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Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

The lastest release notes reveal "new" spyware added, ehm, I mean telemetry:

"Telemetry was added to create an aggregate count of searches by category to broadly inform search feature development. These categories are based on 20 high-level content types, such as "sports,” "business," and "travel". This data will not be associated with specific users and will be collected using OHTTP to remove IP addresses as potentially identifying metadata. No profiling will be performed, and no data will be shared with third parties."

omni.js contains two files even if "browser.search.serpEventTelemetryCategorization.enabled" is not present (not just set to "false", but not pressent in 115.11). These two files are:

SearchSERPTelemetryChild.sys.mjs
SearchSERPTelemetryParent.sys.mjs

Clarification: Those two files are present in 115.11 and 115.11 does not have "browser.search.serpEventTelemetryCategorization.enabled". What esle can we expect. Do they even obey loading arkenfox or direct about:config. How may spyware stuff has NOT PRESENT IN SETTINGS (to endlessly revert, but the question is why is it there in the first place). Ehm, I mean telemetry. Stop collecting data using my cpu and ram. Enough is enough!

I don't trust those two l*e*z b*i*t*c*h*e*s from Mozilla (I did not forget her previous public statements).

Censor it as much as you want. I don't care. I post it here for the users, who would like to be informed. I despise spyware. Call it telemetry or whatever. Your euphemisms mean a squat.

Re: Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

Reply #1 –
Setting about:config is NOT ENAUGH. Code must be removed and fork must be compiles as a new "free" browser.

Oh, no how dare he?! My distro does not contain spyware! Sure you got Firefox? Or Chrome? Then you do! Why the hell chrome needs (and firefox too) access to dbus? To display a photo or a a text you need this? (/etc/machine-id copied from /var created by dbus...). And I'm pretty sure you need that for displaying a photo or text. And why chrome has pcutils as dependancy. What does it want to do with it? Display text or  a photo? Oh there are plenty of executables (javascript)- you need that to launch without control on the user computer. Ah its mandatory to display texta and photos. Right, I get it!

The usual answer: stop being a craybaby, accept it. Be a normie. No, I will not and I refuse to be a normie. The hell with normies.

Re: Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

Reply #2 –
Your frustration is understandable, but calling names is not helping your cause.

The Artix team doesn't like telemetry either (we have long cleaned our sites from any kind of third-party analytics and trackers) and our community-presets package contains an exhaustively tweaked FF profile that blocks as much telemetry as possible. On the other hand, we can't, don't and won't do baby-sitting to our users; rather, we expect some contributions from them, and this FF issue is a prime opportunity for one: find a quick'n'easy way to shut up FF and post it.

As for the machine-id: https://gitea.artixlinux.org/artix/iso-profiles/src/branch/wip/community/live-overlay/etc/local.d/change-machine-id.start
It's only present in community editions, as said above we don't babysit.

Re: Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

Reply #3 –
If you are going to rant please rant coherently.

Re: Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

Reply #4 –
Quote from: nous – on
Your frustration is understandable, but calling names is not helping your cause.

The Artix team doesn't like telemetry either (we have long cleaned our sites from any kind of third-party analytics and trackers) and our community-presets package contains an exhaustively tweaked FF profile that blocks as much telemetry as possible. On the other hand, we can't, don't and won't do baby-sitting to our users; rather, we expect some contributions from them, and this FF issue is a prime opportunity for one: find a quick'n'easy way to shut up FF and post it.

As for the machine-id: https://gitea.artixlinux.org/artix/iso-profiles/src/branch/wip/community/live-overlay/etc/local.d/change-machine-id.start
It's only present in community editions, as said above we don't babysit.

what about the cinammon ones?:

cinnamon
artix-cinnamon-dinit-20230814-x86_64.iso   1.7 GB   2023-08-13 17:24:03
artix-cinnamon-openrc-20230814-x86_64.iso   1.7 GB   2023-08-13 16:21:33
artix-cinnamon-runit-20230814-x86_64.iso   1.7 GB   2023-08-13 16:42:17
artix-cinnamon-s6-20230814-x86_64.iso   1.7 GB   2023-08-13 17:03:15

Re: Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

Reply #5 –
Alternative solution: Package Waterfox.

Re: Firefox 126 Spyware Investigation

Reply #7 –
There is librewolf in galaxy repo.

https://librewolf.net/
Quote
This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom.

LibreWolf is designed to increase protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques, while also including a few security improvements. This is achieved through our privacy and security oriented settings and patches. LibreWolf also aims to remove all the telemetry, data collection and annoyances, as well as disabling anti-freedom features like DRM.

You could check their patches.