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Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

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Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#151

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

fsflover wrote: post #144
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I use VPN anyway, so Bing doesn't know who I am. 2) Bing belongs to Microsoft whose primary business is to sell software, not ads, so they are less dependent on collecting user information. 3) If I wanted a search aggregator, I would use a non-US company, for example, Qwant.

> Microsoft whose primary business is to sell software, not ads, so they are less dependent on collecting user information. If it was true they would not collect every keystroke on their OS.

Yeah, and Bill Gates installs mind controlling chips via vaccines

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#152

Post by slightwinder »

obviouslynotme wrote: post #132

I am going to make the real controversial opinion: Who is surprised here? Google makes money by spying on people. Everything they make is designed to make money. Search history gathers what you are interested in. Android and Chrome vacuum your physical data and more. YouTube both gathers your interests and might become a serious advertising platform someday. Gmail vacuums up what Android messaging misses. Google Ads,…

> Google makes money by spying on people.

Wait..was this a secret?

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#153

Post by obviouslynotme »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #137
obviouslynotme wrote: post #132

I am going to make the real controversial opinion: Who is surprised here? Google makes money by spying on people. Everything they make is designed to make money. Search history gathers what you are interested in. Android and Chrome vacuum your physical data and more. YouTube both gathers your interests and might become a serious advertising platform someday. Gmail vacuums up what Android messaging misses. Google Ads,…

Why does it matter who is surprised?

Because it won't change. Everyone here knows what Google is and I will bet you that over 90% of HN unique users come from a Chrome browser.

It will only get worse. Google always steps on everyone when it dominates a market. Gmail marked your private email server as spam by mistake? Good luck even finding someone to care. Chrome is at this very moment disabling the HTTP2 standard push feature, essentially asserting Chrome as the real standards body.

This is what all of us chose. Without some regulatory body stepping in, privacy will never come back. Even then, that regulatory body will probably be completely staffed by Googlers, since they are experts in Internet privacy.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#154

Post by hackerfromthefu »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #78
tapoxi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance problems on macOS/Linux, Firefox seems fine on Windows but that's where I spend the least of my time.

I've been using firefox for years and I have no idea what these performance problems are.

Lucky you!

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#155

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

zepto wrote: post #29
ricardbejarano wrote: post #11

Controversial opinion: Half the data Chrome collects is harmless, and the other half is up to the user to give up: - Location data: you are asked and must approve for Chrome to use (at least on macOS) - Financial data: you must enter it manually and click "save for future use". Could it be better? Sure! But I think DDG is exaggerating here. We're not _that_ bad.

Seems hard to make the argument to make that browsing history is harmless, given how often it is used in police investigations and court cases.

If you were competent, you wouldn't make assumptive searches on an obviously subpoena-able device ala burner using Linux and Tor.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#156

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

Crazyontap wrote: post #131

I guess the majority of people on HN already know this more or less. The problem is still this: We still don't have good alternatives to Google's products and services. 1) Android: Google still owns all our phones. Even on rooted phones it hard to remove google services that god know send so many requests containing whatnot to the eeee addresses. Just install no-root firewall and you will be amazed the amount of pend…

YouTube alone has been a wonder of the world quite honestly.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#157

Post by lmkg »

yourad_io wrote: post #147
Hani1337 wrote: post #111

My biggest privacy concern with Google is how search result URLs contain user identifiers.

Do you have an example of this?

When Google Ads is linked to Google Analytics, the links append the 'gclid' query parameter to the URL they point to. This value is how a downstream conversion, collected by Analytics, is associated with the upstream ad click from Google Ads. The 'gclid' parameter is unique to the ad impression, i.e. it's a join key to both the term that was searched, and the user who searched for it.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#158

Post by arsome »

This is cool and I'm glad to see Apple reporting on it - but do they offer you a way to simply bypass it and achieve better privacy without breaking things? Like send fake location data, randomize a device ID per app, etc. XPrivacy did this quite nicely on Android and I'd love to see something similar on iOS.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#159

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

ur-whale wrote: post #143
raspasov wrote: post #119

I use Safari. It's the best browser for Mac.

> I use Safari. So, instead of handing all of your info to Google, you hand it over to Apple. Nothing to write home about.

What major tech company monitors you less than Apple?

Microsoft?

We live in an era where you can be a tinfoil hat closed off out of touch Linux user or just deal with it. Nobody likes it so you're not special for touting an obviously majority opinion. But the utility it brings to connect people makes most forget and not care.

Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome

#160

Post by hackerfromthefu »

ancarda wrote: post #49
eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Firefox?

Nothing, so long as you're okay with telemetry, bundled junk like pocket, and the removal of the compact UI (see the thread from yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26464533 ). Firefox's internals are great -- it's never been faster or as stable, and for that we made real sacrifices like losing XUL extensions but increasingly I don't understand Mozilla's decision making. EDIT: I understand many of the th…

>> I don't understand Mozilla's decision making.

Yeah lots of (usually subtle-ish) incongruous actions.

Ignore the public messaging and work backwards from what they actually do to understand their real motivations.

I've written some other comments with my analysis on it if you're interests you can check my comment history.

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