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

Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 156 posts

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#61

Post by rpastuszak »

int_19h wrote: post #46
rpastuszak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting trickier: - nowadays (iirc) you can serve/proxy those scripts via your own domain (to circumvent ad blocker blocklists) - there are limitations re the number of blocking rules in Manifest V3 It’s cat and mouse at this stage, we’re getting to the point where blocking ads will be as hard/annoying as, say, installing 3rd party apps on your iPhone. Too much of a hassle even for fairly techie users

I wonder if at this point an AI-based ad blocker that would actually look at the DOM, or maybe even the image, would be viable. Obviously, this requires significantly more resources. But it feels like a more productive use of the hardware power that we already have, compared to the most recent Electron monstrosity.

Hehe, so I made a (semi) serious project in a similar vein some time ago actually:

Https://butter.sonnet.io

(Because you deserve butter.)

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#62

Post by senkora »

cyberpunk wrote: post #58
cbarrick wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was so annoying when visiting Poland recently. I don't speak Polish. Even after setting my preferred language on my Google account , Google Search was still speaking Polish to me.

Prime video is amazing for this; in Germany but only dubs available? Admit defeat that the orig audio is somehow not available but not even English subtitles?!

With video I think that it’s sometimes a licensing thing. As in, the streaming service licenses subtitles from a third party and the rights are limited to specific countries.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#63

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

wibbily wrote: post #53
jocoda wrote: post #47

We have kernel level anti cheat systems for games. So how about kernel level anti tracking? Browsers use system calls to provide the information used for fingerprinting the device, so why not intercept these calls and lie. Have all users present an identical fingerprints and we're back to pre google times. Yes, we lose some important functionality, but maybe it's a price worth paying? Never mind the other elephants i…

I see this going in the opposite direction first - TPM-backed kernel level fingerprinting. Surely you have nothing to hide…

This is my conspiracy theory as to why Win11 made TPMs mandatory hardware.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#64

Post by Zak »

cyberpunk wrote: post #58
cbarrick wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was so annoying when visiting Poland recently. I don't speak Polish. Even after setting my preferred language on my Google account , Google Search was still speaking Polish to me.

Prime video is amazing for this; in Germany but only dubs available? Admit defeat that the orig audio is somehow not available but not even English subtitles?!

That's a weird one. It's common for people to prefer the original audio, and most Germans understand English.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#65

Post by chgs »

create-username wrote: post #59
hyperman1 wrote: post #30

A few weeks ago, I was using my mothers PC. Google was erroneously in French, and no language chooser available. So I checked. Firefox sent a HTTP header with a Dutch preference. She was logged in with her Google account, which had a Dutch language preference. Some geolocation providers put her in Dutch speaking cities of Belgium. Still, the Google Algorithm had decided she would speak French. Plenty of other sites m…

Yes. The browser innocently gives away tons of information for surveillance capitalism corporations to leech. It is a if the web and browser developers lived in an innocent world

The largest browser is owned by a surveillance firm

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#66

Post by chgs »

TheBozzCL wrote: post #10
hedora wrote: post #7

So, if I use a device that doesn’t support tracking, and they track it anyway, how do they get it to present the “do not sell my personal information” button? Also, are there any decent plugins that block all of google instead of just the ads? I imagine they’d need to MITM static font assets, etc. I also wonder if / when this means Google will start fingerprinting and tracking tenants’ customers on GCP.

Personally, I went the nuclear route with a Pihole. My devices can’t talk to Google.

Presumably you set your router to intercept all UDP/53 traffic, but remember the whole point of DoH is to prevent that and ensure nothing gets between the advertising surface and the advert source.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#68

Post by thecrash »

jocoda wrote: post #47

We have kernel level anti cheat systems for games. So how about kernel level anti tracking? Browsers use system calls to provide the information used for fingerprinting the device, so why not intercept these calls and lie. Have all users present an identical fingerprints and we're back to pre google times. Yes, we lose some important functionality, but maybe it's a price worth paying? Never mind the other elephants i…

This is what the Tor Browser is designed to do, and it does it very well (all in userspace no less). The main drawback is that some sites don't render as nicely and occasionally a site simply doesn't work.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#69

Post by dwattttt »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #27
conartist6 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is, depending on your perspective, either terrifying or just stupid. Right now anti-fingerprinting security is not very high on anyone's minds, but remember that your digital fingerprints follow you EVERYWHERE. You can't turn them off or disable them on your side like cookies. It's sort of like the wholesale elimination of privacy as a concept, you might say. But hence the stupidity! It's too bold a move not to…

> but remember that your digital fingerprints follow you EVERYWHERE. You can't turn them off or disable them on your side like cookies. I'm honestly curious, if you don't mind clarifying a bit more. How do your digital fingerprints follow you everywhere without your being able to erase them? This thread goes into device fingerprinting, but if one rigorously changes devices and certain use/account practices, how can t…

> if one rigorously changes devices and certain use/account practices

Your account practices will need to include only using an account on one device. Every time you use an account that identifies you on a device, that device can be associated to you; at that point its fingerprint is your fingerprint. Rotating devices faster just adds more devices to your identity.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#70

Post by zzo38computer »

hedora wrote: post #7

So, if I use a device that doesn’t support tracking, and they track it anyway, how do they get it to present the “do not sell my personal information” button? Also, are there any decent plugins that block all of google instead of just the ads? I imagine they’d need to MITM static font assets, etc. I also wonder if / when this means Google will start fingerprinting and tracking tenants’ customers on GCP.

What I think is one thing that would be helpful is the ability to define unencrypted proxies for encrypted connections (which is especially useful if the proxy is on the same computer), where the browser does not encrypt the request being sent to the proxy and does not expect an encrypted response; so that the encryption with the server will be handled by the proxy instead. This will save power, as well as allow blocking without needing to encrypt and decrypt the data twice.
Post reply on HN