Firefox

21511 readers

1 users here now

/c/firefox

A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox.

Rules

1. Adhere to the instance rules

2. Be kind to one another

3. Communicate in a civil manner

Reporting

If you would like to bring an issue to the moderators attention, please use the "Create Report" feature on the offending comment or post and it will be reviewed as time allows.

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

k_o_t@lemmy.ml

golden_zealot@lemmy.ml

On Linux, Firefox stores site-data in a folder named the same (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago by brokenwing@discuss.tchncs.de to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Is this behavior expected? I would imagine it would be a privacy violation in a multi-user system. I thought they had some sort of encryption for hiding the sites that I visit.

BTW, FF does not do this on private mode. But still it is concerning, that any program can know about the sites I visit just by looking at ~/.mozilla/profile/storage/default.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 17 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

still it is concerning, that any program can know about the sites I visit

As other noted, that's the case in Linux, by default all processes are equal, so if your shell process can access a file, the Firefox process can access that file.

But there are in fact many ways to sandbox processes and prevent exactly what you are worried about. One way is to install applications via Flatpak (or Snap), that can limit what files the app can see, while still running as your user.

If there is an app you need and don't trust that's not available as a flatpak (or snap), there are ways to sanbox it manually. It does require some tinkering, but people can help you on !linux@lemmy.ml

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 3 points 3 weeks ago

on windows too. any programs can read your history bookmarks, cookies, for chrome too

[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

That's true of Windows, any process running as the same user can read Firefox data files, probably its memory too. Malware do that, and that's why people try hard to avoid malware with AV, security fixes, sandboxing, hardening, education, ...

There is better sandboxing support on Linux, at least on the tooling side. It's relatively easy to use firejail to sandbox every program that interacts with the network. Last time I looked I couldn't find an equivalent on Windows that's freely available. The "Windows Sandbox" thing is the closest but it's fairly heavy and inconvenient. Unlike firejail it doesn't come with profiles tailored for various popular software.