[clug] Firefox browser ... collects data about you -There are different APIs and formats to collect data in Firefox

[Chris Smart]

On Sat, 7 Dec 2019, at 15:18, Bob Edwards via linux wrote:
> So what? Well, if you really care, you could get into the Firefox
> code and disable all the "telemetry" (I think it is just one config
> option to change).
> 

Yep, or you could just turn it off in the settings because you know, it's Firefox, not Chrome  ;-)

I do have an Android phone and a GMail account. I don't bother with VPN but I do use Pi-hole with DNS over TLS on Fedora[1] for my network, Firefox and uBlock origin on all browsers (desktop and phone). I'm sure many companies have lots of data on me, but I never see any ads - at least I've never noticed any ads. Browsing the internet is actually a rather pleasant experience.

It does seems strange to me that people worry about a little telemetry that not-for-profit Mozilla is transparently telling you that it's collecting anonymously (which can be confirmed in the source code) and yet search the internet with Google while signed into GMail...

But maybe I'm the weird one. Some of the things people have said to me are, "you can't stop it so why bother?" And, "I'm happy to give my data away because I get targeted ads which are more useful than random ones."

[1] https://blog.christophersmart.com/2019/04/22/pi-hole-with-dns-over-tls-on-fedora/

-c