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The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

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Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#101

Post by Aachen »

type0 wrote: post #83
luke2m wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is zero incentive for Chromium forks, let alone any other browser vendor, to implement/leave-in this technology. Chrome has a 60-70% market share on its own. Most people don’t even know the difference between “the internet” “the www” and “chrome” So, there is zero incentive for the 30% of non-chrome browsers, but most of the people who don’t use adblockers anyway will be sucked into this.

Correctemento, for non technical users Chrome is the window to the internet (it used to be Internet Explorer).

Why'd they go out and download another browser if they don't understand the concept of a browser? Only Android comes with the Google browser as default browser as far as I know.

I think whatever the setupper of the computer dictates whatever Internet is, and secondarily the OS vendor if the new user doesn't have a tech friend.

I don't think Chrome is somehow == Internet for these people specifically. (Personally I call the shortcut "Internet" so it's consistent across devices and they don't have to recognize Lightning on their phone and Firefox on their laptop.)

The Google homepage on the other hand...

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#102

Post by bsanr2 »

ramses0 wrote: post #41
jereees wrote: post #10

I’m sure there has to be a better way to introduce the audience to FLoC. I’m over five paragraphs in and the article hasn’t properly articulated what is FLoC and _why_ it is bad. Just that it is bad.

I'll take a stab. Suppose your browser told every website you visited that you had the identifier "FAANG", and your friends web browser told every website they visited: "FAA_G" (b/c obviously they don't have netflix). Per the linked article, the browser is filling in the blanks "___N_" as you visit each website, but it's telling each website not _what_ site you visited, but that you are in the groups of "FAA_G" vs. "…

Of tangential note, you may be able to better make your point by assuming that User 2 doesn't use Apple products rather than Netflix.

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#103

Post by munk-a »

galangalalgol wrote: post #49
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #28

"Please switch to a browser that supports FLoC to view this page." [Links to Chrome, etc.] "This website requires a browser that supports FLoC. Please install one of the folllowing compatible browsers: " [Links for Chrome, etc.] "We've detected you are using a browser that does not support FLoC. Please update your browser to use this website." [Links to Chrome, etc.] "Your browser is outdated! Please upgrade." [Links…

I'd love to ditch javascript entirely. Is there an android browser that supports that?

I've been using NoScript with block-all by default (on a laptop - not mobile) for about two years now and I really appreciate how many sites I can visit and immediately close due to the sheer number of scripts that would be require enabling to actually render the page.

It's a nice way to screen for better browsing experience pages.

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#104

Post by armagon »

rufugee wrote: post #78

Anyone using Vivaldi full-time? As a Firefox user, I find I have to install a number of third-party extensions to get some basic functionality that Vivaldi has out of the box (ad-blocking, note taking). Anyone made the switch, and, if so, can you share your experience?

I use Vivaldi as my daily browser.

Two main reasons:

  - it is able to debug the web application I work on developing. (Trying to make it easier to debug under Firefox is on my todo list).
  - it has mouse gestures, and they work everywhere (even on blank tabs).

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#105

Post by joshuamorton »

sumtechguy wrote: post #50
ramses0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a stab. Suppose your browser told every website you visited that you had the identifier "FAANG", and your friends web browser told every website they visited: "FAA_G" (b/c obviously they don't have netflix). Per the linked article, the browser is filling in the blanks "___N_" as you visit each website, but it's telling each website not _what_ site you visited, but that you are in the groups of "FAA_G" vs. "…

If I am reading this right (and you seem to have read it the same way) it ends up creating a browser fingerprint. Visit 1 FLoC and they have no real idea who you really are. But if you visit several they could easily tell. Which is similar to how they use your installed list of fonts to identify you. But more formalized?

No, this isn't correct.

You only ever belong to a single FloC. So let's for a second assume the non-adversarial use case. The advertiser isn't using any additional tools to track you. Then the only thing the advertiser has is your FloC. This doesn't identify you individually, but it might correlate with various interests.

If your FloC changes, which it will periodically, the advertiser doesn't have any history, so the correlation changes and you're given different ads.

Now let's assume that they have some additional information, like an IP address. Then they can say ah you had this FloC on this date, and this different FloC later. Its not more identifying (they already have your IP, which we assume is identifying enough). The FloC might let them infer things about your interests on other sites, so they have precise information on your browsing interests on this site, but only partial information on other sites.

As opposed to today, where 3rd party trackers mean they have full information on the other sites too.

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#106

Post by rufugee »

cturtle wrote: post #96
rufugee wrote: post #78

Anyone using Vivaldi full-time? As a Firefox user, I find I have to install a number of third-party extensions to get some basic functionality that Vivaldi has out of the box (ad-blocking, note taking). Anyone made the switch, and, if so, can you share your experience?

I jump between Vivaldi and Firefox, and I love both browsers. Currently I use Vivaldi more than Firefox. Here's what I like in both: Firefox: - Multi-account Containers extension is amazing. I only use it for a handful of accounts, but it is very simple to use. This is probably the feature I miss most in Vivaldi. - The interface integrates better with my DE (Cinnamon), and overall feels less cluttered. Vivaldi has so…

Actually, the lack of multi-account containers probably kills it for me. They've become such an important part of my workflow these days.

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#107

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #33

Recent related threads: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26765084 - April 2021 (335 comments) Am I FLoCed? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26755313 - April 2021 (33 comments) Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26344013 - March 2021 (348 comments) I know there have been others - if anyone finds them, I'll add to the above list.

[deleted]

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#108

Post by throwaway3699 »

aboringusername wrote: post #99
dang wrote: post #33

Recent related threads: Brave disables Chromium FLoC features - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26765084 - April 2021 (335 comments) Am I FLoCed? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26755313 - April 2021 (33 comments) Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26344013 - March 2021 (348 comments) I know there have been others - if anyone finds them, I'll add to the above list.

A bit off topic but I'd love to see a sort of ML/AI feature where "related discussions" can be added automatically for added context, I appreciate you do this manually and I find it very useful to get more of an idea of the relevance/importance of a topic! (Maybe even a "HN search found 3 possibly related threads")

Why would that need ML? PageRank has worked for ages for this problem.

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#109

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

hilbert42 wrote: post #98
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #28

"Please switch to a browser that supports FLoC to view this page." [Links to Chrome, etc.] "This website requires a browser that supports FLoC. Please install one of the folllowing compatible browsers: " [Links for Chrome, etc.] "We've detected you are using a browser that does not support FLoC. Please update your browser to use this website." [Links to Chrome, etc.] "Your browser is outdated! Please upgrade." [Links…

This would be boring if it weren't so serious. It's damn time that the Googles of this world were brought to heel with legislation that has real teeth — i.e.: the levying of fines worth 20% upward of annual turnover as well as heavy fines levied on employees who concoct, design and or deliberately participate in introducing or maintaining these scams. Once employees are also targeted and held responsible for their ac…

If I do a search on https://www.google.com without sending SNI, I get a terse message placed in the CN X.509 attribute of the returned certificate: "Fix your client". It feels like arrogance and it seems like they have acquired a remarkable sense of entitlement. (The search still works.)

As for speed, it would be interesting to have a "surfing contest", i.e., a web surfing contest that is a "browser challenge", pitting a team of users using a no-Javascript user agent versus a team using a "modern browser". The objective might be something like a race to interactively extract a given item of textual information from a selection of Javascript-heavy websites.

Re: The Vivaldi browser will not support Google’s FLoC

#110

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

domano wrote: post #9
paxys wrote: post #4

> The FLoC component in Chrome needs to call Google’s servers to check if it can function since Google is only enabling it in parts of the world that are not covered by Europe’s GDPR This is all you should need to know about it.

Man GDPR is such a pain to implement and UX-wise, but it seems to actually have improved personal data protection.

Yes, it is a pain to implement user-hostile “features” that GDPR was designed against. It’s working as intended!
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