Firefox ESR Tracking enabled in INI – Fix uploaded

[Anonymous]

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Beyond the steps mentioned in this post : https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/firefox-esr-tracking-enabled-in-antix-ini/#post-73815 , I would suggest also examining (grepping) the ~/…/user.js and similar files of any pre-existing profiles for unwanted changes. Alternatively, if a pre-upgrade snapshot or backup is available, replace the content of users’ profile directories with copies retrieved from backup.

[Anonymous]

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need to monitor for any further unauthorised change to distribution ini or other sneaky .js changes

Yes, across versions throughout the past several years, that has remained an ongoing chore… and, as Moddit mentioned, mozilla has repeatedly introduced new prefkeys which sneakily undermine (circumvent, ignore, obviate) certain “no means NO, dammit!” previously user-specified preference values.

[Member ahoppin]

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By searching the web for “datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled” I found a Mozillazine page from 2015 (!) which says: “From Firefox 41 on, ‘datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled’ is the master-kill-switch for any upload/reporting for FHR and Telemetry.”

I think that FHR means Firefox Health Reporting, but I don’t know for sure.

I made the following change in Seamonkey‘s about:config. I can’t guarantee that it will work the same way in Firefox. I also can’t warrant that it’s still effective.

Changed datareporting.policy.dataSubmissionEnabled to false
Changed toolkit.telemetry.unified to false
Changed toolkit.telemetry.server to http://localhost

So far these settings have survived multiple restarts of Seamonkey and reboots of the OS.

I’m not a security or privacy expert, and this isn’t security or privacy advice!

Again, I emphasize that this seems to be working in Seamonkey 2.53.9. I haven’t tried it in Firefox.

If this post is too off-topic, my apologies. I have no problem with a moderator deleting or moving it.

Thanks again for this valuable thread.

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi ahoppin, a lot has changed since 2015 . Much of the telemetry, moz calls it information gathering is becoming more and
more baked in to the browser. The more controllable version is LTS. Which is the nearest to seamonkey.

What works in seamonkey, search config for telemetry, ping, datareporting. Geo, battery sensors, remote and see what you find.
Use Arkenfox and the info from LibreWolf for helper templates. You may be able to use a policy file. Best to check on that
over at https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.10.2/

For those who can use and want an up to date browser. Better is to use and support LibreWolf.
Palemoon is good but suffering due to google setting its own web standards and forcing them on users.

I am also not a privacy, security expert, just try to alert more users to the reality of WWW, from day one it is a surveillance instrument
dominated by USA, with the eyes countrys a very close second. It is also scammers paradise.

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

[Member blur13]

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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 Robin]

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ahoppin wrote:

With Firefox’s declining privacy reputation and increasing apparent disrespect for its users, I was somewhat surprised to discover that Firefox was the default browser in Antix.

I assumed that there had to be good reasons. Nevertheless I didn’t want to use it, so I installed Seamonkey from apt.

The main reason for using firefox is probably the user needs a browser which is accepted by the websites he has to visit. Try to login at a University site, or try to access local administrative sites of your city, where they expect you to go in days of Corona instead of comming into their offices, or try to access local library sites or even contact your bank. This listing to give only some important examples. Nothing of this works when not using the browser they tell you to use. And what they do accept is, you like it or not, firefox these days. And not any old firefox, they insist on most recent firefox version for security reasons.

This is the reason why I have to stick to firefox, at whatever cost. I still remember the days they insisted on Windows or Apple operating systems, but meanwhile they do accept linux at least.

So whatever they do severely wrong at mozilla concerning telemetry, we have to live with it, and block it best we can. Yes, you can use telemetry data for worthwile improvement of programs, but what mozilla gathers together doesn’t look to me like being meant for this purpose only.

So I will recommend — besides what was said about builtin telemetry in firefox by others above — three addons making it a bit more difficult to track you:
Decentraleyes
Ublock Origin
Noscript

Use firefox, but use it with care.

All this is not about having something to hide. It’s about the right of informational self determination.

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

[Member ahoppin]

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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 ModdIt]

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ahoppin wrote 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.

Well known and annoying, thank google for the problem, sometimes temp whilisting google com helps, other times only way is to allow scripts globaly.

Antix live works well for isolating site data, when using chrome or any other chrome based browser do delete the cache after every usage or you will have equivalent
of infinite supercookys hidden in website specific cache data areas.

LTS Firefox works on most websites, even after cutting out as much of the tracking, telemetry hidden extensions as possible.
Well worth trying LibreWolf or UngoogledChromium, if you can run 64 bit that is, many sites work ok, both are pretty good privacy wise. In case of ungoogled
thre are also some useful choices in chrome settings. chrome://about/ or the more familiar about:about gives a long list of interna. chrome flags is the
equivalent to about:config.

Walking alone through Chicago Riverdale, or La Chapelle in Paris, at 2 AM.
Many places in europe you would not be alone for long, the shadows are populated by the dregs of despair and scum of humanity.

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