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Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

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Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#141

Post by masswerk »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #42
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason for only sending this header to Google web properties and not all domains?

Is it because Google's webapps will have their own a/b tests which use experimental features only available in Chrome perhaps? I mean personally I think they should do client-side feature detection and be back to being standards compliant and not creepy. The only reason why I'd consider such a flag is because they optimize the payload server-side to return a certain a/b test, but even with that they could do the defa…

Isn't this what cookies are for?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#142

Post by Mirioron »

scoutt wrote: post #71

PII concept is not the same for everyone/everywhere. For GDPR we have: > Article 4(1): ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly , in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or…

Who's going to raise this issue though? And what if they put this in the browser's T&C?

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#143

Post by chewz »

w0m wrote: post #57
reaperducer wrote: post #46

I don't understand why Google and some other tech companies use their users as involuntary, unpaid guinea pigs. No consent. No opt-out. What's the motivation? Is it simple laziness because they don't want to deal with wetware? Is it afraid that if people knew what was happening they wouldn't be happy? Google has eighty brazillion employees it can test new features on.

... what? If you aren't paying for it; you are the product. Simple.

> If you aren't paying for it; you are the product. Simple.

This nonsense should belong into Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness along with: Capitalism - God's way of determining who is smart, and who is poor.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#144

Post by falcolas »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #125
falcolas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is a conspiracy. I'm not a Mozilla employee, have never been one (probably never will be one). Firefox is awesome, fast, and extensible. It's my daily driver for all of my machines.

Side question: I've been trying to switch to firefox as my main browser but one thing is holding me up. When I'm using a private window, cookies are not shared between private tabs. I can see the advantage to that behavior, but is there a way to share them so that I can be logged into the same site in multiple private tabs? Unironically, I haven't had any luck googling this problem.

If you open a new tab from an existing tab, your session persists across tabs. So, for example, middle clicking on the Hacker News logo will preserve your HN session across tabs.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#145

Post by dgudkov »

zozbot234 wrote: post #51
dgudkov wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla Corporation which makes the browser doesn't accept donations.

I assume they do get quite a bit of money from Mozilla Foundation, which does.

I asked the Mozilla Foundation if anything from the donations goes to the browser, they said no, not a single penny.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#146

Post by raxxorrax »

This it outrageous. Browsers are user-agents, not advertising accelerators. They should hide as much personal identifiable information as possible. This is exactly why using a browser from an advertising company is not a good idea. They use it to improve their service... The lie gets old...

This comment was sadly written in Chrome, since I need it for testing...

edit: pretty much exactly 10 years ago they already tried their shit with a unique id. We should have learned from that experience.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#147

Post by mam2 »

reaperducer wrote: post #46

I don't understand why Google and some other tech companies use their users as involuntary, unpaid guinea pigs. No consent. No opt-out. What's the motivation? Is it simple laziness because they don't want to deal with wetware? Is it afraid that if people knew what was happening they wouldn't be happy? Google has eighty brazillion employees it can test new features on.

I still do'nt understand how people ask these questions when it's been it since 30 years.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#148

Post by fortyseven »

fortran77 wrote: post #60
marriedWpt wrote: post #38

Ahh the good ol HN "stop using Google and start using Firefox" advertisement. It's a bit odd to see this in every Google thread. Btw, Firefox is too slow.

It's not odd at all. It's what the folks at Mozilla do. They jump in to every thread to push Firefox and Rust and make people think it's more widely used/better than it is.

People who push conspiracies without solid evidence should be jailed. Or at least publicly ridiculed.

Re: Google tracks individual users per Chrome installation ID

#149

Post by basscomm »

marriedWpt wrote: post #38

Ahh the good ol HN "stop using Google and start using Firefox" advertisement. It's a bit odd to see this in every Google thread. Btw, Firefox is too slow.

> Btw, Firefox is too slow.

Ahh, the good ol' "Firefox is too slow for me to consider it" statement. Is there any evidence that Firefox is slower then Chrome other than old lingering memories of Firefox being slow ten years ago?

I have used both Firefox and Chrome and I can't subjectively tell that one is significantly faster or slower than the other. To be fair, I only have a handful of extensions and rarely have more than ten tabs open at a time, so my use case may be atypical.

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