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Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

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Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#321

Post by wbl »

grey-area wrote: post #285
nsmith14 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And what google did is to shatter that trust by sneaking that change discretely. How did you expect them to announce a change they probably perceive as a minor UX improvement? Also this has been brewing for months in canary/beta, it's not like they actually snuck the change as you imply.

How did you expect them to announce a change they probably perceive as a minor UX improvement? Just because you split a large change into a set of minor UX improvements and have different excuses for each individual change, that doesn't make the direction of travel any less damaging. To be clear, the direction of travel is for Google to abuse their de-facto monopoly on search and browsers to own SSO across the web an…

The competition to their products is a click away. People use google products because they find them more useful. If that's a result of the data they have, who cares?

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#322

Post by bangonkeyboard »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Like Eric Law[1], I felt like while there were some rough spots in the UX for the Chrome login and sync features, the issue was very overblown (I'd feel very differently if sync had been enabled automatically). I don't have much more to say than Law does --- except maybe that when your arch-competitor is speaking out on your behalf , maybe the narrative has gone a little haywire. I figured Google would do something c…

> when your arch-competitor is speaking out on your behalf, maybe the narrative has gone a little haywire.

When the enemy of their enemy becomes their friend, the question then is who their common foe is. Microsoft is actively working to push the needle in the same direction as Google on ignoring and removing user choice in their products. An ex-Chrome dev at Microsoft defending dark patterns from his former team by mocking user concerns (as you are, with your "Matthew Green switch") is hardly an objective slam dunk.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#323

Post by titel »

TekMol wrote: post #299
RossM wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. I work with all of these devices. Yet I don't want any of that syncing. The thought that Google wants to send my 'recently opened tabs' to their servers makes me shudder. So they get the whole browsing history of every one of their users? Of all the pages that have nothing to do with them? Same with passwords. So they have a gi…

They already have most of your browsing history simply by having you logged into your Gmail and browsing the sites having Google Analytics installed (which is most of the sites on the internet these days).

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#324

Post by JetSpiegel »

TekMol wrote: post #299
RossM wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. I work with all of these devices. Yet I don't want any of that syncing. The thought that Google wants to send my 'recently opened tabs' to their servers makes me shudder. So they get the whole browsing history of every one of their users? Of all the pages that have nothing to do with them? Same with passwords. So they have a gi…

Chrome is not really a web browser, it is a part of the Google crawling machine.

Distributed, and it pays for itself using AdSense.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#325

Post by 0x0 »

titel wrote: post #323
TekMol wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. I work with all of these devices. Yet I don't want any of that syncing. The thought that Google wants to send my 'recently opened tabs' to their servers makes me shudder. So they get the whole browsing history of every one of their users? Of all the pages that have nothing to do with them? Same with passwords. So they have a gi…

They already have most of your browsing history simply by having you logged into your Gmail and browsing the sites having Google Analytics installed (which is most of the sites on the internet these days).

Some of us don't use the gmail web interface (opting for IMAP or a different provider instead), and use an ad blocker to take of analytics.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#326

Post by spondyl »

RossM wrote: post #295
TekMol wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all Same here. Why does Chrome log you in in the first place? I mean I know it from the companies perspective of course. They want to consolidate as much data about you as possible. And tie you into their ecosystem. But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing your bookmarks across devices?

> But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing bookmarks, recently opened tabs, passwords, autofill(?). These are genuine benefits when you're working with laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Whether they're worth the cost of data mining is another matter of course.

That "Save this login" stuff in Chrome drives me up the wall. I understand you can disable it under Settings (and I do) but I see it on other people's computer too and I feel a bit of me die inside when they click "Save login" just to make it go away.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#327

Post by pythonaut_16 »

sizzle wrote: post #191
judge2020 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that change was merited because of the "signed into chrome vs google" issue they were trying to solve. Say I clear my cookies on a signed-in, syncing account. With G Cookies also deleted, I may wonder "Why is my picture in the top right but no Google services are using it??". To us, it's clear that chrome sign-in is different from google sign-in, but to others, it may not be.

"To us, it's clear that chrome sign-in is different from google sign-in, but to others, it may not be" I highly doubt the common person knows what a cookie is, let alone how to clear them. A simple solution would be to add an extra step when clearing cookies that asks if you would like to stay signed into your Google session and clear or keep those cookies based on your selection.

The extent the common person (might) know about cookies is that sometimes it's helpful to clear them to speed up your computer and/or as part of other magical rituals.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#328

Post by tome »

seibelj wrote: post #16
dannyw wrote: post #12

I have already switched to Firefox and loving it (Facebook container, tracking protection enabled), but these changes are welcome and responsive. I hope this is a wake up call that privacy implications need to be seriously considered during product design (even if the intent was better UX), and hidden changes without any UI/notice is going to make issues blow up far more than if there was clear in-app communication.

I did as well. DuckDuckGo, ublock origin, privacy badger. I haven’t used Firefox seriously in 5 years or so and I’m very pleased with the experience. To be honest, it’s best to use an independent company for your internet browser. Google’s incentives and business model no longer matches web browsing for someone who cares about privacy.

> I haven’t used Firefox seriously in 5 years

Do you mean "I haven't used *Chrome" ..."? Otherwise I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#329

Post by chippy »

TekMol wrote: post #293
cm2187 wrote: post #275

Won’t change my mind and will stick to Firefox after having switched because of this. First I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all. Second, and probably more important, software is about trust. Even for an open source project, no one has the time to review millions of lines of code. So unfortunately one has to rely on what one believes is the behavior of the authors of the software. And what google did is…

I don’t want to be logged in in my browser at all Same here. Why does Chrome log you in in the first place? I mean I know it from the companies perspective of course. They want to consolidate as much data about you as possible. And tie you into their ecosystem. But what is the user facing benefit? Syncing your bookmarks across devices?

They want to be the next AOL browser internet appliance. It's called Chrome OS

Re: Product Updates Based on Your Feedback

#330

Post by jazoom »

tome wrote: post #328
seibelj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did as well. DuckDuckGo, ublock origin, privacy badger. I haven’t used Firefox seriously in 5 years or so and I’m very pleased with the experience. To be honest, it’s best to use an independent company for your internet browser. Google’s incentives and business model no longer matches web browsing for someone who cares about privacy.

> I haven’t used Firefox seriously in 5 years Do you mean "I haven't used *Chrome" ..."? Otherwise I don't understand what you're trying to say.

I don't think he/she meant "Chrome". It makes no sense to me if you substitute "Chrome" for "Firefox", considering the context of the comment and its parent comment.
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