
Firefox updates its iOS web browser to turn Tracking Protection on by default - cpeterso
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/firefox-updates-its-ios-web-browser-to-turn-tracking-protection-on-by-default/
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dzonga
I don't get the point of 3rd party browsers on iOS. When Apple doesn't allow
vendors to use their own engines. I think Apple should be taken to court over
that matter. Safari on iOS is the same as IE on Windows in the early noughts.
If Apple could grant Uber privileged API access, i'm sure they can give
Mozilla and Google the same permissions to build independent browsers on iOS.

~~~
nothrabannosir
_> I think Apple should be taken to court over that matter. Safari on iOS is
the same as IE on Windows in the early noughts._

The law you’re referring to is “using a monopoly in one area to gain an
advantage in another.” Crucial word being: monopoly. iOS is not a monopoly in
the mobile market. Windows had 300 000% of the market, iOS has around… 20%
worldwide? Let’s be generous and double it to 40%: still a far cry from a
monopoly.

~~~
dragonwriter
> iOS is not a monopoly in the mobile market.

Whether iOS is a legal monopoly does not depend on market share in a common
descriptive market segment, but instead in whether it in fact has market
(pricing) power; that is, an antitrust market is in effect defined by where
substitution _actually_ occurs with price changes, not on how media/analysts
describe markets based on product characteristics.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Very interesting. Although in this particular case: seems like it would still
not qualify iOS as a monopoly?

Didn’t know this, though. It makes a lot of sense, in fact.

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dragonwriter
> Although in this particular case: seems like it would still not qualify iOS
> as a monopoly?

Maybe. Market / pricing power is not sinple to assess, and I'm not sure if
device / OS side or the application distribution side is most relevant to the
browser bundling decision. I'd say it' seems to me _more_ likely that the
Apple has pricing power in the App Store that in iOS devices (it doesn't sell
iOS as such, so that's probably not the thing to look at), and either device
or app store market power, if it exists, could be leveraged against competing
browsers with the policies restricting them.)

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abalone
How does this compare to Safari's intelligent tracking protection that came
out last year? That uses ML and sounds like it's considerably more
sophisticated, allowing certain forms of desirable cross-site tracking and not
relying on a centralized blocklist.[1]

[1] [https://webkit.org/blog/7675/intelligent-tracking-
prevention...](https://webkit.org/blog/7675/intelligent-tracking-prevention/)

~~~
LeoPanthera
Firefox simply uses the Disconnect.me tracker list, and prevents connections
to anything on it. It's basically a DNSBL.

I want to know how it compares to the EasyPrivacy list.

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moz23
Took them long enough, glad they're becoming a bit braver (almost like Brave
:p).

Any plans for desktop though...? After all, desktop seems to be the main
platform for Mozilla.

~~~
AtomicOrbital
on android ff is by far the best browser for usability especially tab
management ... chrome is a decided non starter on that OS

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megaman22
Switching from default Chrome to Brave on Android has been the best thing I've
ever done on my phone.

May have to check out how FF compares

~~~
lukaa
Brave is great but until they include dark mode I'll stick with Chromium from
F-droid.

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tpush
Is there any reason for using Firefox on iOS as opposed to Safari? I'm
guessing sync'ing history and stuff with the desktop version; but apart form
that?

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syrgian
Firefox on Android has plugins (such as uBlock). I assume it's the same on
iOS.

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quadrangle
Firefox on iOS doesn't even exist really, it's a lie. It's a Firefox front-end
to Safari designed just to look a certain way and sync settings and bookmarks.
Apple won't allow anything more, it's not Mozilla's fault.

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st3fan
Is the only thing that defines a browser its underlying rendering engine?

I hope that there are other things that make a product unique. Like features
or defaults or what it looks like.

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fenwick67
okay it's probably fair to say "it' snot a lie" but it's definitely not what I
expected (a full build of Firefox for iOS).

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awat
This is excellent news defaults make a big statement. I’ve been using Firefox
Focus on iOS as my daily browser for a few months and its been great.

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JackCh
Are there any consumer-centric arguments against this being the default, or is
this generally considered to be good for users?

I've heard the argument against setting the DNT field by default
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track#Internet_Explorer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track#Internet_Explorer_10_default_setting_controversy))
so I'm wondering if there are any similar arguments in this case. Presumably
_Tracking Protection_ doesn't rely on the honor system, but might being a
default spurn the development of countermeasures to circumvent it?

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vbezhenar
One consumer centric argument that I've heard is that some people like
targeted ads.

~~~
robryan
Would be interesting to see how many people would optin to see retaregeted ads
though.

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jiveturkey
eh, not compelling enough for me. Is there any evaluation of these kinds of
blockers? 1Blocker with Safari seems quite good, and does ad blocking as well.

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JumpCrisscross
What’s the difference between this and browsing using Safari with “Prevent
Cross-Site Tracking” turned on?

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Area12
The default setting, because 95% of the world will never change it. If Safari
and Chrome and Android followed suit, the ripple effect would change a lot of
things on the web. I'm not sure what the final result would be ... greedy
people get to innovate too.

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guelo
Can't tracking just move to the servers if it becomes too hard on the clients?

~~~
mcny
(pure speculation follows, I do not work in the ad industry)

Lets say I run a website lets say youtube.com or whatever.

I want to serve ads. I have to go to a marketplace like double click where
advertisers bid for ads. In an ideal world, the client web browser will never
talk to double click. When I serve a website, I will also serve the
advertising myself from my own web servers using just html and css (no
javascript). We can do a lot of flashy things using css animations so it
shouldn't be a problem. If I really want my users to go away, maybe I can even
serve video ads. I will simply get the ads from the marketplace and tell them
I served an ad. However, reality is not that simple. If they let me do that,
then I will have strong incentives to just lie. I probably won't do it for a
while but after a bit the temptation to lie just becomes too great. Of course,
I had twenty trillion page views yesterday. Why not? I am not saying
youtube.com lies (and it would be trivial for Google to check if they did
because they own YouTube). I am confident Google is probably the most
upstanding member of the prominent players in the ad game. However, how can an
advertiser trust some random website? I don't think advertisers will trust
them.

I think we can get rid of a lot of problems in advertising by simply
prohibiting any kind of javascript in advertisements. I don't know how though.
[https://static.doubleclick.net/instream/ad_status.js](https://static.doubleclick.net/instream/ad_status.js)
for example take a look at a more benign website
[https://i.imgur.com/KS3gjMV.png](https://i.imgur.com/KS3gjMV.png) and compare
it to this website
[https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com) what if we could
get rid of all the calls to third party servers?

Thoughts?

~~~
exelius
This is a nonstarter because it doesn’t solve the media measurement problem.

Everyone in the advertising value chain has a financial incentive to run their
own metrics. Nobody trusts anyone else’s metrics; and publishers will
overstate viewership and advertisers will understate impressions. Nobody can
even agree on a standard set of metrics for measuring the success of an ad.

That’s why all sorts of JavaScript tracking and analytics get included in
online media properties. It’s called the “measurement problem” and it is far
from a new problem in media. It’s one of those rare situations where
incentives are so opposed that both parties have no reason to _pretend_
they’re not screwing the other.

Edit: also, every decently large publisher will have its own ad standards as
to what you can and cannot include, sizing, etc. usually you just work with an
ad buyer and a creative firm to identify publishers to target, what keywords
to aim for and design the ads for the format at each publisher. And most
serious publishers will only serve ads hosted directly on their servers or a
set of approved CDNs/DSPs.

Edit2: also there are mature formats for this stuff already like VAST, etc.
they all include JavaScript and flash.

~~~
mcny
> And most serious publishers will only serve ads hosted directly on their
> servers or a set of approved CDNs/DSPs.

If the ads are hosted on my own servers, all is good.

I don't know YouTube or how its leadership thinks about these things but if I
were in charge, I would go bankrupt before I allowed WPP to insert their
arbitrary code on YouTube website and apps.

Point is that we have to put our foot on the ground and tell advertisers that
they have to trust us. If that means publishers get paid less per
"impression", I would be ok with it. This just seems like common sense to me
because advertisers had to simply trust publishers when it came to print
journalism. I think we need something to level the playing field so
advertisers cannot compel publishers (or exchanges if we can sort of merge the
publisher and the exchange) to give up their crown jewels.

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mobydickship
about:config - when?

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bugmen0t
As soon as apple allows to ship an actual browser engine on the ap store.
Until then Firefox for iOS - like every other browser on iOS - has to build on
top of platform WebKit/WebView APIs

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zitterbewegung
Yea but why not make the url about:config just go to a configuration page of
the browser for the time being?

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st3fan
What would be the advantage of that? Functionally that is the same as tapping
the application menu and then choosing 'settings'.

If there is something specific you would like to see exposed in about:config
that is currently not available in settings, let us know.

~~~
zitterbewegung
Sorry, I didn't mean that it would be an actual feature request. The
grandparent poster wanted about:config and I proposed that it do that. I don't
actually think it has any advantage overall.

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yuhong
Mozilla is one of my main topics of my essay:
[http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/04/google-doubleclick-
mozi...](http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2018/04/google-doubleclick-mozilla-
essay-final.html)

