In the last weeks I had seen a phone repeating the entered password in a clear voice (after a "security update" none less), and other showing in google maps the exact point where a home video has been recorded while playing the video.
Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
201–210 of 249 posts
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Half the data Chrome collects is harmless If true, that still doesn't negate the other half that is not harmless. More importantly, how about I get to choose what I consider harmless, rather than having a Silicon Valley advertising agency do that for me? Also, there's no way of knowing what Google shoves into the "other" category. Sunlight disinfects, even in Mountain View.
Fair enough. But beware, Chrome's lead on render speed is most likely thanks to the performance data they collect. Any other browser you may choose might not collect that data, but don't be surprised if it halves your battery life and takes twice the time to render stuff (such as Firefox in macOS about 6 months ago, don't know how it performs now). There are reasons for data collection, and I don't think everything i…
I think it opens many file pointers and keeps them open. Trying to run chrome with anything that has io operations on an older machine and you can see how chrome hogs resources.
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is one good argument for Google, and that is it’s free as in beer. For most people, any price over $0 is a dealbreaker. However, assuming you’re willing to pay for privacy, switching e-mail is super easy. For example, from the Fastmail UI, you literally log in to your Google account and all your mail is transferred to Fastmail. Switching to DDG? It’s 95% as good. Switching to Apple Maps or OSM? It’s 95% as good…
> any price over $0 is a dealbreaker. The user pays for Google in the end, just not consensually. It's a closed loop. All the money ultimately comes from the users. Product or politics, all advertisers are expecting to get some return. Unfortunately it's in human nature to not want to pay. Search needs to be a utility that we all fund to make it the best tool for society.
> All the money ultimately comes from the users.
All the money comes from some of the users. Sure Google is collecting everyone's data, but in the end the vast majority of it is worthless. I'd be surprised if even 1% of users are profitable for the ecosystem. The tiny minority clicking on ads and buying products is subsidizing everyone else.
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#204Why is stuff like saving browsing history, doing voice search or autofilling credit cards suddenly a bad thing? Chrome lets you turn all of that off in a single click if you want. I have personally found most of the features on that list to greatly enhance my web experience.
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#205Please tell me why this kind of data collection is harmful for the average user?
I love data collection, it makes the web sing!
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#206Controversial 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.
It's not remotely "anti-user". I want my browsing history sent to a server. I want that history available from all my devices. I suspect most users want that as well. I love it that on Chrome iOS I see history from my desktop Chrome. Even Firefox has this feature. Nothing "anti-user" about it
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chrome's the fastest browser on the market. That, along with some nice marketing strategy is what makes it the absolute market leader. The reason Chrome is so fast, is most likely thanks to the performance (harmless) data it collects. Firefox may be proud of not collecting as much data, but (at least on macOS) they spend twice the battery to render twice as slow. Not saying you shouldn't be able to choose what data y…
what makes it the absolute market leader What makes it the absolute leader is the void left by a dismal IE, and a completely lost Firefox, a few years back. Today's lead is coasting. I don't know OSx, but perceived performance in Linux/Windows is not any better than today's Firefox/Chromium derivatives, if any at all. You keep saying "harmless", and keep missing the point. If you don't want data to be used against us…
Today's lead isn't remotely "coasting". All you have to do is read the list of new features added every release. If Chrome was coasting that list would be empty.
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brave uses Chromium.
What's wrong with Chromium? I don't think Google's tracking specifically has anything to do with Chromium. Chromium !== Chrome
I think the main problem is that by using it you're still giving google decision-making power over the future of the web
Re: Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome
#209I 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…
Switching email is the easiest, because service level is similar elsewhere. The migration just take a long time, but keeping the legacy gmail in parallel of the new account is not too bothersome. It's also a great occasion to use your own domain, so a future switch to another hosting is even easier.