firefox shares uaid identifier with push.services.mozilla.com

[doug....@gmail.com]

On startup Firefox opens a websocket to push.services.mozilla.com and obtains a uaid value as part of the initial exchange. Here's an example message sent by push.services.mozilla.com over the websocket:

{"messageType":"hello","uaid":"332024d750734458bc95724...","status":200,"use_webpush":true,"broadcasts":{}}


The uaid value remains constant across browser restarts, so it is a persistent identifier of the browser instance.

I understand why this might be needed to support push notifications. However, this websocket (and its uaid identifier) are created even on a fresh install of Firefox where no push notifications are registered nor ever have been.

On the face of it that seems less than ideal. Wouldn't it be better if creation of this websocket were delayed until one or more push notifications have been registered. What do other people think about proposing this change to the Firefox folks ?

[Alex]

Seems worth opening a bug on Mozilla Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

[doug....@gmail.com]

Not really a bug per se I think, but no harm in trying bugzilla. Generally I've found it hard to engage in any sort of real communication with the Firefox folks, and I get the sense these forums are largely ignored. Do other people have the same experience or is it just me?

[L. David Baron]

On Friday 2020-02-21 02:21 -0800, doug....@gmail.com wrote:
> Not really a bug per se I think, but no harm in trying bugzilla. Generally I've found it hard to engage in any sort of real communication with the Firefox folks, and I get the sense these forums are largely ignored. Do other people have the same experience or is it just me?

Many of these mailing lists / newsgroups in particular are ignored,
because, frankly, too many of them were created at some point in the
past (perhaps because it was too easy to start new ones), and then a
bunch of the unused ones are mostly forgotten about. A few of them
(like firefox-dev and dev-platform) are still used, but many of the
others are not.

It's likely better to engage on Bugzilla, or ask questions on Matrix
(see http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2020/02/20/synchronous-messaging-were-live/ ).

(I alo think a bunch of your questions should be targeted at Firefox
front end engineers, who might not follow dev-privacy, which might
be more likely to be followed by people interested in privacy
aspects of dealing with web content in the Gecko engine. So if you
did choose a mailing list, it would probably be firefox-dev.)

-David

--
𝄞 L. David Baron https://dbaron.org/ 𝄂
𝄢 Mozilla https://www.mozilla.org/ 𝄂
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
- Robert Frost, Mending Wall (1914)

[doug....@gmail.com]

On Thursday, 20 February 2020 08:12:32 UTC, doug...@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks David. I've had a bash at posting on bugzilla (I've avoided posting to the dev list as it specifically says feature requests, which I think these are, are out of scope and I don't want to spam them).