- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Google enables advertisers a look into your browsing history…
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Firefox is a great browser to switch to, it has a vast variety of customizability in configuration. It is a very flexible browser and it has helped me a lot in the past few years.
As a further suggestion on top of it, do use a custom user.js to harden your browser even more, set up your DNS Resolver to use Quad9 or any other private DNS Server like Scaleway, NextDNS, etc.
I also recommend using Oblivious DNS over HTTPS for added security.
I am on a Freedesktop Linux system hence I refered to the Archlinux Wiki in setting the beforementioned configurations up.
The only issue I got with FF is sometimes cloudflare page won’t load while any chromium one can load effortlessly. Otherwise FF is very good
Firefox
It’s disgusting. Users browser history is private, just like their search history. Fuck Google.
Exactly. If Google wants to collect user data and use it for their products, they should be paying users. You can’t build and sell cars without paying for the nuts and bolts, yet Google has been taking their materials for free.
Not for free, for a browser. This doesn’t make it any less evil.
That’s not the deal though. It’s not an exchange of data for the use of the product, like you would exchange money for a product or service. The product is offered free of charge, and alongside that they collect whatever they can get away with. There’s no consideration, there’s no proportionality, it doesn’t meet the basic tenets of contract law.
Data companies thrive in this hazy grey zone where regulations haven’t been made. However, when you compare what they do to anything else, it’s clearly unreasonable. If I invite you into my home, that doesn’t mean I give you permission to take the strawberries from my garden. If you invite me into your home, that doesn’t mean you get permission to go through my wallet and take photos of everything inside.
It’s getting worse, look at Microsoft now. You pay them for the software and they still take your data.
Data needs to be regulated, such that users are fairly compensated and more properly in control of it. Either that, or it must be completely open - Google can collect the data, but their raw database must be freely available to everyone. Lobbying has proven effective for Google et al, however there is some small hope because law makers themselves are also the victims - everyone is. They just need to realise the true value of what’s being taken from them.
I think you mean “tenets of contract law”, rather than tenants. Not trying to be “that” guy, I had to look it up myself.
Nice one.
No disagreement here. It’s just unfortunate that the users happily agree to everything you’ve pointed out. Because their browser is apparently just so nice, and a typical user has no ability to recognize value in their data so it feels free to them.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but your analogy of inviting someone into your home is flawed. You did agree to them collecting some anonymous data just by using it, and the browser history usage is opt-in.
Their products are not free, they just don’t cost money. If you don’t agree with that policy, don’t use their products. I would also add that this is their business model for most of their products (which are undeniably extremely popular, because they’re good).
Maps, Search, Chrome, YouTube, etc are all really good products that you pay for by letting them use some of your data, but not the more sensitive parts, in my opinion.
I disagree that their “raw database” should be public. That seems like a terrible idea. I would much rather share my clicks and geolocation than pay for the service (I don’t, but I would prefer that model).
I do however agree that data needs to be regulated, and that users solely own all their own data.
Oh yeah no problem, just be alive in 2023 and don’t use any Google products. Totally an easy choice! /s
Yes, it very much is.
It actually really, really isn’t. Just try blocking Google services using an ad blocker and see how many websites don’t work. How Google track who you bank with, where you have social media accounts and basically everything they can with Captcha. If you don’t connect to google.com, gstatic.com and maybe fonts.google.com then so much stuff online simply does not work.
It’s opt-in and they’re very clear about that.
For now
No… Even if that was true, what you’re saying is “you’re right, but you might not be in a month, sooo Google bad”.
It won’t be opt-out because first of all, that’s against the law. And second you’re literally opting in by accepting their terms…
I’m glad you live in the EU because it’s opt-out for everyone else.
It’s crazy to think that this level of intrusion is considered fair game. The way these behaviors are normalized is completely dystopian.
It’s absolutely insane that this is legal. This type of spying is explicitly forbidden in the constitution of the United States of America, but since it’s a private corporation it’s suddenly okay? The FBI has been known to purchase information about consumers from private corporations. This is a back door around the 4th amendment. Actually since corporations are essentially governing by proxy, buying laws and legislatures, this is a constitutional violation.
They already did this with Youtube. I turned of Youtube history because I didn’t want anyone being able to track what I watch. All of a sudden, Youtube’s home page for my account was blank with a message that said “Turn on history if you want to see recommendations”. I sat with that for a couple days, going to Youtube to check out channels I’d subscribed to. It wasn’t the same. When I got to Youtube for some distraction, I want to discover something different from my usual stuff. So I delete my history weekly as part of “routine maintainence”.
This was overwhelming rejected by everyone, including Microsoft, Mozilla, Safari, and others. It’s universally disliked, and Google knows this, but they intentionally know they’re abusing their monopoly to push anti-consumer bullshit.
It sure would be nice if the US still pretended to care about consumers and breaking up monopolies.
I was born way after that may have ever happened, so sounds more like a fairy tale to me
The solution to breaking up monopolies is nationalization.
All of a sudden, we’re paying less money and have way more rights. It’s why the USPS can’t open your mail without probably cause but fedex and ups can.
Rich people and their dick-suckers will be upset. But who cares about them anyways?
Glad I switched to firefox when it became apparent google wants to take away control to shove more ads in our faces.
I see a lot of people mentioning that you should just switch to Firefox, but if you’re doing that because of privacy, you will not be off that much better by doing just that - unless you fiddle with the settings and get a custom user.js, such as this one, that properly hardens it and a few extenstions, such as Decentraleyes, Cookie Auto Delete or ClearURLs.
But it can get annoying, so instead I’d recommend giving LibreWolf a try. From my experience it works pretty much out of the box, and for the few settings that may be annoying to you they have a quick guide about how to disable them.
But even better than that, I’d recommend giving Mullvad Browser a try. It’s basically a clear-net version of Tor Browser, and so far I haven’t heard anything negative about them. I also really like their idea about pairing a VPN service (that’s optional) with a browser, so now you have exactly the same browser fingerprint as any other user using the same VPN (as long as you don’t add any extensions), which will make you more resistant even to the more advanced fingerprinting techniques, since there’s basically no way how to tell all of the users of the VPN apart. Some more info and reasoning, along with more recommendations, can be found at https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/#mullvad-browser
I’ve recently started using Mullvad, and was using LibreWolf as my daily browser, so now I’m switching between them randomly. I do run into issued from time to time, mostly because of 3rd party requests or auto-deleted cookies when leaving a domain, which can break some kind of cross-site flows. But whenever there’s an issue, I just quickly fire up Brave to do that one task. But all things considered it’s an amazing experience, so I do recommend giving some of them a try.
It should always be opt in, not opt out. Leave chrome in favor of a non-chrome browser, such as firefox.
It’s opt in, just not in America
Even better a non chromium browser aka Firefox
Try librewolf , its just hardened FF
“don’t be evil” days have been over since forever ago.
Any organization that feels the need to outright claim without being asked that they’re not evil are 100% projecting and are evil.
Nah. In the early days it made sense because Google was doing some really cool things.
Even worse, the act of removing that from their motto.
“Fuck it everyone already knows we’re evil no point in pretending now.” – Google, probably
I think I’ll just invite Google to come get my dna, set up cameras everywhere, and install a microchip in my brain. Then I can be done with this slow-walk of privacy invasion.
Well that’s what to expect from a web browser created by an advertising company.
2056
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Plug DNA access into pc
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Google sync my brain chip with my browser page
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Start searching new brain plague of 2043
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Google show ad pop-up in my eyes, try to close them, but the ads are projected on the optic nerve.
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New ideia
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scan anti-ad chip that my friend gave me
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It works, I’m free
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anyway, try to order food
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Error the system is not autenticated please install chrome chiplinx 3.8 to continue.
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Receive fine of half my salary, new policy under anti-piracy order
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In Chrome, start at the three dots in the upper-right corner and go to Settings > Privacy and Security > Ad privacy. (Or just type chrome://settings/adPrivacy into your address field.) The ad privacy page lets you turn off Chrome’s targeted ads.
As per The Verge
Oh. So if you go through some particular combinations of settings then maybe you can find a way to request that Google reduce the ways they use your personal information. I guess that makes it totally cool and fine? I don’t think so.
Much better to use Firefox and avoid Google ever getting that info in the first place. That way you don’t have to constantly play whack-a-mole with deliberately confusing ‘privacy settings’ which don’t even fix the problem anyway.
Removed by mod
My ad " you like thick women, Stoicism and band tees? well do we have a goth girl for you, limited item sold, not responsible for broken car windows or torched house, all purchases are final.
Fuck me I’m in
Yet the simps still won’t use Firefox
Ikr? Google openly became the cartoonishly evil overlord, so much so it basically entered pop culture as such (Meta, Apple, MS, Amazon, etc also all the same).
And installing either Firefox or Chrome is exactly the same for the user, usage too. But no, let the poor megacorp have some more data so they can sell us some more direct ads and even more indirect ads that aren’t even labeled as such (yet Alphabet profits from that) … and become even more powerful influencing everyones lives, legislation, etc
I hated being the go-to guy for tech support in my family, but at least I get to jam open sauce things everywhere. They are never happy with any changes, but after a few days nobody remembers Microsoft & co, so everyone is really happy with things like Linux, Firefox (mobile too!), LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Signal, FairEmail & other open android apps, etc
Every bit helps. Nicely done friend!
