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Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

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Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#171

Post by rryan »

basscomm wrote: post #149
marriedWpt wrote: post #38

Ahh the good ol HN "stop using Google and start using Firefox" advertisement. It's a bit odd to see this in every Google thread. Btw, Firefox is too slow.

> Btw, Firefox is too slow. Ahh, the good ol' "Firefox is too slow for me to consider it" statement. Is there any evidence that Firefox is slower then Chrome other than old lingering memories of Firefox being slow ten years ago? I have used both Firefox and Chrome and I can't subjectively tell that one is significantly faster or slower than the other. To be fair, I only have a handful of extensions and rarely have mo…

I love that Firefox exists and Quantum is an amazing step forward, but Firefox still regularly runs away with gigabytes of RAM and hung worker processes. I have no problem with long-lived Chrome sessions but I need to restart Firefox ~daily. It's not bad memories of 10-years ago.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#172

Post by goatinaboat »

Tepix wrote: post #5

According to https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html " We want to build features that users want, so a subset of users may get a sneak peek at new functionality being tested before it’s launched to the world at large. A list of field trials that are currently active on your installation of Chrome will be included in all requests sent to Google. This Chrome-Variations header (X-Client-Data) will not cont…

One click while logged into any Google property will be enough for them to permanently associate this GUID with your (shadow) account, they know it, and they know you know it too

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#173

Post by scoutt »

shadowgovt wrote: post #156
scoutt wrote: post #71

PII concept is not the same for everyone/everywhere. For GDPR we have: > Article 4(1): ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly , in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or…

This is why I consider the GDPR to be unrealistically broad in its definition of PII; it denies even innocuous feature-mode-distinguishing headers intended to allow for bug-identification of massively-distributed software installs. If I'm given a forced choice between "more privacy" and "better software quality" I'm going to lean towards "better software quality."

Me too. Then a breach happens and someone with a straight face tells you: "we take your privacy very seriously", asking apologies, because the breach used some of your data to push some political campaign or to bother you with spam/extortions because that night you were watching some porn.

Programmers should stop pushing buggy or incomplete software as is, and start releasing software that works. Otherwise upper levels have an excuse to do all this "experience" telemetry, and we all are smart enough to see the consequences of a data breach.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#174

Post by autonomuzw »

DangerousPie wrote: post #130
tapoxi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just use Ungoogled Chromium, and get the performance advantage of Chrome without the tracking.

Is there actually still a performance advantage these days? Would be curious to see some benchmarks. I will say that Gmail/Hangouts feels faster in Chrome but that's obviously not a fair comparison.

Yes, there is definitely a performance advantage especially on mobile. see for example some benchmarks for brave browser, and also a couple of recent tests for desktop browsers.

[0] https://brave.com/brave-one-dot-zero-performance-methodology...

[1] https://brave.com/brave-saves-batteries/

[2] https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/15/browser-benchmark-battle-...

[3] https://linuxreviews.org/Web_Browser_Showdown:_Six_Browsers_...

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#175

Post by clSTophEjUdRanu »

pdkl95 wrote: post #94
janpot wrote: post #4

Not endorsing this, but according to https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html#variat... > We want to build features that users want, so a subset of users may get a sneak peek at new functionality being tested before it’s launched to the world at large. A list of field trials that are currently active on your installation of Chrome will be included in all requests sent to Google. This Chrome-Variations he…

This is impressive doublespeak. > This ... header ... will not contain any personally identifiable information > a seed number which is randomly selected on first run ... chosen between 0 and 7999 (13 bits of entropy) They are not including any PII... while creating a new identifier for each installation. 13 bits of entropy probably isn't a unique identifier iff you only look at that header in isolation. Combined wit…

>Linking that browser ID to a personal account is trivial as soon as someone logs in to any Google service.

Wat? You mean to tell me they can identify you if you log into their service?

Am I missing something here? Who cares?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#176

Post by Blaiz0r »

marriedWpt wrote: post #38

Ahh the good ol HN "stop using Google and start using Firefox" advertisement. It's a bit odd to see this in every Google thread. Btw, Firefox is too slow.

Firefox isn't too slow, but you might be talking about how Google optimise their sites for Chrome at the expense of Firefox's performance through browser sniffing.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#177

Post by alharith »

kick wrote: post #37
bamboozled wrote: post #20

You should also donate to Mozilla because it’s an insanely good piece o software for the price!

Firefox should definitely be used, but donating to Mozilla is a mistake. They waste a lot of it, their executive compensation rates are way too high (especially given that MoCo just laid off employees), and Mozilla still hasn't kept up with promises they gave years ago (that Pocket is still proprietary being a notable and depressing example). Donate to smaller developers of software you use, it'll go a lot further, a…

Better yet, donate to Brave who doesn't share the same conflict of interest as Mozilla does with Google, as Google is Mozilla's #1 source of income. Best of all you get a browser just as fast, if not faster than Chrome because it's Chrome without all the junk.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#178

Post by frandroid »

kick wrote: post #91
kevlarr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donations go to Mozilla "the non-profit organization" rather than Mozilla "the corporation". Mozilla (the corporation) has the typical/bad corporate structures and ridiculous executive compensations. Mozilla (the corporation) had the layoffs. Mozilla (the corporation) bought Pocket with money that comes from deals with search engines. That being said, though... > Donate to smaller developers of software you use, it'l…

The Mozilla Foundation controls and owns the Mozilla Corporation, and the executive structure looks more or less the same. Baker's compensation has been inversely tied with performance, and she runs both.

> Baker's compensation has been inversely tied with performance

You've mentioned this twice in the thread now. "Inversely tied" is quite a strong and unusual claim for compensation. Care to prove it?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#179

Post by throwaway8941 »

carlsborg wrote: post #82

If you strace chrome on linux it also picks up /etc/machine-id (or it did back when I looked), which is a 32 byte randomly generated string which uniquely identifies you and on some systems is used as the DHCP ID across reboots.

Which (among many other things) can be faked with firejail, if you absolutely have to run Chromium (e.g. for testing):

    --machine-id
        Spoof id number in /etc/machine-id file - a new random id is generated inside the sandbox.
    
        Example:
        $ firejail --machine-id

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#180

Post by shawnz »

w0m wrote: post #57
reaperducer wrote: post #46

I don't understand why Google and some other tech companies use their users as involuntary, unpaid guinea pigs. No consent. No opt-out. What's the motivation? Is it simple laziness because they don't want to deal with wetware? Is it afraid that if people knew what was happening they wouldn't be happy? Google has eighty brazillion employees it can test new features on.

... what? If you aren't paying for it; you are the product. Simple.

This is a meaningless cliche. Just because users of Google products don't pay in cash to use them doesn't change the fact that Google has to attract the users to their platform in the first place, and keep them there.
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