Do no evil
Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome
Submitted 1 year ago by teft@startrek.website to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Smacks@lemmy.world 1 year ago
NightOwl@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Finally un-installed chrome on Windows.
Is this enough to remove traces?
- Go to this location:
C:\Users\YOUNAME\AppData\Local\Google
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\ - And delete that “Chrome” folder (for both location, if there is a Chrome folder)
lud@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Worrying about traces is usually not necessary.
gndagreborn@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A friend of mind in IT suggested revouninstaller. I have never used it in practice but he says it might be helpful in this case.
- Go to this location:
C:\Users\YOUNAME\AppData\Local\Google
Honza368@feddit.uk 1 year ago
I hate how rage baity article headlines have become. This isn’t even true. The new “ad platform” integrated into Chrome is better for your privacy than what existed before. It’s a revision of the previous system. If you think Google didn’t track anything in Chrome before, you’re wrong.
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
I can assure you nobody thought Google was not spying the fuck outta you with Chrome.
sc_griffith@awful.systems 1 year ago
this is discussed in the article
Honza368@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Doesn’t change much about the headline being totally wrong
sturmblast@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Chrome is for the surveillance state
malloc@lemmy.world 1 year ago
nuked that shit from my machine.
only going to use it inside a VM now for testing purposes
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
this probably still won’t make people switch to Firefox.
As a seamonkey user - aka mozilla, the flagship product that Mozilla deemed was too hard to maintain - I’m just surprised Firefox is still going. We joked at the time that Mozilla would find a browser too hard, then a rendering suite, then a library, then an algorithm, and finally a line of code.
player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
You can just disable it when it pops up. I hope it continues to warn new users when first setting it up.
Tatters@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Yes, it seems to be trendy to use this as a reason to switch to Firefox, but surely you can just totally disable this new feature in Chrome? The article even tells you how to do this. I guess people are switching as a protest?
kilgore_trout@feddit.it 1 year ago
It’s a new feature in the testing phase. Once it’s proven to work correctly (for Google), the option to disable it will be taken away.
Etterra@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I already use Firefox for everything that’s not literally for my D&D stuff. Because some relevant fan sites don’t display properly on Firefox for some stupid reason. That’s it. So even if they manage to get past my blockers, they literally are telling me nothing I will ever care about because I already have/know where to get any relevant thing those ads might be shilling, and the rest is all irrelevant noise.
47_alpha_tango@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
I haven’t used another browser outside of Safari for almost a decade and I’d never dream of using anything made by Google.
cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I only want safari to add cmd+a to open a fuzzy search through all your tabs and windows. Life’s too short to try and find the right tabs.
Au55ie@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In regards to the argument that google pays firefox and could easily kill it off I doubt it. Even if they were so bold as to cut funding completely (which they are not) you will find that Mozilla will have at some point have to cut loose their CEO or cut their huge pays down and make some changes there followed by some clever moves to find another source of income. If worse comes to worse the community will come to its aid and it will go back into the hands of the community which is likely a very good thing but Google has another approach to all of this and are incrementally trying to lock firefox or any non compliant browser or competitor out of the internet. Google has been doing it for years now. They hijacked web standards also along the way.
I think people are either forgetting the roots of chrome or how it came about as being PUP and foistware bundled along with popular freeware software or anyone they could pay to bundle their software with but earlier than that it was a toolbar that piggybacked onto IE (for its marketshare) and than I believe even Firefox too. People also seem to have this belief that when Chrome came out it was absolutely revolutionary and brilliant but the truth is that it was garbage but people fell for it like a shark to a bucket of chum. To me Chrome was pretty much your Bonzi Buddy of browsers. And google a complete scourge on the internet.
As for webkit that old chestnut. The only reason why that is popular at all is because Apple makes sure that you cannot use any other browser or makes it as difficult as possible not to mention the largest part of their user base comes from their iphone without that their pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel. IMO Yes, Google is just as bad if not worse in many cases as they leverage their android phone market, run ads on TV specifically designed to push chrome and also built an entire laptop (all be it a terrible one) and called it a chromebook to make sure they keep their dominance but lets not also forget they bought youtube also to stack the odds in their favor. Same ol’ Google really.
The browser wars are dead! We just settle for the lesser evil these days.
Saying that this is better for your privacy is like saying I only get punched in the face every second day rather than every day now.
Taking all of the above away and if there is one reason fewer people should be using chrome or chromium based browsers and using something else such as Firefox or a fork is to maintain a balance and take away some of the power and influence they (Google) do have over the web so you they will not be able to force things such as WEI and take away many of the freedoms from the net in which we grew up on as too did the internet. The Freedom of exchange of information was never meant to be conditional or the internet held to ransom by one company but this is where we are at so its time for a change of hands or a the balance of power to be restored. Bringing balance will also force sloppy and lazy web developers to stop build dirt poor websites and deliberately blocking out other browsers. Web standards need to be restored and be completely independent from one entity or another, be it google, Mozilla, Apple or any one else in between.
shittymorph@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I cant get Google drive links to stream in Firefox, thus I still keep Google Chrome around. Am I doing something wrong or is there a work around?
raptir@lemdro.id 1 year ago
Usually an issue like that is due to me having something blocked in uBlockOrigin or some other extension.
idogoodjob@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think they worked for me without issue or me doing anything special (a month or so ago though) so there’s likely something you can do to get it to work.
I can check later today if they still work with whatever firefox setup I have
shittymorph@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I appreciate that, yeah let me know if there’s anything that stands out to ya
Sadrockman@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Is this just for chrome,or is it on all chromium browsers? Im running bromite,but considering going back to Firefox.
AProfessional@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Chromium contains it. Up to the browser bundling it how they configure/patch it.
Sadrockman@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Well damn. Any recommendations for a ff mobile app?
excel@lemmy.megumin.org 1 year ago
No, it’s not in Vivaldi
K0bin@feddit.de 1 year ago
As long as the tracking is purely local, this seems like a good solution to me.
Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 1 year ago
Well, no.
paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I agree. Right now, websites maintain tracking infrastructure to build a profile of individual people as they move across the web. All of that comes down to one thing: targeted advertising. If companies had some way to know what types of ads to show users without tracking them, it would be way easier and cheaper. It would also be better for users since they wouldn’t be invasively tracked all over the web. Privacy Sandbox seems to meet those goals. It does all the tracking locally and sends the end result (advertising topics of interest for this user) so the website knows what kinds of ads to show you without actually doing the tracking. This is a more privacy-focused way of doing targeted advertising for both websites and users. From what I can tell, it’s a win-win. Most of the people I see complaining seem to hate it just because it’s an advertising feature implemented by Google, but to me it seems unambiguously better than the current standard.
DanteFlame@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
I use brave which is a chromium browser with all the tracking stuff turned off and a few ad blockers baked in. It also has some vpn and crypto wallet stuff built in but it’s not in your face so you can just ignore it.
This ad platform shouldn’t affect brave right? Should just be another thing the brave team are able to automatically switch off when the browser updates?
BaroqueInMind@kbin.social 1 year ago
This should tell you all you need to know about the Brave browser. tl;dr it's a piece of shit scummy software helmed by a piece of shit scummy CEO.
Melpomene@kbin.social 1 year ago
I use Firefox, but given the fact that Chrome and its variants control so much of the browser space and Firefox so little... I wonder how long until Firefox has until it is rendered useless.
kilgore_trout@feddit.it 1 year ago
Firefox is the only web browser you should be using. Firefox.
Brave, Edge, Opera, only contribute to the Google monopoly, even though you are not using directly Chrome.
brenno@lemmy.brennoflavio.com.br 1 year ago
Anyone know a good Google Chrome replacement on Android that is chromium based? Wanna a basic browser that I’ll use when Firefox does not work correctly
viking@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Kiwi browser is my chrome workaround, been working really well when needed. My primary browser is Fennec, a Firefox variety with fully enabled add-ons.
WillardHerman@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is Mullvad chromium based?
mattomattic@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
No, Mullvad browser is built from and in conjunction with Tor browser, which is built from Firefox. It works really well if you leave it stock, which is the whole purpose. Blending in with all users.
WillardHerman@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Thank you!
I am pretty new to the privacy concerns. All the browsers and forks and stuff seems pretty confusing.
Is Mullvad better than Firefox? I have not found out how to tell.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I should have never left Firefox when chrome came out. Its good to be back. Especially before any of this happened.