Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 141 posts

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#91

Post by [deleted] »

maccard wrote: post #71
Nextgrid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use browser fingerprinting and/or IP addresses as well. Even on a brand new browser session, doing something even slightly related to the previous session brings back its entire recommendation history.

> doing something even slightly related to the previous session brings back its entire recommendation history. Are you sure that it does, and that it's not just a case of "hey we've never seen this person before, but they watched X, let's immediately start with recommendations Y and Z because other people who watched X were engaged with it?"

[deleted]

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#92

Post by cameronbrown »

orpep90nxkfo wrote: post #88
qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It thinks I’m addicted to opiates because of the suboxone ads it presents, only because sometimes I listen to 90’s techno, rave music.

Not Google, but Twitter thinks I’m a 45 old married male with 3 kids I’m 39, divorced, and have 2 kids It’s almost as if the big data sales pitch is an epic joke like nuclear powered everything being pitched in the 50s

Twitter is a mess in general. No wonder they struggle to monetize.

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#93

Post by GuB-42 »

kalleboo wrote: post #14
ravenstine wrote: post #2

This is a nice idea, but the one thing I haven't been able to divorce myself from is YouTube. I really hate how Google has allowed such a wealth of constant information that completely dwarfs alternative video hosting sites. As censorious as Google can be(now "up next" is always some video from CNN or Fox), blocking YouTube from my network would mean cutting myself off from a large portion of the world.

It’s fascinating how differently the YouTube algorithm treats people. I've not once seen a Fox or CNN video recommended, I didn't even know they had a presence on YouTube

My understanding is the the only part of YouTube that is not personalized (except by region) is the "trending" tab.

It means it is the most representative of what would be a common YouTube experience.

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#94

Post by Nextgrid »

maccard wrote: post #71
Nextgrid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use browser fingerprinting and/or IP addresses as well. Even on a brand new browser session, doing something even slightly related to the previous session brings back its entire recommendation history.

> doing something even slightly related to the previous session brings back its entire recommendation history. Are you sure that it does, and that it's not just a case of "hey we've never seen this person before, but they watched X, let's immediately start with recommendations Y and Z because other people who watched X were engaged with it?"

I used to think that and gave them the benefit of the doubt, but then I realised that some of the videos being recommended had nothing to do with the one currently watched other than the fact I watched similar ones previously.

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#95

Post by edf13 »

Remed wrote: post #60
geokon wrote: post #50

The problem is that JS Fonts and other CDNed stuff won't load and websites will hang or work weird - particularly Stackoverflow. Bc it's all over https you can't MITM it and inject your own with OpenWRT/piholes. Decentraleyes (a Firefox browser extension) fixes some of this, but not all. If anyone has any additional suggestions, please let me know (it makes life bearable in China without a VPN)

You can create a self-signed certificate for Google domains and trust it on your machines. Then you can MITM. This won't work well if you want to do it at a scale, with a number of 3rd party users, but if the only user is you or your family, it should do the trick.

Won’t work for Google as their Cets are pinned

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#96

Post by [deleted] »

user17843 wrote: post #85
dmitriid wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browser fingerprint, referrers, available cookies, IP address immediately come to mind.

OK, but how do you account for changing IP-Addresses? You would need to take one identifier that never changes. Maybe they have machine learning which combines a couple of factors and then create long-term profiles based on the likelihood of some data belonging to the same person. That would be illegal though.

[deleted]

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#97

Post by Nextgrid »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #87
Nextgrid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use browser fingerprinting and/or IP addresses as well. Even on a brand new browser session, doing something even slightly related to the previous session brings back its entire recommendation history.

How does that work at, say, the library, or some other public internet kiosk? Or maybe they're just assuming these are edge cases today, amidst the billions of private browser instances on handhelds?

It probably doesn’t work, considering the library users would be watching totally different & unrelated videos, where as in my case they have years of data of very specific viewing habits centred around a few topics.

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#98

Post by blisterpeanuts »

heartbreak wrote: post #20
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is Scott Wadsworth’s latest video. It’s not narcissism, it wouldn’t be better as a blog post, it doesn’t drag on to run more ads, and it isn’t low brow or toxic. There are billions of hours of content on YouTube. You haven’t seen a representative sample. https://youtu.be/cv6BdwMe560

Thanks for that link. I'm a DIYer and this is decent quality content. I've subscribed.

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#99

Post by asveikau »

ravenstine wrote: post #2

This is a nice idea, but the one thing I haven't been able to divorce myself from is YouTube. I really hate how Google has allowed such a wealth of constant information that completely dwarfs alternative video hosting sites. As censorious as Google can be(now "up next" is always some video from CNN or Fox), blocking YouTube from my network would mean cutting myself off from a large portion of the world.

My experience is if you watch videos on a given topic, they try to show you more of the same topic. So they probably decided you like American cable news.

It can get frustrating when it only recommends a single topic. I might go through a phase where I want to see videos about something specific. The recommendation algorithm will re-enforce that and prevent me from moving on to something else. I found that if I make some effort to watch a lot of videos about other topics, they appear. You can also manually edit your viewing history.

Re: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

#100

Post by Gregordinary »

edf13 wrote: post #95
Remed wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create a self-signed certificate for Google domains and trust it on your machines. Then you can MITM. This won't work well if you want to do it at a scale, with a number of 3rd party users, but if the only user is you or your family, it should do the trick.

Won’t work for Google as their Cets are pinned

Not sure about other browsers, but Chrome will ignore certificate pins if the cert provided chains to local trust anchor.

From: http://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/security-faq#...

"Chrome does not perform pin validation when the certificate chain chains up to a private trust anchor. A key result of this policy is that private trust anchors can be used to proxy (or MITM) connections, even to pinned sites. “Data loss prevention” appliances, firewalls, content filters, and malware can use this feature to defeat the protections of key pinning.

We deem this acceptable because the proxy or MITM can only be effective if the client machine has already been configured to trust the proxy’s issuing certificate — that is, the client is already under the control of the person who controls the proxy (e.g. the enterprise’s IT administrator). If the client does not trust the private trust anchor, the proxy’s attempt to mediate the connection will fail as it should."

Post reply on HN