Firefox ads?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
MozillaMonkey
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Joined: April 21st, 2008, 7:52 pm

Firefox ads?

Post by MozillaMonkey »

I've been using pop-up/ad blockers for years now, with good success overall.

I do know that when you log into Google etc. they remember where you have visited and tailor
ads to entice you.

But what happens when I don't log into Google or any other site and am just
browsing with Firefox?

What does Firefox do? Who is it in bed with?

For example just now at this site:
https://web.tmxmoney.com/quote.php?qm_symbol=TD

A couple of ads just happened to pop up showing products I had previously looked at within the last week or so, products
that are not related to the site whatsoever.

Is Firefox just as bad as all the rest?
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tanstaafl
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by tanstaafl »

I doubt Firefox is to blame. You didn't mention anything about configuring the browser to protect your privacy by automatically blocking or deleting cookies, flash cookies, blocking one pixel beacons, periodically emptying HTML5 Local Storage etc. A good ad blocker is necessary, but insufficient to protect your privacy. Facebook for example gathers info about what people do on other web sites even when they don't have a Facebook account. http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is- ... ity-2012-9 talks about "In testing out a new diagnostic tool called Abine DNT+, we noticed that Facebook has more than 200 "trackers" watching our internet activity" . Google is just as pervasive.
MozillaMonkey
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by MozillaMonkey »

tanstaafl wrote:I doubt Firefox is to blame. You didn't mention anything about configuring the browser to protect your privacy by automatically blocking or deleting cookies, flash cookies, blocking one pixel beacons, periodically emptying HTML5 Local Storage etc. Facebook for example gathers info about what people do on other web sites even when they don't have a Facebook account. http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is- ... ity-2012-9 talks about "In testing out a new diagnostic tool called Abine DNT+, we noticed that Facebook has more than 200 "trackers" watching our internet activity" . Google is just as pervasive.
Thanks for your response.

Well let's get practical then.

How do I block or delete cookies, flash cookies, one pixel beacons, etc. and
still not make internet browsing a tedious experience?

I mean, who wants to enter their username/password for each site they visit each day, again and again?
I ask in all seriousness. What is a practical way to accomplish this?
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tanstaafl
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by tanstaafl »

I use the uBlock Origin, Better Privacy, Privacy Badger and Self Destructing Cookies add-ons. The latter makes it easy to whitelist web sites that I want to keep cookies, and automatically self-destruct any other cookies when I close the tab or exit the browser. The only time I have to enter my username/password again is if a cookie eventually expires (anywhere from a month to years depending upon the web site). I don't have a Facebook account, use DuckDuckGo for searching and use a email client (so no need to keep logged in to Google/Gmail), which makes things simpler.

There are a lot of other privacy/tracking add-ons that you can also use but my impression is that you quickly get diminishing returns, and run the risk of each interfering with each other.

I don't trust the built-in feature in Firefox to remember logins for web sites and automatically enter it for you if it recognizes that web page again. I've used KeePass Password Safe in the past, and found it was too much of a hassle.

Due to recent USA legislation that allows ISPs to sell your browsing history I also use a inexpensive vpn (PureVPN).
MozillaMonkey
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by MozillaMonkey »

Thanks tans, I will look into the add-ons you mentioned later when I have some spare time.
Something fishy is going on and I'd like to be more in control of what is being foisted upon me now.

But I noticed something fairly recently when certain sites were taking forever to load.
To troubleshoot this some here recommended I put Firefox in Safe mode (no add-ons etc.)

As soon as I did that, pages were loading lightning fast once again!
So it seems it will always be a trade-off.

Browse quickly, with no protection from ads etc. OR install all kinds of add-ons etc. and slow down
your browsing to a crawl.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by tanstaafl »

I think its more likely that you had one or two add-ons that drastically slowed performance, and need to be replaced by better/faster equivalents.
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lovemyfoxy
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by lovemyfoxy »

I have most of those add-ons, and I also use DuckDuckGo and Startpage (formerly Ixquick.)

I see slow-to-load sites loading strange stuff down in the status bar, which I think are trackers, unrelated to the site. So Privacy Badger will speed that up? Will it interfere with the handful of trusted sites where I allow permanent cookies?

Mozilla Monkey--if you have kept the status bar, you can see some of the garbage that loads with your pages.
2 Desktops--Win 7 Ult.SP1 x64/6GB RAM /Firefox 52.9ESR/Waterfox64 2022.11/Thunderbird 52.9ESR/BitWarden PW Manager/Verizon FIOS wired network
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tanstaafl
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by tanstaafl »

I haven't had any problems due to Privacy Badger. I can watch streaming video on Netflix, Youtube and Amazon Prime Video and browse web sites such as Bloomberg View or the Washington Post without any apparent problems. Whenever I've run into performance problems it was clear from the status bar that was due to the web site being so slow fetching data, though it may perform differently for you. In a few cases I've gone to the trouble of duplicating that using the Edge browser (which doesn't Privacy Badger).

However, the web sites where I have whitelisted cookies don't seem to have a lot of trackers. For example, I have white listed cookies for this web site and Privacy Badger reports four trackers : http://www.google-analytics.com (red: due to it being disabled), cse.google.com (yellow due to Self Destructing Cookies killing it after the tab closes), pagead2googlesyndication (red: due to it being disabled) and http://www.google.com (yellow due to Self Destructing Cookies killing it after the tab closes). I think I changed the two trackers that have yellow from red to to yellow using the slider and left the other two alone but its been so long I'm not sure. Whitelisted trackers would have a green slider. Note that it didn't list the MozillaZine cookies since it didn't consider them trackers.

If you click on the privacy badger icon (to the right of the address bar) it lists the trackers and has sliders to manage them, and a control to disable the add-on for the current web site.
MozillaMonkey
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by MozillaMonkey »

LoveMyFoxy wrote:
Mozilla Monkey--if you have kept the status bar, you can see some of the garbage that loads with your pages.
I do still have the status bar and keep an eye on it most of the time.
I can't believe some of the stuff that loads on trusted sites even.
I don't think a lot of them know what has invaded their site. :)
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lovemyfoxy
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by lovemyfoxy »

I think they know. Most sites are supported through ads, whether WE see the ads or not.
BTW--your FF version is outdated and insecure.
2 Desktops--Win 7 Ult.SP1 x64/6GB RAM /Firefox 52.9ESR/Waterfox64 2022.11/Thunderbird 52.9ESR/BitWarden PW Manager/Verizon FIOS wired network
mgagnonlv
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by mgagnonlv »

To the original poster...

Are you using AdblockPlus? If so, it comes by default with "acceptable ads" enabled. To disable them, you need to click on "Options", then "Filter Preferences" and untick the tiny box at the bottom of that window ("Allow some non-intrusive publicity" – I'm translating from French).

That being said, whether you are using AdblockPlus, uBlock Origin or another ad-blocking software, their operational principle is based on the fact that most sites use stylesheets with certain well-known tags which are used by companies that runs the ads to post their ads. A large number of websites use the Google Adsense platform... which means that adblocking extensions simply look for these tags and remove the content between these tags (i.e. the ads).
The TMXmoney page you are pointing to displays one video ad near the top – which is blocked by my adblocking extension – and a couple of internal ads which come from the site owner and therefore don't respect the typical configuration of website ads. Therefore they are not blocked.

How to block elements which are not blocked by default with your adblocker?
If you frequently visit that page, you might want to create your own blocking rules.
– With AdblockPlus, use the extension "Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus". Once installed, it adds a menu in the "Stop" icon of Adblock Plus, which allows you to select elements you want to hide. Click, create a rule, and you're done.
– With uBlock Origin, it's fairly similar but you don't need to install another extension. Click on the icon to open its menu, then select the dropper and click on the element. A rule is then created. You need to click OK to accept it.
Michel Gagnon
Montréal (Québec, Canada)
Brummelchen
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by Brummelchen »

AdwCleaner AdwCleaner Download
Insert [Report] here, then [Cleanup]

XP to blame here.
MozillaMonkey
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Joined: April 21st, 2008, 7:52 pm

Re: Firefox ads?

Post by MozillaMonkey »

mgagnonlv wrote:To the original poster...

Are you using AdblockPlus? If so, it comes by default with "acceptable ads" enabled. To disable them, you need to click on "Options", then "Filter Preferences" and untick the tiny box at the bottom of that window ("Allow some non-intrusive publicity" – I'm translating from French).
For quite a long time I was using No Script. Then I tried AdblockPlus. After re-imaging my c: drive recently I didn't know what was currently installed.
I decided to try the recommended blockers above (uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Self Destructing Cookies) yesterday and when I checked
my add-ons neither No Script nor AdblockPlus was activated. In fact Firefox gave a message about No Script saying "No Script could not be verified for use in Firefox and has been disabled".

So far the results with the new blockers has been quite good.
The TMXmoney page you are pointing to displays one video ad near the top – which is blocked by my adblocking extension – and a couple of internal ads which come from the site owner and therefore don't respect the typical configuration of website ads. Therefore they are not blocked.
With the above ad blockers now installed no ads are currently being displayed at TMXmoney.
How to block elements which are not blocked by default with your adblocker?
If you frequently visit that page, you might want to create your own blocking rules....
– With uBlock Origin, it's fairly similar but you don't need to install another extension. Click on the icon to open its menu, then select the dropper and click on the element. A rule is then created. You need to click OK to accept it.
Thanks for these tips!
Brummelchen
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Re: Firefox ads?

Post by Brummelchen »

refresh your profile an stick with uBo and get familiar with the experienced user feature!
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/ ... edium-mode
MozillaMonkey
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Joined: April 21st, 2008, 7:52 pm

Re: Firefox ads?

Post by MozillaMonkey »

Brummelchen wrote:refresh your profile an stick with uBo and get familiar with the experienced user feature!
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/ ... edium-mode
OK thanks will do.
Browsing now is much smoother/quicker than before.
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