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LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

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Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#281

Post by OhMeadhbh »

Fwiw... I now run personal and professional browser profiles from two different jails / cgroups. It's a pain in the arse to set up, and I have to verify my config still works after every update, but I get a good feeling knowing my personal chocolate is not mixing in with my professional peanut butter.

I set up the cgroups hack so I could route traffic from a dev profile into a VPS vpn, and may not be that useful for everyone.

But I think this is a reminder that you may want to have at least two profiles: one public and the other private. Do you really want Microsoft to know you installed the "Otaku Neko StarBlazers Tru-Fen Extendomatic" package to change every picture of a current political figure to an image from the cast of Space Battleship Yamato?

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#282

Post by chromacity »

The real story is what's going on behind the scenes. The charges are relatively flimsy (for the reason I mentioned in my other comment). But here's the cool thing: the site is basically taken from Microsoft's playbook. For years, they pretty transparently bankrolled shadowy, single-issue "grassroots advocacy" groups that went after their competitors under flimsy pretenses. These organizations attacked others but somehow never had an opinion about stuff like Windows Copilot.

This feels very similar, except now it's taking a swing at Microsoft. It's apparently paid for by some mysterious "trade association and advocacy group for commercial LinkedIn users" that runs out of a private PO box in a small German town - uh huh. I'm not going to feel bad for Microsoft, but I would love to read some investigative reporting down the line.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#283

Post by jonathanstrange »

surajrmal wrote: post #256
lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Don't worry, soon you'll need to pay every website 5.99 a month because AI is destroying click through rates. The internet will likely be far worse without ads than with ads. Solving the tracking problem doesn't need to be mixed up with blocking ads outright. What's funny is that tracking isn't nearly as meaningful for click through rates on ads as relevance to what's on the page, and yet so much effort is placed ont…

I'd be very happy with an internet without ads. Not that I see any ads anyway.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#284

Post by idbnstra »

ronjouch wrote: post #199
Scoundreller wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser I thought uBlock Origin was now dead in Chrome? I remember a few hacks to keep it going but have now migrated to Firefox (or sometimes Edge…) to keep using it.

Full uBlock Origin is dead in Chrome, yes, but https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home is the next best thing if you cannot leave Chrome

or Vivaldi is chrome based, and it supports full uBlock Origin. If you don't need CHROME chrome, that's even better imo

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#285

Post by Xirdus »

Rychard wrote: post #231
nickvec wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majority of people use their mobile devices these days to browse the Internet. Installing an ad blocker on your iPhone is a significantly bigger challenge than on desktop.

Firefox on Android supports it without any issue. That would cover a significant enough segment of the population that it might encourage actual change in the industry if people started moving to that platform.

Firefox on Android has approximately 0.5% market share on mobile, less than Opera. I really doubt it's enough to spark any sort of industry-wide change.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#286

Post by sweetheart »

jijijijij wrote: post #214
an0malous wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it — it can be frustrating to encounter so much low effort AI content these days. But I think it’s worth looking at the bright side here: the increase in our production of entropy from GPU consumption will hasten the heat death of the universe. Would you like me to suggest some AI summarizer tools you could use to more efficiently read AI generated content in the meantime?

Nice try, but you em-dashed like a filthy human. The drone has been dispatched.

the drone that gives hugs, right??? right????

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#289

Post by OhMeadhbh »

b112 wrote: post #263
surajrmal wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, soon you'll need to pay every website 5.99 a month because AI is destroying click through rates. The internet will likely be far worse without ads than with ads. Solving the tracking problem doesn't need to be mixed up with blocking ads outright. What's funny is that tracking isn't nearly as meaningful for click through rates on ads as relevance to what's on the page, and yet so much effort is placed ont…

internet will likely be far worse without ads than with ads Not sure on that. It was far, far better before what drives ads today. I've gotten more value from random people's static HTML pages in 1999, than I ever have from something in the last 25 years. This just led me to think of news sites, and how they've turned mostly into click-bait farms in the last decade to 15. Gives me pause. Didn't the king of "doing it…

I would love to get something more akin to a monthly print issue of BYTE, Omni, Starlog, Reality Hackers, WIRED and Dr Dobbs Journal without blinky, shouty ads that cause the content to re-render every 10 seconds.

I would pay money for that.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#290

Post by Forgeties79 »

surajrmal wrote: post #256
lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Don't worry, soon you'll need to pay every website 5.99 a month because AI is destroying click through rates. The internet will likely be far worse without ads than with ads. Solving the tracking problem doesn't need to be mixed up with blocking ads outright. What's funny is that tracking isn't nearly as meaningful for click through rates on ads as relevance to what's on the page, and yet so much effort is placed ont…

I honestly don’t think “with ads” describes what we are experiencing. We are being all but violently fracked for data (and we don’t know what all they’re taking) for them to sell to 3rd parties we don’t know who then use decades of research and tooling + your personal data to psychologically manipulate you into not just buying things, but also into feeling and acting certain ways (socially, politically, etc).

This isn’t Nielsen ratings informing cable networks where to throw up which commercials in certain regions. This is far more dangerous and intense. So the conversation needs to be framed differently than the implied bar of “intrusive/annoying/incessant ads.”

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