Thursday, March 29, 2018

Firefox’s Facebook Container

Nick Nguyen:

Facebook Container isolates your Facebook identity from the rest of your web activity. When you install it, you will continue to be able to use Facebook normally. Facebook can continue to deliver their service to you and send you advertising. The difference is that it will be much harder for Facebook to use your activity collected off Facebook to send you ads and other targeted messages.

This Add-On offers a solution that doesn’t tell users to simply stop using a service that they get value from. Instead, it gives users tools that help them protect themselves from the unexpected side effects of their usage.

Mozilla:

Because you will be logged into Facebook only in the Container, embedded Facebook comments and Like buttons in tabs outside the Facebook Container will not work. This prevents Facebook from associating information about your activity on websites outside of Facebook to your Facebook identity.

In addition, websites that allow you to create an account or log in using your Facebook credentials will generally not work properly. Because this extension is designed to separate Facebook use from use of other websites, this behavior is expected.

I’ve love to see this sort of thing for more sites and in more browsers.

Previously: Cambridge Analytica Harvested 50 Million Facebook Profiles.

Update (2018-03-30): Brendan Eich:

With @Brave you do not need an “extension that isolates your Facebook identity from the rest of your web activity” -- we block all trackers by default, including FB’s. The real consistency+courage test would be to do the same to Google’s trackers.

2 Comments RSS · Twitter

Sadly, Brave is super janky, at least on Macs. No minute goes by where there isn't some weirdness in the UI - like the wrong tab content quickly flashing up when switching tabs, misaligned icons, menu buttons that, when clicked, quickly close and then immediately reopen a menu, and so on. I like some of Brave's features, but for me, there's just too much jank.

> I’ve love to see this sort of thing for more sites and in more browsers.

That sounds like SSBs running within the same browser. I use a Fluid-generated SSB for the little amount of Facebook stuff I need to do, and I'd love to have something with better support and consistency with Safari. UI-wise, it may be tricky, though. A separate app is a good way to separate the "containers".

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