Andromxda

My laptop, that I own and runs Linux that I installed, has chrome in it. I’m order to log into Gmail for work, it installs an extension that is capable of telling Gmail if my disk is encrypted. I know because you get an error message until my disk was actually encrypted. It was a big surprise to me, and I wonder if this is done by the same piece of code.

That's strange, I've never heard of that before

Btw would there be a way to do virtualization through perhaps docker or flat pack or chroot that can isolate chrome in a sandbox and prevent it from a) reading and writing files anywhere on any disk and b) get other data such as CPU, disk encryption etc?

There are some isolation mechanisms on Linux like Firejail or Bubblewrap. The latter is used by Flatpak to sandbox applications. These are rather weak though, and Flatpak weakens the security of bwrap further. By default, Flatpak application permissions are also set in a Manifest file, which is created by the maintainer of the package. To get more control over your Flatpak sandbox, you need to use an application like Flatseal.

Docker (or containers in general) aren't meant for isolation/sandboxing, but this approach would also work. I would create a container using Distrobox or toolbx, and install Chrome inside the container.

This will not prevent Chrome from getting your CPU information though. To protect against that, you would have to use a virtual machine (and spoof the your CPU model if you want to hide that from Chrome).

That's the way to go

I already ditched Windows for Linux a month ago because of spyware.

Great!

Everything Google-related is next.

Even better.

My phone is going to be the hardest thing to de-infest.

If you plan on getting a new phone soon, I recommend a Google Pixel, on which you can install GrapheneOS. Yes, ironically Google devices are the best for installing alternative operating systems and removing all the Google BS. GrapheneOS is completely free and open source, and based on the Android Open Source Project. It incorporates many privacy and security enhancements, and gives you total freedom and control over your device. In my opinion, it's the best option for degoogling a phone.

Firefox 🔛 🔝

Chromium is also affected.

The previous answer is misleading and partially just wrong. Firefox Sync works just fine in LibreWolf, you just need to enable it in the settings. I currently sync my LibreWolf browser on my Linux desktop to Firefox on iOS and Mull on Android, no issues whatsoever. The only Mozilla services that LibreWolf intentionally removes are their telemetry and Pocket.

It is the same browser. LibreWolf doesn't change much of the Firefox code, mostly just the configuration. They enable various privacy/security settings by default and remove Mozilla telemetry. You can go to the LibreWolf settings and enable Firefox Sync, and it will work just fine with your Mozilla account and other Firefox browsers.

For Android, I like to use Mull, it's a hardened build of Firefox, similar to LibreWolf.

#SwitchToFirefox

No, as far as I know this has nothing to do with attestation/verification for enterprise users.

Did you use normal chromium or Ungoogled Chromium? I tried it on the Arc Browser (which is based on Chromium), and it worked, but it didn't work on Ungoogled Chromium.

You can check this yourself. Just paste this into the developer console:

chrome.runtime.sendMessage(
  "nkeimhogjdpnpccoofpliimaahmaaome",
  { method: "cpu.getInfo" },
  (response) => {
    console.log(JSON.stringify(response, null, 2));
  },
);

If you get a return like this, it means that the site has special access to these private, undocumented APIs

{
  "value": {
    "archName": "arm64",
    "features": [],
    "modelName": "Apple M2 Max",
    "numOfProcessors": 12,
    "processors": [
      {
        "usage": {
          "idle": 26890137,
          "kernel": 5271531,
          "total": 42525857,
          "user": 10364189
        }
      }, ...

Cobalt is an awesome downloader, if the main instance (cobalt.tools) ever goes down or gets blocked by YouTube, there are countless other instances: https://instances.hyper.lol/instances/

It's really a great project, make sure to promote it, give it a star on GitHub, maybe donate a few bucks (crypto addresses can be found when clicking on the donate button in the app)