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this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Thanks, Looks like gonna use it
Basically I am using mull on android and librewolf on linux
You may prefer to skip Mozilla entirely and self host your own Firefox Sync: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs
Otherwise, i've been using Firefox Sync for years and haven't had a single issue with it.
Regarding data sharing, do note that your Firefox Account email address is shared with Troy Hunt (haveibeenpwned) via the Firefox Monitor service, so Firefox can warn you if you have suffered a data breach. Deleting your account is the only way to opt out of that. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-opt-out-firefox-monitor
I personally have no issue with it as he's a well known security consultant - BUT the caveat being that he's a Microsoft regional director, you couldn't know if that data is being shared any further.
You may prefer to skip Mozilla entirely and self host your own Firefox Sync: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs
Bruh, I didn't know about this, I swear we can self host almost anything, can we self host the Internet?
As far as i know it's barely possible to really host it yourself. I don't know the details anymore but i looked into it half a year ago and quickly gave up. Think it was severely outdated and depedency issues, not sure anymore.
I set it up using a docker image based on the older Firefox sync repo. It's outdated but it works. What I don't self host is authentication as it is way more involved than I prefer my self hosting projects to be and I'd probably end up frustrated by some little thing not working.
Ah right, authentication was the difficult part.
I use it for bookmarks, but that's it. All my passwords and stuff are in my password manager, and I do not trust browsers with that data.
Ya I use bitwarden, was asking about data collection.
As others have said, it's quite good on privacy. For the truly paranoid, IIRC you can even self-host the sync server.
From the security perspective of privacy, do make sure to use a good password for the Mozilla account, the account password is also the encryption key for the E2E encryption.
Firefox Sync is end-to-end encrypted and open source, so your data is secure.
Your syc data is secure, yes, but not so your account data, because is also known by Google, amon yor IP other. Enough to track you through every page with Google APIs (most) also your email, whichi is an unique identificator in the web. Don't trust any web or service which share data to third parties, less in US webs or services. This is one of the reason because I always prefer EU soft, webs and services. They are also not perfect respect privacy, but lightyears better as those from US companies, where something like privacy laws, GDPR and user protection don't exist or only in very deficient manner.
Technical point: US companies still need to abide by the GDPR when the user is in the EU or UK.
(But yes, I accept your main point - that protection is not shared to US citizens of those same companies who operate two very different levels of distinction. European originating software/services usually operate at the higher level of protection across all users. )
Private? And do they track lot of things If I sign in ?
All companies that have to pay for infrastructure, servers, employees and invoices naturally need income, as is logical and legitimate. Some use contextual ads, that is, tool ads on a DIY page. This may be annoying, but it does not put privacy at risk, but if it does, when the ads are based on the user's history and data (surveillance advertising), this is what is massively used by US companies.
That there are other models to create income, for example what Proton does, with its Freemium services. The free Proton products (all of which are OpenSource, by the way), naturally have limited functions, but they do not require trafficking in user data, because they are financed through Premium services.
Andisearch, the first search engine on the market that used AI with its own language model, is strictly anonymous, no tracking or logging with sandboxed results, it is 100% free and private, for the future they plan to create a premium model for companies with specific functions for collaboration and special business functionalities, to finance the free version.
Vivaldi in new installations offers a selection of search engines (DDG, Ecosia, Startpage, etc.) and bookmarks, which pay a commission when the user uses them, if not, no, they are free to delete them, apart from a store with merch, upon insistence. from the users themselves sometime ago they also accept donations, probably also receive commissions from VAG, Mercedes, Polestar and Renault to include Vivaldi Automotive in their vehicles. All without trafficking in user data and without external investors so as not to lose independence, the mistake that Mozillla made when accepting Google as an investor. This is independent of having Google as the default search engine, since Google pays Mozilla and finances them, whether the user searches with Google or not.
It's the surveillance policy, selling user data, which is the risk and will destroy the free internet if we don't avoid it The ethics of a company respect to the user is the most important feature today, something that the big US companies don't have.
Man... Don't reply if you don't have an answer no need to put a dump of text.
It doesn't sync addons and about:config, so there's that.
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Man, and it's only half a year back i looked this stuff up...
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I started using Librewolf a few days ago and they recommend xBroswerSync in their very short list of recommended addons. This has been working fine for me although sometimes all my bookmarks disappear but that soon sorts itself out after a sync.
Recommended addons page: https://librewolf.net/docs/addons/
Not available for android. Do you use custom addon collection.
There's not an extension but there is an app (available as apk or from F-Droid/Google Play). The app contains all your bookmarks and easily searchable, you click on the bookmark and it opens in whatever your default browser is, in my case it's Fennec. Not as easy as just typing in the search bar in the browser but it's a small cost for not having a Mozilla account (I've nothing against Mozilla but the fewer big organisations who have my data, the better).
mull on android and librewolf on linux
Great setup btw
Regarding your question: Firefox Sync is end to end encrypted, so you don't have to worry about it. It's far better than Google's browser sync, as it's encrypted at all (only in transit, but this is standard and it means that Google can still see all of your data)
You can find a detailed description about Firefox Sync's design in regards to privacy here: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/
