Companies have begun switching tracking tech to first-party cookies (where possible) since Apple's introduction of "Intelligent Tracking Protection," so Mozilla's similar move probably won't have that much of an impact either.<p>Apple has responded with ITP 2.1, though, limiting _all_ (persistent) cookie lifetime to 7 days, although these could probably be accurately re-issued/kept alive in my opinion: <a href="https://webkit.org/blog/8613/intelligent-tracking-prevention-2-1/" rel="nofollow">https://webkit.org/blog/8613/intelligent-tracking-prevention...</a><p>ITP 2.1 also removes support for Do Not Track (as it's not honored anyway).
One thing mentioned on the responses that might be really concerning is the fact that this will mean that for a lot of analytics it will look like firefox usage is close to zero.<p>No usage data, devs caring less about firefox, users having more problems when using firefox, less users using firefox, less users having 3rd party trackers blocked, chrome monopoly growing.
Firefox's Container's approach has been quite interesting to use, but if a suggestion could get out to the Firefox team, I would advise improved streamlining of workflow for the extension, including with sync and returning browser setup, and for organizing and setting up new containers (configuring them to always open for a domain, putting them in folders).
Good. They should've done this ten years ago.<p>However, I don't know how it'll play out in the long run. FF is already on the radar of ad-driven sites, including those that just need basic unique visitor counters verified by third parties rather than doing evil privacy invasion things. So they could decide to boycot FF alltogether. I hope this isn't going to happen, though. Anyone in the ad-driven content business here to share their opinion? Or should we go back to pixels?
My work laptop is a very fast upper end macbook and I can somewhat reliably run Firefox on that. My personal laptop is an older macbook pro retina model and whenever I use firefox on that it gets incredibly slow and from time to time the computer just freezes for 20-40 seconds. So, sadly, I can't use firefox on that.<p>At one point someone on HN posted a link to the bug report on mozilla's bug tracker about this issue with retina macbooks. Does anyone have that link? I can't find it.
Why now, as opposed to several years ago? Are there downsides to blocking 3rd party trackers by default, and if so, what has changed recently to allow this to happen now?
It's a huge step forward. Does it block Google Ads too?<p>If so, ad companies should consider some kind of functionality to proxy the advertisements through the partners' websites.<p>I've seen ublock struggle with Server Side Ads Injection.
Will this also force Do Not Track to be on, similar to the current tracking blocklists in Firefox? That's the primary reason why I have it turned off and rely on uBlock Origin + a few other extensions.
How do you prevent Iframes from communicating their cookies to the parent window? Using window.postMessage?<p>Disable all cookies for iframes? That seems like it would break the internet.
I think this is huge. It reminds me of the early days of Firefox (back then still known as Phoenix) in a world where IE6 and pop-up ads dominated. At launch IE6 was really the best and most innovative browser of it's time (IMHO). But after IE6 had beaten Netscape, Microsoft stopped putting money in IE development and the situation got worse over time. It was Phoenix with, among other things, a pop-up blocker that was on by default that brought down Internet Explorers hegemony.<p>Today, with Chrome being dominant the situation is different because Google is still innovating Chrome at light speed. The one and only Achilles heel to beat this giant is by attacking their business model, which is to enable ad blocking by default. I expect this is something people want, just like pop-up blockers back in the days. Google will never be able to lead, or even follow in this direction without changing their business model.<p>Unfortunately, Mozilla’s own business model also heavily relies on selling ads, albeit indirectly. According to this statement from an independent audit report[1]:<p>"Note 10 - Concentrations of Risk:<p>Mozilla has entered into contracts with search engine providers for royalties which expire through November 2020. Approximately 93% and 94% of Mozilla’s royalty revenues were derived from these contracts for 2017 and 2016, respectively, with receivables from these contracts representing approximately 75% and 79% of the December 31, 2017 and 2016 outstanding receivables."<p>In other words, $539 Million, which is 93% of their total revenue, comes from companies that have selling ads as their business model (Baidu, Google, Yahoo and Yandex [2]).<p>I really hope Mozilla will be able to change this revenue stream to better align with their mission[3]. They have been trying to diversify their revenue since 2014 [4] and although they might not be as dependent on Google as they once were, they're still almost fully dependent on ads.<p>Oh, and yeah, of course simply making a better browser than Chrome would also help ;)<p>Background:<p>* <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/</a><p>* <a href="https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-2017-form-990.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-2017-fo...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-2017-fs-short-form-final-0927.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-201...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Global_Search_Strategy_Status" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Global_Search_Strategy_Status</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/</a> "An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent."<p>[4] <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...</a>
I think this is a bad idea. Even though I personally block 3rd party trackers by default, breaking the web by default will cause problems.<p>Also, ad blocking will start being a problem when enough people start doing it. I still remember the days of no websites yelling at you for blocking their ads. Things are going to get much worse.
Does this mean that analytics will also be blocked? If it is true it will be a shot in the foot, because Google pays a lot of money to Mozilla. Translated automatically.