Zerush wrote (edited )
Reply to comment by AntiProDenialist in by !deleted30
I adree with this points and he certainly didn't have any bad intentions against your views. I only intend to clarify and make a few points on an important topic. About Mozilla, if you look at the analysis below, apart from Google analytics, you will also find Alphabet Inc, a Google company, dedicated to disseminating content for advertising companies and which is the tracker that Mozilla uses. I always prefer OpenSource applications, but I know that, what many say, 'what is not FOSS = Crap' or 'FOSS is synonymous with privacy and security', which in my opinion is false, this is not the purpose of OpenSource by default and also dangerous to believe, I know from my own experience.
The many eyes that monitor a FOSS cannot be generalized, since if it is complex applications, they can have millions of lines of code.
In the field of browsers, we are talking about mainly 3 engines, Gecko, WebKit and Blink, the basis for around 100 browsers and another 70 that were discontinued.
In the vast majority, they are forks that make each other with small changes and putting their own logo, because major changes are impossible to make by any developer alone and is reserved for more numerous and active teams or communities, given the complexity of the product, not even talking about maintenance, which is mainly limited to patching holes and bugs that are found later.
Many fall by the wayside for this reason, in a fairly saturated market dominated by the Big 4 (well, Mozilla not so much anymore, currently in freefall, which is sad).
PD, Maybe usefull for you, Blacklight is very usefull to check webs, despite it discover only the most used Tracking tecnics and naturally can't check sites, which need an account to enter (Facebok, f.Ex.). You can ad it also to your search engines list you use
For Android apps is recomended to use Exodus Privacy, which permits to check the apps you use.
AntiProDenialist wrote
About Mozilla, if you look at the analysis below, apart from Google analytics, you will also find Alphabet Inc, a Google company, dedicated to disseminating content for advertising companies and which is the tracker that Mozilla uses.
Blacklight reports 1 tracker, that is Google Analytics. We know Google Analytics is owned by Google, and Google is owned by Alphabet. This doesn't contradict anything I said in my previous reply.
The many eyes that monitor a FOSS cannot be generalized, since if it is complex applications, they can have millions of lines of code.
Yes, complex programs are more difficult to vet. Ideally we should prefer simpler programs whenever possible (for more reasons than just security, but that's a separate topic), but that is becoming more and more difficult as the software landscape evolves. Regardless, I can trust a complex FOSS program (Firefox, the Linux kernel, X11, LibreOffice, to name a few) much more than I can trust any proprietary program.
In the field of browsers, we are talking about mainly 3 engines, Gecko, WebKit and Blink, the basis for around 100 browsers and another 70 that were discontinued.
Yeah, browsers are fucked. Any browser that can handle the modern web is a bloated turd with many vulnerabilities waiting to be discovered.
In the vast majority, they are forks that make each other with small changes and putting their own logo, because major changes are impossible to make by any developer alone and is reserved for more numerous and active teams or communities, given the complexity of the product, not even talking about maintenance, which is mainly limited to patching holes and bugs that are found later.
Yes, this is sadly true. QtWebEngine (based on Blink) is an exception to this, actively maintained by the Qt Project, with 14 contributors in the last month excluding a bot. But yes, what you're saying is correct, and it has the (very intended and very anti-competitive) effect of solidifying Google's dominance over the web.
PD, Maybe usefull for you, Blacklight is very usefull to check webs, despite it discover only the most used Tracking tecnics and naturally can't check sites, which need an account to enter (Facebok, f.Ex.). You can ad it also to your search engines list you use
https://themarkup.org/blacklight?url=%s
For Android apps is recomended to use Exodus Privacy, which permits to check the apps you use.
I browse the web mostly with JavaScript disabled and I use very strict security settings in Firefox (blocks all known trackers, tries to resist fingerprinting, doesn't keep any data on shutdown) with almost no extensions. Trackers aren't much concern to me (although they do suck).
On Android I only use one proprietary app (WhatsApp, and I don't have any choice about it), and a few open source apps. I'm more worried about the operating system itself and the apps that come preinstalled with it, instead of the apps that I've installed (hopefully open source phones can become usable soon).
Zerush wrote (edited )
I use Vivaldi and sometimes UR and FF. As extensions I mainly use Trace and Site Bleacher. Also uBlock Origin in FF, in Vivaldi I don't need with its own blockers where are also the filterlists from uBO and others. In Android also Vivaldi and naturally OpenSource apps from F-Droid as much as possible, proprietary only an app for medical appointments, that I need as an old retiree that I am.
Because of this I use Windows10 (tuned, without telemetries and other spy-crap it has by default). Well, at least it has the biggest catalogue of FOSS of all OS.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments