This is an extremely uncharitable view of Firefox and an outrageously generous view of Windows. The things you listed take 2 checkboxes in a new tab window, 2 checkboxes in settings (which has a search bar that takes you right to them by just searching "studies" or "data collection"), 2 checkboxes in settings (search "suggestions"), 2 clicks (right click the pocket button and click hide)... The only tricky one is the recommended extensions but that's tucked at the bottom of a page nobody uses anyways (everyone just googles the extension they want and grabs it from the web), but even that takes like 15 seconds once you know what setting it is in about:config. I actually don't even disable the two telemetry checkboxes because they're transparent about the data they take and what they do with it, so I'm happy to share it. You can easily do all of this in one or two minutes and it won't roll itself back.
With Windows you would be lucky to even have a supported method to disable their telemetry, and if you do get one it will probably be through an obscure series of registry edits that will ultimately get rolled back during a system update.
> This is an extremely uncharitable view of Firefox and an outrageously generous view of Windows. The things you listed take 2 checkboxes in a new tab window, 2 checkboxes in settings (which has a search bar that takes you right to them by just searching "studies" or "data collection"), 2 checkboxes in settings (search "suggestions"), 2 clicks (right click the pocket button and click hide)... The only tricky one is
It’s wild to me that this is being presented as if it’s not a big deal.
Shows how far the goalposts have moved in this conversation.
How big a deal it is depends on what you're comparing to. Yeah, at first, when I read his post, I was wondering if it was a joke or something, with so many checkboxes in different places. Then I got to the point about Windows and realized he's right: compared to Windows, all those steps in Firefox actually aren't that bad, and actually stay unchecked unlike Windows which happily changes things back.
Thank you. And I would even say that settings aren't really even in different places, they're all either on the Settings page or on the element in question. New tab settings are on the new tab page, and you disable the pocket button by right clicking the pocket button. Not exactly rocket science, especially compared to Windows.
"by just searching "studies" isn't "just", to have to remember the option names and be certain you remember them all (and not miss the newly added ones), it's not that trivial of a hurdle
It isn't. I can without any sarcasm disable all of that in about a minute or two, and for the most part see no reason to do so in the first place (the worst bit is probably sponsored links on new tabs but that's also the easiest to remove). Acting like this invalidates the existence of the whole browser is what makes no sense to me.
"Acting like this invalidates the existence of the whole browser is what makes no sense to me."
They market themself as standing for the open and free web and digital rights and privacy and what not. And then have the browser spying on every user by default with integrated ads.
So sure, you and me deactivate it, but a common person who just fell for the marketing and who does not even know what "telemetry" is, will have it enabled. The only reason I use their browser is, because there is no alternative - yet.
Transparent telemetry is not spying. I'll agree that the ads are annoying but they're about as unobtrusive as you can make them. This is not the catastrophe you believe it to be, and even if it were, the big scary evil worse-than-Google Mozilla allows forks and Librewolf exists.
Its usage and the data it collects are not malicious or done to track you. "Data collection" is arguably a clearer name than telemetry to the average user and is clearly labelled, and can be disabled in a single checkbox in settings. It is transparent.
"Its usage and the data it collects are not malicious or done to track you."
There is tracking also for ad purposes activated by default in firefox. A recent developement. Before the tracking was ocasionally and hidden under "studies". Firefox in its default settings spies on its users and sells this data to advertisers - that is the situation.
On the frontpage FF is advertised as privacy friendly and there is 0 indication that FF itself will also track you.
If that is transparent to you, than we can just agree to disagree.
With Windows you would be lucky to even have a supported method to disable their telemetry, and if you do get one it will probably be through an obscure series of registry edits that will ultimately get rolled back during a system update.