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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

#161
A company that purchases data from another search engine (that most likely also uses aggregated personal data to deliver results) with just two products (search + browser) compares its app data usage to a behemoth that strives for the most personalized experience possible in exchange for personal data in order to display personalized ads.

Google's apps offer opt-in voice search (solving Audio), optional end to end encryption for bookmarks & search history (solving Browsing History), while location and diagnostics are opt in as well and it's also up to you if you want to store your address book of store you credit card with Google (solving Contacts & Financial Info).

Yes, most people will probably use Google Contacts, Maps, unencrypted bookmarks & browsing history and and store their credit card data in the browser, but you're not forced to do that.

I really wish DDG would innovate on search, improve their own crawlers & indexing and then attack Google head on by comparing better results with the ad-ridden, SEO-flooded shit show that Google results have become. Instead, their marketing keeps on comparing apples to oranges and just keeps on playing the privacy angle, which is intellectually dishonest because DDG and Google have completely different goals.

Boy do I hope for some real competition in the search engine market. Brave and Neeva can't launch soon enough. I'm so sick and tired of giving DDG changes upon changes only to switch back to Google because the results haven't improved much.

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

#162
post #4

Why would you use a proprietary browser when Firefox is around?

Because Chrome syncs to my Google account so the large collection of devices I browse on have shared history, defaults, and bookmarks.

Firefox does that https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/sync/

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

#165

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…

Google Maps has the wrong street names near me, so I looked for something from OpenStreetMap. But there's nothing that works with Android Auto. In fact, there are only two Android Auto navigation apps, Google Maps and Waze. Both owned by Google, and Waze seems happy to send me through the most confusing intersections if it thinks it will save 5 seconds of driving time.

I've submitted multiple corrections to Google Maps and all of them eventually were fixed. I even got a same day response one time, with the longest taking about 3 weeks. I haven't made any corrections recently. Have you attempted to submit feedback on the Maps site?

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

#166

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.

Under no circumstance do I want my browsing history being sent to a server. That's a pretty black and white issue being violated here. Extremely anti-user.

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

#168
post #52
post #4

Why would you use a proprietary browser when Firefox is around?

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

I use Firefox everyday for work and home. For a few years now Firefox has beaten Chrome in speed/usability for me.

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

#169
post #158

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.

Yes.

You can’t stop Google doing geoip, but you can stop iOS providing GPS to Google.

Device id’s can indeed be switched off.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps has the wrong street names near me, so I looked for something from OpenStreetMap. But there's nothing that works with Android Auto. In fact, there are only two Android Auto navigation apps, Google Maps and Waze. Both owned by Google, and Waze seems happy to send me through the most confusing intersections if it thinks it will save 5 seconds of driving time.

I've submitted multiple corrections to Google Maps and all of them eventually were fixed. I even got a same day response one time, with the longest taking about 3 weeks. I haven't made any corrections recently. Have you attempted to submit feedback on the Maps site?

+1 ... rather than complaining about it, leverage the editing functionality provided in there to make the maps better for everyone.
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