191–200 of 259 posts
To be honest though, for the general public not using adblockers, is FloC not better privacy wise than your traditional cookies?
Google is trying to vilify browser cookies and slip in their proprietary tracking and profiling as a safe alternative. It's not better they simply want a monopoly on the dark arts of privacy intrusion, they want to build a moat and burn the bridges of the old way.
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Your "about" clearly states it: Some say I argue on the internet too much, but those people are wrong. I don't know what you do/sell on said websites, but if you still have a job it means that those who hired you haven't received (enough) complaints yet.
I am not sure about that. Usually, when people only use Chrome to test and develop; Firefox/Safari users end up with problems. When someone tests on Firefox; things usually end up working on Chrome without problems. This might be due to Firefox users being more aware of standards than just "whatever runs on Chrome today", or because Google tends to ship non-standard behaviour with their browser and make it a "standar…
I was expecting that they perform their UAT on the prevalent browsers at the time. I don't expect/demand that people will UAT a website for "Pale Moon", but it is dangerous to not test Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera (and a few more) and in multiple devices/displays.
I have no expectation that a personal blog will display perfectly, but for some applications/websites every menu option, line, frame, must be perfecly visible as per the design, otherwise you get your Chrome users that cannot hit "send" to complete that funds transfer, and that won't keep you employed for long.
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That's very generous. However, with the plethora of browser fingerprinting techniques, cookies today have become almost irrelevant: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://scrapebot.com/browser-fingerprinting-techniques/
Regardless of how simple fingerprinting is, I'm pretty sure that cookies are still the main way in which advertisers track users. Why make their job cheaper than it has to be?
I have (mild) worries about privacy from all over the tech spectrum in our day and age, and I can understand people having these worries about big tech such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Mastercard, Walmart, but the list must spread all over the space of tech, devtech, socialtech, fintech, edutech, insurancetech, govtech, medtech, citytech, and whathaveyoutech. The problem is not constrained to Google Chrom…
What I am getting at is that there is a paradigm shift in privacy consideration and expectations in the last two decades (on top of another shift the previous 2 or 3 decades).
We are living in a different age. The combat I read about in HN comments seems that of a rearguard... no offense.
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I use DDG as my main search engine but I share the parent's concerns. In the end an ad-driven business model will always pit the interests of its users vs the interests of the advertisers. Should DDG become ultra-successful, how long until they start making concessions to privacy to increase revenue and growth? After all not so long ago Google themselves were "the good guys" and we were willing to give them the benef…
Honestly I use DDG because in most cases the search results returned are more relevant. I’ll go to google if it’s something that could be explained by a YouTube video or Reddit thread or a Pinterest board, but Google really wants to push you toward the larger sites — even if the content is less relevant. If I recall DDG doesn’t even use cookies. So they’re showing ads based solely on the search terms, which personall…
I gave up trying to be too optimistic about DDG and use Google with no javascript and no cookies saved on the domain in my browser.
My problem with search is a user one. Not an ethical one. When I search for something I want the best results. I don't care if some cute furry animal had to be sacrificed in the production of this utility.
Btw, DDG has a settings button hidden somewhere that allows you to tweak a few settings and save cookies if you wanted.
I try to sell friends and family on resisting Google's privacy invasions but lately it always goes the same way. "Yeah I know they know everything. How does that hurt me, like how does that cause me a problem in a real way that makes my life worse?" And I can't come up with a good answer for that.
Substitute Google with the Chinese Communist Party and most Chinese people right now have the same attitude as your friends. How would those friends feel about Chinese people being able to gain their information independence from CCP? If they would be in favour, then at least metaphorically they answered their own question.
I generally am on the pro-Firefox, anti-Chrome train, but there is one practical exception: websites that make use of in-browser audio synthesis often (in my experience) just don't work in Firefox. Audible Genius's Building Blocks course has a in-browser DAW that you need to use Chrome for. Flowkey (browser-based piano lessons) also only works in Chrome, as far as I've been able to figure out. So to anyone with an in…
I mean, youtube doesn't work in firefox well. I can't count the number of times I had to restart the browser to play a youtube video. Google reveals it's not an uncommon issue on OSX. While I hated Chrome from the day one, I recommend it to people...
uBlockOrigin already blocks FLoC in their privacy list and there are ideas to integrate it further as I understand [1]. So for all of us using that extension, there's no need to install DDG as well. [1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1553
The "solution" of installing an extension is a bit shortsighted. Google can and will just remove the possibility for extensions to block FLOC in the future, when it's deemed profitable to do so.
Yeah, it's less profitable. But it's been proven to work since like 7000BC and it gets rid of all the privacy problems.
All the invasive FBI style user tracking only existed for ~20 years. A mote in the history of advertising. Anybody who tells you online advertising won't work without it is a liar.
On the plus side, maybe now people will see Chrome for what it really is. A vehicle and a weapon for Google to protect its shady business model. Just like Android.
Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years
> Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years I switched for privacy and to de-google my life. But for complex queries I often end up using the "g!" shortcut in the query to do the search on google instead.