Re:“looks like Firefox quietly added ads into the address bar”
by wayneftw on Thursday October 07, 2021 @09:17AM
(#28785808)
So you might as well be using Chrome then. They already got all of your data from your phone.
Re:“looks like Firefox quietly added ads into the address bar”
by Macha on Thursday October 07, 2021 @12:44PM
(#28788801)
I've yet to see evidence of them siphoning off DNS queries for tracking or MITMing my queries to DDG to find out what I'm searching, but for Chrome everything you type in the address bar gets sent to google search for search suggestions.
If they did start doing so, I could switch to LineageOS or even Plasma Mobile, as my phone supports changing the OS without having to exploit a security vulnerability.
Which to be fair, the default in Firefox is the address bar gets sent to the search engine provider of your choice for search suggestions, but you can change the search engine and/or disable that in Firefox for Android, unlike Android Chrome. And on desktop you can separate the search and address bars still.
Re:“looks like Firefox quietly added ads into the address bar”
by wayneftw on Thursday October 07, 2021 @05:46PM
(#28792536)
Yeah, I was just thinking about every other app that you might use on the phone.
If you only use a web browser then that's perfect for you. I am a fairly minimalist user and I generally prefer the browser over phone apps but I still use too many apps to list here easily.
I'm sympathetic to that argument, but ultimately until Apple supports sideloading more generally, (which is likely never), that lack of control of my device outweighs my concerns with Google's privacy practices.