Slashdot: Firefox 85 Isolated Supercookies, But Dropped Progressive Web App Support

Firefox 85 Isolated Supercookies, But Dropped Progressive Web App Support
Published on January 31, 2021 at 06:04PM
Tech blogger Paul Thurrott writes: Firefox 85 now protects users against supercookies, which Mozilla says is "a type of tracker that can stay hidden in your browser and track you online, even after you clear cookies. By isolating supercookies, Firefox prevents them from tracking your web browsing from one site to the next." It also includes small improvements to bookmarks and password management. Unfortunately, Mozilla has separately — and much more quietly — stopped work on Site Specific Browser (SSB) functionality... This feature allowed users to use Firefox to create apps on the local PC from Progressive Web Apps and other web apps, similar to the functionality provided in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and other Chromium-based web browsers. "The SSB feature has only ever been available through a hidden [preference] and has multiple known bugs," Mozilla's Dave Townsend explains in a Bugzilla issue tracker. "Additionally, user research found little to no perceived user benefit to the feature and so there is no intent to continue development on it at this time. As the feature is costing us time in terms of bug triage and keeping it around is sending the wrong signal that this is a supported feature, we are going to remove the feature from Firefox." Thurrott's conclusion? "Mozilla is walking away from a key tenet of modern web apps and, in doing so, they are making themselves irrelevant."

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Slashdot: US Army Soldier Pleads Guilty To AT&T and Verizon Hacks

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Slashdot: AT&T Now Lets Customers Lock Down Account To Prevent SIM Swapping Attacks

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Slashdot: Protecting 'Funko' Brand, AI-Powered 'BrandShield' Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications

Protecting 'Funko' Brand, AI-Powered 'BrandShield' Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications Published on December 16, 2024 at 01:04AM Launched in 2013, itch.io lets users host and sell indie video games online — now offering more than 200,000 — as well as other digital content like music and comics. But then someone uploaded a page based on a major videogame title, according to Game Rant. And somehow this provoked a series of overreactions and missteps that eventually knocked all of itch.io offline for several hours... The page was about the first release from game developer 10:10 — their game Funko Fusion, which features characters in the style of Funko's long-running pop-culture bobbleheads. As a major brand, Funko monitors the web with a "brand protection" partner (named BrandShield). Interestingly, BrandShield's SaaS product "leverages AI-driven online brand protection," according to their site, to "detect...

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