Is Firefox better than Chrome? It comes down to privacy. - The Washington Post - 0 views
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Web’s biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software.
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It turns out, having the world’s biggest advertising company make the most popular Web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop.
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In a week of Web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer
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Google’s product managers told me in an interview that Chrome prioritizes privacy choices and controls, and they’re working on new ones for cookies. But they also said they have to get the right balance with a “healthy Web ecosystem” (read: ad business).
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Firefox’s product managers told me they don’t see privacy as an “option” relegated to controls. They’ve launched a war on surveillance, starting this month with “enhanced tracking protection” that blocks nosy cookies by default on new Firefox installations.
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what responsibility does a browser have in protecting us from code that isn’t doing much more than spying?
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that’s what it activated this month on all websites. This isn’t about blocking ads — those still come through. Rather, Firefox is parsing cookies to decide which ones to keep for critical site functions and which ones to block for spying
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Apple’s Safari browser, used on iPhones, also began applying “intelligent tracking protection” to cookies in 2017, using an algorithm to decide which ones were bad.
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Google itself, through its Doubleclick and other ad businesses, is the No. 1 cookie maker — the Mrs. Fields of the Web
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“Our viewpoint is to deal with the biggest problem first, but anticipate where the ecosystem will shift and work on protecting against those things as well,” said Peter Dolanjski, Firefox’s product lead.
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Google quietly began signing Gmail users into Chrome last fall. Google says the Chrome shift didn’t cause anybody’s browsing history to be “synced” unless they specifically opted in — but I found mine was being sent to Google and don’t recall ever asking for extra surveillance. (You can turn off the Gmail auto-login by searching “Gmail” in Chrome settings and switching off “Allow Chrome sign-in.”)
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And as a nonprofit, it earns money when people make searches in the browser and click on ads — which means its biggest source of income is Google. Mozilla’s chief executive says the company is exploring new paid privacy services to diversify its income.
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Its biggest risk is that Firefox might someday run out of steam in its battle with the Chrome behemoth. Even though it’s the No. 2 desktop browser, with about 10 percent of the market, major sites could decide to drop support, leaving Firefox scrambling.