Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

spreadprivacy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 259 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#61

Post by bryanrasmussen »

rapnie wrote: post #31
gkbrk wrote: post #21

I started displaying a banner on my website [1] a while back for visitors using Chrome/Chromium telling them to "give Firefox a try for the future of the open web". I don't know how many people came across that or clicked the link, as I don't track that, but I enjoy doing my tiny part in letting people know. [1]: https://www.gkbrk.com

Might say "Optimized for privacy-respecting browsers. Chrome users might experience issues [more info]"

We will invade your privacy to the extent the law and browser choice allows, Chrome users can expect to have their privacy extremely compromised!

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#62

Post by nicklecompte »

erdo wrote: post #5

Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years

DuckDuckGo works really well for 90% of my “searches,” which are basically asking for a specific Wikipedia article / blog / Twitter account / etc, so I don’t have to type in the full URL.

But I find DuckDuckGo really bad for some searches where I’m not looking for a specific domain:

- searching for papers or technical blog posts is almost useless in DDG. Software stuff in particular seems heavily front-loaded towards SEO trash and plagiarized blogs/“tutorials” instead of useful information. Pure mathematics is a little better (probably because there isn’t a “pure mathematics boot camp” cottage industry)

- political news is heavily slanted to the right, often prioritizing flagrantly disreputable sources. While this might be a userbase issue (lots of lonely white men) I do wonder if DDG (or someone in their tech stack) is putting their thumb on the scale (maybe this comes up in Bing as well? I haven’t checked). I realize people on the right might say Google is slanted to the left and don’t want to get in to that. But DDG seems to push more outright propaganda than Google. Google also returns plenty of conservative results for politics news/blogs, but it seems very rare for DDG to return liberal commentary (even from major sources like The Guardian).

Obviously this is anecdotal and colored by my own interests and biases. But, especially with computer science stuff, I have given up on DDG returning reliable results. At this point I basically only use them as a Wikipedia gateway.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#63

Post by themolecularman »

erdo wrote: post #5

Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years

> Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years

I switched for privacy and to de-google my life.

But for complex queries I often end up using the "g!" shortcut in the query to do the search on google instead.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#64

Post by zo1 »

ikornaselur wrote: post #43
erdo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly ok with ads, I am not ok with "personalised" ads

It always surprises me when people say that they're fine with personalised ads, even going so far as saying that if they're getting ads they want them to be personalised. I guess I _can_ understand why, they want them to be potentially useful if they're seeing them... To me though, sure, show me ads, fine, whatever, but don't build them around a profile of me to try to manipulate me directly based on my potential int…

I would be fine with actual personalized ads. Hell, I'd give them even more data if they needed it to accomplish such a feat. But the best they can do is try sell me washing machines after I've already purchased one, or show me youtube snippets of scenes from Netflix shows I've watched recently (yes this one really did happen. No idea how, still checking).

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#65

Post by ArneBab »

newbie578 wrote: post #48

I would much rather have personalized ads than have the early 2000s ads (hot single ladies, making $100k a day, etc.). It seems to me that no matter what Google does, there will be pitchforks ready. What is so horrible about FLoC if I as the user am protected and my personal identity is kept in check, and only contained within my browser. I'll stop using Chrome when there is a better alternative.. Firefox is a downgr…

They use your browsing history. That browsing history used to be sacrosanct: We spent years fighting to get every bug fixed through which even parts of the browsing history could be leaked.

Now Google controls the browser and simply accesses the browsing history and hands a processed version of it on a silver platter to advertisement-sellers.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#66

Post by jnxx »

manuelflara wrote: post #53
theonlybutlet wrote: post #41

To be honest though, for the general public not using adblockers, is FloC not better privacy wise than your traditional cookies?

I'll leave this quote from the EFF article on FloC[1] > Google’s pitch to privacy advocates is that a world with FLoC (and other elements of the “privacy sandbox”) will be better than the world we have today, where data brokers and ad-tech giants track and profile with impunity. But that framing is based on a false premise that we have to choose between “old tracking” and “new tracking.” It’s not either-or. Instead o…

> But that framing is based on a false premise

Another false premise is that the "old tracking" will stop because of the "new tracking".

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#67

Post by why_Mr_Anderson »

newbie578 wrote: post #48

I would much rather have personalized ads than have the early 2000s ads (hot single ladies, making $100k a day, etc.). It seems to me that no matter what Google does, there will be pitchforks ready. What is so horrible about FLoC if I as the user am protected and my personal identity is kept in check, and only contained within my browser. I'll stop using Chrome when there is a better alternative.. Firefox is a downgr…

No. Since you mentioned 2000s, you know how revolutionary and welcomed were Google ads at that time. Text based ads all in specific positions? Give me more! It was so much better than the nightmare we had. But look at Google and web now ... it's back to square one, now with extra spying on top.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#68

Post by gkbrk »

hnbad wrote: post #57
dnndev wrote: post #50

What about Microsoft edge?

In my humble opinion if you're using Windows 10 there's no reason not to use Edge because you're already allowing Microsoft to invade your privacy. But Firefox is a good browser and "morally" a better choice for many reasons others have already summarized. Personally I use Edge as a developer because it's a Chromium browser (so it reflects most of my users' experience and works with a lot of tooling developed for Chr…

> if you're using Windows 10 there's no reason not to use Edge because you're already allowing Microsoft to invade your privacy

If Edge was still using its own layout engine, I would agree with this. But even on Windows 10, by using Edge you not only trust Microsoft, but also help Google's takeover and control of the internet.

Using Safari, Internet Explorer, Links, Firefox or Serenity Browser all help a bit by reducing the Google browser marketshare. Using Brave, Edge, Vivaldi or Opera still help, but to a much smaller degree.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#69

Post by simonh »

busymom0 wrote: post #36
sublimefire wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second that, I'm using DDG in the FF. Have also enabled the same for the kids. Wife still protests but I'll switch it when she's sleeping. Before writing the above I did double check this as I was not sure. So it is a sign that there is not much difference from other engines. Localized results (in Ireland) are not that great though. But with time I just changed the ways around search queries. It is not really an issu…

I switched to Brave/Safari combo and DDG about a year ago and Signal for messaging. DDG seems to work very well for me. I only resort to using Google is DDG can’t find what I am looking for and that doesn’t happen too often now a days. As for Chrome, I simply don’t see any reason why anyone would use it over Brave. Brave seems to come pre installed with lots of privacy protection.

I tried Brave about a month ago and stuck with it for a week, but was constantly hitting stability and site compatibility issues.
Post reply on HN