this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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Privacy
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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.
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?
OP is referring to specifically tracking in apps. Yes Firefox gives gyro data, but apps have no access to it, only web sites do. Safari can be embedded in apps and thus they can get gyro data. Websites have less system permissions than apps (run in background etc) and you'd be using a store app for example while shopping, they'd be able to track that data more than a web site would.
Its crazy, the accurately deduced I was sitting browsing because of the gyro. Combine with location/time and all their data they likely know all of us individually at this point?
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.