761–770 of 876 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And blocked site list, right? I forgot the name but there is this anti-phishing and -malware list with 40% false-positives that Firefox uses and is maintained by Google.
Which you can disable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, with Firefox I have a separate issue which is that I never know when an update will include default-enabled integration with Pocket, a phone service, or some other startup that's scratched Mozilla's back in the past six months. So Firefox isn't a replacement. Also I was badly burned by Firefox removing support for XUL extensions, and refuse to depend on that browser again. I have serious misgivings with how Fir…
They ditched proprietary extensions in favor of an open spec than any other browser can use... I mean WebExtensions are here to stay and for the greater good. I can't understand blind hatred towards a move towards an open source alternative. As for Firefox including Pocket, they own Pocket for starters, and it's less annoying than Edge or Chrome pushing their analytics filled services. There's a lot less cruft on Fir…
And I also got burned by the very badly managed WebExtensions thing. I can totally see where GP is coming from.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the response quoted in the article: So in theory your data should remain local That doesn't sound very reassuring to me. Especially long term.
> response quoted in the article tbf, this is followed by > This is my paraphrase
(Side note sort of related from another related article - apparently you can opt-out of the unified login, but the flag that lets you opt-out is broken as of chrome canary 71)
Oh come on, that's just an absurd example. Gun rights and an article about gun control are literally the same thing. The article surfaced by Google's algorithm is the more relevant and comprehensive one when it comes to gun rights. I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control".
This new direction is expensive, unpopular, confusing, and in general sets Chrome (and Chrome OS) back something like two years in terms of quality and user trust.
It's no laughing matter, whoever is in charge of this major change should be seriously evaluated; because if you go by the results alone, it is hard to distinguish from corporate sabotage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Search for "gun rights" in Google, and the Wikipedia feature box on the top-right of the results page is the Gun Control article. I've noticed the straight search results making a marked decline in quality over the past few months. If one of the keywords within your search is anything remotely profitable, it will drown out all other terms. Then the search results ended after ~4 pages. Definitely changed from the Goog…
Search for "american inventors" if you want to have some laughs.
Google seems to like to include results appropriate for common phrases if you include only part of the phrases. My guess is that the "american" in "american inventors" brings in results for "african american inventors" too.
Is it just me who wishes all the organisations supporting user rights banded together and hit the market as a viable 3rd ecosystem of products? All the Linux vendors, all the distributed social media (PeerTube, mastodon, hubzilla), all the private search engines like duckduckgo, all the open source hardware like Purism... Imagine them doing an EU and pooling all their resources to produce a coherent yet distributed,…
The missing piece IMO is funding, but that may be something that the crypto-currency world could fill. Not sure what the road to that world looks like, but we definitely need a contender because all of the major tech companies have become disturbingly anti-consumer.
Purism raised something like 2.5 and are using it to develop their first phone, and it seems to be going great, on track for April release.
Ubuntu etc are making money and doing good work.
While that's great, I think you're right. That for example, GNOME releases don't have nearly as much goodies as say Mac OS, because they're working with drastically less money and employees.
Take Firefox OS or Ubuntu touch. The amount of money being pumped into iOS and Android must be absolutely incredible. How do these open source vendors compete with the billions of platform investment from these giants?
They just end up with an interior product, so they end up with no market share.
Some bright lights are Ubuntu and duckduckgo, they're profitable and have their niches.
I think I'm suggesting they band together because that can only increase adoption amongst them all - if for example Firefox had duckduckgo as default, and Linux had Firefox as default, that would help those services quite a bit.
I guess though, that if Firefox is targeting mass adoption, they'll have more luck with Google as default. Which is sad.
Oh come on, that's just an absurd example. Gun rights and an article about gun control are literally the same thing. The article surfaced by Google's algorithm is the more relevant and comprehensive one when it comes to gun rights. I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control".
"Gun Control" was not what was searched for, it is not up to Google to tip the scales on what ideological conclusion is seen, only what item is searched for with relevant results. They have a moral obligation to be neutral. If you were in Saudi Arabia, searched for "women's rights" and Google switched it to an article on "obedience to your husband," I'm sure you'd have a huge problem with that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Search for "gun rights" in Google, and the Wikipedia feature box on the top-right of the results page is the Gun Control article. I've noticed the straight search results making a marked decline in quality over the past few months. If one of the keywords within your search is anything remotely profitable, it will drown out all other terms. Then the search results ended after ~4 pages. Definitely changed from the Goog…
Regarding the "Gun Rights" fact box, the different results Bing and Google use here looks to be the results of an edit war[1] over how the page should redirect. Judging by the text in the box, Google appears to be using a snapshot possibly around June 2018[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_rights&action... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_control&oldid...
I've always been curious of locked topics to see some type of analytics breakdown. The most hotly edited items are generally the things I'd most like to see surfaced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the main claim: "Google employees discussed how they could tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, the WSJ said. The ideas were not implemented." To me, that is not "subverting democracy." It is, however, taking an active political stance.
I respectfully and strongly disagree. A functioning democracy is fundamentally predicated on a well-informed electorate. If the primary source of information is manipulated in the name of political activism, how can they become well-informed? Sadly I must qualify this by saying I don't believe the general public in the West are well-informed, but that doesn't mean that ideal should be given up entirely.
> show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies
From you:
> fundamentally predicated on a well-informed electorate
Describe how anything in the parent statement fails to contribute to, or detracts from, a well-informed electorate. Both examples are involvement in the functioning of a democracy, not detracting from it.
Nor is any private party obligated to provide "equal coverage". That the level of "informed" goes up, but does not encapsulate information -you- think should be included, does not negate this.