I use MacPorts[1] which is a good alternative to homebrew. It's an older project.
Lately though, I've came across many packages that are available for Homebrew but not for macports.
Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
61–70 of 329 posts
Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. Google Analytics is a network of companies that has agreed to privately collection information about users without their permission or even knowledge. It is malware that should not be included in Homebrew. The only ethical decision we can make as developers is not to use it.
I'm always amused by the way some people try to extend the definition of malware beyond its scope. This isn't malware. It's just anonymous usage tracking. If you don't like it you can turn it off. I hope you don't use a smartphone because the amount of intrinsic "malware" you must be subjected to must be unbearable. "Malware" is an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software, in…
I didn't say that this usage of GA is malware, I said that GA, the network, is a malware. So while Homebrew may (or may not) be protecting their users identities while using a malware service, they are still choosing to use a malware service.
Tracking people's online activity through a large percentage of the internet, without their consent or even knowledge qualifies as malicious to me.
Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#63Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#64Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't — by default, Homebrew lives in /usr/local/bin/, which is already in the default $PATH on OS X.
But then, by which mechanism does Homebrew notify GA that I have opened a terminal tab? There is a curl command executed every time, and I see a connection to GA with Little Snitch. Is there some way to see the caller of a process? htop displays no parent in the tree view.
You probably have something in your .bashrc, or shell equivalent, that is launching brew.
Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where's your reasoning? Homebrew gave theirs. Keep in mind that no personal info is ever sent. Just a random UUID.
My reasoning? Because it's good to respect the privacy and choices of your users. Homebrew never called home to Google in the past, most people would not reasonably expect it to suddenly start doing so without letting them know.
Agreed.
I expect that if it was opt-in most people wouldn't take the active step to do so. And if given a choice on first-run, a large proportion of users would choose to disable the analytics reporting.
Making it opt-out seems deceitful - an attempt to trick users into leaving it enabled.
And the Homebrew developer responses thus far on the GitHub issue (users should be watching the documentation and Twitter feed - they'd have seen the announcement) seem unrealistic and unfair.
This should have been opt-in from day one, not opt-out. Especially if it's changing existing behaviour (having never automatically reported telemetry in the past).
Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
"oconnore" is a perfectly valid unique identifier on HackerNews that doesn't tie to anything about you if you don't have your email address in your profile. This is no different.
The difference is, it's a choice to post on a public website. homebrew is a package management tool, there is no expectation that it will send information about you to Google.
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Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. Google Analytics is a network of companies that has agreed to privately collection information about users without their permission or even knowledge. It is malware that should not be included in Homebrew. The only ethical decision we can make as developers is not to use it.
I'm always amused by the way some people try to extend the definition of malware beyond its scope. This isn't malware. It's just anonymous usage tracking. If you don't like it you can turn it off. I hope you don't use a smartphone because the amount of intrinsic "malware" you must be subjected to must be unbearable. "Malware" is an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software, in…
But surely you can see the similarity here. The tracking software wasn't in Homebrew before, is added without asking you when you update, and is completely useless to you as a user but builds information about you and sends it to a third party.
If it's not malware, it's certainly really similar to it.
Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#69Seems like Homebrew is doing many things right:
- Anonimizing IP address.
- Explaining what data is collected, and why
- A way to optout
Something that could be better:
- Make this optout for new users and opt-in for existing users?
- Notify the user in some manner when the data is sent to GA for the first time?
- Change the uuid every X period of time to make things more privacy friendly.
[Edit: wording]
Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until next month when we might need to set HOMEBREW_NO_PIWIK=1337...
I'd assume "NO_ANALYTICS" would mean "no analytics" not "no google analytics?
I'd assume that software that wasn't sending analytics wouldn't start doing so without at least informing me first, but I'd be wrong. I think the parents point is that we can't trust Homebrew to do the right thing, because they've now chosen not to.