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0 pointstialaramex5y ago0 comments

The Facebook Container extension is special, it does a bunch of work to put all of Facebook and only Facebook inside the Facebook Container. Bits of Facebook trying to peak through outside Facebook (e.g. tracking pixels) are elided entirely. Which is exactly what I want. But ordinarily that's not the behaviour you get from a Firefox container.

e.g. I have that Facebook Container, and I also have a Slack container I just put together in the usual way by opening my Slack session (it's for the main social group I hang out with, during the pandemic) inside a Container with a pink theme and icon.

Suppose three friends send me a funny Youtube video of kittens, one sends it on Slack, one on Facebook, one literally sends me a postcard with the URL on it.

In Facebook, it's inside the Facebook container. Since the Facebook Container has no idea who I am, Youtube presents adverts and of course there's no way to add the video to my "Fun kitten videos" list. But if I tell Youtube to open this now the tab is not Facebook, a no-referrer link opens with the URL and now in my default context which has Youtube Premium, so there are no adverts and I can add this to my lists. As far as Facebook is concerned I apparently just left. Unless Google tells them I watched that video they are none the wiser.

Slack is inside the Slack container. So again, no Youtube account, adverts. But if I open the Youtube page that's still inside the Slack container, so still no Youtube account. I need to explicitly get the URL and paste it into a not Slack tab to get my default context.

The link from the postcard obviously I get to choose which context to type it into the URL bar, although maybe the UX of typing random Youtube URLs in isn't great.

0 comments

autoexec5y ago

> In Facebook, it's inside the Facebook container. Since the Facebook Container has no idea who I am,

wouldn't they know exactly who you are with every request sent to any of their servers and any facebook page you load either by your facebook account, IP address, or by browser fingerprinting.

tialaramexOP5y ago

I mean, sure they can be entirely confident that I'm the Facebook user who signed up for that account, and so in that sense they know exactly who I am.

But in another very real sense they've got no idea who that is. It would suit them very well to be able to reliably tie it to other information (hence all the tracking pixels and so on) but the Container prevents that.

I mean, one of my Facebook friends is named say "Norman Le Plum". I'm very confident that isn't what it says on his birth certificate, and indeed when his friend request arrived I actually ignored it until I found someone out of band to tell me who "Norman" was, but in a sense Facebook know exactly who Norman is, he's a disembodied red skull who is still really into skateboarding and Steamed Hams.

What use that is,isn't clear, and presumably one day advertisers might conclude the answer is "No use whatsoever" and Facebook will go out of business. Meanwhile I read funny Steamed Hams variants, people complain about their jobs, and while I'd rather it didn't exist at all, if it must exist at least it's trapped in a little box where it can't taint everything else.

Now Google probably knows way too much about me, but that's quite a different problem.

autoexec5y ago

I wouldn't count on a fake name being any kind of problem for facebook assuming they're actively using the profile. Not providing them any data at all won't spare you, but if you're using the account they can easily analyze photos and comments (including those on other people's profiles), use facial recognition, use friend/activity patterns, match IP addresses/browsers (including any instances where the same IP address/browser was used to sign into non-facebook services found in records purchased by facebook from data brokers), and if he ever uses his phone or chrome to look at facebook there's a handy unique ID sent to facebook as well which can be matched with countless other recorded activities.

Facebook devotes a huge amount of time and money to collecting data and using it to associate people to a real identity to the extent that even people who never signed up for an account at all have hidden profiles created for them by facebook which contain the intimate details of their life including what they buy at the grocery store.

As far as I can tell, a container won't protect your identity but it will limit the amount of information they have on your browsing history (unless your ISP decides to sell them that information or they obtain some of it from a 3rd party data broker)

hnick5y ago

Older accounts may have fake names but newer ones require identification documents, even selfie videos to prove you are a human. It wouldn't surprise me if they start combing through older accounts eventually.

neogodless5y ago

Ok so my point is that you specifically don't put any Google sites into "a" container but rather let them fall where there are, and if you have a Work container and open something Google, you only ever log into the Work-related Google account?

tialaramexOP5y ago

For work stuff my habit for maybe a decade or more has been to have work buy me hardware and the work hardware does work stuff, so this conflict never arises. The closest is maybe a previous employer paid me a retainer and obviously they didn't buy me a special laptop just for like one conference call a year on retainer, so I did that from my PC.

But yes, in a Foo container, all the various Google things (Docs, GMail, their Cloud offering, Youtube...) are either not logged in at all or they're logged in from some Foo context.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointstialaramex5y ago0 comments

Suppose three friends send me a funny Youtube video of kittens, one sends it on Slack, one on Facebook, one literally sends me a postcard with the URL on it.

The link from the postcard obviously I get to choose which context to type it into the URL bar, although maybe the UX of typing random Youtube URLs in isn't great.

0 comments

autoexec5y ago

> In Facebook, it's inside the Facebook container. Since the Facebook Container has no idea who I am,

wouldn't they know exactly who you are with every request sent to any of their servers and any facebook page you load either by your facebook account, IP address, or by browser fingerprinting.

tialaramexOP5y ago

I mean, sure they can be entirely confident that I'm the Facebook user who signed up for that account, and so in that sense they know exactly who I am.

Now Google probably knows way too much about me, but that's quite a different problem.

autoexec5y ago

hnick5y ago

neogodless5y ago

tialaramexOP5y ago

But yes, in a Foo container, all the various Google things (Docs, GMail, their Cloud offering, Youtube...) are either not logged in at all or they're logged in from some Foo context.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse