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Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

brave.com

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Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#241

Post by dotancohen »

grishka wrote: post #165
dogecoinbase wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately no. The entire point of DoH is to bypass the ability of the users to prevent browsers from providing browsing habits to their owners.

DoH and similar technologies don't override /etc/hosts. They're just a different way of making DNS queries. The entire point of these technologies is to prevent your ISP and everyone else along the way from knowing which websites you visit.

Since the application itself is making the DNS requests, it is completely building the relevant OS networking features, including hosts file support.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#242

Post by user_7832 »

hnben wrote: post #199
TylerE wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both a competitor AND a history of operating in, to be polite, less than good faith.

> less than good faith Could you elaborate? (I know next to nothing about Brave, so I may not be aware of obvious examples)

Not the person you're replying to and neither do I fully agree with them, but brave haa had issues with their crypto (BAT) system. Nothing that appears purposely malicious but quite possibly misleading in some cases.

See: 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Business_m... 2 - https://web.archive.org/web/20181224011529/https://twitter.c...

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#243

Post by bad_user »

autoexec wrote: post #212
rpastuszak wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but Mozilla is an ad-tech company too now. The recent events related to FF are not that much of a shift, considering that Google pays $20B per annum to its (technically non-ad tech) partners, then 85% of Mozilla's total revenue comes from its partnership with Google . That ship had sailed long time ago. https://untested.sonnet.io/Defaults+Matter%2C+Don't+Assume+C...

Firefox really has been going downhill for a long time. Forcing Pocket into the browser, the ad infested new tab page, telemetry, making user accounts a thing, force installing TV show promotions, etc. What they haven't done before is spend a fortune buying up an ad-tech start up. They barely even bother to maintain a pretense that they care about Firefox users. They basically came right out and said "We know that us…

> Forcing Pocket into the browser

Fun fact: by subscribing to Pocket, you're directly contributing to Firefox's development.

Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't. People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue.

Nobody wants to pay for a browser, browsers are essentially incredibly complex nowadays, and I have yet to hear how in the world are browsers supposed to get funding.

And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web, and it is advertising that is paying for all browser development, actually, including Safari. And the open web is also dying, because people have been moving to mobile apps, where all pretence that "the user agent must act on your behalf" is gone. In other words, even if you get what you wish for, in a couple of years it may not matter at all.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#244

Post by bad_user »

nicce wrote: post #57
TylerE wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both a competitor AND a history of operating in, to be polite, less than good faith.

As a competitor, let's add that they are ad company too.

Name one browser that isn't funded by ads.

Even the minor browsers, pretending to not be funded by ads at this point (while the VC capital is drying up) depend on one of the 3 browser engines, all of which are funded by ads.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#245

Post by thayne »

renonce wrote: post #197
thayne wrote: post #174

This is a tough situation. Yes, this can, and will, be abused for tracking users across domains that they don't expect to be related. But there are also legitimate use cases for this. For example, consider the stackexchange family of sites. They are clearly related, have a unified branding, etc. but are on separate domains. On Firefox, which blocks third party cookies, I have to log in to each of those domains separa…

> I can't log in to stackoverflow.com, then go to superuser.com and already be logged in. I would expect a popup like “This site wants to share cookies with stackexchange.com, press Allow to sign in, press Reject to reject forever or press Ignore to decide later”. Takes a single click to enjoy the benefits of both worlds. The mechanism should make sure that every website has a single “first-party domain” shared acros…

And that would be annoying to people who aren't already logged in to a related site.

Also, there is no way to know which related site the user is logged in to, so they would have to prompt for every one of their sites.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#246

Post by zimpenfish »

bad_user wrote: post #244
nicce wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a competitor, let's add that they are ad company too.

Name one browser that isn't funded by ads. Even the minor browsers, pretending to not be funded by ads at this point (while the VC capital is drying up) depend on one of the 3 browser engines, all of which are funded by ads.

> Name one browser that isn't funded by ads.

Safari? Unless you're going to say that Apple gets the money for Safari through ads which, y'know, technically correct but disingenuous in this context, surely.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#247

Post by bad_user »

roelschroeven wrote: post #187
grishka wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DoH and similar technologies don't override /etc/hosts. They're just a different way of making DNS queries. The entire point of these technologies is to prevent your ISP and everyone else along the way from knowing which websites you visit.

DoH means that each application does its own DNS queries, instead of using the OS's functionality. Whether that includes reading /etc/hosts is up to the application, and it looks like high profile applications like Chrome and Firefox don't read /etc/hosts. > The entire point of these technologies is to prevent your ISP and everyone else along the way from knowing which websites you visit. More correctly, the point is…

Excluding leaks, the ISP does not see the hostnames, what it sees are the IPs you're connecting to. 20% of internet traffic goes through Cloudflare, so at least for those, the IPs are meaningless.

Both privacy and security are layered, and perfect is the enemy of good. Securing the DNS is an obvious first step, forcing the Internet to HTTPS by default was another. Google and Mozilla have contributed to better privacy. People that want more privacy, depending on needs, can also use a VPN or for the more extreme cases, something like Tor.

Not sure what you mean about having to trust Google or Mozilla. I'm not using either Google's or Mozilla's DoH servers. But yes, I would trust them more than my local ISP. Google, at least, proved quite competent in handling whatever data they collect.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#248

Post by bad_user »

chgs wrote: post #221
grishka wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DoH means that each application does its own DNS queries, instead of using the OS's functionality. HUH?! No! You aren't supposed to implement DNS on the application level! Most modern OSes support some form of DNS over TLS at the system level. You should use that.

You’re not but that’s the point. Google realise they don’t control the OS (in many cases) and thus struggle to monetise it. I don’t have a problem with doing dns lookups over http, or any other protocol you want to use, if I configure my OS resolver to do that. When people don’t like DoH they tend to mean they have a problem with bypassing the OS. Theres then the concept of DoH, network admins have a harder job block…

What you mean is that network admins have a harder time controlling people's devices.

I have a DoH server set in my Chromium browser, installed on my corporate laptop, and I love it, because my DNS queries don't leak to my network admin.

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#249

Post by bad_user »

zimpenfish wrote: post #246
bad_user wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one browser that isn't funded by ads. Even the minor browsers, pretending to not be funded by ads at this point (while the VC capital is drying up) depend on one of the 3 browser engines, all of which are funded by ads.

> Name one browser that isn't funded by ads. Safari? Unless you're going to say that Apple gets the money for Safari through ads which, y'know, technically correct but disingenuous in this context, surely.

Google is paying Apple 20 billion per year in their search deal, which is 40 times more than what Mozilla takes.

Safari is funded ENTIRELY by Google's ads, also making a profit, and this is a fact. We can entertain a counterfactual, maybe Safari would still be funded without Google funding it with billions, but that's not the world we live in today.

And given Apple's reluctance to advance the web, going against their other cash cows, it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. I recommend reading this opinion: https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow...

Re: Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users

#250

Post by rpastuszak »

bad_user wrote: post #243
autoexec wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox really has been going downhill for a long time. Forcing Pocket into the browser, the ad infested new tab page, telemetry, making user accounts a thing, force installing TV show promotions, etc. What they haven't done before is spend a fortune buying up an ad-tech start up. They barely even bother to maintain a pretense that they care about Firefox users. They basically came right out and said "We know that us…

> Forcing Pocket into the browser Fun fact: by subscribing to Pocket, you're directly contributing to Firefox's development. Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't . People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue. Nobody wants to pay for a browser, browsers are essentially incredibly complex nowadays, and I have…

> And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web

As someone who worked both on advertiser and publisher sides (incl. content monetisation): advertisers like to say that they support publishers and the open web, but in fact, they are keeping it hostage.

We've had the means/tech to support publishers directly for years (I don't mean crypto). It's in the interest of companies like Google to keep users (and publishers, and brands) in the dark. And one of the issues here is that they have so much impact on the discourse. There are only few places, where I saw more people using ad blockers than the adtech businesses I worked with or at.

> Nobody wants to pay for a browser

True, but I don't think people would have an issue with paying for browsers if they understood the value of it. At this stage, I think the only solution would involve:

1) education 2) regulation/better legislation

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