49
votes
Firefox’s fight for the future of the web: With Google’s Chrome dominating the market, not-for-profit rival Mozilla is staking a comeback on its dedication to privacy
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Firefox's fight for the future of the web
- Authors
- Alex Hern
- Published
- Nov 17 2019
- Word count
- 1821 words
I think you're blurring intentions in bad faith here. The intention of Find My isn't location tracking for the purposes of advertising, it's location tracking for the purposes of finding your lost devices (duh); and there's some pretty incredible privacy and security safeguards in place that eliminate any chance of meaningful user tracking here.
Apple isn't in the business of selling its users' location data for financial gain, and the existence of IDFA, which was recently discussed on Tildes (here's a pretty good rebuttal to my dislike of the feature), is a minor blemish on an otherwise excellent record of maintaining user's privacy—just these privacy features alone were introduced in iOS 13 this year. It feels like you're painting a picture with a pretty broad brush, to be honest.
What other company provides the safeguards Apple does, at the scale they operate? No, seriously—I'm genuinely wondering. Apple recently renovated their Privacy page actually, I encourage you to take a look.
Their recent actions regarding the HKmap.live app have definitely soured me Apple. Their actions regarding China in general (like using a third party for iCloud services in China) have really made me think twice every time they say their committed to privacy and the greater good.
We all should remember that at the end of the day, they're just another company looking to make a buck.
Going to be interesting to see how Mozilla competes with Apple regarding privacy. Apple's done some really interesting and pioneering work in that area, largely to differentiate themselves from Google (and I quite appreciate them for that), so seeing Mozilla come in and actually compete with them will be interesting. Genuine competition, especially in an area that's pro-consumer, is one of (the only?) good things about capitalism, IMO, so I'm eager to see it.
The article does raise a valid point that iOS devices are rather restricted in terms of browsing experience, but... considering the nature of the web at the time the decision was made, littered as it was with garbage Flash, I don't really blame Apple for making that decision. As Flash dies, though, it's certainly time to revisit this.
While I like Apple, it's all "Pro Consumer... for a price". I suppose there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
My biggest problem with Apple is that it very much is only pro-consumer insofar that it locks consumers into their ecosystem.
It would be easy for them to make pro-consumer choices like allowing for 3rd party apps, rooting devices, and being easily repaired. But these things allow for more consumer choices and subsequently weaken their stronghold on the market.
They're incredibly savy at planned obsolescence, which is definitely antithetical to being pro-consumer and environmentally friendly.
Sure. The article mentions that point, too, and I recognize that I am quite privileged to be able to afford their shiny toys. Mozilla putting privacy first will bring the same benefits to those folks who can't afford the shiny Apple kit, at least for the browser side of things.
And I respect them for at least offering something quality for a high price... sometimes you don't even get that