Brew commands send data to Google Analytics • Hacker News Board

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#271

Post by andrewvijay » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #109

andrewvijay wrote: post #88

Its looking a bit hyprocitical here to be honest. If you use websites in the web today, you are sending data for sure unless you use a adblocker that blocks analytics as well. Brew collecting data this way is unethical but complaining about these things these days is not going to do any change to be honest. I would be glad if the people who complain about this dont use any websites that collect data without giving an…

Sure, let's not complain. Because being a pushover is the secret to success in life. All the benefits and rights we have today were gained because our ancestors didn't fight for them and shrug their shoulders.

No dont take it the wrong way. But what are you fighting against? The entire web? You can but you have to understand that the scale is so massive that we can't do anything unless its becomes a massive movement throughout the world. But really? A movement for privacy? No chance. Its simply a first world problem. In my country we have around 22,000 people dying everyday in hunger. Privacy wont even be heard here. So its near impossible.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#272

Post by andrewvijay » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

svens_ wrote: post #112

andrewvijay wrote: post #88

Its looking a bit hyprocitical here to be honest. If you use websites in the web today, you are sending data for sure unless you use a adblocker that blocks analytics as well. Brew collecting data this way is unethical but complaining about these things these days is not going to do any change to be honest. I would be glad if the people who complain about this dont use any websites that collect data without giving an…

> unless you use a adblocker that blocks analytics as well Who on Hacker News doesn't? At least on the desktop (where you use brew) this is a matter of a few clicks and an essential security measure.

I don't think we can assume that. My colleague sitting right next to me uses HN often and brew as well. He doesn't have an adblocker and watches youtube with ads. FFS!!

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#273

Post by draw_down » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

You know... not everyone is spying on you all the time. People do use data like this for non-nefarious purposes.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#274

Post by draw_down » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

pvinis wrote: post #19

Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. Let's stop complaining about stuff that someone does and tell you they do it. There are many more that do the same th…

Right, as if the feds are coming to get me because they know I installed ImageMagick. Oh no.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#275

Post by andromeduck » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #91

andrewguenther wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics.... (This link is provided in the initial notification)

Notification or prompt? There is no way that I would want to have this data and this amount of data, recorded and transferred to google. Especially not about software installation on my computers or computers of friends or clients.

Then just turn it off

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#276

Post by ovao » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #241

drwl wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your lack of trust for Homebrew make it worse?

You can't use it if you don't trust it.

Again, though, the lack of user's truth or faith in a piece of software does not make the software itself worse.

We can argue the merits of distrust and of the user's choice to distrust, but the software itself is the same.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#277

Post by KKKKkkkk1 » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

A bit offtopic: I'm a recent convert to Brew and I was a bit surprised that it is missing two features that I am used to seeing in a package manager. The first is that there is no way to upgrade casks, and the other one is that there's no way to autoremove dependencies when a package is uninstalled. Since Brew is at this point a mature project, I am guessing these features are not in the plans, which is too bad.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#278

Post by andromeduck » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

tomlong wrote: post #43

I distinctly remember being asked about this ages ago, and finding it easy to disable, or is this something else? Is it still using google analytics when you've asked it not to?

No

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#279

Post by hartator » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #274

pvinis wrote: post #19

Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. Let's stop complaining about stuff that someone does and tell you they do it. There are many more that do the same th…

Right, as if the feds are coming to get me because they know I installed ImageMagick. Oh no.

I have a friend that uses IM to generate memes. So, yeah IM can be used by dissidents. :)

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#280

Post by EvilTerran » Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 3:29 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #259

EvilTerran wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the intent was good... but yeah, the implementation is a grand demonstration of what you get when legislators don't understand the technology they're regulating. It would be far better if they'd required browsers, not websites, to show the notifications - much like they already do when a site wants to access your webcam/mic/location/etc[0]. That would mean much less implementation work (once per browser instead…

The issue is: What about technical cookies? The law allows storing session info, config options, etc without prompting. The browser couldn’t reliably test that. Unless you’d also let login to sites be handled by the browser, akin to Mozilla’s Persona. Damn, that’d actually be a much nicer web.

Yeah, that could work.

Or, to look at it another way... so what if the browser pops up notifications more often than the law requires? Might encourage people to make less use of cookies for functionality that doesn't really need them, which would be no tragedy. And if your site really can't do without them, you could pop up a message explaining the situation & politely asking to be unblocked.

I suppose there'd be a danger of alert fatigue... maybe some heuristic analysis of the cookies themselves would be in order, to at least tentatively classify them as "tracking" vs "other". Eg, Google Analytics & Piwik cookies could be identified pretty reliably.