If I want to check Hacker News let's say 5 times throughout the day and feel like leaving a comment, I have to login again, without autocomplete..?
Maybe I'm missing something.
You can always use incognito mode, but this is more convenient.
It is also really fast and lightweight, which is a plus for most mobile devices.
It is not meant to replace your main browser (probably).
Also, as rcthompson said in another comment:
> This is useful to use as your default browser. It has a quick way to open the same link in another browser, so you can use it as a sort of quarantine to vet unknown links before exposing your main browser and all its juicy user data to a new website.
Honestly, most of the time when I use Google Searches is because I want to look for something, and I love when Google personalizes results so that if I type "Amiga" it knows it's the computer and I don't want to learn Spanish. Most importantly, I end up visiting lots of websites that I might want to comment on, visit later on/not lose if my phone dies, share with my girlfriend, etc.
I personally don't see any advantage with incognito mode unless you want to hide porn from your spouse, so I guess I'm not the target for a browser created to be incognito-mode-only, and if I was I would probably use Tor, because they might not be share my info, but my IP is there for everyone to see along with the websites I visit.
If you want to protect your privacy at least use tor.
I don't see how private browsing can protect you in any way, while your IP is in the clear along with all HTTP requests you make.
You might think that's hyperbole. I don't. I'm deadly serious; I think something worse than Trump is coming down the tracks because of an increasingly divided polis, and it's divided because of atomisation of world perspective. Filter bubbles driven by hidden preferences are directly responsible for shielding people from unpleasant perspectives, on both sides.
This is a very naïve view of what incognito/private browsing mode is for. Tor (not Torbrowser) is very different from incognito/private browsing. Even for your own use, it's another layer of defense to reduce the storage of information on the device about whatever you've been up to. Certainly porn is not the only topic that can polarize people and have them assume things about you. We live in a world where even tiny things can be taken out of context, manipulated and used against us either by the people close to us, or the places we work for, or even the government. You may share a device with someone or allow someone to borrow it. You may have your device stolen while having minimal or no passcode or other protection (like encryption of data stored). There are many layers to look at to be secure enough.
The way I see it, you're putting yourself more at risk if you do not distinguish what requires private/incognito mode (it could even be Facebook), how often you should clear things up (like browsing history, caches) on your device/computer, etc.
Maybe I didn't word it correctly, I meant that all it's good for is to hide porn from your spouse.
If you think incognito mode protects you in any way, than it's you who is naive.
If anyone really wanted to track you, they can use your IP and see every single page you've visited. Even the size of your window is enough to track you.
Tor is the only tool I know that you can use if you don't want to be tracked.
> We live in a world where even tiny things can be taken out of context, manipulated and used against us either by the people close to us, or the places we work for, or even the government.
Sure, but I think that we shouldn't be paranoid about it (please don't hack my account to prove a point :-)). What is the actual risk that your government will track your browser and use a tiny thing against you? I wear seatbelts because the risk of an accident is high, I don't wear a helmet to protect my head in case a small meteorite hits me.
I don't think any government or anyone has the right to spy on anyone else, and organizations should work to prevent that, but I think a lot of it is hype. We live in a world where people post pictures on Facebook of themselves drunk, doing drugs and showing off things they stole, all while leaving harsh, racist, hateful comments.
I would be worried more about ourselves leaving ever-lasting indications we're idiots on social media, more than about governments spying on us to get evidence to frame us.
Thanks to leaks and other revelations we don't need to be paranoid because we have enough information to understand to what extend the overreach goes. We can be reasonably anxious and mistrustful of State run programs.
This is what Google stores for you based on your agreed privacy terms: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity
You don't have a privacy agreement with secret spy programs. Yeah maybe they are just going after the terrorists but maybe they are sharing all data across agencies. Maybe those agencies are using that data in unsavory ways to further their own agendas. A documented example is the DEA using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction to make drug arrests based on data collected illegally.
My main problem is this leaky information/power. I generally trust the folks in the intelligence community to keep each other in check, but, by design there is no transparency for secret programs. There's an opaque group of people getting all the data and the funding. It is the weakest link and we can't inspect it to see how healthy it is. To me it is terrifying to think about the power in those tools and what the right wrong-person could accomplish with the information they have.
Firefox Focus just makes cookies and history ephemeral instead of durable. It looks like it blocks 3rd party scripts by default as well. Blocking 3rd party scripts with uMatrix has been better than using an ad blocker for me. Constantly having to adjust the permissions in uMatrix gives you a real idea of how much crap is tracking you all the time.
Install uMatrix, don't transport literal tons of cocaine across international borders, and you will probably be OK.
Don't be worried about leaving idiotic posts on social media. It apparently doesn't matter for high profile careers.
> It is not OK to act in a retaliatory manner when you are not the master of a domain and are specifically called out on it.
Who did I retaliate against? And who called me out on what, exactly?
I'm saying that Firefox Focus is a little toy if you really care about privacy, and to use Tor if you want be safe from spying.
I visit https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity every once in a while, but so far Google has used that information to make my life A LOT easier.
>If you think incognito mode protects you in any way, than it's you who is naive.
newscracker called you out specifically in the parent post with
> This is a very naïve view of what incognito/private browsing mode is for.
> If anyone really wanted to track you, they can use your IP and see every single page you've visited. Even the size of your window is enough to track you.
> Tor is the only tool I know that you can use if you don't want to be tracked.
Sorry, it seems like you didn't read my post fully or get it. I described that incognito/private browsing mode is one layer of defense, not the only layer. I also provided examples of your device being borrowed by someone else or it being stolen. In those cases, whether you used Tor (not Torbrowser, which I explicitly excluded even in my previous comment) doesn't matter. Whatever your browser has stored on the device - including browsing history, cache, cookies - is available to them to use or sell to others.
Also, I didn't mention the government as the sole hostile entity in my comment. One's own employer may use information in your browser cache on an employer provided device to fire the person or even file a criminal lawsuit against the person. Some malicious program a person downloaded may scrape all information from your caches and send that to insurers or other "data brokers" who in turn would classify you as too high a risk to support. There are far too many possibilities here that I cannot list every single one of them.
As for those who post pictures on social media about being drunk, posting racist messages, etc., that's really bad in many ways, but such protections and more should also start with each of us individually. It's in that space that I see using icognito/private browsing mode as one more helpful layer. Tor is another layer. Encrypting one's devices' storage is another. And so on.
They should be more transparent and upfront what they're collecting and why though.
... on their flagship browser. On their super-private, pinky-swear no tracking we-hate-ads-but-sure-do-love-you tiny browser, there should be... no tracking.
The 100% fresh, free-range, ethical browser
More privacy
Firefox doesn’t sell access to your personal information like other companies. From privacy tools to tracking protection, you’re in charge of who sees what.
More freedom
Following the pack isn’t our style. As part of the non-profit Mozilla, Firefox leads the fight to protect your online rights and champion an Internet that benefits everyone — not just a few.
Then you click the privacy policy and you're welcomed with:
Things you should know
Firefox automatically connects to us and our service providers to provide updates, security, Snippets, Firefox Health Report, and other features.
They also have a very loose definition of personal information: 'For us, "personal information" means information which identifies you, like your name or email address.' In times when we know a handful of cross-referenced metadata is enough to identify someone with a high level of success this is unacceptable from some entity who claims to champion privacy, online rights and user freedom. It only shows that either there are highly incompetent people in charge at mozilla or that they treat their users as too dumb to notice.
IMHO there should no tracking by default on firefox desktop and opt-in for those who want to. Actually I'd even go further and say that no browser should include tracking and should block all trackers, analytics, commercial advertising and other PR words for surveillance, spying and profiling.
With relatively few efforts this was something one could almost achieve, at least get closer to, through extensions in firefox. Mozilla put an end to it by dropping their extension engine.
It also depends on what the data is used for, let's take an absurdity : 'send drones to kill all users that started Focus 30 times a day on average'
A closer to reality example is "our data shows less than 1% users have alsa only system, our implementation is sort of broken in fringe case and requires an overhaul that we don't want to do so instead of fixing it let's just drop it altogether, less than 1% of users is not enough to matter".
The features you explained are exactly what I was looking for in a mobile browser. In fact, i wish they launch Focus for Desktops operating systems too.
Yes, I was just thinking the same thing. I can almost imagine a world where software believes me about what kind of experience I want, "full site" on mobile or "mobile site" on the desktop, rather than browser sniffing followed by awkward clicking around to correct its misapprehensions.
If you don't log in into websites, I don't see why you would leave yourself exposed and very easily hacked with Firefox or private browsing if there's Tor.
Private browsing is NOT secure. It's just a shortcut to avoid clearing your history manually. ANYONE can see who you are, and what sites you visit with easy-to-use tools that are available online for free.
Security is not an absolute. The best you can do is talk about whether something addresses a particular threat model.
There are different tradeoffs to Tor. A big downside is that unencrypted traffic is now easier for intermediaries to read and even change, because of how exit nodes work.
It's amazing how far apart I got from every single one of Mozilla's visions, from using Firefox as my main browser 8 years ago.
I love the fact that—as an example—as I travel Google shows me tools that I'll be interested in, like a currency converter, translate + word of the day in the local language, etc. etc.
I would absolutely hate having my main browser constantly forget who I am. I feel almost blessed every time I visit a website that I can log in with one click (or I'm already logged in), and when I sign up or buy stuff I can autofill my name, email, address, and credit card without having to start from scratch.
I'm not ready to give up extreme convenience and lots of time for the ideal of safeguarding my privacy with Google or Apple.
It looks like they're scrambling to try to stay afloat and miss and miss again.
I prefer to stay anonymous, but use the "real" FF occasionally for stuff I need to be logged in for. Browsing links friends send me, or checking something with a quick google search is something that I'd rather stay anonymous for, so I prefer having it available.
So just use something else! Oh, wait, you want to check your official university e-mail? That's provided by Google now. Oh, wait, you wanted to check city transit information? That's provided by Google now.
(I'd probably use Google for the latter anyway, but it'd be nice to be able to pretend that I had a choice.)
Google's own policies prevent it from doing data mining on GSuite accounts, like official email provided by Google in universities or companies or businesses. I'm sure other providers have similar policies as well. Unless you don't trust Google even a bit, your comparison on the email provider point is useless. I prefer separating things out and examining them instead of combining everything into one single worrisome name.
Yes, but if I sign up from my cell phone, I'd like to have that info on my desktop browser automatically and on other computers, so no.
> And currency converter, translations, word of the day, etc can all be done as browser extensions.
Sure, but what a pain. I wouldn't go through the pain of searching, installing, configuring, and then removing an extension for each one of of those things. I just don't care about any of them that much, it was just nice having them there automatically.
I'm pretty sure Safari will sync that info using iCloud, and I think Firefox has its own sync mechanism that can be used for this.
Or you could use any one of the numerous password managers (I use 1Password).
> Sure, but what a pain. I wouldn't go through the pain of searching, installing, configuring, and then removing an extension for each one of of those things.
If you actually care about having any of those, it's really not hard to search for and install extensions. You seem to be overplaying the difficulty involved here, especially for something of such relative low utility.