- 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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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.
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.
No amount of regulation would help if the users themselves don’t value their data. As far as they are concerned, these products are free. They might be wrong, but that’s irrelevant here, the relevant part is that to them their data is worthless so they don’t care. We need more education on this, not regulation. Or rather we need both.
Yes, and people are free to choose and think what they want. Everyone knows there can be shady things in ToS, they just don’t care, and that’s honestly fine.
A more serious issue, in my opinion, is sensitive personal data like government identification, medical and banking records, and of course date of birth, address, etc. that can be used to identify you and in worse cases, steal your identity.
Such data is not being handled well enough, for the vast majority of cases. I’m lucky to live in a country/region that does it well (better than most), with laws protecting individuals.
But honestly idgaf if ad trackers can see on my digital footprint that I just bought a bicycle. I also enjoy services like Google Maps very much, because it works scarily well, and I can choose when I want to be tracked or not.
Problem is, Chrome abused a notion that was set up by mozilla - the idea of software without strings, open source, freely available to all. That was the environment that Chrome first set foot in, and they absolutely took advantage of that preconception, same as fb.
People forget that before google started getting cunty ‘if you don’t pay for the product you are the product’ really wasn’t a thing on the 'net.
They conceived of and created predatory practises most users literally had no framework to conceive of - the onus is on them for that shit.
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.
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.
A few posts up, there’s an article about how basically all cars manufacturers are a privacy nightmare
It’s opt-in and they’re very clear about that.
This is completely incorrect. It is opt-out.
It was turned on for me by default when I opened Chrome (it had updated in the background). I had to go to settings to turn it back off.
I live in Europe, and it’s most definitely opt-in.
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.
I’m glad too
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?
I opened the browser at the library to print a pre employment drug screen form today. The browser had a pop up asking to review settings, it looked like you could tell them not to use ads this way, but damn I wish I would have read it now. Not my computer and it reboots to clear the profile when you “log out” so I didnt spend the time
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
Please drink verification can
Don’t forget to scream “I fucking love Amazon!” clearly into the microphone.
Black mirror comming true!
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That’s fine. I’ll continue to use Firefox.
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.
Incremental changes have muffled the impact to most consumers sadly and as long as that works they’ll keep doing it.
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”.
Same I delete all my history in clean state on youtube. I hate seeng videos thay I’ve already watched before.
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Exactly! Erasing your history just means YOU can’t see it anymore.
Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.
Then on Oct 1, they threw up a “You’re using an Ad Blocker” overlay on videos. I’d use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn’t have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.
Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.
Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.
Now all I see is this: “Ad Blockers violate Youtube’s Terms of Service”
Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.
I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can’t view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.
That deletion strategy is useless. They can still retain that information indefinitely.
Just use the search bar.
Firefox
So glad I moved to Firefox, fu Google
Mobile has extensions too. Ublock on Firefox mobile is a god send.
I tried Firefox in like 2016 but it was very slow for some reason.
Is it fast now? Been thinking about securing my privacy lately so I might give it another try.Im going for as much privacy I can while still maintaining as much functionality as possible.
Anyone having any pointers?Ive used Firefox and chrome for a long time side by side and on a daily use basis there is not any discernable difference that’s caused by the browser. On Firefox, add the extensions ublock origin, privacy badger, and decrentraleyes to start with, and I’d recommend changing default search to duckduckgo or start page as well. Your entire web experience will be massively improved (Yes ddg and start page look and feel different. Search results are the same but without all the ads and misdirects)
Greetings. uBlock Origin is a great choice. However I must add that you should instead opt for a custom user.js and drop Privacy Badger and Decentraleyes as they are mostly redundant. Refer this.
As for Startpage and DuckDuckGo, I suggest avoiding them. These are not open source search engines and have a suspicious and questionable history regarding their ethical position. I suggest SearXNG. It is an open source Meta Search Engine, i.e., it congregates results related to your search from multiple search engines without giving them your IP. As it is open source, it is self hostable (you may request your instance admin to host one if you wish to) and multiple instances exist. Make your selection here.
Bro, 2016 in browser terms is ancient history.
Imagine saying in 2003: “I tried such-and-such in 1996. Is it fast now?”
Im getting old. Feels like the first Avatar movie came out a couple of years ago to me.
If you want privacy, you will sacrifice convenience.
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.
I got the Google Suppository Health Monitor, I just stick it in my butt and nano bots flood my body looking for things to advertise to me about.
“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.
I think they honestly weren’t, back in those days, or at least trying not to be.
Now google is a fully fledged advertising and marketing company
I already dumped google search in favor of DuckDuckGo years ago which gives objectively better results. Google search has been overrun with SEO spam since years ago
I’m getting rid of chrome, then of google drive, then what more… Google maps is a big one to drop too but it’s so nice.
It sucks that a company builds good software and then just abuses the crap out of it but this is why we have open source!
Lastly I’ll need to drop google from my Android phone, somehow.
So you’re telling me that Bing provides better search results than Google?
Ik using DuckDuckGo. I do believe they’re using some bing tech, but the results are definitely better than google for me. Whenever I go back to try it again, google gives me only spammy SEO optimized results that are useless
Ever try startpage.com?
I no longer would trust Startpage much as I used to. When System1 got into it, I backed off.
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
Nah. In the early days it made sense because Google was doing some really cool things.
Why not just use Firefox (while you still can …)
I’ll ready raw html before I use Chrome.
You’ll read html sure, but will you read CSS? shudders
I’m training to mentally compile javascript now. Kinda stumped on how to access backend data stores though.
Gotta have that V8 JS Engine in your head
Why, will you soon not be able to?
I think they’re just referring to FF’s small market share.
Firefox’s user base is apparently been dwindling for a long time now, so the possibility of this browser shutting down due to not having enough funds is getting higher and higher each year. At least, that’s how I interpret it.
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Can’t donate to them considering how much money is wasted on their shit ceo.
Even then, I’m sure there’s a litany of other things that they think they need but they don’t. I notice the bigger corporations become, the more justified they feel in wasting resources.
How about not using Chrome? Firefox Gang!
I am the only person out of my friends group who doesn’t use chrome. One of my friends even fully understands the issues with chrome and still won’t stop using it!
I can’t understand this there’s got to be some kind of psychological phenomenon happening here I’m completely unaware of.
I feel like they have some sort of unwarranted loyalty to chrome…
At a personal level I use waterfox I just like the way it looks.
I never really understood the appeal all that much to begin with. I mostly stuck with FF.
There was a brief period of time when chrome launched it seemed faster to me. I also liked the way it had a clean ui compared to others at the time. Used it for years, and it just got worse and worse.
I switched to Firefox a few years ago and it’s much better imo. But I remember feeling like chrome was really good for a little while.
It’s inertia, at least in my own experience. I’ve had a bunch of things I’ve been meaning to do but was lazy and stuck in my habits until some new event made me say “enough is enough” and then I try the new thing and a lot of the time I end up thinking I should have just done that sooner. But before that, it’s “I know there’s problems with this but it’s what I know”.
Doing the jump to Linux is the current one I’m procrastinating on. I use it already, just not on my main machine, so it’s not even like I don’t know how it is. I’ve just had a Windows main machine all my life and installing a new OS is a pain. But I do want to feel amusement instead of annoyance when hearing about the latest BS MS is trying to push.
Ya. I feel you on Linux. My media center PC is Linux and it works perfectly.
The issue for my main rig is that the main games I play don’t support it. Which sucks.
Have you tried LibreWolf? It’s a far superior fork of Firefox with many built-in privacy features and pre-installed uBlock Origin.
I have not! But I will definitely give it a looksee
And yet Firefox marketshare will keep dwindling. Drives me mad!
it’s crazy how many people just use whatever is most popular and never question it. the number of people who don’t use even a basic adblocker is mind-blowing.
People usually don’t respond well with threats they don’t perceive as harmful, or can’t perceive physically at all. Targeted ads and privacy in general is abstract to many people, and the only time they’ll start responding is if their emails or social medias get hacked due to their infos being sold on the dark web or something like that.
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How could they improve?
crypto! /s
Targeted ads. Promotional campains to make people more aware of Firefox/why it’s better. Be more present online (instead of passively depending on the userbase). Take inputs from the community and actually doing something with them rather than saying “k” and then doing nothing. Those are just some off the top of my head.Edit: as pointed out by a kind user, targeted ads was a poor choice of words. I explained myself better below in the comments
Targeted ads.
I agree with everything you said except for the targeted ads part. It would be wildly hypocritical of them to do this.
Very fair point. My bad, I expressed myself poorly. What I meant with ‘targeted ads’ was to show ads not on the browser itself but to people who might be more easily convinced to use Firefox. For example, there’s a huge amount of viewers on YouTube that are tech-oriented. Nobody is stopping Firefox from sponsoring creators, videos or even collaborating with them.
Part of Mozilla’s funding comes from Google. I adore their browser and other software however the corporate itself has a questionable history as it is with many corporates usually anyway.
Seems like a waste of money.
If people want to use garbage, let them. It’s not like telling them firefox is better is going to change anything.
It’s slower and clunkier. I use Firefox for privacy and addons, but if I didn’t have to I’d probably use Chrome.
Explain how , like with examples. I use both every day plus like 4 other browsers and there is no difference a normal user could possible see between the two. All browser have slightly different layouts and features but all at this point have surface functionality that’s essentially the same What the hell are you seeing in Firefox that is “slow and clunky”
Pages load more slowly, scrolling isn’t smooth, etc. The user experience just feels worse. I have to use Edge and Chrome for work and they feel so much snappier and more enjoyable to use.
I don’t know anymore, feels like that’s a user-by-user basis. I just moved from Edge to Firefox and it feels exactly as smooth. Perhaps the only time it doesn’t feel as smooth is when I play mahjong on the browser, but other than that, it’s the same exact experience lol.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/wqn3gR1WTcA?si=GBKBNrQ-x0QKvwBh&
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
If someone is swayed by a political advertisement, they are, by definition, consuming content they desire.
Goal should be to change what those people desire rather than fight against them consuming ads/media.
If someone is swayed by instructions to kill themselves, they are, be definition, consuming content they desire.
That’s a bad argument. Marketing is one thing, manipulation is totally different.
There’s nothing specifically wrong with marketing in general, but marketers with access to enormous amounts of private information blur the line between advertising and manipulation. Using people’s private information to each individual exactly what they want to hear about a candidate without regard to the truth is absolutely something that we should be concerned about.
Perhaps to a perfectly rational being, but I don’t happen to know any of those myself.
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I mean that’s specifically what this is about, yeah?
A few years ago, I switched from Firefox to Chrome. A few months ago, I switched back to Firefox. Chrome is rolling out changes which are completely unacceptable, such as making adblockers impossible, and using my private browsing history for their own ads.
Don’t forget that chrome is also censoring saved bookmarks and purging bookmarks to URLs that are on their naughty list - right now that’s mostly piracy related things, but the precedence is set.
Don’t forget that chrome is also censoring saved bookmarks and purging bookmarks to URLs that are on their naughty list - right now that’s mostly piracy related things, but the precedence is set.
Your comment is a prime example of FUD.
For context, see https://lemmy.one/comment/2495139
TL;DR: Google is moderating public facing lists of links. Compare it to Lemmy moderators deleting illegal content in their communities.
You can still hate Google all you want, but please, don’t just read the headlines.
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
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Enjoy your crypto scam browser, bro.
Ugh…you can dislike Brave or its disgusting CEO all you want but stop with the misinformation. The crypto stuff is entirely optional and Brave continues to be rated as one of the top browsers in terms of privacy.
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Instead of calling people who should be informed dumb, why don’t you enlighten instead of bashing?
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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.
