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Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

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Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#161

Post by kjkjadksj »

smarkov wrote: post #98
madeofpalk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this Firefox hate. I use Firefox and I'm pretty happy with it and the product's direction. I'm also fine igoring products and features that I'm not interested in.

> I don't get this Firefox hate. Just because I'm criticizing something doesn't mean I hate it. I want it to be better, and that's something Firefox needs if it wants to get out of the bottom in terms of usage.

Firefox being at the bottom has nothing to do with what mozilla does. Its because they are going against google that pesters you to download chrome. The network effects of everyone downloading chrome for 15 years. The idea that google is one of the largest companies on earth and mozilla is a rag tag team. Firefox is better. You objectively have a worse experience on chrome or edge or safari. Most users otoh just don’t care about vetting software. They stick to what they know. Go to a library or cafe and be disappointed how many people browse the web with zero ad blocking because they simply don’t know any better.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#162

Post by denton-scratch »

jameshush wrote: post #132

We have a few options for monetizing on the web: 1. Sell stuff (e-commerce, subscriptions, services). 2. Sell ads (every website that's free except Wikipedia). 3. Ask for donations (Wikipedia). I'm tongue and check for numbers 2 and 3. But with money coming in, people get paid. If you don't get paid, you don't eat. If you don't eat, you don't poop. If you don't poop, you die. To sell ads, websites need to be able to…

> To sell ads, websites need to be able to show what demographics of people have clicked on ads

Not really. You just need to look at any normal billboard; advertisers bought that billboard, even though it knows nothing about demographics or "attribution".

Tracking just makes advertising more cost-effective. To the advertiser, not to me. I'm not an advertiser; I gain nothing from the cheapness of advertising. It makes no difference to me whether an ad is targeted or not; I don't want to see it. Especially if it writhes and wriggles distractingly, or autoplays video.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#163

Post by hnben »

jameshush wrote: post #132

We have a few options for monetizing on the web: 1. Sell stuff (e-commerce, subscriptions, services). 2. Sell ads (every website that's free except Wikipedia). 3. Ask for donations (Wikipedia). I'm tongue and check for numbers 2 and 3. But with money coming in, people get paid. If you don't get paid, you don't eat. If you don't eat, you don't poop. If you don't poop, you die. To sell ads, websites need to be able to…

I think I agree with you, but I would add another option: buy subscription services. These services have a strong incentive to keep their userbase happy.

> If you don't get paid, you don't eat. If you don't eat, you don't poop. If you don't poop, you die.

beautiful

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#164

Post by kjkjadksj »

latexr wrote: post #90
HeckFeck wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't regret it and you won't miss anything. Who cares if Chrome is 2% faster on some obscure CSS parsing test? At least you aren't participating in your own psychological manipulation and are resisting WEI.

> and you won't miss anything. I would very much miss AppleScript support. It’s the number one reason I (and many users of my tools) don’t touch Firefox. Fortunately, Webkit browsers (Safari, Orion) have got that covered. Unfortunately, Chromium browsers are a more common choice.

You don’t need applescript to script events in firefox. You could probably do it in pure bash.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#166

Post by kjkjadksj »

hospitalJail wrote: post #70
pulse7 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using FireFox now for several years without any problems - just jump over...

>2021 Firefox sucked, weirdly slow. >2022+ Firefox is just a normal browser. Although, FF on linux was buggy with Spotify. Had to use chromium.

I don’t know how people find firefox slow. In a straight a to b test maybe, but its never a straight test. Its the test of chrome loading ads or using a crummy ad blocker, vs firefox with ublock origin. The latter will blow the doors off anything on the market.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#167

Post by Phemist »

So, I've heard it said in another topic on `Topics` that a single list of topics, as far as it is an identifier for a specific person, is far less accurate than a tracking cookie (or similar technology).

Well, yes, maybe that is the case _right now_, but these are convenient arguments to push the technology through. There is nothing inherent to the technology that would prevent the `Topics` from being split such that 8 billion (current world population) unique combinations of topics exist.

If all topics are completely orthogonal to others, such that the existence of one topic for some user does not give extra information of another topic existing for the same user, we would expect a list of log2(8 billion) ~= 33 topics to suffice as a unique identifier for each individual user, _reported by the browser to every single website that is visited_.

So... obviously there is no technological limitation to this list of topics, it is completely feasible to design a list of 33 (or a little bit more) topics in this way.. so what will keep Google from not introducing more topics (as time goes on and people become accustomed to this feature)?

My point, in the limit, potentially a few years from now, this feature will be "pareto-dominant" of tracking cookies, or rather in all aspects better at tracking users than tracking cookies ever were.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#168

Post by wolverine876 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #145
xg15 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually worth reading the article to the end, because otherwise you'd be missing the amazing final paragraph: > Lastly, it’s good to remember nothing truly comes for free. Software costs money to develop. If you’re not paying towards that, then it’s likely you – or your data – are the product. We need to revolutionise how we think about our own data and what value it truly holds. Ignoring the fact that this is…

I don’t pay for bash yet I have plenty of excellent tooling in it thats free, and I’m not the product. Software can be released freely just like a poem can be. The people who develop popular software like one of the functions in bash I use for free probably aren’t hurting for work I’d imagine.

> The people who develop popular software like one of the functions in bash I use for free probably aren’t hurting for work I’d imagine.

I wouldn't assume that; I would donate what you can. I've been to two pay-what-you-can theater performances recently. How can I not give those people - who value every dime, who many others stiff, and where you know 100% goes to a worthy cause - more than the corporate productions, who couldn't care less about me or community and where the money goes to some billionaires and shareholders who couldn't care less about art and look forward to AI and cost-cutting layoffs. The last thing I want is the local artists, who do it for the art, to not see people's love and appreciation or to stop.

Around 5-10 years ago, IIRC the maintainer of a relatively well-known Linux distro moved home to (Minnesota?) because they had no health insurance and couldn't afford the Bay Area (or something like that, my memory is sketchy).

Also don't forget the sh-t-ton of abuse open source maintainers take.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#169

Post by atoav »

tasn wrote: post #123
bjackman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Chrome at work and Firefox on personal devices (including my Android phone). As a heavy user of both browsers, as far as I can see there is really no downside to Firefox. In fact, even though presumably there are way more engineers working on Chrome than on Firefox, I guess most of Chrome's engineering effort goes towards benefitting advertisers, not users. While Chrome seems entirely stagnant since I adopted i…

I use Firefox on both Android and desktop. It's much better in many ways, and I love it. I do get compatibility issues sometimes, but I'm unsure whether it's because of all of the add-ons I use, or websites being buggy with Firefox.

or because people develope for chrome and skip testing on other browsers.

Re: Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads

#170

Post by cmiles74 »

alexvitkov wrote: post #24

> Tracking technology can arguably benefit us as well. For example, it could be helpful if an online store reminds you every three months you need a new toothbrush, or that this time last year you bought a birthday card for your mum. fuck off

I have yet to see an ad this clever! It's 2023 and the ads I'm served are for things I already recently purchased (and don't need to buy again) or similar to something I have recently purchased or a cheap knock-off of something I have recently purchased.
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