
You probably don't want to run Firefox Nightly any more - jlgaddis
https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/FirefoxNoNightly
======
zaarn
It seems people simply _want_ to be outraged at Mozilla. The shield study
isn't even running yet and several people have raised concerns over the opt-
out policy in the mailing list and bugtracker but obviously that doesn't
matter.

What matters is that the original suggestion was opt-out.

Of course, rightfully, nobody is going to send a message on the bugtracker or
mailing list or otherwise participating to ensure this doesn't happen.

Rather, everyone goes out and yells how terrible Mozilla is and how Google is
being nice since they atleast tell you about it upfront. (Completely ignoring
that Google is steering Chrome into a new IE-Era of web development)

I don't think the blog post above accurately represents the current situation
on the shield study nor does it reflect how several people engaged on it are
trying to prevent this exact kind of PR disaster.

~~~
belorn
Here is a simple question, why do Mozilla not have a policy that dictate that
any increase in data collection from one version to the next _must_ either be
opt-in or follow a lengthy documented process with the community, in public
(similar to RFC in ietf and wikipedia), and a clear update to the privacy
policy. Bureaucracy can be helpful in creating trust that important changes
won't just sneak up on people unannounced.

~~~
calcifer
> documented process with the community, in public

You mean exactly like it's happenning in the mailing list right now? Even when
the discussion is public, it seems some people prefer to rant on social media
instead of contributing to the official discussion.

~~~
belorn
So what does that process look like? Is there a formal process with clear
method on how and when the decision is made, how it get propagate into a
decision and how the documentation and announcement to users will be?

Is there a formal policy document you can link me that defines the process how
additional data collection are added in mozilla projects? It seems to me that
what we have is a in-prompt discussion because people happen to detect a
change and managed to raised the issue just before it went live. A formal
process would make people trust the project that issues like this isn't
depended on the chance that a data collection will be detected before it goes
live and only then be brought to discussion in the public mailing list.

~~~
chuckharmston
There is:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection)

------
kenhwang
This is honestly the reason I do use Nightly. I'm volunteering to provide
information that I understand could be very intimate in hopes it's useful to
Mozilla in making Firefox better. Data drives better decisions, and I'd rather
the technically savvy volunteer their privacy than it being extracted from the
general populace.

So yes, kick me a bit, I'll let you know what breaks.

~~~
toflon
Same here. Call me naive all you want, but I do think Mozilla has our best
intention. They won't sell the data, they will try to keep it as secure as
possible and anonymize it. As seen they even made a deal with Cloudflare to
ensure they don't log any of that data.

I'm a strong advocate for privacy but if I'm going to give away my data I'd
rather have it be Mozilla than Facebook or Google.

~~~
OskarS
Yeah, totally agree. Mozilla needs user data like this for their product, and
I think it's a perfectly reasonable solution to collect it from Nightly users
who have opted into being guinea pigs.

> I'm a strong advocate for privacy but if I'm going to give away my data I'd
> rather have it be Mozilla than Facebook or Google.

Yep. There's no company I trust more than Mozilla when it comes to handling my
data in a safe and responsible manner.

------
Sean1708
The full quote, since I think that the author of this post cherry-picked
unfairly:

>> As one of the folks who brought up the initial concern let me be clear that
at this point my only real concern here is one of optics. The DoH service
we're using is likely more private than anything the user is currently using.

> It isn't explicit right now that using nightly means opting in to
> participating in studies like this, and I think the text of the download
> page antedates our ability to do those studies. The text of the Firefox
> privacy page says that prerelease products "may contain different privacy
> characteristics" than release, but doesn't enumerate them. I also can't find
> a public-facing description of how we handle, secure and audit PII data in
> experiments involving partner organizations.

> In both cases I'm confident we have solid policies and protocols there, I
> just don't see a way to point a concerned user to that information.

> I'm working on that now.

------
geofft
> _(although at the moment I 'm still using Firefox 56)_

There are unpatched security holes in Firefox 56. If you're really mad about
the extensions change, downgrade to Firefox 52 ESR.

Running Firefox 56 and worrying about the security of your DNS data is a
nonsensical threat model.

~~~
aepiepaey
There's really no good forward if you're stuck in where the author is.

Either you upgrade and lose several important addons, and functionality in
other addons. These are often what makes Firefox a good browser (for you).

The second option is to downgrade to ESR, which will delay the need to upgrade
for a few more months. This may invalidate parts of your profile. It also
means you lose out on a number of significant performance improvements
included in 56.

And the last option, of course, the author's choice (which recommend against):
staying on 56. This is of course a bad idea for the reason you stated, plus
you lose out on future performance improvements and possibly new web
technologies. You will also keep getting nagged by Firefox to upgrade.

So, there is no good option, and you have to pick your poison: Upgrade past 57
suffer significant amounts of usability/efficiency, downgrade to 52 and lose
parts of your profile and get significantly worse performance, or stay on 56
and risk the browser getting compromised.

~~~
gruez
I hate to victim blame, but he's entirely at fault for the predicament he's
in. It was widely known that legacy extensions would be phased out it 56, and
a few searches related to firefox 56 will tell you that ESR would be the only
branch that supports both legacy extensions AND will recieve security patches
past 56. So he should have switched over to ESR before 53 came out.

------
aorth
I understand the desire for statistics, but they should make it more obvious
that nightly isn't _just_ daily builds from master. I've run Nightly from time
to time and had no idea it was automatically opting in to Shield studies.

Both this and the Mr. Robot extension issue a few months ago erode my trust in
Mozilla a little. Counterpoint: only god knows what Google is sending itself
from Chrome!

~~~
nallerooth
The difference here is that you expect Google to collect -a lot- of data about
you and your browsing habits. You can also be quite sure that they'll want to
keep that data to themselves.

When my data ends up at a third party, especially without my knowledge, I'm
much more concerned about it being sold and or shared further.

~~~
geofft
> _When my data ends up at a third party, especially without my knowledge, I
> 'm much more concerned about it being sold and or shared further._

As stated in the mailing list thread linked in the article, Mozilla has a
legal agreement with Cloudflare that the data will not be stored long-term,
let alone sold or shared. My reading is that they're keeping information about
DNS requests and responses, but _not_ who made the request, for 24 hours for
debugging purposes, and then getting rid of all logs. The data they're
actually interested in is performance, not the DNS flow itself.

You're welcome to decide that Mozilla's trust in other companies is misplaced
even if they get a signed contract, and if you do, _that_ would be a good
reason to cease using Firefox (Nightly or otherwise!). But if you're not of
that opinion, it doesn't make sense to worry that the data simply happens to
go through a third party.

(Also, what third parties see your DNS data today? Do you think your ISP is
not tracking this?)

------
r00fus
I'm ok as long as they make it _up front and clear_. It's not meant to have
the "latest greatest" \- it's meant to collect analytics to understand and
respond to where changes in the nightly might have broken something critical.

That said, a large chunk of the web is getting very personal. So I'm not sure
Mozilla's rights to do as they please matter if the venn-diagram between
nightly-users and privacy-stalwarts is anywhere near 30% overlap.

~~~
nallerooth
I agree. They can send my data wherever they want - as long as they tell me
about it so that I can make an informed decision.

Now, nightly is nightly - you don't accidentally build and install it on your
system. But if this behavior is included in other pre-release versions (such
as the developer edition), the need for informing the user becomes even more
important. I've installed the developer edition from the Arch linux User
Repository (AUR), which means that I don't see any release notes or
information boxes on the developer edition website when I'm getting the
software.

A small popup in a corner telling me that "There's a new way to help improve
firefox" after an upgrade/install would solve this. I don't want 15 levels of
confirmation and a roll of tin foil - I just want something informing me that
my data will be sent to a new receiver, and why.

------
dahdum
Opt-out privacy violations are not new for Mozilla, did worse than this to
German users last year, discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421708)

------
myfonj
> Mozilla's apparent goal of using Nightly users as a captive pool of test
> dummies.

I thought that it is the main purpose of Nightly, roughly paraphrased but
overall accurate.

I'm using it as my semi-primary ("work") browser and from the day one I live
in faith that 1) it may stop working any time 2) there is some Mozillian
peeking over my shoulder all the time (figuratively).

------
orf
Man running an old, insecure version of Firefox with several unpatched
critical security issues is outraged at DNS hostnames being sent to a US
company (in a more secure manner no less). Ok.

------
FrankDixon
I don't see the problem actually, if I want a normal browser I can do my
online banking in, for sure, I won't use the nightly version. To me, nightly
means, anything could happen.

------
sergiosgc
Mozilla should be careful about EU's GDPR. Under GDPR, explicit user
authorization is needed for every use of personal data. An opt-out does not
comply with the law. Nor does a blanket TOS or Privacy Policy.

The law comes into effect in May.

~~~
loa_in_
One doesn't download FF Nightly by accident though.

------
discreditable
I trust Mozilla has done the diligence to handle the data correctly. If I
didn't trust Mozilla I wouldn't use Nightly or even Firefox. I use Nightly
because I want to help Mozilla test and make Firefox better. For me that
includes opting-in to studies, reporting bugs, and helping test about:config
flags they mention in their Nightly blog.

------
cpeterso
When you first run Firefox, it shows the following page describing the types
of telemetry data Firefox shares and a button to configure your telemetry
options if you'd like to change them:

[https://www.mozilla.org/privacy/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/privacy/firefox/)

~~~
einr
The eye-catching headline in huge type, is "at Mozilla, we believe that
privacy is fundamental to a healthy internet".

Only later in this document -- that basically no one is going to read in
detail after reading the headline -- do they detail how they intend to not
respect my privacy.

Let's be clear: this is a dark pattern with intention to mislead. Mozilla has
serious and growing issues with respecting user privacy by default, and
judging by the recent roadmap, it seems like it's going to get worse.*

* [https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2017/12/09/add-on-recommendati...](https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2017/12/09/add-on-recommendations-for-firefox-users-a-prototype-recommender-system-leveraging-existing-data-sources/)

------
bad_user
Mozilla, wtf?

I can understand mistakes like Mr. Robot, mistakes happen. But I can't
understand an explicit company policy.

I have opted in Firefox's data collection every time I was asked. But such
data gathering should always be opt-in. Ask in a nice way and you'll get
contributors. And if not, well that should give you a hint that you shouldn't
do it.

You're better than this, really. It's why I use Firefox. So please stop it
with the mistakes.

~~~
Vinnl
That's what the mail thread this article was referring to was discussing: how
can they properly communicate this, and the privacy safeguards they put in
place, to the user?

------
JepZ
I wonder why Mozilla is lately so fond of collecting user data. Do they have a
new data mining department which is looking for work? Did someone tell them to
do data driven development/marketing?

If they really want to know more about what we are doing, they could just ask
us, don't they? I mean, something like building a FF extension which offers to
participate in a monthly survey and at the end of each survey it can ask which
data the user wants to attach to his survey responses this _one time_.

And if they ask the users for all hosts they have visited during the last
month, many people will ask what Mozilla wants to do with that data and
Mozilla can explain their intent so that everybody can decide if he wants to
support that cause.

Yes, that would probably yield much less data and would be more cumbersome for
Mozilla, but in the end it would be a _fair_ way of letting your users
participate in the development process. As users we want a product which we
can trust 100% that it will keep our data on our computer as long as we don't
explicitly say otherwise.

~~~
monsieurbanana
> Yes, that would probably yield much less data

So in other words, probably not much better than doing nothing at all.

------
ggm
explain to me why DOH is worse than 8.8.8.8 or even your ISPs DNS?

why isn't DOH possibly _more_ protecting of your privacy than these other
services?

~~~
gsnedders
Plenty of people are concerned about any US based company having access to
their DNS logs; even with the pro-privacy agreement CloudFlare have in place
with Mozilla, the US government has past form of doing bulk data collection
from US based companies.

Your ISP's DNS may well be covered by relatively strong data protection laws
(versus those in the US) and don't lead to a foreign government gaining access
to all your browsing history, even if in principle they could be MitM'd.

~~~
ggm
so again, how does this make DOH worse than 8.8.8.8?

~~~
Macha
You manually opt in to 8.8.8.8. You may be using something with stronger legal
protections than Cloudflare and will not be aware you need to opt out of this.
The strength of encryption on the network is irrelevant if you don't trust the
recipient.

------
AnarchistNode7
Hate me for that, but my opinion is that there is no reason for using Firefox
at all anymore. Mozilla as company have decided that honesty, dignity and
loyalty towards their origin user base was less important than the hopeless
try to defeat Google Chrome and take their place in market share.

All what Mozilla does is simplifying the browser, removing every single bit of
more advanced customization features to be most attractive to the typical
mainstream user who thinks that customization, features and choice is bloat
and should have no part inside the product.

How should i as wary user ever have faith in Mozilla as i see what they have
been doing since 2013?

If they want to be so badly like Google Chrome, then i can also use the
original instead.

I - as being loosely connected to the Anonymous collective - value morality
most. And that morality... Mozilla has thrown over board without thinking
twice about it.

------
jamiesonbecker
Seems like multiple issues with Firefox (Cliqz and now this). FF's new privacy
policy has so many exceptions that it makes it challenging to read:
[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/privacy/firefox/)

The Brave browser seems to be carrying the torch for privacy these days:

Brave is not in the business of selling personal information. We believe the
best way to ensure your private personal information is protected is to make
every effort to _ensure we are not receiving your private personal information
in the first place._

[https://www.brave.com/privacy/](https://www.brave.com/privacy/)

[https://www.brave.com/](https://www.brave.com/)

------
tradesmanhelix
IMO, this blog post is needlessly alarmist and even misleading.

On the pre-release FF downloads page [1] it says, "Firefox Nightly
automatically sends feedback to Mozilla." Not sure how the author of this post
got the impression that Nightly _doesn't_ collect user metrics and analytics,
but this is its explicit purpose.

If the author really cares about privacy, he should just use the main Firefox
release or, even better, something like Waterfox or PaleMoon.

But please - don't slam Mozilla for creating dedicated analytics and tracking
release channels and then using those channels for, you know, analytics and
tracking.

[1] [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/channel/desktop/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/channel/desktop/)

------
dhimes
Well, I'm glad OP pointed out that nightly might do unexpected things with my
browsing habit information in order to gather data on browser use in nightly-
I admit, I hadn't really thought that through.

It won't stop me from using it for development browsing and some other things,
but it might give me pause before visiting some sites I suppose (so I would
switch browsers).

My problem with nightly is that it doesn't automatically update, so I have to
reinstall every day. And I'm just too lazy (errr, "busy") to be bothered with
that. Is there away around this issue on Mint (Ubuntu)? I even put a menu
entry into my "shortcuts" menu on fluxbox, but it's nightly from December or
something.

------
gkya
Firefox profiles are a hard thing to discover. When you start Developer
Edition Firefox up by default it starts in its own profile. I'd guess Nightly
does the same too. Regardless, it'd be nice of Mozilla to make profiles more
accessible through the default UI. I've set up my FF to start with the profile
selector every time I start it up, but in firefox in order to switch profiles
one has to go to about:profiles.

------
ppbutt
User intrusion seems to be a pattern with Mozilla now.

~~~
digi_owl
Frankly big name FOSS projects have developed a massive paternalist streak
over the last decade or so.

This in complete ignorance that what attracted people to them in the first
place was to escape the paternalism (and black box nature of proprietary
software) from the likes of Microsoft.

------
jchw
DNS over HTTPS being skewed into a bad thing is a new one for me. How could
this be worse than sending it in plain text to any other entity? At least in
this case it's going to be limited to Cloudflare and not whoever's watching in
between.

If this is part of what it takes to get this technology rolled out, then do
what it takes imo.

------
neoeldex
Hmm, it's not great they intend to send this information to the great firewall
in the sky. If it were mozilla's own servers, I'd re-enable the usage
collection on nightly. Bit more of the same with the screencapture features,
it's a shame we can't host and configure our own services....

------
HugoDaniel
Are container tabs already available outside of Nightly ?

~~~
seba_dos1
I'm using them on Developer Edition, although I think I had to install an
extension that makes use of them (in my case, Tab Center Redux) in order to
enable them.

------
snowpanda
What about Firefox Beta? Does anyone know?

~~~
TD-Linux
A better source is the original posting:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/_8OAKUHso0c)

Not even in Nightly yet.

------
kuschku
The GDPR is only a momth away, I've already sent a complaint to the local data
privacy officer about Firefox' constant violations of the requirement for
explicit consent (see: CliqZ before), so let's hope the hammer swings hard
this time.

If Mozilla still can't see why they shouldn't automatically transmit analytics
and studies for everything, they deserve to be sued into the ground. Same with
Google.

~~~
dotsh
Some people just want to see the world burn. So maybe let's delete the whole
internet and get back to letters, telegrams, pidgins and encyclopaedias? No
one is forcing you to use dev, nightly or anything else if it is not
consistent with your faith. Especially Mozilla they made some silly things but
are one of the most "privacy and shit" companies out there and they will not
come to your house and beat you because you do not want to do something.

~~~
kuschku
That's certainly one approach.

The other approach is that, unless explicit consent is given, people are
supposed to be safe.

Nightly is often required because a lot of functionality for developers is
only available there, e.g. custom xpi legacy addons even in FF61.

It's nightly or nothing for this, and as a reminder, stable also was affected
by CliqZ.

~~~
dotsh
You are using Nightly "wrong" because of attachment to old extensions that
will perish in June when all legacy stuff will be blocked. Nightly is only for
testing out new features and it's not intended to be production ready
browser... but everyone has an own use case. Yet do not beat them for wanting
to change something for the better after using testing technology.

~~~
kuschku
I'm not using it for "old" extensions.

Even today, every new feature you want to have in the WebExtension API needs
to be implemented as a legacy extension providing this API first, then it will
get tested, and then it will maybe become part of core Firefox.

The official process to add apis for WebExtensions is to write a legacy
extension.

Which is exactly what I'm doing to support my custom extension that replaces
the entire history and bookmarking system, UI and toolbars of Firefox, for
which I need a custom API.

I suggest you read the wiki on why nightly still supports legacy extensions
before judging people.

~~~
dotsh
I'm not judging I wrote that everyone has it's own use case. My only point is
don't use test version if you don't want to be tested or opt-out of it. ;)

