Missing the point: it's about privacy [LWN.net]

Missing the point: it's about privacy

Posted Aug 9, 2009 21:43 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: Missing the point: it's about privacy by jspaleta
Parent article: Ubuntu's multisearch surprise

> I think the horse is out of the barn a little on the privacy issue.

I've never understood this attitude. These are our rights, and we'll fight for them even when we're over-powered and when it looks like we're losing.

Our privacy is being eroded by Google with the help of Mozilla. Google should stop that, but I have low expectations from Google, they're not part of our community. Mozilla should stop that. Until they do, we should not trust them as a source of free software. We should use builds of Firefox that come from people we trust - be it Debian, gNewSense, GNU, etc.

It's sad to see that Ubuntu cannot be added to the list of software providers we can trust.

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Missing the point: it's about privacy

Posted Aug 10, 2009 16:30 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (4 responses)

>> I think the horse is out of the barn a little on the privacy issue.

>I've never understood this attitude. These are our rights, and we'll fight for them even when we're over-powered and when it looks like we're losing.

Note that Jef does not offer an opinion as to whether the Google-Mozilla situation is good or bad. He *observes* that it has stirred up little controversy.

FWIW, I use Epiphany. And will be moving completely to Epiphany-Webkit as soon as practicable. For a host of reasons which include, but are not limited to, the effect that money, and Mozilla Corp, have had upon the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla Corp is supposed to be a subsidiary. But it's pretty clear that the tail has been wagging the dog for some time now. In fact, almost from the very day that Mozilla Corp was established.

Missing the point: it's about privacy

Posted Aug 10, 2009 18:23 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] (3 responses)

I've been using epiphany off and on for a while now too.

One thing about it though, is that I feel that it's a net privacy loss, because I lack the customize-google and adblock plugins.

So when I use firefox, I can easily screw around with the google cookie, block analytics, etc. When I use Epiphany (while they're less slimy or Google-connected than MozillaCo is), I'm much more visible to Google (and friends) overall.

Missing the point: it's about privacy

Posted Aug 10, 2009 19:00 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (2 responses)

apt-get install epiphany-extensions

The adblocker uses filterset.G and now has an editor for the blacklists and whitelists.

And just as a tidbit that I learned about not long ago, when you specify a bookmark in the bookmark bar, you can define it with something like:

Title: Google
Address: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s

and it will appear in the bookmark bar as a text entry field. Customize to taste.

Missing the point: it's about privacy

Posted Aug 10, 2009 19:09 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks. That adblock extension works great.

It's still missing the functionality of customize-google though. Specifically, the ability to anonymize the google cookie, and block analytics.

Missing the point: it's about privacy

Posted Aug 10, 2009 20:02 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

Well... there are two bits of functionality which might be helpful. Note that Epiphany now supports the Greasemonkey extension. And Epiphany extensions are supposed to be fairly straightforward to write (in Python).

I should note that I have never used Greasemonkey or written an Epiphany extension. But I felt I should mention the options anyway.