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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#91

Post by swsieber »

heartbreak wrote: post #16
zbrozek wrote: post #9

I engaged with the folks pushing this feature internally when my own browser started enforcing omnidirectional login. One of my specific complaints was that it was an end-run around the user-provided sync passphrase, which nominally prevents Google from hoovering up my logged-out history. They didn't grok my privacy issue. Maybe they were deliberately misunderstanding me. Doesn't matter either way. Now I use Firefox.

This feature doesn’t enable sync. That’s something that members of the Chrome team have been patiently trying to explain to Matthew Green on Twitter for several days now. [0] https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1043505744144826369?s=21

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.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#92

Post by b3n »

arthurrichards wrote: post #63

I use firefox and have an addon to specifically erase my google cookies when I close the browser. I don't see a problem with this new chrome feature. Ive seen users logging into eachothers browser gmail, maybe google is democratizing the info they collect so everyone can access it? :) Ill point to this again https://youbroketheinternet.org/trackedanyway

Instead of erasing cookies, why not enable Firefox's first-party isolation?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#93

Post by drannex »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #21
whelchel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a fan. I'm also switching permanently to Firefox after this incident rather than use multiple browsers depending on the purpose.

I also switched to Firefox. I wanted to give Opera a try but they also use Chromium, where this feature now exists. Firefox it is, and they have done a great job with the new version.

Surprised no one has brought I up, but Vivaldi is superior in a dozen ways to Opera (and founded by the original Oper founder).

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#95

Post by reaperducer »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #3
aphextron wrote: post #2

So I wanted to drop Chrome a while ago, and looked at Chromium. Apparently using the "no sync" version you can no longer even log into Gmail (or any other Google service) on the web. That was definitely the last straw for me losing trust in Google, but there's just no good alternative. I'm not sure where to go from here because it seems pointless to even use Chromium if I can't remove Google from it and still be able…

Maybe you should ditch Gmail instead?

Maybe you should ditch Gmail instead?

I'm thinking about doing that.

The single reason I started with GMail was because at the time, it had the best spam filter in the industry.

But that was years ago. Has everyone else caught up? Is there another option with equally good spam filtering?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#96

Post by jcims »

I’m a partially savvy user and was surprised when I went to view my recent tabs on (the new) Chrome for iOS and it has my recent desktop tabs on as well.

Unsettling.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#97

Post by mtgx »

stefano wrote: post #50
mehrdadn wrote: post #32

For now at least, there's this escape hatch: chrome://flags/#account-consistency Edit: Some are saying this doesn't work on Chrome 69. :(

When you're looking for escape hatches, you know the software is working against you. At that point, it's better to move to an alternative browser, it's not worth it to fight it with hacks. If too many people use the escape hatch, they'll remove it.

That was also my argument against all the "hacks" people posted online against Windows 10 tracking. Most of them were short-lived because Microsoft had an incentive to stop them from being used in the next update of Windows.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#98

Post by vermilingua »

heartbreak wrote: post #16
zbrozek wrote: post #9

I engaged with the folks pushing this feature internally when my own browser started enforcing omnidirectional login. One of my specific complaints was that it was an end-run around the user-provided sync passphrase, which nominally prevents Google from hoovering up my logged-out history. They didn't grok my privacy issue. Maybe they were deliberately misunderstanding me. Doesn't matter either way. Now I use Firefox.

This feature doesn’t enable sync. That’s something that members of the Chrome team have been patiently trying to explain to Matthew Green on Twitter for several days now. [0] https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1043505744144826369?s=21

Did you even read the article? He stated several times that the problem isn’t that sync is or isn’t enabled after the change; it’s the silent push of an update that directly violates user consent, and it widens the mouth of the user funnel-trap by quite a lot.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#99

Post by magicalist »

swsieber wrote: post #91
heartbreak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feature doesn’t enable sync. That’s something that members of the Chrome team have been patiently trying to explain to Matthew Green on Twitter for several days now. [0] https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1043505744144826369?s=21

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

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