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Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

forbes.com

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Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#91

Post by stevekemp »

Zak wrote: post #33
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…

Sites preferring geolocation over Accept-Language as a means of picking the language is one of my pet peeves. Preferring geolocation over a logged in user's stored setting is beyond absurd.

Agreed. I live in Finland, but my preferred language is English. Many many sites send me Finnish by default, although Google directions will always be in Swedish.

I seem to have to "change results to English" on google searches at least once a week when it forgets which language I've setup and used for the past ten years!

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#92

Post by asyx »

stevekemp wrote: post #91
Zak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites preferring geolocation over Accept-Language as a means of picking the language is one of my pet peeves. Preferring geolocation over a logged in user's stored setting is beyond absurd.

Agreed. I live in Finland, but my preferred language is English. Many many sites send me Finnish by default, although Google directions will always be in Swedish. I seem to have to "change results to English" on google searches at least once a week when it forgets which language I've setup and used for the past ten years!

Now that google is offering translated Reddit posts my flow on my iPhone when I google something is

Google -> Reddit -> open translated post in app -> share in app with browser again -> click on show original.

I’ve never ever let any involved websites actually use my native language. Neither Google nor Reddit.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#93

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

Zak wrote: post #33
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…

Sites preferring geolocation over Accept-Language as a means of picking the language is one of my pet peeves. Preferring geolocation over a logged in user's stored setting is beyond absurd.

And geolocation is often wrong. Half of IP locators locate my VPS in one country, a quarter in another country, 1000 miles away, and another quarter in a third country, 1000 miles away from the first two.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#95

Post by TheBozzCL »

foobarchu wrote: post #73
TheBozzCL wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This works until you start living with someone who gets frustrated by things like sponsored results not working (completely fair, because they are often highly relevant).

You can set blocking per-device. I have strict blocking for my own devices, super-heavy blocking for IoT and other untrusted devices, and a lighter blocking as default. If they complain, I can disable blocking for them, or even set up a guest VLAN.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#96

Post by blitzar »

wobfan wrote: post #88
foobarchu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works until you start living with someone who gets frustrated by things like sponsored results not working (completely fair, because they are often highly relevant).

I came back home to my parents house this christmas and my parents and my brother complained to my why the Google sponsored links don't work anymore (because I've set their DNS to an adblock DNS). I couldn't believe what they were saying. Their words didn't make sense to me. I ended up in removing all adblock- and privacy-related settings in our router - it felt like a defeat.

To be fair to your family, Google have spent billions making the Google sponsored links look like organic search results.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#97

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

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 page only works on digitally signed supported operating systems. Please consider migrating to a supported system by Microsoft, Apple or an Android device officially supported by Google.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#98

Post by chgs »

int_19h wrote: post #51
somedude895 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 183,020 tested in the past 45 days. Damn how is this possible when I'm using a stock iPhone? I look at the characteristics and apart from timezone and language, how can they tell the same model iPhone apart?

Have you looked at the detailed breakdown that they give you?

It Tells me it’s unique despite we visit two weeks ago.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#99

Post by benhurmarcel »

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…

This is one of the main reasons why I use (and pay) for another search engine than Google. It just keeps translating everything it can to the country I’m connecting from. Even results from Reddit go to an automatically translated page.

Google is really bad at handling multilingual users, or even just users that don’t want to use the language of the place they connect from. Now by default Youtube even translates the audio automatically, it’s unbearable.

And I have declared the languages I speak in my Google profile. It doesn’t seem to matter.

Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks

#100

Post by itcrowd »

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…

A while ago a LinkedIn request from a Chinese person hit my inbox. I reluctantly pressed Accept Connection (in the email) only to find out that my LinkedIn language setting had changed to Chinese.

Now, I don't speak or read Chinese and couldn't immediately find a way to change the setting back to English. Could probably find it on the internet but .. Oh well, I don't really use LinkedIn so it's just stayed that way now.

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