Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just use Ungoogled Chromium, and get the performance advantage of Chrome without the tracking.
Is there definitive proof that all of the Google stuff is really out of a naked Chromium install? I remember reading stuff about it being impossible to wholly untangle Google's stuff from it.
Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
281–290 of 642 posts
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you test it in Microsoft's new Edge browser based on Chromium? I'm very curious about that. (I don't know how to test such a thing myself, sorry :S)
I didn't see the x-client-header in the Edge insider browser when accessing YouTube.
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Programmers should stop pushing buggy or incomplete software as is, and start releasing software that works If you demand a perfection-of-function guarantee from something as complicated as a web browser, you'll never get a web browser with more features than the ones released in the '90s (and I'm not even sure we'd be that far along by now). If I'm given a forced choice between "more privacy" and "the software eve…
Instead of giving my privacy away, I prefer software like anything that you have installed from a CD-ROM back in the 90's and didn't needed a weekly update. Games, 3D-Studio, Autocad (to name a few) were more complex than a web-browser ( a today's web-browser ) and didn't needed a weekly update or the hunger for user-requested features, let alone dialing home because . The world worked relatively fine without the up-…
In fact, you could easily simulate this by using last year's Firefox.
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#284So, an extremely unique identifier for tracking purposes, that effectively no one knows exists, and no one knows can be changed at all? With an obscure white paper that allows Google to claim they comply with the law because "they totally offer a way to change that and they even published that information to the web for anyone to find"? Gotcha.
Don't be evil... Until we are deployed enough that users don't have a choice... Now that Google has cornered the market for Internet browsing, they're using that foothold to change how it works to suit their dominance. This is why they are not concerned about per-site tracking that Google Analytics does, as long as THEY as a company have direct browser-based tracking, they no longer need to provide tracking services…
Google had already cornered the market back in 2012, when it surpassed every other browser, with an absolute majority dominance (>50% market share) achieved way back in 2015.
Google has been in control for a long time now.
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't be evil... Until we are deployed enough that users don't have a choice... Now that Google has cornered the market for Internet browsing, they're using that foothold to change how it works to suit their dominance. This is why they are not concerned about per-site tracking that Google Analytics does, as long as THEY as a company have direct browser-based tracking, they no longer need to provide tracking services…
True. But luckily you actually have a choice. Many opt for DuckDuckGo on Firefox, for instance.
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's what unethical A/B testing is.
" involuntary, unpaid guinea pigs. No consent. No opt-out" That sounds like all A/B testing...
I've never been a fan of this particular type of logic and reasoning (or lack thereof).
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#287So, an extremely unique identifier for tracking purposes, that effectively no one knows exists, and no one knows can be changed at all? With an obscure white paper that allows Google to claim they comply with the law because "they totally offer a way to change that and they even published that information to the web for anyone to find"? Gotcha.
Your comment is factually incorrect. 13 bits of entropy is not an extremely unique identifier. The first three letters of your first name have more bits of entropy than that. It would be quite a trick to uniquely identify you by the first three letters of your first name.
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#288Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#289Not 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…
Now this is interesting. If without that 13 bits of entropy, what will Google lost? Is it because of this 13 bits then Google suddenly able to track what they were not? If the IPv4 address, user-agent string, or some other behavior is sufficient to reveal a great deal of stuff, we have a more serious problem than that 13 bits. I agree that 13-bit seed is a concern. But I am wondering if it is a concern per se, or its orchestration with something else. Of course, how/whether Google keeps those data also matters.
Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, I never understood that argument. We have a fairly large and wonderful kids hospital that looks for donations and some of my friends said they wouldn't donate because their CEO makes 500k and he should donate his money instead. I had to explain you want to recruit great talent, and that 500k is less than he could make some place else.
Right. What people actually want is some form of income equality, which would bring executive level salaries in line with their actual worth. You're not going to achieve that by starving non-profits of executive talent in the meantime.
This doesn't happen because most boards are a good ol' boys club where networking matters, not because of a lack of available talent at a price point.