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Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

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Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#91
post #7

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts which aims to target advertising better without it directly relying on singularly personal information. https://web.dev/floc/ FLoC enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behaviour of individual users. FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection. As a user moves around the web, their browser uses the FLoC algorithm to work out it…

It is a very similar feature to Apple Segments[1] already implemented in iOS on which sadly not a lot of documentation is available. [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223

I'm fed up with all the ads and tracking and it saddens me that even Apple does this shit. I want none of it.

This shouldn't exist in your operating system at all.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also like to support websites I visit, though, if I don't have the money to directly donate to them and if I am going to purchase a product anyways (think visiting an amazon product page, leaving it for a day, then clicking an ad for it to give x% to the website). Many websites today wouldn't exist without ads since a lot of their traffic is people who don't go out of their way to donate to websites they find use…

Why are you spending time on websites you don’t find useful?

Because when you visit a new site, you don't know ahead of time if it is useful or not.

That's just how "new" works.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#93
post #7

FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts which aims to target advertising better without it directly relying on singularly personal information. https://web.dev/floc/ FLoC enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behaviour of individual users. FLoC provides a privacy-preserving mechanism for interest-based ad selection. As a user moves around the web, their browser uses the FLoC algorithm to work out it…

> FLoC enables ad selection without sharing the browsing behaviour of individual users.

Nevertheless it seems a formidable addition to a browser user fingerprint.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#94
post #56

That's a very interesting move. The patch seems fairly small, but now it's a patch that Brave needs to maintain and update every time they merge a new upstream version. That's what makes me wary of the whole Chromium fork concept. Every time Brave/Vivaldi/Edge/etc decide to take a different path from Google's they effectively add to their maintenance burden forever, even if like in this case they actually disable an…

The idea of a fork is that it is independent from what it was forked from, you pull what you like and leave aside negative changes, if the license allows this. At least that's the idea. Of course companies with huge manpower such as google can evolve "standards" in a pace that a small independent fork can't keep pace, but we shouldn't just give up.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#95
Seeing:

    document.interestCohort
is pretty abhorrent looking. First-class advertising support in a browser is a major turn-off. Google is probably only a few steps away from losing controlling stake in Chromium, and stuff like this certainly will lead others to flock away.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to have ads at all. The best option is an adblocker, and a non-Chrome-based browser.

Using an adblocker is like stealing candy from the store... They can handle some theft, but if literally everyone stole their candy, the store would close down and nobody can have candy.

No. If advertising became impossible, vendors seeking to compete would be forced to make products good enough to be enthusiastically-shared, word-of-mouth, and everything in the world would be significantly better than it is.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been said many times, but if the business model is advertising then you’re the product.. not the quality journalism or content. They’ll focus on generating content to increase engagement instead of perfecting what you think it is they are supposed to deliver. Perhaps it is time for an advertising model to die out as the default.

Ok, then don’t patronize sites supported by ads.

This is why I’m more than happy when sites say “adblocker detected, please disable or leave”.

I will not render your ads. I’d be happy to put that in the first http request to your site. If that means no site for me, then quite honestly 90% of my browsing is a waste of time anyway.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#99
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave is a protection racket, crypto scam, privacy violating always with an excuse after company. Why the hell would I trust them?

Brave is a free open source product that you don't have to pay for or use. It's a browser with an integrated ad blocker. I opted into Brave, no one forced me to. I asserted my right as a user to run software on my machine how I see fit when I browse the web. The ad model of the web is exploitative, monopolistic, privacy invasive, abusive to everyone, and makes the whole open web ecosystem bow down to the whims of Fac…

I have opted into using Chrome, no one forced me to. I have asserted my right as a user to run software on my machine how I see fit when I browse the web. The ad model of the web allows me to freely browse the web while providing a source of income to those who work hard to provide the services and information I seek on the web.

Re: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an adblocker is like stealing candy from the store... They can handle some theft, but if literally everyone stole their candy, the store would close down and nobody can have candy.

Using an ablocker is more like going to church wearing earplugs.

Using an adblocker is more like walking down the street with earplugs that block out a preacher you didn't want to listen to.
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