Abrowser 34 "new tab page"

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kepeken
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Joined: 12/18/2013

I use Abrowser in permanent "private mode", and with the new update the "new tab" page is showing "insteresting sites" sponsored by "Mozilla partners" according to a help page. There is a linked "Privacy Policy" page , but I still don't trust any of this.

Am I wrong or is this a move towards what Google (and Ubuntu) does with the "personal information"?

And more importantly: does anyone know how to disable this by "about:config"?

JadedCtrl
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Joined: 08/11/2014

I just click the gear icon in the top right corner of the New Tab page to disable the listing entirely.

SuperTramp83

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Joined: 10/31/2014

Now WTF is this??
I didn't notice this untill you mentioned it. I click on new tab and it displays three tiles - mozilla community, firefox for android and the third is "citizenfour" sponsored by a trisquel partner!!??
What trisquel partner? And why sending to anybody any kind of information about me??
Can someone explain this for it is annoying me a lot??

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

They are Mozilla partners, not Trisquel partners. Similarly, in the preferences, you can enable sending some data to Mozilla, but it tells you that you're sending data to Trisquel. The problem is that the package helper replaces "Mozilla" with "Trisquel" in every source file (except for Mozilla Public License).

EDIT: And no, Trisquel does not collect information, Mozilla does.
EDIT 2: If you click on the gear on the new tab page and change it to Classic, I believe it won't show these ads.

onpon4
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Joined: 05/30/2012

There's a particular problem with these ads: at least one of them I saw was for a proprietary program, and there might be more. The bug where Abrowser incorrectly reports the ads as coming from Trisquel makes it even worse: naïve users could be tricked into thinking that Trisquel is recommending a proprietary program.

See:

https://trisquel.info/en/issues/13032

quidam

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Joined: 12/22/2004

An updated version is in the oven. Fixes other details as well.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

I've set in about:config the browser.newtab.url pref to about:blank.

SuperTramp83

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Joined: 10/31/2014

I really don't like the direction mozilla is headed to - the last few versions with the change in the style (google copycat) and now this version 34 with the search tab and those tiles. I switched to icecat.
Anyway thanks for the info legimet,onpon and lembas!!

davidnotcoulthard (not verified)
davidnotcoulthard

I'm pretty sure Australis isn't a Google (Chrome) copycat (if the tabs were square I doubt there'd be too much of such a sentiment).....

It feels heavier, though :(

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

Yeah, Firefox is getting really bloated. Too many features (and "features") I guess.

onpon4
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Joined: 05/30/2012

I'm pretty sure Firefox has been getting faster, not slower. Remember Firefox 3? That Chrome was so much faster than it was one of the main reasons it started getting popular.

I specifically remember that either Firefox 7 or Firefox 8 was lightweight enough to work better on a certain device with only 256 MB of RAM than Midori. I don't think it's gotten slower since then.

t3g
t3g
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Joined: 05/15/2011

Firefox has been bleeding marketshare to Chrome and IE the past few years and Mozilla is getting desperate. The majority of their money comes from Google and when that deal ends, who knows what will happen with the Mozilla Corporation.

They think a Firefox phone is going to save them. It may crash and burn and take the Ubuntu phone with them.

davidnotcoulthard (not verified)
davidnotcoulthard

Maybe they'll come up with a new browser, hmmmm......I'd be really excited about that (and we won't have to worry about Firefox, it'll stay in a mirror somewhere, if not forked).

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

Their deal already ended. Firefox 34 uses Yahoo instead of Google by default.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

In the USA. Because it depends on the country you download Firefox from.

kepeken
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Joined: 12/18/2013

Thank you for all the answers,

I'm glad it will be fixed, so I remebered of another bug (I still don't know how to submit):

Abrowser is still sending downloaded file information to Google!!
As Firefox 32 onwards wants to prevent "malicious software" from being downloaded, and I think GNU/Linux security updates can pretty much prevent better.

I disabled manually, but I think it should be global:

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/07/23/prevent-firefox-sending-download-information-google

kepeken
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Joined: 12/18/2013

Just for the record, as I saw onpon4's bug report for this tab issue, I submitted a new bug report for the Google "tracking": https://trisquel.info/en/issues/13039

SuperTramp83

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Joined: 10/31/2014

kepeken - that is very well known.. safebrowsing sending your info to gooshit! There are a lot of about:config entries one should change if he is concerned about privacy/security. I'm planning on doing an exaustive list but I need good will and time (I will check each entry in about:config using info on the mozillazine webpage.
I used icecat for several hours today and yesterday and checked some very important (security/privacy wise) entries in about:config - icecat is much better in this sense. I prefeared Abrowser but now I love icecat!!

ps. What does firefox turn into when google gives them 90% of their revenue?

pps. the answer is - firefox turns into a biatch (google's biatch)!

regards