Post #2411178

2026-05-11 00:06 UTC

There have been good writeups on why Apple doesn’t provide gyro data — it can be used to physically track people. This is mostly an issue in apps that embed Safari, such as a store loyalty app that can track your movement while you’re in their store — or in a competitor’s store. Since Firefox isn’t embedded in apps, it’s not an issue there.

Replies (2)

@filcuk@lemmy.zip 2026-05-11 05:03

Please elaborate on why that’s not an issue with Firefox? A site getting my physical position is creepy to say the least, I don’t want to have entire behaviour profiles built for me based on such data, not to mention that any unnecessary exposed data helps fingerprint us across the internet. Am I missing something?

Open ##2411177
@JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net 2026-05-11 07:01

Can you provide one or elaborate on it? Embedded developers have tried all manner or wizardry to simply track speed, not even position based just on an accelerometer/gyro, but the sample rate error drift is so large that putting a GPS module in there is 100x more accurate for deriving speed. I would be interested to see how a browser, which almost certainly doesn’t get the full serialized data, is able to track just based on that which the wearables industry have been trying for decades with bad results.

Open ##2411824