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TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Why not log into YouTube? Google already tracks your browser everywhere else - including your online banking, which often you can’t access without enabling connections to google.com and gstatic.com (along with the domain you’re actually accessing, that provides 3 points of internet routing for highly effective triangulation).

Facebook tracks you even when you’re not logged in. Maybe not logging in makes the data they collect slightly less valuable, but they’re still collecting it. At least logging in gives you access to a proper watch history.

Saying all that, more power to you if you choose to work around it. However, if you’re going to youtube.com to watch things then there isn’t really any difference doing so logged in or logged out, for the most part.

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abhibeckert@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Google already tracks your browser everywhere

They try to track me. It’s pretty clear they’re not successful, given the lack of relevance in the ads I do see when I disable my ad blocker and also how often Google asks me to prove I’m even human at all.

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- TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  While it’s good that you’re avoiding most of the tracking, I think it’s naive to say they’re not successul. Like I say, so many services use Captcha, and there are many more that use it as just a back end service than those that ask you to identify fire hydrants or bicycles. You literally can’t use the service without connecting to Google.
  
  and also how often Google asks me to prove I’m even human at all.
  
  This is also Google using you for free labour in training their AI systems.
  
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takeda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
To make it a bit harder for them. I’m still not fully understanding it as it didn’t affect me yet, but when they were introducing it they were calling it a “three strikes rule” or something like that. Maybe those strikes are counted against your account?

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- TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I agree with the incentive of making it harder, and I do the same myself. However there’s a balance to be found between making it harder for a third party and taking advantage of the tools.
  
  If the third party gets the same information etiher way, then there is little to no harm in logging in to the service and taking advantage of the features available.
  
  Not sure about all the accounts and strikes and things. Personally, I’ve been using uBlock Origin - but I also use uMatrix, which is something of a deprecated browser extension by the same author. However, I find that uMatrix really provides the granular control I want. Many websites I visit are broken from the outset, and then I switch things on little by little until I find the bare minimum required to make the site function for my needs.
  
  Unfortunately, when it comes to Google, the minimum connection is often basically the same as logging in. However the global rules I have set in uMatrix lets me readily see which services require me to connect to Google servers to log in, while blocking them initially and giving me the option to pass on viewing the website if I don’t feel like turning things on.
  
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  - aniki@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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    TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Where did I claim to know everything about Google’s secret sauce?? Which specific things are you saying I’m wrong about?
    
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  - takeda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    They don’t get the same information. They likely do, but they can’t be 100% certain it is really you (with various pro privacy extending that is lowered). When you log in, the certainty is 100%.
    
    Given the YouTube service, there’s lot the need to log in (I suppose maybe it is just the way I use it, but if for example someone sends you a vimeo link, would you log in to watch it?)
    
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netchami@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Just block all Google domains in your DNS/Firewall and have a separate browser with a different DoH resolver exclusively for online banking. You can go even further and have a separate VM or physical device for online banking only.

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- TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  If you block Google, you won’t be able to log into many online banking services.
  
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  - netchami@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Just read my entire comment
    
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    TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    My bad. Still, you’d need to use that different browser (or multiple different browsers) for everything that requires connections to Google. At some point the extra effort just isn’t worth it - I’m more or less content blocking by default and choosing when to enable it.
    
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