These make me think that the analytics may be part of the Android version or
Chrome (where I assume that being tracked is inevitable).
I see no reason why the Android version of Chromium would "need" Google
Analytics more than the desktop versions.
BTW if https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js is unminified it is not
impossible to understand what it does.
It is minified.
Something else which I noticed today: A bug report about Chromium with owner
with email address @intel.com (What has Intel to do with Chromium?)
That does not prove anything.
"You do not have permission to view the requested page.
Reason: User is not allowed to view this issue"
which is quite strange for an "open source" project.
That does not prove anything either.
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/web-browser#comment-125929
Jxself points out how Mozilla restricts freedom 2 through its trademark
policy. That abuse is a (real) problem that is not related in any way to
hypothetical licensing issues in Firefox's code base.
Is that not an issue?
What do you mean? As long as Firefox's code base does not include GPL code
(except for separate binaries), there is no licensing issue.
And does it really matter if all the forks (including Tor browser) inherit
the telemetry code (and who knows what else) and simply disable it through
prefs?
It is a completely separate issue. Actually a "non-issue" if it is disabled.
Otherwise the recommendation creates the impression that something has been
thoroughly tested.
I have never seen the FSF pretending that.
"Does not include proprietary software at all" should be questioned more
deeply because a feature like telemetry is a form of proprietary behavior in
which the proprietor collects data.
For the nth time, the free/proprietary distinction essentially has nothing to
do with what the software does, with its "behavior". Proprietary software is
bad even if it does nothing bad, technically. It is bad because it does not
let the users in control of their computing. The power that the proprietary
software developer has over its users is the fundamental injustice. The fact
that malware and proprietary software often go hand-to-hand is a consequence:
power corrupts.
Most users do not see telemetry as malware and see no reason to remove such a
feature.
So I think FSF should not recommend any distro which includes a fork of
Firefox unless it has been checked that the telemetry code has been
completely removed (and not just disabled through prefs).
The only difference that it makes is that a user who wants to help Mozilla
improve Firefox through telemetry cannot.
