It's not about Lunduke. It's about facts he (and the guy in third URL) provides us with. Is anything he is telling not true?

“opensource etc...”? Usually when people say “opensource etc...” they mean RMS ideology. Which is VERY MUCH against spying. So Firefox is if you don't really care about “opensource etc...”. The mere fact that it's “open source” doesn't make the program ethical. If MS releases source code for Windows 10, will Windows 10 become better just because it's opensource now?

The moment they release the source? No. Within a year of it being released? Definitely! Even as a closed source project Windows is made better by thousands of people outside of M$ poking at it and reporting findings back to M$.

So with all this information that is available out there we can definitely say that Firefox is now a spyware. And noone has a reason to disagree.

At this point, I'd say that all (web-) software has become spyware, and that this will continue until finally there is public outcry against it. (And I simply hope that the motivation for that outcry will not be "human tragedy," although I suspect that it will be.)

Clearly you haven't read all the responses. Go back to post #6. There are ways to deal with the "spyware" issues in FF.

The sad truth is, this type of behavior seems to be the shape of things these days. Which is why I also have and use up-and-coming browsers such as qutebrowser. If Mozilla keeps up the bad behavior, I'll just switch to something like qutebrowser, Seamonkey, surf, or...? Maybe I'll just realize the internet has jumped the shark and become a Luddite. :D

Has anybody here BUILT it? (and can tell me how?)
 

Because "browser fingerprinting", user agent tracing, screen size profiling -- WHY are these issues germain to a benign advertiser, who only wants me to "Try Crest Tooth-Paste" ??? Doesn't make sense to me either. Because of the intrusive information gathering -- ??

To use the same web browser daily, routinely, is VOLUNTARILY FEEDING "Feeding the Borg". Of course, it's now impossible to access internet without giving this Borg something ... My choice is to feed it as much empty white noise as possible. Anyone who really KNOWS security (be it in actual combat or in cybersapce) will tell you the "Big 3 Holes" are: laziness/complacency, habit/conformity, and FEAR...

So my browser choice is task dependent; for instance, Wikipedia, general searches, etc I use midori. Anything involving direct interaction (logging in) I use a gecko of some flavor. Most often firefox (or h20-fox) or palemoon. Having no choice but a static ISP I'm quite certain the Borg's got my digits flagged for the white noise, browser inconsistency, and avoidance of mainstream search engines :tisk:

Right now I'm running palemoon, there are things (like the Scrapbook extension) that don't run quite right in palemoon -- they still do in Firefox. At least ver. 45. ... For simple stuff, palemoon outperforms firefox. But if I'm off on a serious spelunkinging, I'll use (tightly secured and very extensioned) firefox 45 DE.

I tried 52, but it manifested these INFERNAL "Black Dots" covering my passwords -- that nothing I did, anywhere in about:config, no matter what I put in user.js, would remove. Nor was there any mention of this new "feature" in the documentation -- where it got turned on, or HOW TO TURN IT OFF. I don't use anything past 45 because after that, they broke it.

Out of curiosity, I've looked over version 57. Blyehh. Sure it's fast, but without the niceties of the many extensions -- some of which I've used over a decade -- no.

I've tried some extensions in 57 even -- just to be fair -- there's no such thing as being "mildly" curious. The "web extensions" work just fine, but without knowing what's going one, and where -- how can anyone TRUST THIS?

Most troubling to me, though there are literally THOUSANDS of extensions for everything from practical to "increase your bustline by clicking here" there is none for exporting or importing passwords / sensitive data. Were I flippant enough to just allow an update, (I always "chmod -x" or otherwise neutralize any possible background players) I'm quite certain this "new friend" would greedily slurp up anything I had in the user profile at the time -- but then how would I get it OUT???

Whoever's in charge of "Moz-da" now would say "use online sync for that"

Sorry Charly. No Tuna Today.

The whole point to USING the extensions is to more nimbly control what's coming OUT of my console (preferably little more than my requests to view whatever I'm perusing) never mind squelch the boatload of garbage coming in.

I absolutely do NOT mind waiting a few seconds more in order to see a screen without any advertising.

So where are these "web extensions" executing their code? Where do the other parts of these things live? HOW MUCH OF MY DATA ARE THEY PRIVY TO? There's nothing wrong with 57, it's not as awful as chrome -- but why go up another learning curve when what I'm running works just fine?

I'm quite certain my ideas are a little peculiar, even amongst linux folk. Oh well. Comes with old age :cool:

So enough of the rants and rages ... What I'd like to learn is how to build firefox myself -- call it "BullWinkle" (or "Tuesday")...

Tried building it from the "mozdev" directions back then, THOUGHT I had everything the cookbook called for, but every morning I'd get up to find a screen full of complaints that the duck wouldn't go for :confused: Probably missed a "." or some significant small detail ...

There's a couple of repo's on Github I still look at for clues (I think Alex is one of them) but it's like drinking from a fire hydrant.

I don't want to build for market, or change the world. Mostly because it disturbs me being dependent on someone else to repair my motorcycle or automobile...

If anyone can point me toward someone with experience (and patience, yes I have autism) I'd be humbly grateful

Thank you Sincerely

S.

I watched the videos and I have to say that I found Lunduke to have the same typical sales tactics as those for dubious products like "Cure Diabetes Today With These All Natural Secret Vegetables That The AMA Doesn't Want You to Know About". All of them repeat their initial conclusion endlessly and avoid specific evidence for a very long time. That makes me suspicious right away. Then I notice that YouTube automatically showing relevant videos on the right shows a high percentage of Conspiracy Idiocy. I can't decide exactly if that is a scary incidence of controlled content or a hint as to the reputation of Lunduke, but I'm leaning toward the latter.

One thing very seriously makes me doubt the exact accuracy of Lunduke's claims and that is If I search for "EFF and Mozilla Firefox" (and I do trust EFF rather strongly) I get no such claims. The only claim that seems to add up is browser site visitation tracking and frankly I think that is a moot point at the very least and possibly a net good thing. If The Information Society is real and valuable then I want corporations and governments to know what people really think and are interested in, not some dubious guesswork. Polls have been around forever and the very fact that certain kinds of people are attracted to participating in polls and who often do not state what they really mean but rather the extremes of what the think will make them look good.

So I still use Firefox the most and only moderately harden it. I'm more concerned with how difficult it is to compile Firefox from source compared to say PaleMoon than any concern with content control. What I mean by that is I am extremely concerned about content control but I don't see any evidence of that at least yet other than showing me what "they" think I might like and that is moderately acceptable.

FWIW I am quite aware that the manipulative argument employed by police of "You don't need a lawyer if you're innocent" is laughably transparent and devious but I don't see such tactics employed by Firefox again at least yet but I remain vigilant. In that vein the last guy? Bwahahahah!

That is rather wild approach. :-) Waaaay to much work to fight the browser to just be able to surf the Web. Using Waterfox is much more simple.

It's a new business model of today. Developers switched from writing and selling code to creating code that collects information about people and selling that information for revenue. More and more corporations adopt this model. Making programs and selling those programs to users is now yesterday. I smell the day I stop using computers all together. It comes closer year by year. GNU/Linux is not a 100% solution against surveillance. It also degenerates slowly. And with hardware spying mechanisms like Intel IME & AMD PSP computers stink even worse.

Actually the source of information matters very much. It adds to the credibility or lack thereof regarding the content of their message/statement. Lunduke lacks credibility, ergo his claims fall flat for me. Also, there are many peole that use RiseUp, just because one particular group uses it does not mean the entire service is bad. Hey, bad guys use interstate highways, fly planes, drive cars etc... should we ban and stop using those things because of a few bad eggs?

Your second comment is just plain wrong...RMS represents Free Software not opensource, get your facts straight. OpenSource and Free Software have similarities but they also diverge in some areas. And yes as another said, if Windows released their source code, or if Apple did the same, it would make both after some time more trustworthy. It is their closed nature that rules out trust. Similar to a spouse keeping secrets, how can you trust that?

So what is your solution, pray tell?

I think I wasted time watching three videos worth of gish gallop.

If you think trust, security, and privacy are booleans, then you're probably a really different person from me, and you probably won't like using Firefox.

i watched the first video, the second for long enough to see it contains info already touched on in the first, and bits of the last just for lulz (it got boring pretty quickly though).

so, about the first video (lunduke ranting and raving about mozilla): i don't think he's generally wrong, but i don't see how all this differs from any other large FOSS internet project, that's why i was asking "so what's the alternative".

in retrospect, i was also missing the one big fact that would clearly tell us firefox is not trustworthy as a software.
the thing with the mr robot extension sounded bad, but looking closer it was just some sort of really stupid decision, undone quickly.
and, more importantly, it seems to have affected only some voluntary beta testers?

Sometimes I wonder if opinion threads or posts are bot entries on this forum?

I Use Firefox or Seamonkey if my equipment can handle it.
Palemoon nonsse2, Qupzilla, no flash, on my P3 IBM T23 laptop.

Beggars like me can't be choosy. Dealing with real world limitations.

Edit: Most folks find me disturbing.

Could you explain this? Why after 1200+ posts? And why after not being active on LQ since 2016, do you come back to tell us something we already know?
As far as I know no matter how "secure" your browser is.....If the OS underneath is spying....

No offence, Just curious.

Yes, I was wondering about this myself. Those in glass houses, blah, blah, blah...