521–530 of 848 posts
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IIRC, Firefox did that once , and then apologized. Unlike Google, who keeps doing the same thing all the time.
>Firefox did that once At least twice. https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/16/firefox-mr-robot-extensi... https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9ii8sj/firefox_kee...
Imagine little indicators that show which identity providers you are logged into, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, .... You could do this by passively reading the site cookies in an extension (are you allowed to do that nowadays in extensions?). Even better, if you are not logged into, say, Facebook, block third party cookies from their domains so it's harder for them to track you.
I think I have a good idea for a weekend project...
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If the company is asking you to do things that you find ethically untenable, you should leave, even in full knowledge that the company will find a way to do it anyway.
In an ideal world, yes. But people have mortgages, families and other commitments. Some have social anxiety and find job hunting an impossibly scary prospect. Others might suffer from depression. It's all good and well placing generalised ethics on individuals to do the right thing but in those kind of ideal world scenarios you also wouldn't have accountants finding tax loopholes, lawyers perpetuating patent abuse, n…
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In general I agree with you, clearly not everybody has the luxury of being able to quit their jobs if it doesn't align with their values, especially when the problem is so relatively benign in the grand scheme of things. I'm not trying to downplay Google's decision here, I invite everybody to stop using Chrome, but it's not like they're enslaving people or something. I can imagine that most people wouldn't risk hurti…
> If you can't stand for your values because of "social anxiety" then maybe you don't value your values that much? I’m not going to downvote you, but if you don’t suffer from social anxiety, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. As someone who is affected by it, I can tell you it’s soul crushing when it prevents you from making a move out of a bad situation. It’s completely paralyzing.
My overall point is basically: if Google engineers can't justify quitting their jobs on moral grounds, then who can? We're utterly privileged compared to 99% of job sectors. If we are willing to give them a pass then we really can't complain about, say, people working for PRISM or military personnel in the drone programs, because I'm sure many of these people are in a much more precarious situation than your average Google engineer.
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> devs will not optimize of it. Yep. I have been a FF user since.. well, Netscape. Yet, FireFox-specific bugs have always been a lower priority. Because, it's "a bug effecting 100 users" vs "a bug effecting 900 users" When you consider FF users are harder to monetise (admit it, we generally are), you can start saying "a bug effecting ~50 potential customers , vs ~800". *(fortunately, now that IE/Edge is out of the pi…
Websites work best in the browsers that the developers use to build it, and that will be the only way Chrome can fail.
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Having Google on your resume is in no way impressive in my opinion. I have reviewed plenty of resumes and been part of the interview process. Being a Google employee just doesn't matter.
Your opinion is not representative and thus not relevant to the argument (that ex-Google engineers have very good job prospects).
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One more thing (apologies): If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,” you know what inevitably happens? You discover that the product and eng managers can’t change things either. In theory, maybe, but in practice they are given accountability for revenue and growth targets, so what choice do they have? Let’s move up the ladder. Can we blame the directors and ELT. No, the markets hold t…
To be fair, the OP was complaining about short-term biases from management. The entire ethical discussion is pushed way over its actual relevance (really, how big an ethical flaw is not deleting a cookie? Google will identify you anyway, cookie or not). That said, about this: > and now you understand how SYSTEMIC problems persist: Nobody is held personally accountable It looks completely backwards. Environments that…
> It looks completely backwards. Environments that fix systemic problems are overwhelmingly on the side of not blaming individuals and looking only at the system.
That's a fascinating exchange. I find myself siding more with you than with braythwayt, but still uncertain because the idea is new to me. Is there a good writeup of arguments for both sides?
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What's the alternative to Android though? Apple has its own well-documented issues, as well as a rather large price-tag. I just use my phone for maps and some chat services, don't need a very fancy phone. Even the iPhone 7 is listed at £449, which is already £150 more than I paid for my Sony Xperia. I wish stuff like HP WebOS or Meego was still alive, but as far as I know, Apple and Google are the only serious player…
LineageOS, and other custom Android distributions without Google services.
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Dropping chrome is not enough. Switch to bing (Just as good as G), or ddg if you really want. Then ditch android which is the spy in your pocket. If you're installing G analytics for clients then choose an alternative (I'm open to suggestions here). It's really time to disentangle ourselves from google. They've quietly and effectively insinuated themselves across the web. Enough is enough.
> Then ditch android which is the spy in your pocket. To what? iOS spies even more by default (no way to disable AGPS vs. opt in on Android) and doesn't allow using privacy-enabling apps by default (system-wide ad/tracker blocker, real Firefox, Signal, local maps, etc.) unless you hack your phone. Worse, it doesn't let you develop for your own phone without rebuilding weekly or paying a yearly fee for the privilege.…
They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick up for their customers and publicly decline the US government assistance or backdoors into their products.