this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Firefox

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Why are Mozilla's pages filled with Google Trackers? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by chinstrap@lemmy.ml to c/firefox@lemmy.ml
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[–] pjhenry1216@kbin.social 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This has been brought up before (not here, just in general). The short answer is they heavily customized the analytics so it's not as 'bad' out of the box. You can read more about it below.

You can probably ask them directly if you'd want more of an answer. They don't seem to be trying to hide anything.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1122305#c8

Edit: also, as far as I know, Firefox actively should be blocking Google Analytics, unless they changed it (which is possible). About four years ago, Firefox started blocking Google Analytics by default.

[–] Skimmer@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Well said. May be worth reading through this GitHub issue and this Bugzilla issue as well. Its worth noting its also directly integrated into the browser as well in about:addons.

I'm personally not a fan of Firefox/Mozilla integrating and using Google Analytics, even under these circumstances, and think it does deserve criticism, but it is what it is I guess. I do hope they switch to a better alternative in the future.

In the meantime, setting the following about:config options should take care of and fully strip out Google Analytics and extension recommendations from about:addons:

"extensions.getAddons.showPane" to false

"extensions.htmlaboutaddons.recommendations.enabled" to false

"browser.discovery.enabled" to false

"browser.discovery.sites" to be empty

[–] PrunesMakeYouPoop@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Thank you.

[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 20 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Because google gives mozilla a huge chunk of change every year. Mainly to stave off anti-trust claims by ensuring firefox says alive.

That allows us to keep using ff and to add tracking blocker extensions to our browser...

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This money maintains the status quo. It will be adjusted so that Firefox does not gain significant market share but continues to exist as a worthy alternative, and Mozilla is incentivized to stay quiet about Google’s monopoly in the tech sector.

[–] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Are they really quite though?

[–] RogueBanana@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 years ago

They certainely arent that loud from what i have seen but makes sense why they dont

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago

I don't think they're "quiet" per se, it's just that no one cares.

They do seem to be vocal critics of most things google does, but they just don't get that much attention.

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

to stave off anti-trust claims

Everyone says this but is it really true?

Edge has almost twice the market share that FireFox does. It wouldn't matter that they both use the same rendering engine, it's a competitor to stave off an anti-trust suit.

If they did need a competitor it would be dramatically more sensible to spin out a fork of chrome and create an org around that, rather than supporting FireFox.

It seems more likely to me that the agreement with FireFox isn't that nefarious - if they don't pay FireFox then they don't get FireFox users in search. That may only be 6% on the desktop, but 6% is significant enough.

[–] kariboka@bolha.forum 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Edge is chrome

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah I mentioned that in my post. It's still a competitor. Anti-Trust is not about rendering engines, it's about vendors.

[–] Adi2121@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Unrelated, what tool are you using to see this?

[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago

i believe the duckduckgo extension also does something similar

[–] nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 years ago

Because corporations

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I thought every page on the web had these two if you want to be placed highly in the SEO.

[–] bluGill@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

Sounds like illegal monopoly abuse to me.

[–] Moonrise2473@feddit.it -3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

there's no excuse in replacing google analytics with matomo or similar

it's either laziness or a complete disregard about the users privacy

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago

You should really look up who pays Mozilla to exist.