pretty interesting but why's this website so dramatic, like it thinks it's making me uneasy and paranoid or something
Because it's AI slop. It's the same tone every time
A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
241–250 of 309 posts
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#242Maybe it's just because I am old, or have worked on internet software for almost 30 years, but none of this seems surprising or even concerning? Someone sets up a server that accepts connections to it and then someone sends a connection request to it. There has been no agreement on anything, no expectations or rules established. No one forces the server to accept any connection request it gets, and no one forces some…
I remember late 90s - we made a website that greeted incoming readers with message “Hey, you come from {ip address}.”
Today, it seems that websites track and collect much data as they have partnerships with 1,000 partners (see cookies consent window).
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#243Maybe it's just because I am old, or have worked on internet software for almost 30 years, but none of this seems surprising or even concerning? Someone sets up a server that accepts connections to it and then someone sends a connection request to it. There has been no agreement on anything, no expectations or rules established. No one forces the server to accept any connection request it gets, and no one forces some…
Missing the deforestation for the tree-trimmers? If it was only one or two websites blocking people it wouldn't be a problem.
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would I expect that the website would not try to figure out who I am? For the same reason I expect my neighbor not to kill me or steal my shit. We live in a society, with societal expectations around behaviour. I, personally, would prefer not to live in an uncivilized jungle where the only rule is "do whatever you can get away with".
“Kill me and steal my shit” is a lot different. This is more like, I am not offended if my neighbor notices that I leave my house around the same time everyday and come home around the same time. I don’t expect my neighbor to look away when I step outside. If I put something in my yard visible from their house, I won’t get offended if they look at it. Killing and stealing are completely different things than “paying…
Are you offended if your neighbor publishes a register of what time everyone around him goes to work, and charges $50 for any burglar to get a copy?
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#245The gyroscope and battery should not be getting exposed without permission. That seems unexpectedly invasive, and I'm in tech.
Also we should disable referrer field.
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#246Aren't LLMs smart enough to choose better color contrast by now?
Not when they've been trained on low contrast garbage.
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Some web apps might want to present a different interface if you’re in landscape.
You don't need an angle for that. That is highly invasive and can be used to target unique individuals. Why not default to a pro-human oriented mindset rather than pro-corporation?
It's for games that rely on the tilt.
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah. The browser has a mechanism to request geolocation. This is the ask that was not performed. The user was not asked, which is the important piece. If I have a dictionary, I don't have to ask the meaning of a word I hear from someone I am speaking to, I can look it up in the dictionary. I may infer an incorrect meaning because the word has multiple meanings or is a colloquialism. If I need to clarify that inaccura…
> Nah. The browser has a mechanism to request geolocation. This is the ask that was not performed. The user was not asked, which is the important piece. The geolocation API requires prompting the user for permission before it can be used: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Geolocation...
Yes, that would have tripped the prompt asking the user, which would have had explicit user acceptance or refusal. The point is you don't need consent to do a fuzzy match usibg other data in most jurisdictions.
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#249So if they can figure out whether I have an expensive laptop/computer based on my graphic card, then they can adjust the prices I see on the page (e.g.higher prices for game devs/players and lower prices for plumbers). Not fair.
Re: A web page that shows you everything the browser told it without asking
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it's because I'm idealistic in addition to being old, but I think a lot of this functionality was in fact added for explicit purposes. A client sends the language header or the list of supported fonts not so that the server can "do whatever they want with this data." There is (or was) a real reason for it when we came up with these standards. The fact that website providers, or more specifically ad-networks, ha…
Sure, but I think some of the stuff it sends isn't necessary. A website doesn't need to know the list of fonts on my machine, for example. Some of them are questionable: most websites do not need to know my time zone, but when a website can use that in a useful way related to its functionality, it would be annoying if the browser were to popup an allow/deny dialog, and even more annoying if I had to manually set it i…
> A website doesn't need to know the list of fonts on my machine
Unless you disallow websites from choosing their fonts, that information is really hard to hide. Most likely impossible.
What you can do is standardize the list.
> most websites do not need to know my time zone
Almost anything with a form needs this.
Every information on that page is necessary for something common and desirable. It's not using any advanced fingerprinting that can be blocked.