Browsers

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[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al [S] 10 points 5 months ago

Not sure I'd be okay trusting designers to solve fingerprinting.

https://arkenfox.github.io/thorin/items/02browserfingerprinting.html

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[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 15 points 5 months ago (21 children)

you can't "solve" fingerprinting. spoofing makes you more unique. and you cannot spoof everything. looking normal helps more than trying to hide. the only real solution to it would be creating a standard to all browsers, which is what tor does, and it's why it works. same settings, same window size, same engine, etc. if you want fingerprinting resistance, use tor!

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[+] umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (14 children)

[deleted]

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[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago (13 children)

this would imply not being able to resize your window for example... you cant do that to a general purpose software. you need to useba tool that fits your needs. it would be the equivalent of complaining about Debian not being an amnesiac distro. Tails exists for this...

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago (11 children)

this would imply not being able to resize your window for example

Or it would let you resize and report the same size as everyone else.

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[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago (10 children)

that's spoofing, spoofing makes you stand out more...

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago (9 children)

What do you mean? If all Firefox users report the same size, than you are one of many. That's the point. It makes you stand out less. Off course this works only if you are not the only one that sticks out and its the default.

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[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago (7 children)

this is one thing, do you understand how limiting it would make the browser? its not just window size, this is one example. and afaik if you spoof your window size you can break rendering of pages. again, you're comprimising everyday usage. im not saying there isn't a way at all, maybe there is, but it's not some trivial thing, ive followed arkenfox for quite a few years and they've been saying the same. the amount of time it takes to make a redesign is nothing to making an unfingerprintable browser. if that's even a thing. and remember that you cant spoof everything.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago (6 children)

I didn't say that? I'm just talking about the point you were making earlier about resizing the window. You said it would imply that not being able to resize our window for example, and I just provided a possible way to do exactly that. That's all. And then counter argued your follow up point it would contribute to make me stand out more, that it in fact would decrease the possibility to stand out, not increase.

I'm not arguing that it would work for every webpage without breaking it, nor did I talk about the entire finger printability of a browser.

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[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Users report the same size, fingerprinters now ignore this. They do still use JavaScript to determine the actual size of the window, and likely your resolution along with it.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

If the browser is programmed to report a single size, then its impossible for JavaScript to determine the actual size. Because all JS would get is the same resolution. That's the idea of the suggestion.

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[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 2 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

...and then your websites break, because you actually need to render them correctly.

...or it needs to be your actual window size, too.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

If the browser size is a standard size which is often tested to work with, then i don't see it as such a big of a deal. Most sites are also resolution independent. We are no longer in 2010. Do you know any site that could break because you don't use a specific resolution?

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[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 1 point 5 months ago*

I don't think you understand.

If you spoof your resolution and window size to the degree that it's undetectable you effectively have to render it in that resolution.

Guess how websites make it so that they work on any resolution? They use relative units and whatnot that make it work that way, and all that is detectable one way or another. So you'd have to spoof it all in order to resist fingerprinting - and that is either going to break the rendering, or it's going to effectively render that website at that resolution, making it a bad experience for regular users either way.

I do wish this was an option for more "normal" browsers, and that they resisted fingerprinting better in some other ways, but you have to make serious compromises to make it work fully.

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[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 months ago

That simply doesn’t work.

Okay, let’s say that the standard “what is the window size” JavaScript method is intercepted and altered, how do you handle setting an element to a specific percentage width and then determining how wide it is in pixels? Or any of the other ways I can think to accomplish this same thing?

If you intercept all of those, you effectively break any site with relative movement of elements with JavaScript.

And that’s just one example.

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[–] TiredTiger@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

This is the philosophy of the Mullvad browser, which is basically as close as you can get to Tor for browsing the clear net. If anonymity is the goal, however, you don't want to use it to log into any accounts.

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[+] umbrella@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

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[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago

yes, tor uses that feature to make all users look the same, if you resize a bit your tor window that's it. you can be identified. for fingerprinting to work every browser would need to look the same. this means no extensions, no difference in window size, same settings, etc. do you think that's actually feasible for an everyday browser? really?

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[–] Programman4233@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 point 5 months ago (5 children)

how does spoofing make you more unique? If I change my browser resolution to a more common resolution that would make me less recognizable, for example.

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[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago

because when you spoof whatever is fingerprinting you sees that you're actually providing fake data, so now you enter the list of the "hidden" instead of blending in. this is the core philosophy of tor browser, and a known fact. if you read partially the article i linked it talks about this.

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[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

You can lie to the website and say your resolution is 1024x768. But what happens when the JavaScript fingerprinting checks the actual width of the view port? Your view port is most likely larger than your stated screen size.

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[–] Programman4233@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Sounds like a limitation of the spoofing technology, and shameless spying on the websites part. I'm not a tech expert but is there nothing that you can lie to the websites about and they can't check or verify it? For example the list of fonts?

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[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

That one in particular you potentially could, though it does raise the question of what would happen if you report you have a don’t you don’t, and the site tries to push content using that font.

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[–] TiredTiger@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago

I had an add-on at one point (or possibly a uBlock origin setting?) to block all remote fonts and just use a local one. Might work fine if it's integrated with something like that.

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[–] foxfell@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago

I think he meant amount of human hours spent on total bs like redesign and real engine improvements, nithing more.

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[–] Kristof12@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

Anything actually useful done to firefox? idk

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 17 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Make it do less, a LOT faster, using less resources, with good extension support.

That is a good browsers only job.

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[–] tb_@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

If that were the entire truth, neither brave nor opera would be as popular as they are.

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

In my assessment, all browsers suck badly at performance and resource usage at the moment.

How does a 25mb website content result in 350mb of ram usage for that tab? And why would it not render basically instantly.

I am old enough to remember in the early 2000s, when page loads were near instant. Even for large e-commerce and social media websites.

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[–] BigTechMustBurn@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

Because in the 2000s websites were primarily HTML and CSS and not the Javascript abominations we have today.

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 1 point 5 months ago

Its not so much the JavaScript, its the layers and layers of JavaScript libraries that are never optimized or trimmed for purpose.

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[+] racoon@lemmy.ml -2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

[deleted]

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 months ago

You might want to add a little /s there.

But yes, decisions made by people who dont pay for their own hardware.

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 30 points 5 months ago (10 children)

I hate everything about "modern design" ... Rounded corners, gradients, blur and transparency effects, fading in/out ... fuck that! I want my browser to look and feel like the rest of my UI.

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[+] Gnergy@piefed.europe.pub 19 points 5 months ago (1 child)

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago

Yes, it’s fortunately just a trend. Just like websites. At one point tiny 10px font for main text content and absurdly small navigation buttons were seen as “modern”, nowadays huge empty spaces and 30px fonts are the norm.

Or Javascript vs no Javascript, this also changes every few years.

I just hope this ugly mess will just be the annoying design fad of the year.

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[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

well, the rest of my UI has rounded corners, transparency, and blur 🤷‍♂️

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago

I’m so sorry for you 😆

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 months ago (4 children)

This is basically what I was thinking. I customized Firefox to be less rounded with sharp edges, single color and much denser. I don't know why every application is treated like a new abstract art (off course I'm exaggerating here).

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

That’s mine (resized to not have a huge screenshot file)

Custom fully custom labwc theme, customized GTK theme, modified Firefox (userChrome.css)

Thunar for reference.

Anything more and I’d feel super distracted and annoyed.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

I was hoping for screenshot sharing, lol. Yours look ~~similar~~ familiar, I wouldn't be surprised if we shared in the past whenever we had this topic before.

Mine evolves from time to time. Sometimes I learn something new from new screenshots and incorporate that. One such recent "implementation" is the Bookmarks Toolbar. I created a top level directory named "Favorites" and put all quick access bookmarks in there and moved the toolbar to the same level of tabs, to save me an entire extra line of bar. My current Firefox looks like this:

I'm on KDE, the titlebar is disabled for all windows (I'm an auto tiler person). BTW I'm not sure how to get rid off the rounded corners of the window, but that is not Firefox specific.

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago

Yours look similar familiar, I wouldn’t be surprised if we shared in the past whenever we had this topic before.

I did and I will continue doing so! 😇

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[+] Kynsey@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago*

There is clearly a lot going on in your UI! It’s always great to see how people customize their environment and funny how corporations like Mozilla think they know better.

I don’t mean like minimalism. I’m clearly more maximalist in my themeing than you lol.

Oh, my theming is maximalist. Especially labwc: It’s 100% custom from ground up for theme and configuration. Not one single bit was taken over from the default configuration. It’s just the result that is minimalist 😆

Same with Firefox: I override almost all of the tabs styling with custom configuration.

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago

I like some of these things, but I'd be ok with them being optional toggles. I remember seeing a Firefox fork with extensive customization options for the UI

Personally

rounded corners make it easier to see what is contained in what. It gives more information than just having everything meet at corners
gradients and blurs match the rest of my UI 😄

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[–] novafunc@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 5 months ago

Glad that compact mode will be officially supported again. Makes such as big difference on a laptop screen.

[–] Krafting@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

As long as Kit is used everywhere, I'm up for it

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 6 points 5 months ago

oh fuck no please don't break my userchrome(desktop) and muscle memory(android)....

[–] sudoer777@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 months ago

They probably haven't fulfilled their RAM usage quota yet

[–] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 5 points 5 months ago

New compact mode is great, I might be in the minority here but I like the new design.

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

I just wish the mobile app had an ability to display more than two bookmarks at a time without the need to scroll and click through menus to get to them. Desktop app has a bookmarks toolbar, the mobile equivalent sucks.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago*

Greek Stays

Glad the translators weren't laid off to cut costs /s

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 points 5 months ago

Didn’t think they could make the tabs any less clear and contrasted than they did last time, so I guess they sure showed me.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 5 months ago

They chance the look again. I have to say, the new look looks better than the current default. But it's not for me and I will heavily customize the look anyway. Hopefully my current customization works as it is and I have nothing to do...

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 point 5 months ago

I find firefox more cumbersome than ever to use. Small things like expanding menu optionslook great but practically add steps to interactions.

I cant intuitively make a bookmark a shortcut, it just happens and if I edit it, it gets pinned. I want a list of favourites but instead there are dozens of reddit variations suggested because of browsing habits instead of accepting my r/all shortcut as being my entry point.

I can select always desktopmode but not choose what domains it should only do it for.

I hate chrome but it works better, I had to use it for work and it became the default. It is am unfortunate slog to degoogle whereas before I enjoyed being provacy focused because it got me a better product.

[–] moopet@sh.itjust.works 1 point 5 months ago

This reads like such corporate nonsense tbh

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 point 5 months ago

I think Mozilla has lost the plot

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 14 points 5 months ago* (4 children)

First vertical tabs, then split view, now accent colours. Feels like Firefox is taking a page from Zen, which isn't a bad thing.

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[–] XLE@piefed.social 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

For what it's worth, split view is a browser feature that is better experienced than read about. Many people won't care about it, but many others will. I use it rarely, but when I do use it, I'm quite grateful it's around.

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[–] kobra@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago

I accidentally used it the other day and was surprised at how useful it was.

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[–] knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Doing these things with the OS window manager makes more sense than per application. This is just grouped windows from compiz over a decade ago. I wish we'd stop starting over.

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[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 1 point 5 months ago

I was of the same opinion, but it is significantly faster to use Split View than dragging a tab onto a new window and moving windows side by side, even with keyboard shortcuts. In addition, if you use vertical tabs, Split View takes less horizontal space, as your tabs are not duplicated across two windows.

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[–] Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 1 point 5 months ago

For me the future means in some kind of wearable display that uses eye or hand tracking to select things wich are less precise then a mouse, so bigger buttons would be a good thing.