mke @ mke @lemmy.world

Posts

2

Comments

220

Joined

1 yr. ago

Yeah, you do you. I don't think posting to three relevant communities is being annoyingly self-promotional, though. Two of them are literally just the same community in two different instances. Why, I find it weird there's no post to !firefox@lemmy.world

Assuming both the ad and the JS to track said ad are served from a 3rd party (or at least a different domain)

Yes, that's what I'm saying. I believe that's mostly the case, especially because websites serve ads from ad networks owned by others. Even in the same company, they'll often be served from specific domains due to technical decisions.

although without recordings of impressions the utility of that (and privacy risk) is debatable.

If there's no impression, there's never any conversion. As long as uBlock is doing its job, you pretty much don't have to worry about PPA... though, feel free to simply turn if off anyway. That's why they added a toggle, after all.

Ads are a plague, you give them even an inch and they'll eventually take everything.

Oh, on that we agree. Billboards don't track physical eyeballs that land on them, so why would virtual ads deserve all these privileges? I think they only manage because they normalized the practice before anyone could stop them, and now we're all stuck in this hell.

Firefox was one of the last bastions that seemed to be working with us instead of against us.

I trust it still is. Or, at bare minimum, it remains much better than most alternatives.

It's the first step along a path we don't want to go down.

I try to always be fair in discussions, even if it means sharing crappy stuff. So I'm very sorry to tell you, but it really isn't. Back when DRM was implemented, for example, that was an entire mess, with Firefox eventually moving forwards with the implementation in a great compromise. As in, one that left everyone unsatisfied, but allowed users to watch Netflix.

Here's something interesting to keep in mind when trying to understand Mozilla's actions, from the Manifesto:

Principle 9

Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical.

Sorry, I can't tell if that's a really funny joke, or an actually serious point.

I assumed your first comment was a complaint that they were posting in too many communities. I was disagreeing and presenting why I think that assessment would be incorrect, and sneakily trying to hint that you might want to consider a different app/frontend if this was bothering you.

If I understand this properly, I believe you're missing the point. I'll explain my reasoning so you can point out any flaws you perceive in my reading of your comment or my argument.

You've focused too much on how uBlock could theoretically (or not) block outgoing DAP calls and JS code execution. This is way past the point where UBo would've done its job. You need to consider the order in which these events may happen and how they depend on one another.

From the explainer:

At impression time, information about an advertisement is saved by the browser in a write-only store. This includes an identifier for the ad and whether this was an ad view or an ad click.

A site can register ad impressions, either when the ad is shown or when the ad is clicked, at their discretion.

If the ad is never downloaded, something UBo is great at guaranteeing using filter lists, the user could never reach impression time. The JS code is likely never downloaded. An impression is never generated. There is no point in generating impressions for nonexistent, unseen ads. That would be garbage data, which is actually worse for advertisers. No impression data is ever generated, thus there's nothing to send to the aggregate either.

The user does not participate in the system, at all, because it depends on actually engaging with its components, and UBo users have freed themselves from this system completely long ago.

Remember, this is not a privacy enhancer targeted at people who use UBo, but at people who don't, which is still most people, sadly.

There is very limited ability to surgically remove such things.

There is no need to do so. UBo removes ads with prejudice.

Regardless none of that changes the fact that this should have been opt-in from the start instead of opt-out.

I'm still on the fence about this. Currently, the way I see it, Mozilla's biggest sin is being awful at effective communication. Worse than Google, but Google has intent to deceive, while Mozilla seems like they're actually trying to do it properly and just... not getting it right. Spectacularly. Multiple times in a row.

Assuming user consent really stinks, though.

but that alone suggests there might be privacy problems with this entire thing.

I'm not sure if this is a good argument. This is by design, aggregate anonymization works with quantity. I don't think that means it's necessarily a bad design. We use lots of faulty, problematic tools everyday—so long as this one is better than what it's trying to replace, I believe it deserves a chance.

This wouldn't be the first time that a supposedly anonymized data set could be at least partially de-anonymized.

Yes, that's true. I'm choosing to both hope all these experts make it work, while also keeping a careful eye on the project, to the extent of my ability. Maybe you could call it a lazier version of trust, but verify.

I only found three posts, all in (at least) semi-relevant communities. I think my frontends of choice only show me one, then reference the others below as crossposts.

Right, Apple doesn't have an ad-revenue & tracking empire to protect, and should Safari adopt PPA, the discussion changes. It would no longer be the API used merely by Firefox with its (estimated) 2.7% user base trying to gain any traction, it could be Chrome holding back the tech used by a cumulative (estimated) 20% of web users. That's a very different conversation.

Also, despite advertisers and big tech's best efforts, the chance remains that legislation is passed somewhere imposing stricter privacy protections on the web. Again, should that happen, PPA might be well positioned as an alternative to past methods of measuring ad effectiveness that advertisers wouldn't necessarily like... but any alternative that works could make them less resistant to such an important change.

All hypothetical, of course, but if you never consider future possibilities, what are you even aiming for?

I have ad blockers and anti-tracking extensions, but they don't do anything against this new feature because it's the browser itself doing it.

I don't think that's the case. If you have e.g. uBlock, the API for this new feature won't be called, even if enabled, according to Colin (developer for Multi-Account Containers) in the Mozilla General matrix chat. I'd lean towards trusting Colin over you, here.

And, please, don't bother Colin over this. I only mention him because if I didn't, I just know some people would downvote without even bothering to ask for a source, despite never providing any source for the opposite themselves.

I get your point, and your frustration, but please don't talk so confidently about things you aren't actually certain of.

Haven't finished reading the article because I need to go out, I plan to do so later, but is this... Is this actually a sane and nuanced take on the complex browser scene and its issues? Did not expect that in my tech media bingo today.

Seems they're both from the same developer, with slightly different objectives. However, uMatrix's repository has been archived and hasn't updated in years. Even if you use a fork, the first line of the README is "Definitely for advanced users." I don't consider uMatrix a working solution for the average user, which is most people.

I don't feel like engaging with the first phrase of your comment as it is, lacking even a single concrete example or further resources to look into.

Edited to clarify which one I was referring to.

The definition of issue here changes significantly from person to person, from some disliking Firefox's visual design to others criticizing business and technical decisions by Mozilla.

Honestly, there's nothing I feel like bringing up and starting another discussion over. I mostly added that to stop certain folks from cleverly answering "but what about

<issue>

All the more reason to use Firefox with uBlock Origin if you can, which despite concerns regarding Mozilla are still much more likely to align with users' best interests and help you avoid being tracked all over the web.

Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.

What does this even mean, Google?

That's a shame! Be good if someone could look into that later. Glad you found something that works, though.

That sounds very sweet, I hope she enjoys them.

Can you go back that far though? I never bothered to check if Lemmy had a saved limit, but AFAIK reddit, for example, had it set to 1000 or a little over that. Really sad way to lose saves, going over that number.

The thread asking for people's favorite poems was a bit emotional for me. I keep revisiting it, there's something special in poetry and people sharing it.

Big upvote for sharing the single quirkiest food tip I've read all... year, really. There's unique, and then there's "I buy ramen and eat it dry to season my popcorn." Cooks all over can only envy your genius.

Maybe in a better society the CEO wouldn't be a shiny rarity who can only exist in the topmost floor, as far away from lower employees as possible.

I know the discussion goes much deeper than that, but, y'know.

That is such a sweet reason! Whimsical decisions like this can be some of the best. Life demands a bit of whimsy every now and then.

Edit: I don't know if you're still interested in this, but have you considered WSL? Assuming you're on Windows, that is. I haven't looked into it, but I don't see any obvious reason why it wouldn't work.

Sure, and that matters because...? What negative effects is this choice having on hare that go against hare's objectives?

You seem to be treating hare as something it doesn't want, nor care to be.

I like to describe Hare as a simple, conservative, modern update to C, with a FOSS ethos. It doesn’t try to break computer science ground, or promise to solve a million dollar problem.

Guess you could say they're probably not friends of million-hares. Ha, ha.

And upstream Hare will not support non-libre operating systems. That’s a lot of conviction, but Hare isn’t trying to take over the world. It will coexist with the diversity of languages out there, and thrive in its own niche. In short, the Hare project develops for a libre future and for the deliberate programmer, not the corporate, the ephemeral and the reckless.

From Torres, one of the core contributors.

Their wants and metrics for success aren't the same as yours.

What a harebrained comment.

...Sorry, it felt like such a waste not to say it! The puns!

But, language Nazi? Don't you think that's a bit much? And it must be useful for everyone? Why? I also think it hinders growth, but it's their project. It's well within their right to choose whether they put in the effort to support a platform or not, regardless of the reasoning and how much effort it'd actually take.

They don't even seem to be against the idea, they just don't care enough to be the ones to do it:

According to DeVault, while there's currently no plan to support non-free platforms like macOS or Windows, a third-party implementation or fork could try to make that work. The Register

Even Emacs is available on windows, you say? I think some context is needed, here. See what GNU has to say about the availability of Emacs on proprietary systems:

However, GNU Emacs includes support for some other systems that volunteers choose to support.

Emphasis mine.

To improve the use of proprietary systems is a misguided goal. Our aim, rather, is to eliminate them. We include support for some proprietary systems in GNU Emacs in the hope that running Emacs on them will give users a taste of freedom and thus lead them to free themselves.

Taken from the official download and install page.