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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

#331

Post by mulmen »

dspillett wrote: post #325
mulmen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I might have a PI follow that writer for a bit, so I can helpfully send reminders, to illustrate how badly ill-conceived this take is… That’s not a healthy fantasy. The “following” part is especially creepy. There’s a contact the author link on the site. If you care to contact her it’s just a couple clicks away. No reason to hire a stalker. Why are you so angry at the author and not at the people who actually made…

That'll teach me¹ the folly of badly using irony and hyperbole on the Internet! You have simultaneously completely missed and directly stated the point I was trying to make. Yes the following part is creepy, and that is exactly what the author is extolling the benefits of in an online context. Maybe for you² or I the collection of personal & habit data poses little risk when³ it leaks out. My life is too boring and o…

You need to re-read the article. The author does not extoll the benefits of the tracking Google is doing. It’s actually a pro-privacy article. At least read the 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.

You made some edits. It’s strange to me that you seem to be interpreting my position as somehow ok with what Google is doing. I am not ok with that. I don’t think the author of TFA is either.

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

#332

Post by freedomben »

StevePerkins wrote: post #254
matwood wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Brave for awhile, but it got too crypto which made it feel scammy.

I just don't understand this take. In every Chrome gripefest thread, there will be a comment about switching to Firefox that's at or near the top, and then a comment about Brave closer to the bottom. With half the replies to that comment being about crypto, or even smaller niche players like Vivaldi that are closed-source and don't even have an iOS version. Look, I'm not into crypto. But it takes me about two clicks…

It's a reflexive guilt-by-association instinct that many people have. Some people have used crypto in the past unethically, therefore everyone using crypto is unethical. I usually like to illustrate the problem with this fallacy by using it in a way that nearly everybody can quickly see: "do you have a dog? Hitler had a dog."

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

#333

Post by thefourthchime »

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.

A quick googling says Firefox makes most of its money by making Google the default search. While I'm not suggesting they are doing the same, it does make me feel they are aligned as a business.

Apple is the only tech company I know that's primarily funded by customers paying for a product directly. That's why I use Safari.

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

#334

Post by linker3000 »

esskay wrote: post #296
lrem wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla claims over 700 of their 750 employees work on Firefox. It's a bit harder to find out the number of people working on Chrome. The founding director remarks that there were 40 engineers working on Chrome mobile in https://mdwdotla.medium.com/some-thoughts-on-running-success... . That's obviously just a slice of the whole team. Search results suggest a range of numbers between 23 and 500. There appears to be ab…

If there's 700 active developers on Firefox then they sure as hell must be having a great time "working" remotely. The development pace of Firefox is atrocious.

'Compiling'

https://xkcd.com/303/

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

#335

Post by lnxg33k1 »

xg15 wrote: post #115
tgv wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's against the guidelines to be dismissive, but there really is no other response. Especially when you left read the follow-up sentence: > Offloading cognitive effort, such as reminders like these, is a great way automation can assist humanity. Does that pass for journalism? I really don't want to read the rest of the article.

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…

Word. I just tried to log in Godaddy to change some DNS records and it asked me to disable adblock/tracking protection, and I pay for the domain

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

#336

Post by jklinger410 »

post-it wrote: post #236
jklinger410 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as far as I can see there is really no downside to Firefox. Profiles suck. Performance (specifically around video) has been ass for years. Many useful Chrome extensions don't have FF versions. Just off the top of my head.

I use Firefox containers as a replacement for Chrome profiles and I find them to be quite good. The Sidebery addon adds sidebar tab groups where each group can have a different default container, I use it to maintain different sets of sessions for personal and work stuff (GitHub, etc)

I have profile specific extensions for work and personal. Containers is a half solution.

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

#337

Post by bombolo »

jpadkins wrote: post #320
dspillett wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can anyone explain to me why this is worse than third-party cookies? How about thinking the other way around: Can you, or anyone else for that matter, explain to me why this is better than commercial interests not following us around at all ? > turn off third-party cookies, but a bunch of the internet breaks if you do that Most of what breaks is just tracking for ad serving purposes. I'm fine with that breaking. So…

> Can you, or anyone else for that matter, explain to me why this is better than commercial interests not following us around at all? Because people prefer free, ad supported content on the internet. Once you accept that premise, then it's a matter of balancing privacy, volume of ads, and payments to creators (ad tech companies are going to get theirs). Do you think the majority of people would prefer fewer, better t…

[dead]

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

#338

Post by exitheone »

madeofpalk wrote: post #56
esteth wrote: post #36

Can anyone explain to me why this is worse than third-party cookies? *If* this lets chrome remove third-party cookies, doesn't it effectively increase your privacy by putting that tracking data on the user's machine instead of having random third-parties involved in every page load to harvest that tracking info? I understand that you can currently turn off third-party cookies, but a bunch of the internet breaks if yo…

Other browsers have shown this is a false dichotomy. You can disable third party cookies + surveillance AND not have this data still harvested by your browser. Is this better than third-party cookies? Yes, probably. Does Firefox and Safari go better without surveilling your browsing history to serve you ads? Also yes!

Not saying that you are wrong, just mentioning that Safari has the attribution API, which serves a similar goal:

https://searchads.apple.com/help/reporting/0028-apple-ads-at...

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

#339

Post by mulmen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #326
mulmen wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s way off base because it’s unacceptable in civilized society to pay stalkers to harass people to make a point. Do you seriously think it is ok to hire a PI to follow someone to “make a point”? I find that horrifying. Further this is a pro-privacy article. The author seems to have a good grasp of the situation and has communicated it well to a general audience. It even concludes with how to turn the feature off an…

> > I'm not advocating this approach. But I do understand the temptation.

Yes I read your comment. My question was if you are ok with hiring stalkers.

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

#340

Post by dexterdog »

data-ottawa wrote: post #268
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…

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 wit…

That's why I use grapheneos. The only 'feature' I've lost is the ability to use the device to pay at card terminals.
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