What Is Pingsender.exe Firefox

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What Is Pingsender.exe Firefox Rating: 7,1/10 4507 votes

You clearly miss the point. Keep parroting the same irrelevant line. It doesn't make their actions right no matter how you wish to justify it to yourself.It isn't free if they are harvesting personal information, especially without knowledge or consent. The data is not their right to take. NO matter how many free browser's there are, whether i want to develop one, or whether one chooses to use a different browser. These are irrelevant points.So no, i clearly know what a right is and more importantly, what a right is not.

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And it is NOT their right to harvest data and especially not without consent or notice. I am the author of the pingsender executable and I'd like to shed some light on it since there seems to be quite a few misconceptions. First of all the pingsender doesn't send any data that Firefox wouldn't normally send.

Pingsender.exe is known as Firefox, it also has the following name IEMonitor Application or Nightly and it is developed by Mozilla Foundation, it is also developed by Tonec Inc. We have seen about 100 different instances of pingsender.exe in different location. Firefox users may load about:telemetry in the browser’s address bar to check the data that Mozilla is collecting. Those who don’t want to provide Mozilla with data can turn the data off under about:preferences#privacy. Another option is available. If Pingsender.exe is the problem, you may turn that feature off in the following way. The ping sender is a minimalistic program whose sole purpose is to deliver a. The ping sender relies on libcurl for Linux and Mac build and on WinInet for.

It's just a minimalist tool that can be used to relay telemetry data when Firefox can't do it on its own which boils down to two scenarios: after Firefox crashed or when it's shutting down. Telemetry in Firefox is disabled by default and requires you to explicitly opt-in, it does not contain any privacy-sensitive data and it's mainly made of performance measurements that we use to improve Firefox.

Furthermore it's anonymized and automatically deleted after 6 months. It is also completely transparent: all the data that's been gathered is visible under the about:telemetry page.In the coming releases telemetry will be essentially restricted to nightly/beta versions with only a subset of it available in release builds. This subset which we used to call the Firefox Health Report is enabled by default, but only contains data about crashes (and stability in general) and core performance metrics (such as how long Firefox would take to start).To those suggesting we could sell this data I can only say that it's not only commercially worthless (being non-privacy sensitive and anonymous) but it's also publicly available here and hereAs for standing for the users, that's what we do, which is why we go to these extreme lengths to ensure that our telemetry practices are fully transparent and also entirely optional. On the other hand try asking Google/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/etc.

What they do gather and what they do with it.Firefox does a good job at safeguarding your privacy when browsing - especially with tracking protection enabled - but if you really do care about privacy I suggest using the Tor Browser instead (which BTW is a fork of Firefox we've been actively cooperating with). I am the author of the pingsender executable and I'd like to shed some light on it since there seems to be quite a few misconceptions. First of all the pingsender doesn't send any data that Firefox wouldn't normally send. It's just a minimalist tool that can be used to relay telemetry data when Firefox can't do it on its own which boils down to two scenarios: after Firefox crashed or when it's shutting down.

Telemetry in Firefox is disabled by default and requires you to explicitly opt-in, it does not contain any privacy-sensitive data and it's mainly made of performance measurements that we use to improve Firefox. Furthermore it's anonymized and automatically deleted after 6 months. It is also completely transparent: all the data that's been gathered is visible under the about:telemetry page.In the coming releases telemetry will be essentially restricted to nightly/beta versions with only a subset of it available in release builds. This subset which we used to call the Firefox Health Report is enabled by default, but only contains data about crashes (and stability in general) and core performance metrics (such as how long Firefox would take to start).To those suggesting we could sell this data I can only say that it's not only commercially worthless (being non-privacy sensitive and anonymous) but it's also publicly available here and hereAs for standing for the users, that's what we do, which is why we go to these extreme lengths to ensure that our telemetry practices are fully transparent and also entirely optional. On the other hand try asking Google/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/etc.

What they do gather and what they do with it.Firefox does a good job at safeguarding your privacy when browsing - especially with tracking protection enabled - but if you really do care about privacy I suggest using the Tor Browser instead (which BTW is a fork of Firefox we've been actively cooperating with). Click to expand.You say it's opt-in(funny how so many people seem to have it running.), but then in the next paragraph state that the health report is going to be enabled by default? That's not opt-in, that's opt-out.On top of that is the matter of, can your software be trusted when phoning home to only actually be sending the data presented on the telemetry.mozilla.org site(no), and furthermore glancing at the about:telemetry page(which isn't exactly broadly advertised) in FF56.I see a tracking ID, a list of addons, my default search engine, and a bunch of other info. You say it's opt-in(funny how so many people seem to have it running.), but then in the next paragraph state that the health report is going to be enabled by default? That's not opt-in, that's opt-out.On top of that is the matter of, can your software be trusted when phoning home to only actually be sending the data presented on the telemetry.mozilla.org site(no), and furthermore glancing at the about:telemetry page(which isn't exactly broadly advertised) in FF56.I see a tracking ID, a list of addons, my default search engine, and a bunch of other info. I am the author of the pingsender executable and I'd like to shed some light on it since there seems to be quite a few misconceptions.

What Is Pingsender.exe Firefox

First of all the pingsender doesn't send any data that Firefox wouldn't normally send. It's just a minimalist tool that can be used to relay telemetry data when Firefox can't do it on its own which boils down to two scenarios: after Firefox crashed or when it's shutting down. Telemetry in Firefox is disabled by default and requires you to explicitly opt-in, it does not contain any privacy-sensitive data and it's mainly made of performance measurements that we use to improve Firefox. Furthermore it's anonymized and automatically deleted after 6 months. It is also completely transparent: all the data that's been gathered is visible under the about:telemetry page.In the coming releases telemetry will be essentially restricted to nightly/beta versions with only a subset of it available in release builds. This subset which we used to call the Firefox Health Report is enabled by default, but only contains data about crashes (and stability in general) and core performance metrics (such as how long Firefox would take to start).To those suggesting we could sell this data I can only say that it's not only commercially worthless (being non-privacy sensitive and anonymous) but it's also publicly available here and hereAs for standing for the users, that's what we do, which is why we go to these extreme lengths to ensure that our telemetry practices are fully transparent and also entirely optional. On the other hand try asking Google/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/etc.

What is firefox pingsender.exe

What they do gather and what they do with it.Firefox does a good job at safeguarding your privacy when browsing - especially with tracking protection enabled - but if you really do care about privacy I suggest using the Tor Browser instead (which BTW is a fork of Firefox we've been actively cooperating with). Click to expand.This is extended telemetry which is off by default.

The id you see on the 'General data' page cannot be used for tracking because it's different for every installation and profile. If you have two Firefox installations, even on the same machine and even using the same user as your Firefox account they will have two different telemetry ids. It's there to allow us to delete your telemetry if you had opted in to extended telemetry and you decided to opt out; the id is sent to our servers and all the recorded telemetry tagged with it is removed. Furthermore that id is not included in any other type of data (such as crash reports or Firefox accounts) to prevent anybody from being able to correlate telemetry to users. We really do go to great lengths to ensure that your privacy is respected, it's no joke for us. Click to expand.Nope.

Pingsender.exe Virus

That mentions a study that hasn't even started, not even on Firefox nightly, let alone on release, see the relevant bug:Furthermore the only current motivation for it is to figure out how many sites are still using Flash so that we know when to kill it for good:Check the main bug if you don't believe me:Last but not least, if that becomes a thing (not a given since the study hasn't even started) and it's actually deployed in a release version it cannot be used to tell if a user has visited a specific site because the data is deliberately polluted to prevent that from happening. The only information it provides is statistical, as in '5% of Firefox users visited hardocp.com in the past week'. Click to expand.That doesn't stop telemetry from being sent, if you want to turn off telemetry you can do it from the preferences:That being said extended telemetry used to be opt-in but is now off-by-default in Firefox 56 (i.e. You cannot enable it from the pref unless you go fiddle in about:config). The chances that you have it on are very slim unless you deliberately turned it on before Firefox 56. The only thing that can be easily enabled in Firefox 56 is the FHR (i.e. Stability & performance data only).

There's an easier way to disable the maintenance service:The practical effect of turning it of (or removing it) is that Windows will popup the UAC prompt when updating Firefox since background updates will be disabled.That doesn't stop telemetry from being sent, if you want to turn off telemetry you can do it from the preferences:That being said extended telemetry used to be opt-in but is now off-by-default in Firefox 56 (i.e. You cannot enable it from the pref unless you go fiddle in about:config). The chances that you have it on are very slim unless you deliberately turned it on before Firefox 56. The only thing that can be easily enabled in Firefox 56 is the FHR (i.e. Stability & performance data only). This is extended telemetry which is off by default.

The id you see on the 'General data' page cannot be used for tracking because it's different for every installation and profile. If you have two Firefox installations, even on the same machine and even using the same user as your Firefox account they will have two different telemetry ids. It's there to allow us to delete your telemetry if you had opted in to extended telemetry and you decided to opt out; the id is sent to our servers and all the recorded telemetry tagged with it is removed.

Furthermore that id is not included in any other type of data (such as crash reports or Firefox accounts) to prevent anybody from being able to correlate telemetry to users. We really do go to great lengths to ensure that your privacy is respected, it's no joke for us. Click to expand.In other words, it IS a unique identifier that can be used to track users and you specifically do use it to track users so you can supposedly delete their data if they opt out after the fact that they somehow mysteriously opted in to have all their data sent back.I'm supposed to trust that some third party who won't admit that a unique identifier can be used to do anything other than identify that my data belongs me(which is the whole point), will actually delete my data if I request it? That mentions a study that hasn't even started, not even on Firefox nightly, let alone on release, see the relevant bug:Furthermore the only current motivation for it is to figure out how many sites are still using Flash so that we know when to kill it for good:Check the main bug if you don't believe me:Last but not least, if that becomes a thing (not a given since the study hasn't even started) and it's actually deployed in a release version it cannot be used to tell if a user has visited a specific site because the data is deliberately polluted to prevent that from happening.

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The only information it provides is statistical, as in '5% of Firefox users visited hardocp.com in the past week'. Click to expand.But you are wrong. Going to the page that you gave use above on how to turn stuff on by default on an install that nobody has ever touched to turn on anything extra firefox is sending data back and making you part of studies.What is on that page is the default setting. Technical and interactive data along with any thing that firefox wants to install and run behind the scene for data collection are on. Thus they are opt-out. The only opt-in option that uses have is do you want to send a crash report. Everything else is being done without the user's content.

Now I will give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe you are just doing a terrible job trying to use words to explain what you are trying to. However from where we all stand, you are pissing on us and trying to tell us that it is raining out and then getting upset that we are watching you piss on us and calling you out on it. It could also be raining but that doesn't change that fact that you are still pissing on us. We are referring the fact that there is a check box there by default, to which you are trying to tell us isn't there and that we don't see.The collection of data of any type period IS on by default.

If this is all data or only half if it is irrelevant to the discussion. Our point is that there is data being collected that we did not ask to be turned on. No matter what the reason it is still being collected. Don't care if it helps determine that 5% of users go to a site or that people are still using flash sites.

If you don't ask people if they want to give you that information you are still forcing them into it without their knowledge and having them have to go turn the feature off. At some point, there will be a consumer push (or a lawmaker push) which will force software companies to SHOW when data is being transmitter and to whom it is being sent.

A pop up window with a message, e.g., 'Google.exe wants to send your browsing history to google.com: can it? After users see floods of these messages, then that consumer exploitation will be slowed down.Really, all these data-mining routines need to be shown.every time they are being used.Edited to add: This is, to me, similar to the abuse of telephone solicitations and what was done when that industry failed to self-regulate. Click to expand.To track a user you need to correlate that id with something that identifies that user, such as an IP address, e-mail or some other privacy-sensitive data.

Nothing of that sort is gathered so the only one who can track anybody is you, because you're the only one who knows which telemetry ID your Firefox installation is using. Additionally if you have multiple Firefox installations, or multiple profiles, they will all have different IDs which makes it impossible to correlate the data even between them. Furthermore that ID is not stored anywhere else and tracking IDs are used to track a user across different web sites, services, etc. If an ID is present only within one dataset it's not a tracking ID by definition.

Click to expand.' The whole point' of a tracking ID is not to identify which data belongs to you, it's to identify you as you move through separate services and datasets. That's why it's called 'tracking', it's used to track you. If you consider 'identifying which data belongs to me' as the definition of a tracking ID then by your definition your e-mail address is a tracking ID because it's used to identify which e-mails belong to you on a mail server. Likewise is your handle on this forum because it's used to identify which posts you made. But you are wrong. Going to the page that you gave use above on how to turn stuff on by default on an install that nobody has ever touched to turn on anything extra firefox is sending data back and making you part of studies.What is on that page is the default setting.

What Is Pingsender Exe

Technical and interactive data along with any thing that firefox wants to install and run behind the scene for data collection are on. Thus they are opt-out. The only opt-in option that uses have is do you want to send a crash report. Everything else is being done without the user's content. Click to expand.It's not done without the user consent, the FHR is not enabled until you click on the 'Choose What I Share' button as I've shown above that brings you directly to this page. Every fresh Firefox installation goes through that and it's been enabled since the introduction of telemetry. Shield studies are installed automatically but they never start without the user consent.

If a user is chosen for one he is presented with a page like this one:It gives detailed instructions on what is happening and how to opt out, and it's very hard to miss since it's the first window that gets shown and the study does not start until you click 'Start Now' and restart the browser so that you get the chance to opt out before anything happens. Now I will give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe you are just doing a terrible job trying to use words to explain what you are trying to. However from where we all stand, you are pissing on us and trying to tell us that it is raining out and then getting upset that we are watching you piss on us and calling you out on it. It could also be raining but that doesn't change that fact that you are still pissing on us.

We are referring the fact that there is a check box there by default, to which you are trying to tell us isn't there and that we don't see.The collection of data of any type period IS on by default. If this is all data or only half if it is irrelevant to the discussion. Our point is that there is data being collected that we did not ask to be turned on. It's not done without the user consent, the FHR is not enabled until you click on the 'Choose What I Share' button as I've shown above that brings you directly to this page.

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Every fresh Firefox installation goes through that and it's been enabled since the introduction of telemetry. Shield studies are installed automatically but they never start without the user consent.

If a user is chosen for one he is presented with a page like this one:It gives detailed instructions on what is happening and how to opt out, and it's very hard to miss since it's the first window that gets shown and the study does not start until you click 'Start Now' and restart the browser so that you get the chance to opt out before anything happens.That premise is false, in every fresh Firefox installation the data choice is shown upon launch no data is gathered before you get to see it and restart your browser. That being said there are people here that mistakenly suggested deleting pingsender to stop telemetry and I explicitly pointed out that doesn't stop telemetry and explained how to actually turn it off.

Do you call that pissing on your head?Except that it was not done without the user knowledge, it's always explicitly shown. Click to expand.Never once seen that screen. Honestly I rarely use Firefox so I am pretty sure I jumped up 12 releases when I opened it to see what everyone here was talking about. So this doesn't effect me since I might open Firefox 3 times a year. And actually watching it kill the first computer I opened it on by using up 100% of the CPU and memory to run a bunch of crap in the background trying to talk to Google is part of the reason why I avoid the program. So I have installed it about 3 or 4 years ago on most machines in the event that I need it. Somewhere through the upgrades over the years those got checked without me clicking on the choose what to share or having been given a screen like that telling me to go to about:addons.

The fact that multiple people here are saying that we have had installs for years and see this checked and you are telling us that we are full of shit and turned that on just to tell you that it is on by default, yes I will call that you pissing on our heads. Maybe new clean fresh installs don't have that on but I can't confirm that as I just uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it and the setting is still checked. So uninstalling the program doesn't appear to actually remove all the files to give me a true clean install and I don't feel like going through everything by hand to full remove the program to prove or disprove anything. Never once seen that screen.

Honestly I rarely use Firefox so I am pretty sure I jumped up 12 releases when I opened it to see what everyone here was talking about. So this doesn't effect me since I might open Firefox 3 times a year. And actually watching it kill the first computer I opened it on by using up 100% of the CPU and memory to run a bunch of crap in the background trying to talk to Google is part of the reason why I avoid the program. So I have installed it about 3 or 4 years ago on most machines in the event that I need it. Somewhere through the upgrades over the years those got checked without me clicking on the choose what to share or having been given a screen like that telling me to go to about:addons. The fact that multiple people here are saying that we have had installs for years and see this checked and you are telling us that we are full of shit and turned that on just to tell you that it is on by default, yes I will call that you pissing on our heads.

Maybe new clean fresh installs don't have that on but I can't confirm that as I just uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it and the setting is still checked. So uninstalling the program doesn't appear to actually remove all the files to give me a true clean install and I don't feel like going through everything by hand to full remove the program to prove or disprove anything. To track a user you need to correlate that id with something that identifies that user, such as an IP address, e-mail or some other privacy-sensitive data. Nothing of that sort is gathered so the only one who can track anybody is you, because you're the only one who knows which telemetry ID your Firefox installation is using. Additionally if you have multiple Firefox installations, or multiple profiles, they will all have different IDs which makes it impossible to correlate the data even between them. Furthermore that ID is not stored anywhere else and tracking IDs are used to track a user across different web sites, services, etc. If an ID is present only within one dataset it's not a tracking ID by definition.'

The whole point' of a tracking ID is not to identify which data belongs to you, it's to identify you as you move through separate services and datasets. That's why it's called 'tracking', it's used to track you. If you consider 'identifying which data belongs to me' as the definition of a tracking ID then by your definition your e-mail address is a tracking ID because it's used to identify which e-mails belong to you on a mail server. Likewise is your handle on this forum because it's used to identify which posts you made. Click to expand.I think you misread something there. I INSTALLED this copy of firefox 3 or 4 years ago.

I have had issues with Firefox and its performance for 14 years. (or however long it has been around). Back in the days of v2 and 3 it suffered from horrible memory leaks where if you had it open for a little while it would just eat up all your memory resulting in a restart every few hours.

This was normal behavior for many people. Over time as computers got faster and faster and people started to have more and more memory the slow leak meant less and less as suddenly that 200Mbs the program was trying to use after 3 hours wasn't more RAM than you had in your system so you didn't notice it was much. Some people have had no issues, others have noticed all types of issues with performance. Some people just dealt with them and knew don't leave Firefox open overnight when you leave work with 20 tabs open otherwise your computer will be out of resources come morning. And just dealt with the issues.

Due to these issues I have only ever used Firefox on my machine when I have a site that I need to access that won't open in anything else correctly, which in this day and age is less and less of an issue. If anything I have more trouble with stuff running in Firefox than I have that requires it. As I said, when this thread was posted I selected one computer that I had access to that had firefox installed on it and started it up to see what everyone was talking about. Suddenly that computer got really really slow. So I launched task manager to see what was going on and seen about 10 processes using up all the CPU referencing a long file name with googl as part of it running from the firefox folder. As soon as I closed out of firefox once I looked up what Privacy setting I has set suddenly the computer went back to normal behavior.That said, that is just why I don't choice to use it as my day to day browser of choice and has no barring on if a setting is enabled or not. I might drive a Chevy as my daily car but if I get behind the wheel of a Ford one day and the door falls off when I go to open it, the door still fell off.

Just the same, if I don't use a browser day in and day out, a setting being checked when I do use it is still a setting checked.I am not trying to argue for the sake of arguing. I am however trying to drive a point home for no other reason that the user base is being called a bunch of liars.

Had the response to this thread by a part of the team not been, fuck all of you lying pieces of shit that isn't how any of that works and stop spreading lies, I wouldn't have posted anything more than my joke comments about how to understand PR BS. But as soon as it turned into a call out of what people are seeing I decided to keep pushing. Because regardless if it is the intended behavior or unintended behavior that is the behavior that people are seeing.

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We see stuff checked without going through screens that supposedly are the only way to get these things checked. I am not trying to argue for the sake of arguing.

I am however trying to drive a point home for no other reason that the user base is being called a bunch of liars. Had the response to this thread by a part of the team not been, fuck all of you lying pieces of shit that isn't how any of that works and stop spreading lies, I wouldn't have posted anything more than my joke comments about how to understand PR BS. But as soon as it turned into a call out of what people are seeing I decided to keep pushing. Because regardless if it is the intended behavior or unintended behavior that is the behavior that people are seeing. We see stuff checked without going through screens that supposedly are the only way to get these things checked. Click to expand.It's actually kind of funny if you think about it.

We have no reason to believe this Gabriele Svelto is really who they claim to be, what their relationship with the dev team is, or anything of the sort. What this person has done, is call out people as liars as if we have something to gain from complaining about FF's data collection when we don't use the thing.For all we know, this person could have nothing to do with FF, and could very well only be posting for the sake of riling up negative posts(which they've kind of succeeded at) about FF.

Click to expand.So on an installation of a previous version, where I would have just hit next next next etc. During the installer, there may have been a box checked that I didn't notice, for telemetry?If the box is pre-checked, that's not opt-in.For shits and giggles I just downloadedWhy download an older version? To prove my point that firefox was collecting telemetry as opt-out.Oh look at that,is IS collecting data by default. Well, let's update to the latest firefox and see if it's still opt-out.So not only was firefox previously using an opt-out scheme for data collection, when I updated from 50 to 56 it actually by default included MORE garbage for this installation and running of 'studies' by default that I the user need to opt-out from without being told of this whatsoever.If they were concerned about doing the right thing, they'd have turned that crap off on update and then asked users to opt-in. I have no reason to sit here and lie about firefox, if Google, MS, or some other developer were paying me that'd be awesome but they aren't.Anyone else can can whatever version of firefox they want from mozilla's public FTP just like I did, and check the same damned thing on their own system. Gabriele Svelto is a liar and got caught. Click to expand.See, that's exactly what your picture above shows.

Telemetry button not checked, FHR checked so I'd like you to tell me what I lied about. I'm really not sure what you're arguing against anymore; I've tried to be helpful because there were people on the thread that wanted to turn off telemetry but were erroneously deleting pingsender instead and I pointed them out to the proper way to turn off telemetry. Also, I've never called anybody a liar, as you claim, and added links to prove every one of my claims. Telemetry is defined as any data collected from the user's usage of the product and transmitted back to the manufacturer of the product, period. Firefox by default has been collecting telemetry and sending it for years now and most folks just accept it - the Health report qualifies as telemetry, for the record - and this is all well known up to this point by most of us that have been paying attention. If you start up any piece of software and it connects to the company that manufactured it for any reason, guess what, they're collecting telemetry. Let's go back to my first post:See, that's exactly what your picture above shows.

Telemetry button not checked, FHR checked so I'd like you to tell me what I lied about. I'm really not sure what you're arguing against anymore; I've tried to be helpful because there were people on the thread that wanted to turn off telemetry but were erroneously deleting pingsender instead and I pointed them out to the proper way to turn off telemetry.

Also, I've never called anybody a liar, as you claim, and added links to prove every one of my claims. Click to expand.Not using words directly is not different than not using them. When myself and others post pictures showing that the boxes for 'Allow Firefox to automatically send technical and interactive data to Mozilla' and 'Allow Firefox to install and run studies' are checked without us checking them you keep coming back and telling us that no they aren't. By repeatedly telling us that we are not seeing what we are seeing that is calling us liars. That the only way any of those 3 boxes are checked is if we checked them ourselves as under no circumstance would any of those boxes be checked and that if we did check them that there is still a super secret hidden 4th check box to add in even more data. At the same time you keep going in circles about what is and isn't actually supposed to be checked. You say looking at that picture that telemetry isn't checked and that whatever FHR is checked.

As other pointed out above telemetry is any data being sent. So sending a report of how long the software takes to load and any other information is telemetry. On top of that the only box NOT checked is the one in regards to crashes which is what you make FHR sound like it is for.

My Firefox install on my desktop is repeatedly trying to connect to '. That site appears like it's probably legit (my only question is that it appears to be hosted on AWS, but I suppose it's possible Mozilla uses them). The problem is that those IP addresses are blacklisted through our corporate AV/AM vendor. The end result is that I'm generating security alerts all day long.While I could escalate this with the vendor, I'd like to just kill the telemetry in Firefox anyways for privacy reasons. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a telemetry option in the settings screens and Google is failing me too.