"Oh you want to take a moral stand? Ok, the door is that way. We've just successfully lobbied for a few hundred more H1B's that will do anything we tell them"
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18065083.
Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
611–620 of 848 posts
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
"OK, no problem. Having Google on my resume means I can get a new job by the end of the week. I'll be sure to spread the word to users and developers alike that you're shady." Let's not pretend that developers are powerless.
Not everyone is in a position to walk away from a job in hopes to land a new one in a week. People have families, bills, obligations.
No, but most everyone at Google is in a position to be financially responsible and put aside a bit of money each paycheck for emergencies and/or decisions like this.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.…
Being unable to disable AGPS is not the same as "iOS spies even more". Apple charges more because they don't sell you data or spy on you. There are system-wide ad-blockers, Firefox Focus is great, and there is a Signal app. Apple is actually going out of there way to make Safari harder to track - https://www.wired.com/story/apple-safari-privacy-wwdc/ They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick u…
> Being unable to disable AGPS is not the same as "iOS spies even more".
True but I'd like to point out that different standards are being applied here when talking about Android's lack of privacy vs iPhone's privacy friendly policies. Namely there is a large post above on how Google Services Framework has access to everything in your phone so it is bad (and we need to do everything to get rid of it) simply because of what it _can_ do, rather than of what it actually does (because what it does largely depends on user settings, like for example if you want to backup your whole phone, obviously that's going to package and save all your phone's contents on Google servers).
Most of the privacy features you mention seem targeted to stop a certain type of information gathering (that of web based adtech, obviously those are Apple's competitors so it's not surprising) while it's not covering the biggest issue IMO with smartphones: information gathering by the system applications that you have no control over. Do we know how much information does Apple collect with their system software and store it associated with your AppleID and you have no control over that? I never used an iPhone so I'm curious, especially things like: location (nearby cell tower information, GPS and wifi networks), contacts, phone call log, SMS log, process list/applications running or installed, DNS logs, API calls logs.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#614It's like some people at Google realize that the company's image is messed up beyond repair. So they decided they might as well go full-on evil and make as much money as they can before the party's over.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android (the Android Open Source Project) itself is not the Problem. It's the lock-in ecosystem that Google tries to establish with the Google Services Framework, Play Store and the like. What is missing, is an open and privacy-friendly alternative to GSF. Without GSF we don't have efficient push notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging), a geolocation provider, a maps API etc. Personally, I have been using microG ( h…
how is the product quality of microG? if a user is happy with GSF, will they be disappointed with microG?
microG is certainly not perfect and I wouldn't recommend it to the average user. Expect some things to not work or even certain apps to crash. It's a techie-solution for people who value their privacy highly.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#616Another confirmation that engineers and product developers are no longer in control at Google. Engineering and product first is how Google won the game initially, very easy to forget that when the money rolls in massively and the power structures move away from those driving forces. Microsoft already went through this engineering/product growth to bizdev/marketing control to stagnation and is already in the return to…
I assume this is the engineering at work. "Okay, users are confused by how they're logged into Google but not Chrome, or Chrome but not Google - let's make them one and the same". "Okay, but once you're logged into Chrome now, every post we check to see if we have the Google cookies to keep that sync... so that means when you clear the cookies the Google ones will automagically reappear" "Ugh, let's just notify the u…
Don't they have anybody from the legal department to oversee the decisions of developers? A wrong decision could cost them millions in fines in these days.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
> H1-B is modern day slavery. Eh, there's a power imbalance, but let's not go overboard. They are offered a good job with good pay in another country. That means they have less power in negotiations, and may be deported, but they don't lose the money they earned, and it's not like they are being exiled to some foreign place, they are literally sent home . Nobody's freedom is being taken away, and nobody's rights are…
Being sent "home" when you've been living and working in another country for possibly years at a time doesn't really make it any better. You don't necessarily have a "home" wherever you came from.
> Being sent "home" when you've been living and working in another country for possibly years at a time doesn't really make it any better.
Than slavery? Yes it does make it better. Much better.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
For analytics, we had one here just this week: Simple Analytics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024277
I'm also looking for an alternative to GA but paying $168/year (for now) for an inferior product is not really a solution.
You asked for suggestions, I offered one.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Being unable to disable AGPS is not the same as "iOS spies even more". I just showed you one way that iOS spies on you that you can't turn off. All other default data collection is exactly the same between iOS and Android. N + 1 > N. Q.E.D. > There are system-wide ad-blockers Where? I'm talking about blocking ads and trackers in all apps, not just in web views. > Firefox Focus is great It doesn't use Gecko or Spide…
Most "full ad-blocking" requires being rooted on an Android device too. And you've obviously not done very much research about what data Apple collects vs Google. Simply using each OS will show you a big difference in philosophy. Google makes you approve all permissions when you install an app without clearly stating what it means. iOS apps have to ask for specific permission the first time they want to use GPS, came…
> Most "full ad-blocking" requires being rooted on an Android device too.
Nope. https://blokada.org/index.html
> And you've obviously not done very much research about what data Apple collects vs Google.
I showed you exactly how Apple collects more data from iOS than Google does from Android. You're trying to Pee-wee Herman your way out of this with an "I know you are but what am I?"
> Google makes you approve all permissions when you install an app without clearly stating what it means. iOS apps have to ask for specific permission the first time they want to use GPS, camera, microphone, etc.
You're wrong — Android also asks for permission at the time the app wants to use a feature. More importantly, this has nothing to do with what data Google or Android collects, which is the whole point of this thread.
> it's not like you can't use Signal.
Moving the goalposts. You can't use Firefox. An SMS app is nearly useless if it can't be set to the default.
> And Google is currently working with the US government on many projects, which has caused many Googlers to quit the company.
Again, not by sharing user data with them, which is the whole point of this discussion.
Re: Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Most normal users don’t really grok the difference between ”browser” and ”Google” anyway. I doubt that. With the marketshare on Windows it is very likely, that people deliberateley install Chrome. So they know what a browser is, now that they have at least 2 installed.
Google push Chrome crazy hard whenever you touch a Google service, and they have a crazy bundling game in play - they bundle with flash, acrobat reader, some free A/V products - wherever they can get marketshare. Plus some pre-built PCs come with Chrome preloaded.
To expand on that, every single person I know who has actively tried to avoid Chrome, have all been fairly technical, but still somehow been lured into installing Chrome, at least once if not more.