The Firefox Public Data Report Details Hardware and Browsing Tendencies

cageymaru

cageymaru

Fully [H]
Joined
Apr 10, 2003
Messages
22,074
Mozilla has released the Firefox Public Data Report which details the computer hardware, language used, countries that most users are from and other metrics. It even has the most used addons, CPU and GPU manufacturers, etc. I found the fact that only 1.29% of users utilized the Always On Tracking Protection in this day and age of Facebook data scandals to be quite interesting. AMD and Nvidia losing 4% of their market share in GPU usage to Intel was revealing also. Here is the full disclosure of how and why they collect the data.

Firefox is an open source project and we think the data generated should be useful to the public as well. Code contributors should be able to see how many users their work impacted last month (256 million), researchers should be able to know how browser usage is changing in developing nations, and the general public should be able to see how we use data. After all, it's your data.
 
As long as the data that Firefox is collecting is simple data about the system that it's running on including some extension data (like names of them) then I don't see a problem. This is simple environmental data. Now if they collected actual user data like names, email addresses, etc. then we're going to have a problem but until that becomes an issue I'm going to continue using Firefox as if nothing at all is wrong.

We have data collected on us every day of our lives in just about every segment of our lives, it doesn't bother me anymore. As long as it's truly anonymous data, I have no issues with it. When it starts to contain real personal data, then I'll have an issue. Until that happens, I don't sweat it anymore; I have much bigger things in my life to be worried about.

Bad enough I've been told that I'm going to die early from either an ulcer or a heart attack, I don't need to add any more things to make me worried and die earlier. I already have more gray hair than I have any business having at my age.
 
Last edited:
trparky said:
As long as the data that Firefox is collecting is simple data about the system that it's running on including some extension data (like names of them) then I don't see a problem. This is simple environmental data. Now if they collected actual user data like names, email addresses, etc. then we're going to have a problem but until that becomes an issue I'm going to continue using Firefox as if nothing at all is wrong.

We have data collected on us every day of our lives in just about every segment of our lives, it doesn't bother me anymore. As long as it's truly anonymous data, I have no issues with it. When it starts to contain real personal data, then I'll have an issue. Until that happens, I don't sweat it anymore; I have much bigger things in my life to be worried about.

Bad enough I've been told that I'm going to die early from either an ulcer or a heart attack, I don't need to add any more things to make me worried and die earlier. I already have more gray hair than I have any business having at my age.
Click to expand...

You Will always have ppl push that line if you don't anchor it on something constants/solid determined
Speed limit 70 ima do 75
Everybody doing 75 now i can do 80.

The best way to make a solid anchor is have it anchor at absolut freaking 0.


But otherwise I agree this is mostly harmless data... for now
 
this is pretty cool.
Firefox probably has a larger install base than Steam, by far.
As long as they only collect the most basic data.............
 
For those that are concerned about privacy, Waterfox is a nice alternative. There is no telemetry and it supports the older plugins.

Its development is a one man show though, which concerns me a little as far as security goes, but he seems to stay on top of applying security updates from Mozilla in a timely manner.
 
PhaseNoise said:
Or, you can turn off telemetry in Firefox.
Click to expand...
But then we're going to have the argument over whether or not the off switch really is an off switch or if it's just there to make us feel "safe-r". Trust me, this will come up because... well, see Microsoft for an example of where and how far down the rabbit hole this discussion will go.
 
prime2515102 said:
For those that are concerned about privacy, Waterfox is a nice alternative. There is no telemetry and it supports the older plugins.

Its development is a one man show though, which concerns me a little as far as security goes, but he seems to stay on top of applying security updates from Mozilla in a timely manner.
Click to expand...
I prefer Nightly, but Waterfox is good from time to time especially if there is a sweeping build change like firefox Quantum where a lo of plugins broke and were phased out or required developer updates in order to work again. As a bonus it strips out the unneeded telemetry though in the case of Nightly telemetry isn't a horrible thing entirely as it allows Mozilla to help diagnose browser slowdowns and crashes between new versions. I don't know why anyone wouldn't use the do not track protection quite frankly, but I'm guessing it's because it needed to be toggled on and probably not defaulted to that setting.
 
prime2515102 said:
For those that are concerned about privacy, Waterfox is a nice alternative. There is no telemetry and it supports the older plugins.

Its development is a one man show though, which concerns me a little as far as security goes, but he seems to stay on top of applying security updates from Mozilla in a timely manner.
Click to expand...

Or you could use Pale Moon which isn't developed by a single kid. And, New Moon (an XP patched version of Pale Moon) is the only modern browser you can still use on XP... like I am right now on my atom netbook (first gen).
 
I see Pale Moon as a lost cause, they're trying to hold onto something that should have been shot and put into the ground a long time ago; namely XUL-based extensions like what we used in the past. If they really think that they're going to get anymore more than a niche following, I've got some bottom land to sell them; just don't ask me what it's at the bottom of. Really there's only room for two major browsers; Firefox and Google Chrome, they control the market and anyone trying to go up against those two juggernauts are crazy.
 
you know what would be a really neat concept??

Imagine a world where when we choose a service, by DEFAULT, it does not collect any info about us or our activities. The option is there to share.. if we want, and maybe even an incentive for us to want to share


:)
 
katanaD said:
you know what would be a really neat concept??

Imagine a world where when we choose a service, by DEFAULT, it does not collect any info about us or our activities. The option is there to share.. if we want, and maybe even an incentive for us to want to share

:)
Click to expand...

While I too like that - I would suspect they would then have to charge money for that product. The market overwhelmingly does not want to pay for browsers.

I say that as someone who paid for Netscape eons ago, and Opera when it was a paid product. :D
 
PhaseNoise said:
While I too like that - I would suspect they would then have to charge money for that product. The market overwhelmingly does not want to pay for browsers.

I say that as someone who paid for Netscape eons ago, and Opera when it was a paid product. :D
Click to expand...


LOL same.

I am also wondering when we will be paying for news again, remember when we did?
 
What is fascinating here is AMD graphics beating out NVIDIA. That was quite the shocker. But AMD has always delivered value at the mid to lower tiers.
 
trparky said:
But then we're going to have the argument over whether or not the off switch really is an off switch or if it's just there to make us feel "safe-r". Trust me, this will come up because... well, see Microsoft for an example of where and how far down the rabbit hole this discussion will go.
Click to expand...

Install Fiddler or Postman that allow you to examine every packet going in and out of your computer. Start up firefox for the first time and you can see all the data it sends.

I can tell you if turning off telemetry really does stop it.
 
trparky said:
As long as the data that Firefox is collecting is simple data about the system that it's running on including some extension data (like names of them) then I don't see a problem. This is simple environmental data. Now if they collected actual user data like names, email addresses, etc. then we're going to have a problem but until that becomes an issue I'm going to continue using Firefox as if nothing at all is wrong.

We have data collected on us every day of our lives in just about every segment of our lives, it doesn't bother me anymore. As long as it's truly anonymous data, I have no issues with it. When it starts to contain real personal data, then I'll have an issue. Until that happens, I don't sweat it anymore; I have much bigger things in my life to be worried about.

Bad enough I've been told that I'm going to die early from either an ulcer or a heart attack, I don't need to add any more things to make me worried and die earlier. I already have more gray hair than I have any business having at my age.
Click to expand...


Part of the problem is that even when you intend to do the right thing, like collect only anonymous data, non-anonymous data is always caught up in the mix.

And even if you intend to not use it maliciously, any collected store of data automatically becomes a target for those who would access it surreptitiously.

The only way to ensure that data is not misused is to never collect it at all.

I really feel this needs to be regulated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top