Search Results for 'firefox google'

[Member ahoppin]

Robin, thank you for the suggestions.

I’ve used Noscript with Seamonkey and Palemoon in the past. Perhaps I didn’t use it correctly. No matter what I whitelisted with it, Captchas wouldn’t display, so some websites refused me entry.

I’ve also found that some websites (including my bank website) don’t like even the most recent Seamonkey. Some essential function will fail, even when I set the user agent string to say that it’s Firefox. Maybe genuine Firefox would work. I haven’t tried it.

Instead, I’ve been using open source Chromium for those sites. Maybe that’s a foolish choice.

However, I don’t allow the spyware on any of those troublesome websites to know of other sites that I visit. I have a frugal Puppy Linux installation with Chromium and multiple savefiles, one savefile for each website, and never visit any other sites with that savefile.

I assume that the same could be done with multiple copies of Antix live.

I’ve not yet had a website reject Chromium, and everything seems to work.

So I think that Moddit is right, that Google forces their “standards” on the web. Google and Chrome are now similar to Microsoft and Internet Destroyer years ago. They are too rich and powerful.

Between 1995 and about 2005, the web was a relaxed and friendly place to be. It seemed full of promise for a better future. Today it’s hostile and dangerous. Sometimes it seems like walking alone through Chicago Riverdale, or La Chapelle in Paris, at 2 AM.

What a pity that we can’t null out the disk, reinstall the web, and start over, this time without advertising.

Thanks again to all at Antix for your hard work in defense of our privacy!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by ahoppin.

[Member PPC]

About your second concern – mic not working in “Firefox”… If you were using “Firefox”, not “FirefoX ESR” (that comes by default with antiX, please note that they aren’t the same application) then it’s probably because you were not forcing “Firefox” to use apulse.
If that’s so, try the mic with “Firefox ESR”. If it does work, then open the terminal and try to force “Firefox” to start with apulse (close any running instance of Firefox, just to be on the safe side, and on the terminal run this command:

apulse firefox

You should have audio fully working with “Firefox” if that was the real problem. If it wasn’t, well, you can still keep using Chromium derived browsers (like Google Chrome).

EDit: now that I’ve re-read your last post I got it: disabling antiX’s adblock finnally made the mic test work in your firefox, is that it?

Main point: if you have problems with antiX that you can’t solve and searching for help on the internet does not provide any results, the faster you post a question on the forum, probably the faster you’ll get effective help 🙂
Also, asking in the main forum, in English is probably the best way to get responses, even if you have to use on-line translators…

P.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by PPC.

[Member seaken64]

Again, under the “it depends” catagory –

If you use uBlock Origin or NoScript you will not be able to use “Cloud” applications, such as Google Workspace or Office 365. That is fine for many people. Not everyone needs to use JavaScript applications. But, again, we don’t know what the OP considers is a “daily driver”. In my case, I use Google Workspace as a daily application in my business, so that would eliminate most under powered 32-bit machines, as I have already shared. But maybe if I worked as hard as Robin to upgrade the graphics and other settings in Firefox I might be able to use some of my 32-bit machines better. If that was the only choice I had I would do that.

I have had some success with some 32-bit machines with using cloud office sites but as far as having over 100 tabs in Firefox it is not happening on my equipment. It can be “tolerable” and I can work in a few tabs and also open some local office apps at the same time. But it is an exercise in patience. A lot like watching paint dry.

Seaken64

[Member rayluo]

Robin wrote:

Here I have to contradict, seaken64.

seaken64 wrote:

With Firefox you may get two or three tabs before RAM is used up.

Simply No. It depends only on how you set up your system and how you set up firefox. I’m runnung firefox right now with 147(!) tabs open on an 32bit single core PC with 2 GB RAM (DDR2, PC-5200) only on antiX 19.3 with all recent updates. It doesn’t matter whether it is an Intel Pentium or an Athlon XP, I have both here in daily use

Theoretically speaking, how many tabs a browser can handle, also largely depends on what kind of websites you are browsing. I used to also have a 2GB RAM laptop (a Thinkpad X60, fwiw) as my daily driver, it could possibly handle 100+ tabs of antiX forum posts *ONLY* (although I did not try it that way), but definitely not when I already have some Gmail+GoogleCalender+GoogleNotes (or the Outlook+Calendar+OneNote flavor) + GitHub + StackOverflow + etc tabs constantly open. From a technology standpoint, the tipping point is when the last straw (i.e. the last tab) that brings your computer into thrashing situation. You could know you are approach that limit by keeping an eye on the second-rightmost icon on the systray (i.e. the memory gauge) and an “htop” console, but you usually won’t be able to pull your computer back if it went pass the no-return-point.

That is why I think @Robin’s 147(!) number is very impressive! I would love to learn from Robin’s wisdom and reproduce his/her success.

Robin wrote:

Probably I should add: I’m running antiX full from a 64GB Live Persistent USB stick, but having the Swap partition NOT on the Live medium, letting antiX use the existing Swap partition on rotational hard drive.

@Robin you mentioned “it depends on (1) how you set up your system and (2) how you set up fiBut even under really heavy load I rarely see the hard drive starting to swap (Especially this can happen when editing really big and highres images in Gimp.) But firefox never has made the PC start swapping.refox”. Was the paragraph above the “set up your system” part? I assume only a minority of antiX users are using Live USB, but coincidentally I am one of the Live USB users, and I have long been setting up swap partition on outside of USB stick.

Robin wrote:

But even under really heavy load I rarely see the hard drive starting to swap (Especially this can happen when editing really big and highres images in Gimp.) But firefox never has made the PC start swapping.

That is an enviable performance, @Robin. I don’t know Gimp much so I just assume Gimp would use a definitive amount of RAM proportional to your image size. But the Firefox (or its “content process(es)” seems to be a different beast. Right now, on my 4GB RAM laptop, there are 8 default firefox content processes. Each of them occupies ~100MB to ~600MB RAM, one of them even uses 33.3GB(!) Virtual RAM, according to htop.

$ sudo ps_mem.py -S
 Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used   Swap used	Program
  ...
  1.3 GiB + 150.3 MiB =   1.4 GiB    90.1 MiB	firefox-esr (10)

$ htop
    PID   ...  VIRT   RES   SHR ... COMMAND
    ...   ... 33.3G  157M 72544 ... /usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr -contentproc -childID 2 ...  

$ free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           3.8Gi       1.5Gi       973Mi       899Mi       1.3Gi       1.2Gi
Swap:          8.0Gi       872Mi       7.1Gi

So, @Robin, I already use same “system set up” as yours, but you can see my laptop(s) behave very differently than yours. So, I would assume it is the following “firefox setup” that would make a big difference.

Robin wrote:

Probably the magic behind it is how you configure your firefox. There are some settings, I change from the default values on these machines so everything runs smoothly:
1.) remove the checkmark from the Entry “Use recommended Performance settings” in section “Performance settings”

2.) Set chekmark at “Use Hardware-accelleration”. This will have only any affect, when your video driver is able to handle this. I observed the original Nvidia driver does handle this perfectly, but Nouveau driver I have doubts whether there is any accelleration in use at all. It feels as if all the rendering is done by the CPU instead of GPU.

2.) set “Max Content threads” to “1” (one).
In contrast to what they do write there (“the more threads you have the better would be the performance”), the opposite is true on weak machines. Firefox will run like a youngster on even a single core 32 bit system when setting this to one only.

3.) When running on original Nvidia driver the setting “activate smooth scrolling” is fine. But again, when running on Nouveau driver you should deactivate this setting for improved performance.

As you can see, the usability of your system in everyday usage heavily depends on the quality of the video drivers you can lay hands on and install.

Thanks. I applied that “set max content threads to 1” just now. I would need some time (days?) to observe how it behaves.

I do have questions on the video drivers.

* How does a user know whether his/her antiX system is using the optimal video driver? antiX21 uses an i915 driver on my laptop. Is it good? Bad?

Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0166 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           ... 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) v: 4.2 Mesa 20.3.5 
           compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 

* How does a user know/test/benchmark whether Firefox is using GPU for rendering?

Robin wrote:

4.) And finally do install at all costs “uBlock origin” on firefox. This stops rendering all the heavy overhead the modern internet web pages come with. You would not believe what a difference this makes in everyday usage. Actually you do need the modern hardware only to satisfy the needs of advertising industry…

Interesting point on the advertising industry. 🙂

antiX seems to already comes with some ad-blocking capability out-of-the-box, and I thought that was enough (even though it is also sometimes inconvenient). I installed “uBlock Origin” just now, and I’ll observe its effect in next few days.

However, I have to say I am skeptical on whether ad-blocker alone would make much difference to my usage pattern. As hinted above in my first paragraph in this post, my constant opened tabs are those like Gmail or Outlook. Those 2 particular web pages contain no ads, they are just resource-hungry in their own right.

All in all, thanks a lot for Robin’s sharing. I really look forward to hear more details from @Robin.

[Member seaken64]

Here’s what I get on two Pentium 4 class machines, one a Single Thread w/ 2GB or RAM, the other a Two Thread “HyperThread” with 3/GB of RAM.

Initial ram used after boot, with only Terminal running HTOP.

P4 2.8 Ghz 2GB RAM 32-bit
AMD RV280 Dedicated Graphics Card
—–
MX21-XFCE – 361M
MX21-XFCE w/ LXDE Session – 246M
MX21-Fluxbox – 244M
antiX-21 SysV Full w/ IceWM – 80M
antiX-21 SysV Full w/ Fluxbox – 81M
antiX-21 SysV Full w/ JWM – 79M

P4HT 3.2 Ghz 3GB RAM 32-bit
Intel integrated graphics
—–
MX21-XFCE – 456M
MX21-XFCE w/ Fluxbox Session – 313M
MX21-XFCE w/ LXDE Session – 300M
MX21-XFCE w/ IceWM Session – 186M
antiX-21 Runit Base w/ IceWM – 83M
antiX-21 Runit Base w/ Fluxbox – 88M
antiX-21 Runit Base w/ JWM – 87M

If you only have 512MB of RAM you will struggle to use the machine as a “daily driver”, unless you only use text based applications. My experience trying to make use of Google Workspace on Firefox on these machines tells me that a machne like this is not suitable.

But again, we said “it depends”. What are you trying to do? What kind of browsing do you want to do?

I have been logging some tests with MX and antiX lately and that is my lists above include MX installs. But even with antiX, which weighs in pretty low on initial boot, at about 80M, when I try to open more than three tabs in Firefox on Google Workspace, on my machines with 512M or 1GB of RAM, the machine runs out of RAM. And the CPU is hung up. It took at least 2GB to be “usable”. I had a full report here a few weeks ago (see above link).

Seaken64

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by seaken64.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by seaken64.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by seaken64.

[Member Robin]

Sorry, I just came across this question here and will answer, even when late, since I myself run 32 bit single core hardware and have some experience what is possible in translation and what is not.

The best solution I found was the plugin traduzir-paginas-web written by Felipe PS. Yes, it runs fine on 32 bit Firefox, and you can (and should) use Ublock origin parallel. The translations are performed really fast and in acceptable (understandable) quality, even on sites google translate wouldn’t be able to translate. It translates literally any site on real time in any tab without corrupting its layout. I have not encountered problems when using multiple tabs.
So this is clearly my favourite, when it is about balance of accuracy and speed. If you need really high quality translation use deepl, as already recommended before by others, but the spectrum of languages is a bit more limited and you’ll have to copy and paste the content to translate when using it. I utilise both methods, depending on the use case. Both work fine on 32 bit hardware.

Please take my comment as biased, it is my personal experience only. Other people may have other opinions.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member Robin]

Here I have to contradict, seaken64.

seaken64 wrote:

With Firefox you may get two or three tabs before RAM is used up.

Simply No. It depends only on how you set up your system and how you set up firefox. I’m runnung firefox right now with 147(!) tabs open on an 32bit single core PC with 2 GB RAM (DDR2, PC-5200) only on antiX 19.3 with all recent updates. It doesn’t matter whether it is an Intel Pentium or an Athlon XP, I have both here in daily use, both with 2GB RAM and no problems with running Thunderbird or Claws mail parallel, and in the background having the machine translation script working at the antiX translations from transifex one language after the other. This class of machines is even good for watching live TV using aCSTV, without having to close the other programs before. Sometimes I have 20 Windows at the same time opened, Geany with multiple tabs at several projects running and also leafpad, mirage, and loading some photos with gtkam from digital camera. All this works smooth and fluent, the memory management on antiX does a really great job.
Probably I should add: I’m running antiX full from a 64GB Live Persistent USB stick, but having the Swap partition NOT on the Live medium, letting antiX use the existing Swap partition on rotational hard drive.
But even under really heavy load I rarely see the hard drive starting to swap (Especially this can happen when editing really big and highres images in Gimp.) But firefox never has made the PC start swapping.
Probably the magic behind it is how you configure your firefox. There are some settings, I change from the default values on these machines so everything runs smoothly:
1.) remove the checkmark from the Entry "Use recommended Performance settings" in section "Performance settings"

2.) Set chekmark at "Use Hardware-accelleration". This will have only any affect, when your video driver is able to handle this. I observed the original Nvidia driver does handle this perfectly, but Nouveau driver I have doubts whether there is any accelleration in use at all. It feels as if all the rendering is done by the CPU instead of GPU.

2.) set "Max Content threads" to "1" (one).
In contrast to what they do write there (“the more threads you have the better would be the performance”), the opposite is true on weak machines. Firefox will run like a youngster on even a single core 32 bit system when setting this to one only.

3.) When running on original Nvidia driver the setting "activate smooth scrolling" is fine. But again, when running on Nouveau driver you should deactivate this setting for improved performance.

As you can see, the usability of your system in everyday usage heavily depends on the quality of the video drivers you can lay hands on and install. If the driver lets all the work to the CPU, and the GPU idles most of the time instead of being used for what it is designed for, it is needless to ask why a specific system is not usable in everyday usage. All the existing performance is eaten up by rendering everything on CPU instead of GPU. And this goes also for the rendering of multiple browser tabs.

Just an example: I can run a simple video file of e.g. 2360 kbps smoothly even dual screen with a CPU load of max 60% peak and an average of 40% with antiX 19.3 on the 32 bit pentium M system (nominal 1,4 GHz, 2GB RAM) with original nvidia drivers installed. But on antiX 21 using the nouveau driver on the very same machine the very same video file using the very same program (mpv) outpowers the CPU to constantly 100%, even rendering the video display choppy and not allowing to do anything else at the same time on the machine. That makes all the difference.

4.) And finally do install at all costs "uBlock origin" on firefox. This stops rendering all the heavy overhead the modern internet web pages come with. You would not believe what a difference this makes in everyday usage. Actually you do need the modern hardware only to satisfy the needs of advertising industry… For the true content of any webpage a 32 bit single core CPU combined with a true high performance GPU is enough to render dozens of tabs in firefox. As I told you, I’m right now running 147 tabs simultaneously. No joke. (This comes since I work at a lots of projects parallel, swithing fast between them. It would simply take to much time to close and open the tabs. Allways open: Leo, Deepl, google-translate, woxicon, duden, linguee, 4 times transifex, antiX forum, 6 times gitlab, 2 times gitgub, wikipedia, to list only a couple of them, and also dozens of sites for recent researching in different matters.) Runing frescobaldi sometimes parallel, or listening to some audio stream from “poor mans radio player” or Audio-CD. All this parallel on a single core 32 bit CPU, without having to wait longer than a second or two for anything. No need at all to be patient.

System:    Kernel: 4.19.184-antix.1-686-smp-pae i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: vga=0x0317 persist_all lang=de_DE tz=Europe/Berlin quiet splash=v 
           disable=lxF 
           Desktop: IceWM 2.9.4 vt: 7 dm: SLiM 1.3.6 
           Distro: antiX-19.3_386-full Manolis Glezos 15 October 2020 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Memory:    RAM: total: 1.96 GiB used: 1.21 GiB (61.9%) 
           RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:       Info: Single Core model: Intel Pentium M bits: 32 type: MCP arch: M Dothan family: 6 
           model-id: D (13) stepping: 8 microcode: 20 cache: L2: 2 MiB bogomips: 2659 
           Speed: 1333 MHz min/max: 800/1733 MHz Core speed (MHz): 1: 1333 
           Flags: acpi apic bts clflush cmov cpuid cx8 de dts est fpu fxsr mca mce mmx msr mtrr nx 
           pae pbe pge pse pti sep ss sse sse2 tm tm2 tsc vme 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA NV43M [GeForce Go 6600] vendor: Rioworks driver: nvidia v: 304.137 
           alternate: nvidiafb,nouveau bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0148 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: loaded: nvidia unloaded: modesetting 
           failed: fbdev,nouveau,vesa alternate: nv display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2464x900 s-dpi: 98 s-size: 639x231mm (25.2x9.1") 
           s-diag: 679mm (26.8") 
           Monitor-1: VGA-1 res: 1024x768 hz: 60 
           Monitor-2: VGA-2 res: 1440x900 hz: 60 dpi: 100 size: 367x230mm (14.4x9.1") 
           diag: 433mm (17.1") 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce Go 6600/PCIe/SSE2 v: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.137 direct render: Yes 

And the Athlon XP system (1,2 GHz nominal and also 2GB DDR 2 RAM, BIOS date: 2001) has absolutely the same performance, it is even a bit faster (3319 bogomips). No difference in everyday usability.

christophe wrote:

Firefox + 1 GB RAM = “daily driver” ?

Unfortunately I can’t answer this. Indeed, it might be a great difference whether you have only one GB RAM instead of the 2 GB on which my experience is based.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

I wrote: “firefox-esr 78.15 is still the ESR build provided by Debian.

Looking at the Firefox project, recently Firefox 91.4.1esr-1~deb11u1
is the newest ESR version.

I have no idea why the Debian version is so out of date. My best guess is that they need a maintainer for the ESR release. The Release 95 update is also .1 behind and Version 96.0 will be released on January 11.”

Skidoo wrote: “https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr
^–v
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=team%2Bpkg-mozilla%40tracker.debian.org
^–v

https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=firefox

Excuse for firefox

Migration status for firefox (- to 95.0.1-1): BLOCKED: Rejected/violates migration policy/introduces a regression
Issues preventing migration:
Updating firefox would introduce bugs in testing: #817954, #992263
missing build on mipsel
Additional info:
Piuparts tested OK – https://piuparts.debian.org/sid/source/f/firefox.html
autopkgtest for libreoffice/blocked-on-ci-infra: arm64: Ignored failure, ppc64el: Ignored failure
22 days old (needed 5 days)

Excuses generated Sat Jan 8 03:08:17 2022″

anticapitalista said: ” @Robin – antiX-21 and Debian 11 (bullseye) both have firefox-esr 78.x

https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/firefox-esr ”

Bottom line is that Firefox users have choices. The Debian repo has the Firefox ESR 78 series.
The Firefox Extended Support Release has the 91.* series, and there are updates in the 94.1 group.
Firefox 95.1 is in Debian as the current version.
Firefox has a 95.2 update released.
Firefox 96.0 is awaiting release on January 11 and has been built since January 4.
Firefox 97 beta builds are currently building, and last, Firefox Nightly continues to create new builds.

If those are not the right choices, Palemoon has a release that is stable and it behaves similarly to the classic Firefox, but is NOT identical.

Google has a stable, beta, and nightly version available.
There is also a Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium.

Opera has a similar setup with their browser, and Vivaldi is a variant loosely based on Opera.

Not all of these browsers will work for everyone, but we’re certainly able to choose from a large group of alternatives and there are more in addition to these.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

Thanks skidoo, and the reminder of older post,
be interesting to see if the widevine setup will run ok from a stick, pretty sure it will, what else is incorporated
in to encryption key and tracking tools no sure knowledge, just a lot of possibilitys one such cpu id.

Problem here is schools and university application demands, unless or until the EU wakes up which is very unlikely
privacy is pretty much dead for anyone with a phone, computer, and lesser known to many, a modern vehicle which is constantly
sending data to the importer, manufacturer and any agency or interested paying party.

/etc/machine-id is the one FF reputedly reads. if I am correct that will still always be regenerated next boot on system d machines
if removed, More likely browsers look in several places. According to several reputable privacy sites Firefox also has a compiled in
unique ID.

Ungoogled Chromium states the machine id is not read, (most?) other chrome based browsers pass on all the tracking info they can find.
Crashing and freezing issues on chrome based browsers are graphics acceleration related. Switch off get stability.
LibreWolf is also pretty clean, until users start trading tips which weaken privacy then login to gmail. ouch.

Tor and anonymous, believe it if you wish, trust in it I do not.

Regarding add a startup file which deletes the uuid file at each boot (causing a new, randomly-generated, uuid to be generated)
suggestion on how best to do that welcome. up to now deleting randomly on shutdown which is definitely sub optimum..

[Member ModdIt]

Have to agree with Marcello, but often one link is enough.

Work around create a post with short text, edit and add intended content, using code marking helps in many
cases.

Very noticeable is also the capability of the site to crash browsers, Palemoon latest not so oten anymore,
Epiphany immediate freeze, Ungoogled Chromium frequent freeze, Vivaldi occasional Firefox LTS rarely.

Graphics accelleration. is off in ungoogled chromium, (a frequent chrome based browser freezer) reduces the
occurrence on this site but does not completely cure the issues..
On several occasions I have just given up trying to help a poster on forum, sent a PM.

[Member blur13]

LibreWolf is more or less the way Firefox should be. Except that its a pain to use. No logins are saved, so you have to type in username and password every time you open up the browser. No cookies are saved, so any settings are reverted to default. Ever wonder why google searches are so good? Its because they use your location, search history, etc to give you almost scarily relevant hits. Well, you can forget about that with LibreWolf. Search for “lebanese restaurant” and you will not get ones in your area. Of course, you can append the location in the search query manually.

Its a mixed blessing. It seems that privacy comes at the price of convenience. But at least your browser is an impenetrable fortress (hopefully).

[Member ModdIt]

skidoo wrote :following an upgrade, ff often grumbles that some of the previously-installed addons associated with a given pre-existing profile are no longer compatible and have been disabled.

Mozilla on occasion also disables extensions remotely. Recently one which affected the revenue model by blocking sending of search to google.

Version upgrades, for example LTS, will completely overwrite /usr/lib/firefox-esr. If you agree to a refresh same plus a new profile will be created in home, i.e. your privacy changes are effectively negated. Or put another way FF and associates feed freely on your data again.

Version change, ie from LTS to Latest, new profile will be created in home, distribution ini if present within the package used. LTS ini and Latest are to be regarded separately.
A Package directly downloaded from Mozilla has no distribution ini.

Skidoo is right to say Try it/check it, each update will mean going through settings, removing hidden extensions, disabling others. You will on occasion find your BROKEN user profile has been quietly replaced with a fresh one. Broken, disturbing data harvesting by Moz and associates. The main one being an advertising company, along with goog and others.

Depending on about:config settings mozilla can, and does, remotely change settings to allow themselves further free accesss to chunks of your data. You will get no notice of such changes.

Preference names are frequently changed in about config. Some really crappy ways are used. Setting XXX on if off is one I saw recently, way down at the end of a list of hundreds of preferences and far from the pref it affected.

Do not think you can trust in Mozilla, do not think you can stop all data harvesting. Use several browsers. Use LibreWolf and Tor as well as FF if you need it.

Block moz sites in Hosts, be careful there is a setting in config telling the browser DNS, yes Browser not system to ignore said setting.
On top Block in a router whenever possible. And read logs, watch conky if it spikes when you start your browser ask yourself why..

Mozilla has compiled a system called glean in to the browser, you can not block it entirely by settings. Gleaning is harvesting. Harvesting your data.
They have also a new shiny data analysis system for all the (non) privacy they offer those laid bare by trust in a devious net of half truths and downright lies.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by ModdIt.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by ModdIt.

First point, Telemetry is on by default in Firefox official direct downloads.
This can be changed at compile time or before distribution by an organisation.

In Firefox nightly Telemetry is compiled in fully enabled. The user must accept that fact.
For other versions there are often variations in the level of data harvesting frequently including so called studies.

You can find some info on below page but please be aware not all data collection is called telemetry, and the other methods
used by mozilla and associates are intensive and considered intrusive by many. This includes studys which are opt in by default
but can be enabled by an organisation.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/telemetry-clientid#firefox:linux:fx96
about:telemetry gives you some insight in to what has been sent to Mozilla under the telemetry label.

If you use typeahead find or online spellchecking be aware of the fact that you are delivering every keypress to a remote server.

If you use mozilla VPN, you allow massive insights. To be as private as possible use tor but consider it comprimised. Big subject.

If you are interested in privacy, never start the browser after install or every update before checking settings, including those
in about:config. Never agree to letting Mozilla refresh your browser when their systems have detected your settings are broken.
Which they are able to do without taking your data !!!. Its magic.
Kuketz, G.Hacks and other sites are your friends for learning as is a heap of info here in the forum.

For more privacy without study use LibreWolf or if it is stable on your system UngoogledChromium.

For users of 32 bit systems unfortunately there are not so many options. You can find information here in the forum.

Here in EU, not just Germany data protection laws apply. Corporations get away with far too much, individuals are often a target as
they are unable to afford good lawyers and certainly not dozens of them.
Remember, if you download or use a browser like Firefox, by doing so you agree to a privacy policy. Take a few days off to read it
including the policy of referenced partners and partners partners, policy ad infinitum.

[Member blur13]

Google E-mail and web calendars can be managed from Thunderbird- but that application uses a lot of RAM.

You are of course aware of this, but there are old school email clients that can handle gmail. I use Alpine. It runts in the terminal. Its easy to set up with your existing gmail account. A bit of searching online and you’ll find lots of tips n tricks to tinker with the multitude of settings. As for checking google calendar, there is the excellent gcalcli. Instead of having to launch firefox everytime to check my email and calendar, these two applications save me lots of time when using my old EEE pc netbook. If you listen to Spotify you can do so with minimal resources using ncspot. Its almost as light as cmus. Anyways, I digress. I guess the point is, like anticap said, if you use an old computer the way it was meant to be used, it will be lightning fast.

[Member PPC]

Like stated above, any machine can be used as a “daily driver” depending on what you want to do…
For me, almost 100% of what I need to do can be done on a 32bits laptop with 1 gig of RAM although it’s not my daily driver.
Google E-mail and web calendars can be managed from Thunderbird- but that application uses a lot of RAM.
I can do editions using google docs or MS Office 365 free accounts- but not as smoothy as working with LibreOffice.
For modern web apps I would advise using at least over 1 gig of RAM and, ideally, at least a dual core.- using those specs, at least for now you can use probably any web app in existence- which is the single good out come from every single servince being “transformed” into a web app- you can run video streaming services, music streaming services, video game “remote play” services- like Google Stadia or the equivalent Microsoft service, Instant messengers, Video Chat services, Office applications (like google doc or MS on-line Office), or now, even Ms Windows itself (if you want to pay a small fortune for it) inside a web browser… Basically once Adobe’s products make the move to web apps, for the normal user there won’t be much difference if the OS is Windows, Linux or whatever.
In my case, for office work, and work with on-line pdf’s, almost any single computer that is able to run Firefox esr and LibreOffice will do for me.

P.