This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It's disgusting. Users browser history is private, just like their search history. Fuck Google.
Exactly. If Google wants to collect user data and use it for their products, they should be paying users. You can't build and sell cars without paying for the nuts and bolts, yet Google has been taking their materials for free.
Not for free, for a browser. This doesn't make it any less evil.
That's not the deal though. It's not an exchange of data for the use of the product, like you would exchange money for a product or service. The product is offered free of charge, and alongside that they collect whatever they can get away with. There's no consideration, there's no proportionality, it doesn't meet the basic tenets of contract law.
Data companies thrive in this hazy grey zone where regulations haven't been made. However, when you compare what they do to anything else, it's clearly unreasonable. If I invite you into my home, that doesn't mean I give you permission to take the strawberries from my garden. If you invite me into your home, that doesn't mean you get permission to go through my wallet and take photos of everything inside.
It's getting worse, look at Microsoft now. You pay them for the software and they still take your data.
Data needs to be regulated, such that users are fairly compensated and more properly in control of it. Either that, or it must be completely open - Google can collect the data, but their raw database must be freely available to everyone. Lobbying has proven effective for Google et al, however there is some small hope because law makers themselves are also the victims - everyone is. They just need to realise the true value of what's being taken from them.
It seems to me that we need some software that intercepts the data being sent to Google, replaces all proper nouns with "Sundar Pichai," all numbers with a 10 followed by 100 zeroes, and randomizes everything else before sending. The data they receive would look like it was smuggled out of a Being John Malkovich parallel universe.
Or we could just use Firefox. Or Lynx.
"Enhanced Ad Privacy." That's the technology that, unless switched off, allows websites to target the user with adverts tuned to their online activities
That's some Orwellian shit right there.
I’ve never left Firefox. Through their redesigns and restructure of available add-ons, Firefox has always been the better option because they’ve always been focused on user options and user privacy.
"I don’t want my browser keeping track of my browsing history to help serve me ads, and I definitely don’t want my browser sharing any function of my browsing history with every random website I visit.”
Then why were you using Chrome in the first place?? This feels very much like “‘I never thought the leopards would eat my face,’ says the head of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”
Every single product offered by Google is meant as an ad delivery method to increase their balance sheet. I’m honestly shocked by the people who are shocked when Google takes steps that are meant to increase ad delivery when that’s always been Google’s ultimate goal.
This was overwhelming rejected by everyone, including Microsoft, Mozilla, Safari, and others. It's universally disliked, and Google knows this, but they intentionally know they're abusing their monopoly to push anti-consumer bullshit.
2056
Plug DNA access into pc
Google sync my brain chip with my browser page
Start searching new brain plague of 2043
Google show ad pop-up in my eyes, try to close them, but the ads are projected on the optic nerve.
New ideia
scan anti-ad chip that my friend gave me
It works, I'm free
anyway, try to order food
Error the system is not autenticated please install chrome chiplinx 3.8 to continue.
Receive fine of half my salary, new policy under anti-piracy order
That's fine. I'll continue to use Firefox.
It's crazy to think that this level of intrusion is considered fair game. The way these behaviors are normalized is completely dystopian.
It's absolutely insane that this is legal. This type of spying is explicitly forbidden in the constitution of the United States of America, but since it's a private corporation it's suddenly okay? The FBI has been known to purchase information about consumers from private corporations. This is a back door around the 4th amendment. Actually since corporations are essentially governing by proxy, buying laws and legislatures, this is a constitutional violation.
So glad I moved to Firefox, fu Google
Mobile has extensions too. Ublock on Firefox mobile is a god send.
I think I'll just invite Google to come get my dna, set up cameras everywhere, and install a microchip in my brain. Then I can be done with this slow-walk of privacy invasion.
Well that's what to expect from a web browser created by an advertising company.
Chrome is like Facebook, zero respect for privacy. Anything you do with Chrome can and will be used. From day one Chrome has fed all your browsing activity to their index bot. After your browsed a URL, shortly after googlebot crawled that site.
Not my browser history. I use private browsing... and Firefox!
Let me get this straight:
Until now, Google and other advertisers stored cookies on your device and tracked your browsing history on their servers.
Know, everything happens locally and this is somewhat worse then the old way to do it?
How?
No. Now Google straight up monopolizes your browser history instead of trying to guess your interests.
Got this today, I have to use chrome for a couple things every month, and they conveniently turned on all their tracking and ads and bullshit. Had to turn all that crap off again. Not that they'd glean any useful information from my paltry chrome usage, but it still pisses me off.
Firefox
In Chrome, start at the three dots in the upper-right corner and go to Settings > Privacy and Security > Ad privacy. (Or just type chrome://settings/adPrivacy into your address field.) The ad privacy page lets you turn off Chrome's targeted ads.
As per The Verge
Good article, but for those concerned that don’t have time to read the whole this, here’s the important bit:
“you can switch this functionality off and on by visiting chrome://settings/adPrivacy and/or chrome://settings/privacySandbox – cut'n'paste these URLs into your address bar to jump straight to the controls”
Sure, you're forced to decline manually on every single browser you sign into, and the setting doesn't sync across browsers so you're inclined to just hit ok to the pop-up by the 4th or 5th time you see it. I finally moved to Firefox recently and I have zero regrets, it's faster with a nicer UI.
Damn advertisers are finally gonna realize how fucking lonely I am is keeping me from being a better consumer and has me resenting capitalism and they'll work to change my sad life, right? Privatize the profits, socialize the losses, isolate the losers. Got it.
Who knew that using a browser made by an ad agency would result in ads?!
shockedpikachuface.webp
Interesting tidbit: I've been watching "the big bang theory" a lot these past few weeks on my own hosted jellyfin install.
I don't use google search anywhere, I don't type tbbt anywhere. Yet, on my Android phone I have this obligatory Google news thing when I swipe left (HATE that) and all of the sudden that thing got chock full of chatgpt written TBBT articles... I don't really go there (usually end up there by accident swiping left once too many) and I don't read those articles but it really obviously switched to TBBT articles when I switched to watching TBBT.
This really kinda freaks me out and makes me wonder WTF more google is monitoring. I use a Google Chromecast, I guess google monitors that?
Glad I switched to firefox when it became apparent google wants to take away control to shove more ads in our faces.
Firefox is a great browser to switch to, it has a vast variety of customizability in configuration. It is a very flexible browser and it has helped me a lot in the past few years.
As a further suggestion on top of it, do use a custom user.js to harden your browser even more, set up your DNS Resolver to use Quad9 or any other private DNS Server like Scaleway, NextDNS, etc.
I also recommend using Oblivious DNS over HTTPS for added security.
I am on a Freedesktop Linux system hence I refered to the Archlinux Wiki in setting the beforementioned configurations up.
Everyone talks about Firefox. And that's cause Firefox is good and hands down the best. But I've been using Vivaldi which is chromium based for years. Anyone have any opinion on Vivaldi?
