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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#841

Post by scruffyherder »

clarkmoody wrote: post #408
partiallypro wrote: post #248

Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting…

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…

I thought I'd try it..

https://imgur.com/a/7GHeVZM

槍枝管制 "gun rights"的圖片搜尋結果 槍支管制是指任何對定義、限制或限制擁有，生產或改裝，進口，運輸，銷售和／或使用槍械的法律，政策，實踐或提案。 槍支管制的法律和政策在世界各地有很大的差異。有些國家，如英國和中華民國，擁有非常嚴格的槍支限制政策，而其他國家，如美國，有相對溫和的限制。槍支管制的支持者普遍認為，普遍民眾擁有槍支會導致危險性。 維基百科

/

Gun control Search results for "gun rights" Gun control refers to any law, policy, practice or proposal that defines, restricts or limits the possession, production or modification, import, transportation, sale and/or use of firearms. The laws and policies governing gun control vary widely around the world. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, have very strict gun restrictions, while others, such as the United States, have relatively modest restrictions. Proponents of gun control generally believe that the widespread possession of guns can be dangerous. Wikipedia

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#842

Post by jasonlotito »

partiallypro wrote: post #812
jasonlotito wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the top Wikipedia link in the search results when searching for "gun rights" I don't see the issue.

He's not saying it's an issue that "right to keep and bear arms" is the top result on Bing/DuckDuckGo...it's that on Google it's not, it's "Gun Control" which is not the top result on Wikipedia nor is it necessarily a related term. The top organic result on Google is a tag page from NPR. How is that even possible for such a popular topic? That's something you'd expect from a rare term.

I know what he said, and I'm saying that the top Google result for Wikipedia was that entry in the organic results. As for everything else you said, it's meaningless.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#844

Post by prawn »

clarkmoody wrote: post #408
partiallypro wrote: post #248

Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting…

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…

Aren't these two statements a bit contradictory? e.g., the suggestion that they've editorialised "gun rights" to something (control) that would lead to less profitable results, but the statement that they doctor their setup to favour commercial enterprise?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#845

Post by bordercases »

CydeWeys wrote: post #740
bordercases wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never attribute to malice ... This principle is heuristical and as such can result in down-side when one doesn't actually resolve the uncertainty within the heuristic (read: guess) with detailed evidence. The obvious downside here is that you can accumulate a bunch of risks which each independently satisfy the heuristic, and so don't seem like risks, but in aggregate can result in a swing towards the opposite of wh…

Can you say what you mean in plainer words? Are you saying that the combination of many such incidents likely isn't an accident, but intentional?

Yes, it's maybe intentional, and just using the rule "Never attribute to malice that which cane be attributed" as an indication that there isn't any malice is stupid because it's getting you to change your mind about the kind of thing going on without evidence.

It's like saying Occam's Razor always gives you the right analysis of how things are. No, it only gives you the best guess given that you've taken everything possible into account. But here it's worse, because it's not taking into account all of the other times Google has infringed a common-sense understanding of privacy.

Whether or not it's more likely that Google is intentionally crossing this line, rather than it's just merely possible that they're intentionally doing it, depends on other information. In this case because it's unlikely that Google is really that's stupid, because they're good engineers with strong QC practices, so it's more like that there is some kind of intention involved. Not to be "evil" but to deliberately do things that deny the social value of avoiding surveillance.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#846

Post by brandonjm »

Lazare wrote: post #480
brandonjm wrote: post #449

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. That could have a very simple explanation: There is no Wikipedia page for "Gun Rights". There is however a Wikipedia page for "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" which is exactly what appears in the Wikipedia box on the right or as the first Wikipedia article when you search for "right to bear…

> That could have a very simple explanation: There is no Wikipedia page for "Gun Rights". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_rights is a valid link, and seems like the obvious wikipedia page to deem relevant for that phrase. And Bing gets it right. I have no reason to think it's some dark conspiracy, but it's certainly a pretty silly failure of their vaunted algorithms. Are there a lot of searches for common phrases w…

> it's certainly a pretty silly failure of their vaunted algorithms.

I totally agree, it could be as simple as the algorithm finding more usages of 'gun' and 'rights' on the Gun Control page than on the Right to Bear Arms page and basing its decision solely off that. However it could be as complex as skewed data in a deep learning model that takes in every users search term and subsequent selected result. No one really knows exactly how its decided except Google's own engineers.

The fact that most other, very similar search terms provide the expected results suggests to me that it is not an intentional misdirection, otherwise the other search terms about guns would also show the Gun Control page.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#847

Post by Brakenshire »

unethical_ban wrote: post #778
lagadu wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it was. The concept of gun rights cannot exist without the concept of gun control, it's quite literally the same theme. Gun control is what defines which gun rights people have.

Search "Free speech" and get "Censorship" would be your stance, then.

Searching “free speech” and getting an article about limits of free speech around the world would be perfectly reasonable.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#848

Post by palant »

r2dof wrote: post #830
palant wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Firefox could do better, but at least Sync there was designed with privacy in mind - Chrome Sync wasn't, and even if you set a passphrase it will only encrypt passwords and none of the other data such as your browsing history. Either way, Chrome exists to give Google's web services an advantage, that's the only reason. I wrote about that seven years ago: https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-install…

>even if you set a passphrase it will only encrypt passwords and none of the other data such as your browsing history. This[1] seems to imply otherwise. [1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/165139#passphrase

Yes, it does. I just tried this, when I set a passphrase everything shows up as encrypted in the Google Dashboard. So maybe things changed since I wrote this, or maybe I misunderstood it initially. Either way, the default is not having a passphrase, and the passphrase setting is buried pretty deep, so most people won't set it. What's worse, you cannot really avoid an initial unencrypted sync before you can set up a passphrase. The point still stands, this isn't a system designed for privacy.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#849

Post by spronkey »

cm2187 wrote: post #595
partiallypro wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google already bullies hardware vendors that don't package Google services with Android devices...which is what Microsoft did in the 90s. They also bundle all their services...which is essentially the very thing that Microsoft ended up getting slapped for. Google gets a way with a lot. Apple does too, but Apple's reach is limited to when you leave their hardware, Google's is always with you. You can't escape unless y…

I have good hopes that pwa+wasm will change that. What killed windows mobile is the lack of apps. In a world where you have performant apps, that are completely os independant, and do not even need to be distributed through a gated store, it makes it a lot easier for a challenger to break through.

Not a chance IMO. One major reason why native apps work is platform integration - both from an HCI perspective as well as a technology one. PWA and WASM will never be able to achieve these things.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#850

Post by Legogris »

romanovcode wrote: post #656
Legogris wrote: post #639

The clear break for me came in version 39. I am staying on Chromium 38 for the few sites and extensions where I still depend on Chrome and using Firefox for everything else. Once version 38 becomes obsolete I will stop using Chromium alltogether.

You are not doing any favours to yourself by staying on older version of Chrome. There have been many vulnerabilities and your data might be compromised because of this. Why not just use a different modern browser instead, I don't get it.

You are right, of course. I still use Firefox for everything except the few extensions I haven't replaced yet. I expect this interim period to last up to a month.
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