Firefox enables user tracking

I think this a problem with applications with a privacy focused user basis. It becomes very black and white where any type of information being sent somewhere is bad. I respect that some people have that opinion and more power to them, but being pragmatic about this is important. I personally disabled this flag, and I recognize how this is edging into a risky area, but I also recognize that the Mozilla CTO is somewhat correct and if we have the option between a browser that blocks everything and one that is privacy-preserving (where users can still opt for the former), businesses are more likely to adopt the privacy-preserving standards and that benefits the vast majority of users.

Privacy is a scale. I'm all onboard with Firefox, I block tons of trackers and ads, I'm even somebody who uses NoScript and suffers the ramifications to due to ideology reasons, but I also enable telemetry in Firefox because I trust that usage metrics will benefit the product.

You’re definitely not alone. If this happens and it becomes some major news in the community with reasonable visibility, I’m sure many people would support this.

All of these claims clash with the reality of so many core open source projects, used by private users and massive corporations alike, that rely on single voluntary developers or super small groups which receive no flowers and no donations.

Is Librewolf already a Firefox without ad companies colonization ?

In the meantime you can give a look to the Servo project. If Servo is clean for you, you can support them.

That only applies to personally-identifiable information.

In the EU*

Sorry to be pedantic, but the UK, Swiss etc. are all in Europe but not in the legislative region where this law applies.

This even gets some people confused thinking those countries “aren't in Europe”, which is why I wanted to correct this.

If it is truly anonymized then it isn't protected under GDPR.

Advertisers can already easily get this data without this setting, and any measures you take to block ads also by definition affect this setting.

Meanwhile, if this works and becomes widely available, regulators will be able to take measures against user surveillance without having to succumb to the ad industry's argument that they won't know whether their ads work.

And yes, this provides data to advertisers, but it's data about their ads, not about users.

... No, it does not. The ads are currently already tracking clicks and conversions, on top of a whole boatload of other personal data. This API instead provides them with just the click and conversion data, divorced from the personal data and then aggregated with all the other site visitors.

Being against this proposal basically means you trust random websites and ad companies more with your data then you do Mozilla and LetsEncrypt.

What do you want? A Mozilla with no income? Because then there is no libre browser.

It does not collect any more information about you. It provides far less information than pretty much every ad is already collecting, and that information is anonymized. It does not affect ad blocking solutions.

So, serious question: what are you not understanding here?

... No, I'm saying that a given site hosts the specific instance of an ad. That site has control over what the ad can harvest, and if they're opting in to this PPA API, that information will be anonymized and much more limited than it currently is.

But Firefox is open source, though. It's not going to disappear just like that.

I think Mozilla could find another way of getting profit without without tracking its users or depending on Google's funding.

I've enjoyed Mull as an Android alternative https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix

They don't. They rely entirely on donations (and sponsorship donations). It also mean, they have less resources to maintain and develop their software, ESPECIALLY Conqueror since it's not as much well-maintained compared to other parts of the KDE software suite. Plus, Firefox do maintain their own web-engine, while KDE just use the WebKit one, so even more reasons that Firefox can't substain with the resources KDE currently has.

Konqueror is dead since years.

I mean, that argument starts to wade in to the Mozilla foundation as a whole, and what their purpose is, and that's a giant kettle of fish.

Theoretical game. They lowball Google on how much Google pays them. How do people react? I don't see them doing that and say, "Man, I'm glad Firefox is reducing Google's influence over them". I see them making a thread about how Firefox is giving Google a discounted rate because they're all corrupt technofacists.

The core problem there still exists IMO. Funding.

What we really need is a reasonable way for open source, free, software, that exists for the good of the whole, to get money. But that has it's own kettle of fish, where does it come from, how big is big enough to get some, what if they charge for support, how open is open enough.

Something something, seize the means of production, communism, etc.

What?

uBO absolutely helps against tracking. It is at least half of its reason for existing.

The two primary lists are an (1) an ad block list (2) an anti-tracking list.

And used in medium or hard mode uBO categorically blocks many methods of tracking.

But also, if you use Firefox, this is layered on top of Enhanced tracking protection, blocking of 3p tracking cookies, and total cookie protection (dfpi)

Librerfox is even better!