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Googles Safebrowsing

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Hey Mozilla, I just tried a little bit with wireshark and found these safebrowsing.googleapis.com calls. I was quite a bit shocked. Got everything done to get away from google services, build my complete online infrastructure upon mozillas suites, mailadresses on relay, and generally FOSS Apps and Software.

I have some questions: - for what specific reason firefox is making the calls? - which data will be transmitted? - how can I block this "feature" entirely in Firefox?

Any answers from the developing team would be highly appreciated!

-- ...and lbnl my opinion: Firefox is/was the Alternative to google to me. So the reason I am using it, is to fight against google and the capitalism conquoring the internet. My thinking is therefore quite a bit black and white. I'm really considering to use another browser because of this hidden google Calls. I mean, even if its only to update the blacklists of URLs, there is absolutely no need to make this Calls in idle state, while the user isn't doing anything. And now I'm thinking what you guys are might calling for hosts in other apps? I mean this is shit. To advertise against occupying the internet in the fight for taking back control, and then you collaborate with the enemy. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but this feels more disturbing than anything else these days.

And if you share my IP on a regular basis with a google host, could YOU be sure, that these requests will not be registered and merged with other meta about myself? When Firefox is sending my IP to this google-Host, right before I was checking a page wich is using recaptchas, it could might be an very easy task to match this both IPs and further combine it with the rest of my metadata. Logically there is no reason for google to separate "the collection of data" and assumingly they are already using this massive amount of IP-Connectiondata in some way.

B.

PS: here you have the answer to the question, if this service is cross-product: "Safe Browsing protections work across Google products and power safer browsing experiences across the Internet." - the Head says: "Keeping over four Billion Devices safer. *shiver*

Hey Mozilla, I just tried a little bit with wireshark and found these safebrowsing.googleapis.com calls. I was quite a bit shocked. Got everything done to get away from google services, build my complete online infrastructure upon mozillas suites, mailadresses on relay, and generally FOSS Apps and Software. I have some questions: - for what specific reason firefox is making the calls? - which data will be transmitted? - how can I block this "feature" entirely in Firefox? Any answers from the developing team would be highly appreciated! -- ...and lbnl my opinion: Firefox is/was ''the'' Alternative to google to me. So the reason I am using it, is to fight against google and the capitalism conquoring the internet. My thinking is therefore quite a bit black and white. I'm really considering to use another browser because of this hidden google Calls. I mean, even if its only to update the blacklists of URLs, there is absolutely no need to make this Calls in idle state, while the user isn't doing anything. And now I'm thinking what you guys are might calling for hosts in other apps? I mean this is shit. To advertise against occupying the internet in the fight for taking back control, and then you collaborate with the enemy. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but this feels more disturbing than anything else these days. And if you share my IP on a regular basis with a google host, could YOU be sure, that these requests will not be registered and merged with other meta about myself? When Firefox is sending my IP to this google-Host, right before I was checking a page wich is using recaptchas, it could might be an very easy task to match this both IPs and further combine it with the rest of my metadata. Logically there is no reason for google to separate "the collection of data" and assumingly they are already using this massive amount of IP-Connectiondata in some way. B. PS: here you have the answer to the question, if this service is cross-product: "''Safe Browsing protections work across Google products and power '''safer browsing experiences''' across the Internet''." - the Head says: "Keeping over four Billion Devices safer. ''*shiver*''

Modified by user3844798

Chosen solution

Hey guys, first, thanks for the answers. Very helpful, never took a deeper look in this about:thing.

And thanks for the link to disable everything! :) therefore my question is nearly answered.

But I would like to question more, if you think to protect users by using tools from google makes users safer? As the wp wrotes, the nsa uses such technologies for attacking people and as far as I know, google underlays the patriot-act.

I.g. since Version 86, there was Total Cookie Protection implemented in Firefox, which means, a cookie could only be read by its origin host, but e.g. to read an "isolated cookie" from safebrowsing.googleapis-com would allow to read from weirdscript.googleapis-com, too. Google tracks every single IP from users of websites which are containing their scripts, like from googleapis-com, and uses them to "improve the user expierience", I don't have to use google services necessarily actively, for possibly could be identified while surfing. Nearly every website is implementing google scripts. I can't get it.

And how the ideas of open source and free software can be combined with the ideas of closed source and monetary agendas, when it comes to such a huge collaboration between mozilla and google?

funfact: googles safebrowse is meant to avoid social tracking, would be interesting how they treat their own social tracking? Feels w.e.i.r.d.

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All Replies (4)

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Very interesting.... I see it in about:networking.

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See also about:url-classifier

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B33zle said

- for what specific reason firefox is making the calls? - which data will be transmitted? - how can I block this "feature" entirely in Firefox?

Files are requested using an isolated cookie, not your regular Google cookie. For why and how:

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Chosen Solution

Hey guys, first, thanks for the answers. Very helpful, never took a deeper look in this about:thing.

And thanks for the link to disable everything! :) therefore my question is nearly answered.

But I would like to question more, if you think to protect users by using tools from google makes users safer? As the wp wrotes, the nsa uses such technologies for attacking people and as far as I know, google underlays the patriot-act.

I.g. since Version 86, there was Total Cookie Protection implemented in Firefox, which means, a cookie could only be read by its origin host, but e.g. to read an "isolated cookie" from safebrowsing.googleapis-com would allow to read from weirdscript.googleapis-com, too. Google tracks every single IP from users of websites which are containing their scripts, like from googleapis-com, and uses them to "improve the user expierience", I don't have to use google services necessarily actively, for possibly could be identified while surfing. Nearly every website is implementing google scripts. I can't get it.

And how the ideas of open source and free software can be combined with the ideas of closed source and monetary agendas, when it comes to such a huge collaboration between mozilla and google?

funfact: googles safebrowse is meant to avoid social tracking, would be interesting how they treat their own social tracking? Feels w.e.i.r.d.

Modified by user3844798