addons-frontend VS activity-stream

They've admitted to it in their github. It even happens when you've changed the default search engine, and set the new tab to about:blank.

It may be true that browsing about:addons (as described in the cited source) pings Google analytics (untested by me), but the source bug report also links to this description of legal contracts between Mozilla and Google that clearly show that Google is prevented from mining or sharing this data. Google may stil have access to the data (couldn't find a reference), but I'm sure UBO has a thing or two to say about that.

Firefox has google analytics built in to spy on users.

As for "why", the current blocklist is able to scale a lot more than the previous versions. Combined with the fact that this page wasn't super useful per se, we decided to not recreate such a page. See also: https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/9216

This looks like a bug. I filed an issue for that and submitted a patch.

If you're referring to Firefox using Google Analytics for the Firefox Add-ons frontend, as of July 2017, Firefox has disabled Google Analytics for any browser that has Do Not Track enabled.

https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue...

This change was made in response to pressure from HN readers, so thanks to everyone for that.

How does something being open source inherently make it more ethical? Is an OSS that spys on all of your information more ethical than a proprietary software that doesn't? It's not like it's an impossibility for OSS to be malicious!

Because Firefox is also horrible, THEY USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS

I made an issue for this on GitHub. Give it a thumbs up if you're interested! https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/10087

Stock Firefox has trackers built into every last part of it. For example, have you ever click on one of the shortcuts on the default new tab? The details of that click is sent off to Mozilla's servers.

Also, even things as simple as interacting with your new tab is collected and sent to Mozilla's servers.

Being FOSS doesn't make it trust worthy. For example, the firefox home tab is entirely open source, but it will report tons of metrics, which are all opt-out, not opt-in.

You also say that FF uses this data for "features that do not serve the user in any meaningful way." I argue this isn't true - all data sent back is used for your security to update your blocklists, for your convenience to pre-load websites, or for Mozilla to know how to continue developing the browser (which is the most straight-forward to disable). They (say that they) don't use any of the data for monetary gain: ** Mozilla never shares data with any third party.** (this is also the source you linked in the OP).

Performing a search, Clicking a top site item, Deleting an item from history, Blocking a site Bookmarking a link, Removing a bookmark from a link, Opening a link in a new window, Opening a link in a new private window, Opening the new tab preferences pane, Closing the new tab preferences pane, Acknowledging a section disclaimer, Adding or editing a new TopSite, Requesting a custom screenshot preview, Session end, Impression stats, Click/block/save_to_pocket ping, Addon initialization failure, Domain affinity calculation.