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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

#261

Post by pixl97 »

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.

You're also not executing bash on their servers, which is much different than say HackerNews even.

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

#262

Post by jasonjayr »

mulmen wrote: post #201
jasonjayr wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can be angry at both too.

Sure but the stalker fantasy was targeting the author specifically and made no mention of the people actually doing the thing.

Sure, the stalker fantasy might be a bit on the nose. Having someone follow you around in a 'physical' sense seems kinda creepy.

But; there is now the robot equivalent of a PI stalker in your browser. It's not a person, but it's still reporting all your browser activity. Except for the 'physical human', that seems like a pretty similar analogy, right? Because for me, it's equally creepy.

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

#263

Post by swader999 »

mulmen wrote: post #233
swader999 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violating privacy is creepy, full stop.

Yes, that’s true. But fantasizing about hiring someone to spitefully stalk an actual specific person is especially creepy and unhealthy. I can call out that danger without supporting widespread user tracking.

Oh please, as if they were serious.

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

#264

Post by 93po »

hospitalJail wrote: post #73
jlpcsl wrote: post #29

Just stop being a helpless victim and get rid of this evil corporate spyware and switch to a privacy-respecting browser like Firefox, or even better LibreWolf https://librewolf.net/

I know the goal of LibreWolf is privacy, but logging out of everything on every session was enough for me to deal with the 'privacy' problem. Maybe because I have adblock, but I just don't get these ads other people talk about.

This will do nothing to prevent browser fingerprinting.

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

#265

Post by lock-the-spock »

nologic01 wrote: post #246
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…

> there is really no downside to Firefox The Dutch national TV (NPO) videos do not play on Firefox for Android [1]. They do play on Chrome for Android and they do play on the Linux desktop firefox. Not sure if its some hidden setting that I need to find or something for the firefox team to look into. Everybody and their dog want you to download "apps" - I wonder why? Firefox on android is one of the few defence mecha…

It might be that you turned off playing DRM materials

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

#266

Post by 93po »

_chu1 wrote: post #242

There are people in the comments saying Firefox is super slow compared to Chrome but modern computers are genuinely so fast I can't notice a difference. At least on my Core 2 Duo ThinkPad T61 I use regularly I have to do some comparisons on what the best browser choice is but on my main PC with a Ryzen 5 7600 and 32GB of DDR5 RAM it hasn't even really occurred that one is faster than the other. I use LibreWolf.

I can comment that FF feels slower on iOS but it makes so little difference these days. We’re talking small fractions of a second.

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

#267

Post by pixl97 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #214
makeitdouble wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way is to make it problematic for a commercial entity to provide high value services for free. Basically an anti-dumping law, but for digital goods.

Yes, and raise prices for everyone?

You appear to be confusing the cost of something verses the price of something.

I can eat junk food cheaply every day, I pay the price later.

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

#268

Post by data-ottawa »

bjackman wrote: post #82
starbugs wrote: post #19

This appears to be the same as this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37427227 Top comment on that one was: Key actionable info: to fix this, go to this URL: chrome://settings/adPrivacy and turn off the toggles on each of the three subpages. Alternatively, go to this URL https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ to fix this permanently.

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…

Chrome Mobile is the largest reason I would not recommend an Android (specifically Pixel) device to friends or family. I bought one, and I found myself actively avoiding browsing the web on it.

Even after installing Firefox you can’t get rid of the Google Chrome web search bar on the home screen, and in-app web views are Chrome, so you’re never really free from Chrome.

I do understand the why of ads, and I’m okay with _some_ ads. On 99% of websites from a Google search you get a sticky top and/or bottom bar, and interstitial ads between paragraphs and they’re a little annoying but not so bad. But then on about 30% of search results one of those sticky ads is an autoplaying video, which means I can’t actually read the content (since 1/3 of my screen is video) and the “X” icon is 0.5mm wide so I can’t close it without clicking the video. Then there’s the email subscribe pop up on scroll, and after 15 seconds you get prompted to allow notifications for this website.

Using the web without an ad blocker feels like you’re being attacked, it’s aggressive and stressful.

I had hoped the ubiquity of ad blocking would result in advertisers going “hmmm, maybe we can drive fewer people to install these things by acting better”, but instead it’s been a race to who can exploit the smaller pool of users for clicks.

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

#269

Post by 93po »

dspillett wrote: post #77

Also, when it asks you if you want to turn it on and you say “hell, no”, it will turn on a couple of other settings while it is turning that one off. Make sure you go to chrome://settings/adPrivacy and review and re-disable those. Or switch browser, which I have done on my personal machines.

Changing settings is useless. They will at some point “reengineer” settings with auto opt in and revert your decisions

Just get Firefox

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

#270

Post by MiddleEndian »

scarface_74 wrote: post #173
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…

1. There are services that you pay for where you are still the product - true 2. There are services that you pay for where you are not the product 3. All services that you don’t pay for you are the product. So the first step is getting people to pay for the service

>3. All services that you don’t pay for you are the product.

I certainly don't feel like I am the product when I use Wikipedia.

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