Comment by jchw
9 years ago
Firefox Studies aren't new, and aren't opt-out by default. They're opt-in per study, in fact. The code to run them comes with Firefox, that's it. All this HN link is is someone asking what the add-on is, not proclaiming it did anything.
about:studies->Preferences shows "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" is enabled on my copy of Firefox 57.0.2(OSX). I don't remember opting in at install time, was it hidden behind some innocuous-sounding checkbox?
In my Firefox 52.5.1 under a current CentOS 7, there is no about:studies. Either "studies" has been newly removed (Firefox updated yesterday, I think?) or about:studies is new or Firefox Studies has been included by default after the 52 series. Perhaps its just me, but I still think of post-52 Firefox as "new".
It's nonetheless not obvious to me why you were downvoted; I don't know if someone else was annoyed at your definition of "new" or whether there were other dubious claims in your comment. Perhaps privacy advocates are just too exhausted and cranky to explain themselves again.
Just as another data point, I'm on 56.0, and while the option is there, it is default not enabled. So, it looks like something changed in the move to Quantum.