Re: [Help-librejs] Offering option to block vs warn?

[cgw993]

Loic,
I may be able to help someday if I learn those programming languages. I
think there are probably alot of free software supporters that can't
program, yet they still want to understand how something works or what the
settings do so that they can have a general idea as to what the software
does.  I am still in the process of switching over from Windows based
programs to GNU Linux, I imagine that process could take a year or more.   I
will take a look at Ice Cat and I will check your webpage to see if there
are any upcoming developments for LibreJS. Good work.

-----Original Message-----
From: Loic J. Duros [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 6:08 PM
To: address@hidden
Cc: address@hidden
Subject: Re: [Help-librejs] Offering option to block vs warn?

<address@hidden> writes:

> Thanks for letting me know, and for creating LibreJS. I really like 
> the concept and the program you did.

Thanks so much for your heartwarming feedback! It is very nice and
motivating to read positive words about LibreJS. There is still a lot to do,
and if you'd like to help develop LibreJS, you sound like a perfect fit in
terms of motivation. Of course knowing both JavaScript and the inner
workings of Firefox are a requirement. But if you are willing to learn these
things then there's nothing that could prevent you from mastering both the
language for building extensions and the API to do so.

>
> I don't think it would cause any harm to clarify on the settings page 
> what each setting means
>
> -On = Automatic updates from   http://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ (?)
> -Off = No automatic updates
> -Default = Automatic updates from the Mozilla editors.   
>

These are the default from Firefox (and the other browsers.) We could modify
them for IceCat definitely, but I don't think we can change this at all for
all the mozilla-browsers we don't control. So I'm not sure what to do about
that.

> Labeling how each choice works causes users to think about the route 
> the update takes and ask questions about how these settings might 
> differ, which I think is a good thing.  You program seems to be the 
> most effective I have found to reduce browser fingerprinting as reported
by panopticlick.org,
> while leaving the browser mostly functional.   The only thing better would
> be if it automatically sent the complaint email for you automatically, 
> but I imagine that is not likely even practically possible.  Firefox 
> seems to now be putting out more updates then ever before, which would 
> seem to make the browser fingerprinting situation even worse, if I 
> understand the concept correctly, so I keep those updates off.  There 
> are so many versions of each browser out now, along with ever other 
> setting of everything else, that it seems pretty much certain that
everyone's browser 100% unique nowadays.

As you pointed out, Fingerprinting is an issue that we are trying to address
with IceCat. Quite unfortunately, any modification you make to the browser
have an impact on fingerprinting because it makes you look out of the
ordinary (and thus more unique.)


Loic