1617392 - Consider allowing about:preferences controls for ASRouter access to remote settings configuration

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Messaging System, defect)

Description

[Sen Si]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:73.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/73.0

Steps to reproduce:

start firefox

Actual results:

Firefox connects to content-signature-2.cdn.mozilla.net and firefoxsettings.services.mozilla.com on every startup

Expected results:

Firefox starts without connecting to multiple sites on startup

Comment 1

[Gingerbread Man]

Tor ticket 31575 says these are coming from the New Tab page.

Comment 2

[Sen Si]

I know but after checking parts of the code i couldn't find an option to disable this behavior.
I still don't get why they promote FF as the privacy browser when it resolved more than 30 websites and connects to them after I create a new profile.

The project is developing in the wrong direction and multiple parties can track me every time i start the browser.
Why don't the developers add at least an option that allows to disable all this tracking/phone home stuff?

From www.mozilla.org

"Get 2000+ trackers off your trail — including Facebook" - only 30 other trackers we and other 3rd parties run will track you and monitor you everytime you start the browser

"Get the respect you deserve - Every single Firefox product honors our Personal Data Promise: Take less. Keep it safe. No secrets."
I wonder what they understand under "respect"?

Please honor the promises to preach.

Comment 3

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The priority flag is not set for this bug.
:thecount, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 4

[Sen Si]

2 months later and not even a priority bug set, please take this bug seriously and protect your users!

Comment 5

[Tim Spurway [:tspurway]]

Thanks for reporting this Sen Si.

Comment 6

[Tim Spurway [:tspurway]]

Jim, do we need to add UI to the pref panel to be able to disable remote message fetches?

Comment 7

[Jim T]

HI Sen Si,

Thank you for logging this bug and your thoughts about these features!

As outlined in our privacy policy, the desktop browser does make requests to remote resources for reasons such as updating with the latest settings, suggesting content, and improving performance. We stand behind our personal data promise to treat user data with the utmost respect, and carefully constrain the ways it is collected, stored, and used.

Disabling remote connections will disable some core features of the Firefox browser, so most people should avoid it. It is possible to minimize the number of requests in your client’s configuration, following the instructions at this support article. We also noticed the article needs a few updates and we are working to add those. Specifically, here are a few other prefs you can set. This won’t disable remote connections completely, but will help you customize which remote services are enabled.

• Set browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.asrouterfeed to false - disables firefox contextual feature recommendations and certain other notifications from Mozilla
• Set messaging-system.rsexperimentloader.enabled to false - disables new feature experiments
• Set app.shield.optoutstudies.enabled to false - Disables the running of experiments. Not necessary if app.normandy.enable is also set to false.
• Set app.normandy.enabled to false - Disables all Normandy remote actions, including studies, feature rollouts, and emergency hotfixes.

I’m cc’ing some folks on this bug to track the update to our support docs.

Jim

Comment 8

[Sen Si]

It's a sad reality that Firefox gives a shit about it's users privacy

"Thank you for logging this bug and your thoughts about these features!

As outlined in our privacy policy, the desktop browser does make requests to remote resources for reasons such as updating with the latest settings, suggesting content, and improving performance. We stand behind our personal data promise to treat user data with the utmost respect, and carefully constrain the ways it is collected, stored, and used."

This answer basically means "Fuck you", if you would care about an open browser you wouldn't add restrictions and treat your users like childs:

"Disabling remote connections will disable some core features of the Firefox browser, so most people should avoid it."

I block these domains and I don't have any missing "core" feature, except that I don't phone home after disabling multiple other options and signaling every restart of the browser to remote servers.

I hope someone will fork this nice browser and bring back the spirit that removes the trusted third party that forces users to believe in the impossible to verify promise that "We stand behind our personal data promise to treat user data with the utmost respect, and carefully constrain the ways it is collected, stored, and used."

Shame on you!

Comment 9

[Sen Si]

"When money eats your integrity" should be the slogan of FF

You already sold your users search behaviour to Google, it's a pity that FF developed in this direction