See what’s changing in Firefox: Better insights, same privacy | The Mozilla Blog
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Innovation and privacy go hand in hand here at Mozilla. To continue developing features and products that resonate with our users, we’re adopting a new a

With the latest version of Firefox for U.S. desktop users, we’re introducing a new way to measure search activity broken down into high level categories. 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.

Let’s say you’re using Firefox to plan a trip to Spain and search for “Barcelona hotels.” Firefox infers that the search results fall under the category of “travel,” and it increments a counter to calculate the total number of searches happening at the country level.

Here’s the current list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel.

Having an understanding of what types of searches happen most frequently will give us a better understanding of what’s important to our users, without giving us additional insight into individual browsing preferences. This helps us take a step forward in providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs, without us stepping away from the principles that make us who we are.

We understand that any new data collection might spark some questions. Simply put, this new method only categorizes the websites that show up in your searches — not the specifics of what you’re personally looking up.

Sensitive topics, like searching for particular health care services, are categorized only under broad terms like health or society. Your search activities are handled with the same level of confidentiality as all other data regardless of any local laws surrounding certain health services.

Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings. We also don’t collect category data when you use Private Browsing mode on Firefox.

The Copy Without Site Tracking option can now remove parameters from nested URLs. It also includes expanded support for blocking over 300 tracking parameters from copied links, including those from major shopping websites. Keep those trackers away when sharing links!

  • stormesp@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    So much for privacy? I understand they say they only do this in broad terms and without tracking specifically, but i dont think a browser tracking this kind of data from their users is fair, if not i would just be using chrome.

    Saying that you can just disable it is the cherry on top, something like this should be opt in, not opt out

    • jaspersgroove@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      What’s the point of making it opt in when only the most paranoid users are going to be concerned enough about this to opt out

      “We came out with this new feature to help us improve our product, but we’re deliberately kneecapping it on day one by making it opt-in” lol

      If you are that paranoid about your data just go use Tor through a vpn already

      • stormesp@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        Oh yeah, the classic “most people will not care se we are not even going to ask them, an entry in our blog no one reads will do”.

        • jaspersgroove@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          You explicitly gave them permission to do so when you agreed to the EULA at the time you downloaded it. If you have a problem with that, feel free to delete Mozilla and move on with your life. Mozilla doesn’t owe you anything.