The amount of things that now need to be toggled off on a new install are approaching Windows “telemetry” levels: disable sponsored shortcuts on homepage, disable experimental “Studies”, sponsored suggestions in search bar, “suggested extensions”, Pocket, and the list goes on.
I really need to look into a privacy friendly fork of FF..
I'd love to make the jump too, just that I rely upon FF sync too much. It's handy getting your bookmarks and other details on mobile devices. The other forks look to be desktop only.
To me the really seeling point of firefox is being able to switch off search suggestions. Now the bar only searches opened Tabs, history, bookmarks and I can tab into them quickly. If nothing turns up, pressing Enter will still launch a search. Being able to do casual navigation without having to go through a search engine is a killer feature (and it's better for the planet).
Not only tab but you can search directly into opened Tabs/history/bookmarks with the right %/^/* symbols !
EDIT : Almost forgot, it only really shines with that extension that prevent searches to turn up in your history --> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/history-autod...
source: I do that with floorp and Firefox for android.
I would say feel free to give Waterfox a try - I’ve tried to strike the balance of useable web and privacy, with the added enhancement of Oblivious DNS enabled by default.
Also from your language it sounds like you're a Waterfox dev? If so thanks for all your hard work on open source software! I haven't tried waterfox in years, I will definitely give it a go after uninstalling floorp.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.waterfox.a...
I would love to use that functionality, but... How?!? Once you have a gazillion tabs open on your phone, the “Open tabs from other devices” (or whatever it's called) menu item on the desktop just shows an endlessly spinning spinner. :-( So maybe via bookmarks... But where's the “Bookmark all open tabs” menu item in FF for Android???
Anyone got any tips?
With Windows you would be lucky to even have a supported method to disable their telemetry, and if you do get one it will probably be through an obscure series of registry edits that will ultimately get rolled back during a system update.
It’s wild to me that this is being presented as if it’s not a big deal.
Shows how far the goalposts have moved in this conversation.
Not really, they keep adding new checkboxes that are of course checked by default.
Also Windows configuration is terrible.
They market themself as standing for the open and free web and digital rights and privacy and what not. And then have the browser spying on every user by default with integrated ads.
So sure, you and me deactivate it, but a common person who just fell for the marketing and who does not even know what "telemetry" is, will have it enabled. The only reason I use their browser is, because there is no alternative - yet.
Sensible defaults as Firefox should be.
