser project called Servo. It's sort of a ground-up effort to build a browser using the latest safety tech, like the Rust programming language.

     https://servo.org

     And the best part is, Servo is totally independent from Mozilla now and they have * independent funding * !

     Meaning, Google isn't bankrolling Servo as anti-trust insurance (*cough* Firefox *cough*), so there's a chance it might actually take a real stance against adtech on the web.

     Servo is faaaar from ready for general use yet, but it's picking up development speed. Definitely an option to keep an eye on for the future. :blobcatthumbsup:

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 13-Jul-2024 19:56:52 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @cuchaz https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/107070299249803289