Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies
twitter.com
twitter.com
Just use Firefox and have done with it - there's been a series of these kinds of posts over the last couple of days with people suggesting insane workaround hacks instead of just changing their browser.
P.S. if you keep chrome because some websites only work properly there, maybe y'all should follow standards at work instead of targeting a proprietary browser like its 2001/IE6 again.
> Closing as WONTFIX since FxOS is no more
The Web USB API didn't even exist when that bug was first created.
"Crashes every day"? I can't remember the last time I had a Firefox crash; maybe this is OS-dependent. (I use it on Windows and on FreeBSD; how about you?)
"The UX is bad compared to Chromium" -- obviously if you're used to one program's UX then another's may seem obtuse. What about the Firefox UX is actually bad as opposed to different? (For what it's worth, to me FF and Chrome seem very similar to use.)
(I think I agree about ctrl-F, which on some particular pages seems to misbehave on Firefox in ways I don't understand.)
I haven't seen a Chrome crash in years, yet the Firefox ones are very frequent. Not that I want to switch, I might be the only one here who is happy with Chromium on all my PCs!
I think he was referring to the fact that Mozilla is still unsure about unifying the address and search bars. They only show an unified bar on fresh profiles, IIRC. What he thinks is wrong with keeping distinct bars, besides being different from Chrome, I don't know.
Or do you mean you can't tell it to default to a zoom level that isn't 100%? (That seems to be true.) I confess that's never a thing it's occurred to me to want; it feels like if I wanted every website's text to look larger or smaller, I'd probably want everything to look larger or smaller and would adjust my OS's scaling level. But I know some OSes handle that better than others, and maybe there are good reasons for wanting different scalings for websites than for everything else. Still, it's not clear to me that this is so obviously important a thing that "doesn't even have" is fair.
Considering the cost to implement would probably be pretty low, I think it is a fair complaint against the browser. Still, privacy concerns may supersede convenience in this particular case, and I think I might try again to switch.
If you want to use a web browser, then use Firefox.
I doubt that. With the marketshare on Windows it is very likely, that people deliberateley install Chrome. So they know what a browser is, now that they have at least 2 installed.
Plus some pre-built PCs come with Chrome preloaded.
It's really time to disentangle ourselves from google. They've quietly and effectively insinuated themselves across the web. Enough is enough.
That's exactly the rub. We don't really know.
My Windows phone is going defunkt and the only alternative I really see is either an iPhone, or then back to a dumb phone (a 4G wifi hotspot function would be great, but I haven't found a reasonable dumb phone supporting that).
I'll be damned before I carry any Android device on me.
So, Lineage is a more realistic alternative. They're unlikely to spy on you through the drivers, at least it's more unlikely than being spied on by Apple by using an iPhone.
The problem with that approach is that I don't want to fiddle with my phone. I don't fancy installing custom roms and I don't need the frustration about a device running 99% fine, except for those annoying 1% that you need right now.
I see an analogy in GNU/Linux, which I started to use in 1999 (yeah, on the desktop). It was really good fun. I liked compiling my own kernels because I could. It's great when you can compile, say, Postgresql to the exact specifics of your box, etc.
But then you get to the point where you just want that damn thing to work. You don't want to waste a couple hours or more in figuring out how to burn a cd. let alone games (a situation, which is much better now). So, at one point and as much as I like GNU/Linux, the philosophy behind free software and the endless possibilities of tinkering with your system I switched back to Windows.
It's probably even worse with a phone. I want that damn thing to just work and I don't see that with keeping an Android phone Google free.
At least Apple is not in the business of selling my privacy to the sleaziest of sleaze in order to make a quick buck.
Edited to add : Thanks for the Librem 5 suggestion. I'll look into it.
Actually, it works better than an average Android phone, or than the same phone with stock system:
- better battery life (it used ~ 2% battery during this very work day, with a few texts and one call) because it quite literally does nothing if I don't use it (granted, I use ForceDoze and that helps a lot).
- It never shows any sign of slowness, is never laggy like I can witness on many phones around me (and I use Firefox Mobile, which is supposed to be slow from what I read).
- I didn't have to disable any unwanted app.
Well, except for EAP SIM Wifi authentication, which does not work on any custom ROM that I know of and flashing a custom ROM is indeed a stressful experience, especially the first time.
Librem 5 will be pricey but seems like a good option when it is ready.
Maybe I should indeed do some research and look into it seriously. Your experience sounds really good and, provided I go that route, should save me a bundle (iPhones, especially the new lineup) are brutally expensive in Europe.
Your reply (and others in the thread) once again shows what a valuable resource HN can be.
Thanks!
I'd like something more linux-y, maybe with support for Android that I can run xDrip and AndroidAPS. But nothing else from Google. Anyways Signal, Email and Firefox are the other apps I need from the system.
No affiliation, just another customer.
I don't use email _that_ heavily, so I'm on their free plan and that's just fine for me.
(www.protonmail.com)
1) The web UI is probably not very nice and snappy if you use email a lot.
2) No IMAP for Linux (still).
3) If you happen to be like me (a bit of an idiot sometimes) and lock your phone so you don't get access to your authenticator AND you forgot the security keys, all your old emails will be PGP garbage from now on.
4) The Android app is a bit so-so... Bugs happen.
The good parts are it works, doesn't spy on you, encrypts everything client-side and is based in Switzerland outside of US and EU jurisdiction.
The most frequent services I use, after thinking about it, are:
- local business/food/bars (hours, reviews) - driving directions - accessing email to confirm a signup/lookup a receipt/license etc - events, theater showtimes - flight prices - pay bills etc - check reviews/HN/ random articles.
Most of these I access directly or could be provided by any basic app/search engine.
After reviewing this list, you are left with a few extremely low margin services and a dismal grouping of actual usage, at least seemingly from Google’s point of view.
I’m not saying I’m better than a non power user (mom etc), but are they really worth more? Does clicking on Pinterest links half of the day, or forwarding political/funny emails really have value to 3rd party companies? (Google etc)
Maybe in the short term, there is a circular, ad revenue generation model, but is it really sustainable?
I assume quality of results, but the context was sort of lost in the thread you replied to.
It's not as good at finding obscure forum posts related to a query however
Not just in the filter bubble sense of keeping out any info that the targeted user might find unpleasant, but also in the sense that "we don't surface anything outside of very recent, very mainstream, large corporate sites" even when that's exactly what I don't want to sift through on a given search.
It's a real pain if you're trying to do research in a niche area or in an academic field that isn't hip and popular, if you're not in the 90% bracket of the distribution results for what people click on you just don't exist on Google anymore.
This phenomena is most obvious when you're searching for something that you know still exists on the web, you can remember it being a top result years ago, but has now been effectively eliminated from the results because it's not sitting on the domain of a large corporation. Bing will still surface these sites, at least for now.
> Not just in the filter bubble sense of keeping out any info that the targeted user might find unpleasant, but also in the sense that "we don't surface anything outside of very recent, very mainstream, large corporate sites" even when that's exactly what I don't want to sift through on a given search.
I think this is why many people perceive Google Search to be "better." Those people are mainly looking for mainstream topics on a small number of mainstream sites, and Google has heavily biased their algorithm in that direction.
> It's a real pain if you're trying to do research in a niche area or in an academic field that isn't hip and popular, if you're not in the 90% bracket of the distribution results for what people click on you just don't exist on Google anymore.
> This phenomena is most obvious when you're searching for something that you know still exists on the web, you can remember it being a top result years ago, but has now been effectively eliminated from the results because it's not sitting on the domain of a large corporation. Bing will still surface these sites, at least for now.
You can also try using DDG or Google Verbatim mode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12045959. Though, IMHO DDG is about as good as Google Verbatim.
I do still use Google on my work PC, because it knows I'm a C++ programmer and can show more relevant results. I am against the direction tracking is going, but it is useful in some cases.
Plus, people know that google search is the best, so why use something else? The problem is that they seem to "know" in the same sense that they know Kleenex are the best tissues; its all marketing.
This is not about liking the visual style of the webpage(google vs bing) or how it looks. This is about quality of results and me saving time.
This is not about me being lazy not doing "good search queries". If I can search google and get a result in 5 seconds, why would I spend 1 minute figuring out the best way to phrase something, then 3 more minutes trying different things that Bing would understand? I know there is enough information in my search, because Google understands it. Why should I add more words to it (and sometimes operators) for Bing to get it? Why should I waste my time for no reason? This does not hinder my thinking ability. It's just that Google is so good that it knows what I am thinking before I am completely done with formulating the thought. Damn, sometimes I am on a wikipedia page, I stumble upon a 4-word term unknown to me in that page, I start typing it and Google knows after 2 letters, it shows the whole complete term as a suggestion! And this happens with terms starting with very common words, so it's very likely that google just knows that most people google that exact thing after going to the Wikipedia page (since google sends me to wikipedia page from the beginning). When Bing will do these little things to aid my work, I will gladly switch.
I did try, and I do wish that Bing will get better. Right now it is simply not.
(Yes, I know there are privacy implications, and those suck. But we were talking about quality of searching...)
And when you also factor in that you're not helping Google build a profile on you, it's better than Google.
DDG uses other search engines for results (such as bing), so unless you agree Bing is improving, it’s just a placebo.
DDG is only useful because we can all fall back on g!. It’s sad but true. There is still no substitution for Google search.
This doesn't prove anything. Unless you can provide some metric to say it's not good, then it's delusion getting the better of you.
DuckDuckGo is good enough for everyday usage, for me. It has been this way for well over a year. I never use bangs.
The one place it's really currently lacking is in rejection of spam sites.
DDG is so good that I use GOOG maybe once a year as a secondary search engine. And I started with GS since it had a comically-terrible interface in 2000. I switched because they went evil and DDG was more than good enough being privacy-focused. The !bang searches are a big innovation and timesaver that sealed the deal.
But for some searches I do have to do that. E.g. searching for a HN discussion from the last week: usually no hit. Also image and video search yield surprisingly little results. This last thing is my biggest complaint on DDG.
I think Bing has a marketing / brand problem, as it's been the punch-line of the joke for so long.
I personally think it's actually quite good - I personally use it a lot with Safari.
Finally, the quality of search results is mildly subjective the closer you get to “keyword search” and away from “text search”. Google handles this scenario the best interface wise, but quality it seems to have been going down since they introduced the knowledge base—too many unrelated bits of information being pulled in without being asked for.
Now called Matomo (https://matomo.org/).
In case anyone was confused or looking for it.
1: no personal tracking or profiling data for the search providers
2: no 'personalised' search
3: search results from several providers condensed into one list, i.e. more results for the same query
You can also use one of the public Searx instances [2] if you trust them enough not to do their own profiling. By default Searx does not use cookies but there are other ways of tracking individual browsers so that is not a guarantee for tracking-free browsing.
[0] https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DC...
> All android devices?
No, not all Android devices. Only the ones with the Google Services Framework installed (or, if you're as paranoid as I am, any other Google service that is running as root).
To give you an overview, Google's power over Android users basically rests on the following pillars:
1. Google Services Framework (GSF): AFAIK every Google app requires the GSF to be installed on your phone these days. The GSF runs as root, includes all kinds of analytics libraries. It also links your phone to your account if you decide to set it up on your phone (which, theoretically, you don't have to but, in practice, you are often forced to). If you indeed do that and connect your phone to your account, things like contacts, calendar entries and so on get synchronized automatically.
Even worse, there's also a way for the GSF to back up all your apps' data and upload them to the Google servers. I'm just mentioning this to make it clear that the GSF really has access to everything on your phone.
Solution: Use MicroG (https://microg.org) as a GSF replacement. This, in turn, requires using a custom ROM like LineageOS and, thus, your phone's bootloader to be unlockable. Not all Google apps will work with MicroG but most do in my experience (see below).
2. Google Play Store: Most apps are only available on the Play Store, so if you want to use any of these you'll have to use the Play Store in one way or another. The Play Store, however, needs the Google Services Framework. And even if you got rid of the GSF and replaced it with MicroG (see 1), you would still have to install the Play Store as a system app, giving it root access to your phone.
Solution: Apart from getting rid of the GSF (see 1), use F-Droid for open-source apps and something like Yalp Store (or the Aurora fork) to download apps from the Play Store. (There are also ways to download apps from the Play Store using F-Droid, see e.g. https://github.com/NoMore201/playmaker) You won't be able to obtain paid apps this way, though. (Or, more precisely, you won't be able to download apps that you haven't already paid for.)
2. In-app payments ("Android Pay")
As you might expect, these are also tied to the Play Store and the GSF.
Solution: I haven't tried this in a long time but you might be able replace the GSF with MicroG and just have the Play Store installed and tied to your Google account in order for in-app payments to work. No guarantees, though.
3. Google SafetyNet (part of GSF, as well)
From my POV, this is the most painful Google "feature". It's a Google library that apps like Netflix and online banking apps use to verify that the device they're running on has not been "tampered" with. (What "tampered" means exactly is unclear -- it definitely includes rooted devices but the precise definition is Google's secret.)
If you want to use apps like Netflix, there is no real way around SafetyNet. This is because, if installed on your phone, SafetyNet will download a binary blob from Google, execute it and send its output (basically all the information the blob collected about your phone) to the Google servers. The latter will then do the verification process and notify the Netflix servers (or your bank's servers) about the result. The Netflix servers can then tell the Netflix app on your phone to lock you out if need be.
Solution: While MicroG can't circumvent this, it does support SafetyNet these days by emulating the original SafetyNet implementation. So it, too, will download the binary blob and execute it.
Put differently, in order to use Netflix and most online banking apps you will still have to make sure that your phone passes the SafetyNet test. Here, you've got two options:
Option a): Hide root access and other system modifications (like Xposed) from SafetyNet by using something like Magisk (https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk...).
Option b): Don't use root or any of those modifications in the first place. (I.e. you could just run LineageOS without root and you should be fine.) The problem with non-rooted devices is that they also don't allow you to run a firewall or apps like Xprivacy for more fine-grained privacy control. (When it comes to firewalls not requiring root, NetGuard does come close, though. However, it should be noted that you won't be able to use VPNs anymore.)
4. Google services that are tied a Google account, e.g. Gmail, Drive, Maps, Picasa, Home, Google Now/voice assistant etc.
As already mentioned, they all require the GSF to be installed on your phone.
Solution: I would recommend staying away from them but if you really need them you should be able to replace the GSF with MicroG and they should still work. There might be exceptions, though, depending on how deeply they are integrated with your phone. (The voice assistant might be one such example.)
5. Google services that are not tied to a Google account, e.g. Maps
Solution: Same as 4) and/or use an OpenStreetMaps-based app like OsmAnd as a replacement for maps.
The hard part is de-coupling yourself from Google services, if you rely on them. That may be solved via self-hosted services. See: https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted
This is from someone who used a nexus 6p for two years, and some older stuff before that - but who has recently switched back to iPhone for its ease of use and privacy stance.
(This is very similar to Windows vs macOS, by the way.)
And very similar to Linux vs. Windows for that matter. :)
It seems the only option is iOS and I don't want that...
Also I'd have to buy a new phone, because mine isn't compatible :(
I wish stuff like HP WebOS or Meego was still alive, but as far as I know, Apple and Google are the only serious players in town at the moment :-(
In my own personal experience that would be some really well invested £150...
Apple isn't responsible for the other manufacturers bullshit. At least Apple provides brand new OS software for 5 year old phones.
Personally, I have been using microG (https://microg.org/) instead of GSF on my phone for many years now. However, that is still just a partial solution. While it does its best to be privacy-friendly and does not have any integrated tracking / analytics like GSF, it still has to use Google's servers for push notifications, thus tracking is still possible to some degree.
"How Tutanota replaced Google’s FCM with their own notification system (f-droid.org)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17945116
Apple has their own issues, but they've claimed that their business is selling you a device and software and media to run on it, and making their money from that as opposed to reselling your data. Everything they've been doing lately supports that stance, and they've already recognized it as a differentiation, hence the way they have been up-playing the privacy features of their devices lately. Since they aren't selling you as much after the fact, they are going to charge you more up-front, and since they make their money selling software, they're obsessed with controlling the marketplace.
Google gives away software and media, and sells your personal data and advertising. They're showing increasingly that they don't care about your privacy if it affects their bottom line.
You have to decide which of those business models you support, and then support it. There's no third model where a business gives everything away and cares about your privacy. That's inconsistent with a bottom line of making money, and at the end of the day that is what the business is trying to do.
For a while Google gave the impression that they cared, until they established a large enough market, and now you're seeing them make the natural transition. They've grew their cash cow by giving away stuff, now they are milking it.
Any rational company with their business model is going to do the same thing though, so if you jump ship to another ecosystem now selling you a business model that is too good to be true, don't be surprised down the line when that proves to be the case.
Disclaimer: I was a Google fanboy until a few years ago and I disliked but trusted Google until a couple of weeks ago. Now I don't know what to do but at least I've finally got around to switching my search habits.
Apple: We sell you device/app for $X
Google: We sell you device/app for $X-Y, but we make our $Y back by selling you ad data
Huawei: Hold me beer.
(I'm ignoring their hardware here because of course that's not free, and I don't think it's even intended to be a significant source of revenue anyway)
In stores around here, you can buy gift cards with a Google logo on it (play store credit). That's about as direct a way of giving them money as i can think of.
I suppose buying a gift card is technically giving Google money directly, but that isn't the same thing as payment for services rendered, it's just exchanging USD for Google Play credit, which you then spend on apps. Or in other words, you get the exact same service that you do if you skip the gift card and just pay for apps at the point of sale.
Doesn't Google sell music, e-books, and movies/TV through Google Play? They also have Google Play Music as a subscription service. I was counting the Play Store as buying applications from Google, although it isn't Google's first-party software.
I didn't realize Google Play had their own subscription music service. Good to know.
I can't resist the sarcasm. In that thread, others argue vehemently that you should sacrifice your money for your values. So arguing that the more privacy-conscious phone is too expensive, is... an unexpected argument :-)
And then the next question is what are the alternative store options and which is the best?
Google searching (oops! irony!) I found aptoide.com, and found they have a lot of apps: Firefox, Firefox Focus, Lastpass, Expedia, Chime Bank, etc. I don't know how their build and distribution system ensures safe binaries - didn't check it out.
I recently dropped Google Maps in favor of OsmAnd, and I'm still having growing pains. You have to download maps offline, it's not on demand. It looks like I only get 7 downloads for free. I haven't checked pricing. I'm not sure what happens if I do a phone reset, if I get a new stack of downloads or not. Local searches are super screwy, listing things like delis, pizza, hardware store, in other towns but not my own town. It's...not like Google Maps.
I'm pretty much done with Google now, and I think a lot of tech users will start pulling this way too.
To what? iOS spies even more by default (no way to disable AGPS vs. opt in on Android) and doesn't allow using privacy-enabling apps by default (system-wide ad/tracker blocker, real Firefox, Signal, local maps, etc.) unless you hack your phone. Worse, it doesn't let you develop for your own phone without rebuilding weekly or paying a yearly fee for the privilege. Between the two evils of Google and Apple, Google remains the lesser evil by a long stretch.
They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick up for their customers and publicly decline the US government assistance or backdoors into their products.
I just showed you one way that iOS spies on you that you can't turn off. All other default data collection is exactly the same between iOS and Android. N + 1 > N. Q.E.D.
> There are system-wide ad-blockers
Where? I'm talking about blocking ads and trackers in all apps, not just in web views.
> Firefox Focus is great
It doesn't use Gecko or Spidermonkey. It is not real Firefox.
> and there is a Signal app.
Which, as I already said, you can't set as your default SMS app.
> They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick up for their customers and publicly decline the US government assistance or backdoors into their products.
Even Google has declined to assist the US government. There is no difference here. Everywhere else, iOS is significantly worse.
> Apple charges more because they don't sell you data or spy on you.
Apple charges more because they know they have enough rubes that will buy into their marketing spiel, even convincing some software engineers to buy programmable devices they aren't allowed to program. Google doesn't sell your data either, and as I've already shown, Android spies on you less.
Nope. https://blokada.org/index.html
> And you've obviously not done very much research about what data Apple collects vs Google.
I showed you exactly how Apple collects more data from iOS than Google does from Android. You're trying to Pee-wee Herman your way out of this with an "I know you are but what am I?"
> Google makes you approve all permissions when you install an app without clearly stating what it means. iOS apps have to ask for specific permission the first time they want to use GPS, camera, microphone, etc.
You're wrong — Android also asks for permission at the time the app wants to use a feature. More importantly, this has nothing to do with what data Google or Android collects, which is the whole point of this thread.
> it's not like you can't use Signal.
Moving the goalposts. You can't use Firefox. An SMS app is nearly useless if it can't be set to the default.
> And Google is currently working with the US government on many projects, which has caused many Googlers to quit the company.
Again, not by sharing user data with them, which is the whole point of this discussion.
Apple allowed them for about a year before reversing course. Lookup Adguard's blog posts for detailed history.
Their app was fantastic (I've still got an old version installed which is still working great on iOS 12.1) and allowed the use of standard tracking lists for systemwide blocking / firewalling.
My guess for why Apple reversed course is that they had no easy way of stopping spyware-masquerading-as-adblockers without blocking all.
[citation needed]
True but I'd like to point out that different standards are being applied here when talking about Android's lack of privacy vs iPhone's privacy friendly policies. Namely there is a large post above on how Google Services Framework has access to everything in your phone so it is bad (and we need to do everything to get rid of it) simply because of what it _can_ do, rather than of what it actually does (because what it does largely depends on user settings, like for example if you want to backup your whole phone, obviously that's going to package and save all your phone's contents on Google servers).
Most of the privacy features you mention seem targeted to stop a certain type of information gathering (that of web based adtech, obviously those are Apple's competitors so it's not surprising) while it's not covering the biggest issue IMO with smartphones: information gathering by the system applications that you have no control over. Do we know how much information does Apple collect with their system software and store it associated with your AppleID and you have no control over that? I never used an iPhone so I'm curious, especially things like: location (nearby cell tower information, GPS and wifi networks), contacts, phone call log, SMS log, process list/applications running or installed, DNS logs, API calls logs.
Have you tried Maps.me? It downloads OSM maps for local usage.
I can't believe that this needs to be said here, but don't use Microsoft products if your goal is to avoid dark patterns and user monetization. Microsoft is at least 10 times more corrupt than google.
GP appears to be expressing a rote dislike of MS uncritically carried through from the 90s. Nowadays they're nowhere close to Google or FB in terms of EITHER anti-competitive business practices or user/consumer/human hostile product designs.
kiloBrutus
https://1.cdn.edl.io/yteBVOxUCXm1v0nlnSH3aSYPHggabvUHBwPAXBl...
One needs a big scale unit because the subject of 'Microsoft' and 'Google' does imply a very big scale...
You want sources? Search for:
- The Microsoft licensing corruption scandal
- Microsoft corruption Bulgaria
- Microsoft corruption Rumania
- Microsoft corruption Indonesia
- Microsoft corruption Argentina
...and the list goes on.
I've found Startpage and its sister site IxQuick to be a good alternative to Google. Same search results with a lot of detritus filtered out, keeps you out of Google's search bubble, and it has built in proxy features.
Instead of Bing, which tracks you for monetization on Microsoft's behalf (though I trust Microsoft with my information more than Google), try DuckDuckGo. It uses Bing as a back end but, like Startpage, proxies the query so your information and identity never hits Microsoft's servers. It's also a much cleaner page code-wise than any other search engine I've seen. It often comes up with more relevant results than Startpage; I find myself often searching both for the same subject so I don't miss what I'm looking for.
Most of the time, my searches are directly for products (ie, Amazon.com, Target.com, Walmart.com), people (ie fb.com), Wikipedia (first few hits on Google), locations (yelp.com, Google maps, ___ maps), recommendations (yelp.com, etc), hotels or travel (expedia.com, kayak.com, hotwire.com, united.com, southwest.com, etc) or Stackoverflow (first page of Google) — I’d wager any modern search engine such as Bing or DDG can easily present all the relevant Stackoverflow/Stackexchange/Stack{...} results you could ever desire.
It’s not the same as the old days of random (important) data sprinkled across the personal/hobby pages of some knowledgeable people across Geocities — is there even a need for using Google anymore?
Everything else I just invoke DuckDuckGo or Startpage.
> As is expected with Apple now, searches and results are all encrypted and anonymized and cannot be attributed to any individual user. Once you click on the ‘Show Google results’ link, of course, you’re off to Google and its standard tracking will apply. Clicking directly on a website result will take you straight there, not through Google.
In effect, this is much like using Startpage instead of google.com, at least up until you load a full results page (which I actually haven't done in quite a long time now that I think about it).
+1 for open source I guess.
Until some weeks ago I was less unhappy with Google Chrome than with firefox, but now I am kind of almost equal unhappy with both...
In general, I see firefox's point that using the system extensions to deliver autouodates and allow them to iterate more quickly. However, it also feels like whenever we see these extensions that they're something shady.
It's unfair to describe these as "installing random extensions without asking" because you would then have to admit that it's equally true of every new feature of every software program that is ever updated.
Chrome on the other hand removed that option years ago. Deleting Chrome Update's scheduled-task is my workaround.
I don't recall if extension updates can be disabled in chrome.
Firefox activates limited telemetry for folks who turn off the heavy stuff. While your firefox browser shows that no telemetry is taking place, the browser will silently send information about your browser, os, and other information to Mozilla.
Personally, the privacy implications don't concern me as much as a browser that is deliberately lying to and deceiving it's users (though I can certainly see how it can be privacy concern).
If someone wants true and total control over their browsing experience, neither firefox or chrome are a good choice (imo).
At least twice. https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/16/firefox-mr-robot-extensi... https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9ii8sj/firefox_kee...
There may be a legitimate debate worth having here, but basing the complaint on the good code hygiene practised by Mozilla's developers is silly.
These so-called "compromises" were nothing in any practical sense. Meanwhile, every web page you visit leaks the fact of your existence a hundred different ways and 99% of us don't care much.
The outlier is (was?) IE, it kept the same interface and configurability while others continued dumbing down (although things are changing with Edge too) and it seems the massively anti-user decisions the other browsers made never really took hold at MSFT until most recently when they began sticking telemetry up the wazoo.
If you care more about user control than web standards compatibility then perhaps IE is the best choice... for now. At least it is more compatible than the "fringe" browsers like Dillo and NetSurf, or even the text-based ones. Opera, before it became another WebKit-shell, might be another good one.
(Disclaimer: No affiliation with MSFT, just someone who has watched these browser wars for a long time and saw this gradual "illusion of choice" take hold. I use various browsers depending on which site it is.)
I'll keep Chrome around, like Opera, for browser testing.
They were built and grew out of their initial 'don't be evil' culture.
Engineering and product first is how Google won the game initially, very easy to forget that when the money rolls in massively and the power structures move away from those driving forces.
Microsoft already went through this engineering/product growth to bizdev/marketing control to stagnation and is already in the return to engineering/product first phase. Basically their own Ballmer era is what Google is entering.
Bizdev + marketing are hugely important, but the products and engineering need to be the focus. It is much easier to bizdev and market a product and engineering led system/focus, though success through this is always forgotten when massive success comes around because engineering/research and development are hard to quantify and put metrics to which the power structures move away from.
Let's hope there are factions of engineering/product focused people in Google that can gain back control.
E.g. good luck trying to be a developer at Microsoft 10 years ago in Balmer's 'embrace, extend, extinguish' model
That is to say, it's organisational dna that dictates who defines the product. Once the 'specs' have been written, hands are tied.
I don't blame the engineers one bit. I certainly don't expect the poor engineer that had to implement the cookie changes to refuse and quit his job over it.
There are no poor engineers at Google.
That is, ironically, the point people are making: if you make that much money doing something so (arguably) distasteful, you deserve scorn. It's in the "you can't have your cake and eat it too" family.
And don’t say they should quit. This isn’t the solution. At some point they will find an engineer to do it anyway.
The solution should be applied at the source.
I’m comparing the argument that the Google engineer is just following orders to the argument that camp guards were just following orders.
I’m not the one who brought up the exact same defense. But if that defence is brought up, Perhaps the person emplying that argument should be asked if they meant to make the comparison indirectly by using the same argument.
The contract you sign when you get the job tells you to follow those instructions. And you have laws that say that you can be a whistleblower if they are illegal. Well this may be immoral or unethical but it doesn't strike me as illegal. So your only option is to refuse the implementation and quit your job.
Is the problem solved? No. Then that wasn't a solution and the responsibility wasn't on the engineer's shoulders. When you have a leaking pipe staining the wall don't blame and just repair the wall. Fix the pipe.
You're letting some irrational anger/hate cloud your judgement and it shows. You came up with a comparison with Nazis (!!!) and nothing anywhere close to reasonable opinion on who's really to blame and what the solution is. You're the guy who hates the person in the call center for following those questionable and possibly abusive scripts. Obviously it's on them.
And at some point when <future Google mostly comprised of scum> is thoroughly obviously malicious, we can expect/hope/encourage them to lose customers until they collapse.
The rats will move on as well, but at least the more virtuous employees can be elsewhere before the end implosion.
That’s how values work. You VALUE them, meaning—objectively—you are willing to make some sacrifice for them.
Same goes for working for a predatory financial institution, a manufacturer who makes dangerous products, or for that matter, a company with a toxic culture.
How is this different from working for a tobacco company? Decades ago we had the same conversation about people who ”were just following orders.”
If you aren’t able to change your organization, change organizations. If not, fine, but you cannot escape having proven that you don’t actually value consumer privacy or what-have-you more than your hot supper. You just consider it a nice ideal to bandy about in conversation.
Summary: Those who are complicit certainly deserve their share of the blame. At the very least, you can say of them, “they value money more than privacy.”
If you don’t think so, maybe YOU don’t value these things that much, which is why you won't hold anyone else accountable for them.
If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,” you know what inevitably happens? You discover that the product and eng managers can’t change things either. In theory, maybe, but in practice they are given accountability for revenue and growth targets, so what choice do they have?
Let’s move up the ladder. Can we blame the directors and ELT. No, the markets hold them accountable for growth, and every company plays dirty, so what choice do THEY have?
Pretty soon everyone is shrugging, and now you understand how SYSTEMIC problems persist: Nobody is held personally accountable because no one person can make change without sacrifice, and sometimes not even then, it would take mass walkouts or protests , and each person is but a drop in the bucket.
This mechanism of not holding people accountable because they don’t have sufficient authority or power to make unilateral change is how all systemic injustices persist. Racism, sexism, class distinctions, corruption in government, predatory corporations, all of them.
They persist because individuals say, “What can I do? Nothing, so I might as well go along with it.” And if everyone accepts this...
The next thing you know, they’re writing software to assist opressive regimes oppress their citizens.
This is more speculative, but I think public markets don't really react adversely to visionary CEOs / founders putting principles over growth, so it's not like they would make all their paid-in-equity engineers take a pay cut for their principles either.
p.s. I know the market seems to like Apple’s perspective on privacy, but unless we can examine an altrnate universe where iPhones aren’t selling like hotcakes, it’s tough to know whether the market values the eithics involved, or just thinks it’s a fine strategy.
If the latter, the market doesnkt really value their values, but rther their ability to make money. Which is mot the same thing.
> With only seven million iPhones sold in China during the second quarter of 2018, Apple's market share in the country dropped by 12.5 percent year on year to 6.7 percent, according to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC)
Apple have some very particular values in China though, storing iCloud data and encryption keys on state-owned servers. But the trend to decline started a long before that recent Apple decision.
> If you head over to Xiaomi China’s official store (via XDA-Developers) you’ll see three new bundles unsubtly named the XS, XS Max, and XR sets. Included in each bundle is a new Xiaomi phone — either the Mi Mix 2S, Mi 8, or Mi 8 SE, respectively — a Xiaomi Notebook, a Mi Band 3, and a Bluetooth earpiece/earphones, all for the same price as their namesake iPhones.
They are leaving a ton of money on the table taking their privacy stance right now.
But if you say, “Ontario made this stupid decision,” I can’t tell you, “I didn’t vote for this, I can’t change it, I’m not responsible.”
I have to tell you, “It sucks, and as a citizen I bear some of the responsibility, and here’s what I’m doing in the hopes of fixing it.”
My only argument is that people who stay have some accountability. Accountability doesn’t mean they are automatically bad people, but it does mean we can ask them, “What are you doing about it?” And they don’t get to shrug and say, “Nothing I can do, so my conscience is clear.”
Maybe when one person speaks up, others will be emboldened.
That said, about this:
> and now you understand how SYSTEMIC problems persist: Nobody is held personally accountable
It looks completely backwards. Environments that fix systemic problems are overwhelmingly on the side of not blaming individuals and looking only at the system. You are probably thinking about goal misalignment problems, and yet, just going after the individuals is still counterproductive if the system won't support the ones that do the right thing.
> It looks completely backwards. Environments that fix systemic problems are overwhelmingly on the side of not blaming individuals and looking only at the system.
That's a fascinating exchange. I find myself siding more with you than with braythwayt, but still uncertain because the idea is new to me. Is there a good writeup of arguments for both sides?
1. Individuals have values and ethics that they'll make a reasonable effort to comply with. Society recognizes this and rewards and punishes individuals for the ethical bent of the projects they are clearly responsible for.
2. As the size and complexity of a project grows responsibility becomes diffuse until there's no single individual to hold responsible for any given decision. Once this happens the informal, personalized ethical safeguards begin to break down.
3. Once the informal individual scale safeguards have dissolved they usually can't be rebuilt. Instead they need to be replaced with formal safeguard mechanisms that operate at the project scale.
What really confuses the discussion is that a well working system that deals with ethical failures does necessarily hold people personally accountable. But you can't fix it by focusing on the "holding people accountable" part, it never works. You have to focus on the "system" part.
As for the Nazis, there are some parallels, just as there are for other social problems like racism. But in my initial comment, I preferred to stick to a more direct comparison involving employment with a fantastically profitable and legal company.
I will explain, but first let it be known that I am a scorned Google user. I jumped on board the magic carpet of every Google service as soon as I could and loved it the whole time, but it has become clear to me that Google and my values no longer align. So I'm leaving.
However, telling the workers to "just quit" won't solve anything. In fact, it guarantees that the company will have a higher percentage of people you morally disagree with leading to, by your moral standards and actions, a more evil product.
Additionally, quitting because you disagree with company politics is the least meaningful protest you could levy. Inaction from the sidelines is just as damning as internal complicency. If you want to split moral hairs and feel Superior because you quit, go for it but don't pretend like you're a hero or in any way part of the solution. To be specific, Google won't reverse it's whole company plan and Buck the entire industry trend due to a _temporary_ uptick an employee turnover of a few percentage points (if that).
Change can come from internal activism and external Market pressures. Quitting is neither of those and actively contrary to the former.
“If you can’t change your organization, change organizations.”
If the argument is that by staying they can create change, our views are compatible.
If the argument is that “although they may try, they can’t change anything, but they should still stay,” then my argument is that they have chosen to be complicit, and it is appropriate to hold them to account.
Nobody is really telling anyone to quit, but the argument above is that if they don’t quit, they cannot be held accountable. I reject that notion.
> “If you can’t change your organization, change organizations.”
> Nobody is really telling anyone to quit, but the argument above is that if they don’t quit, they cannot be held accountable. I reject that notion.
This is a false dichotomy.
The world exists in grey areas. Just because you are passionate about security and privacy does not mean joe the google engineer is culpable for the _industry accepted_ practices you disagree with.
People are fallible and so are companies. If everyone had to change-or-quit every company they worked at, no one would work anywhere. Your philosophy is not sustainable, logical, or implementable. In the spectrum of immoralities, fingerprinting users is pretty far down on the list, although it is certainly present.
Not necessarily.
Thank God Albert Einstein "just quit" as opposed to returning to Germany to influence it from the inside and change it from within.
Perhaps that engineer could go on to work for companies that care more about privacy and help them succeed, or explain to others why he left and convince others to as well.
Movements are not collections of popular supermen who do extraordinary things. You make it seem as if, unless you can completely change the course of the company, don't bother. Same as "don't vote your vote doesn't matter."
A person leaving is essentially a vote. It says I no longer have faith in the decision makers of this current group of leaders at google. You no longer will offer your value to them - that on its own, is most likely a loss (they would not have kept you if you didn't offer value.) On top of that, you add value to a potential competitor, or the EFF, or here on HN, where many have already switched to Firefox.
On its own, it doesn't mean much. But collectively, it could be devastating.
If not, oh well. My job isn't to ensure Google decides to be good and not evil. But I can determine if I will support something evil or not. And I choose not.
False. A mass exodus of employees can certainly increase market pressures as it signals instability; it can also be extremely difficult (sometimes impossible) for new hires to understand big legacy code bases -- so quitting can be a form of legal/indirect sabotage
Between things decided by data and management I'm not sure what a single developer can influence. I guess it sill more than by quitting, because you won't say anything in the exit interview in case you want to come back.
I agree that engineers might also have something to say, but we don´t actually have a clue if some of them actually expressed they concerns for this change, unless you have some insight from inside the company that you may not be able to share.
Even if some of them left as you suggest, I´m pretty sure Google wouldn´t have any problem to find some other engineers that would happily implement anything without questions.
Nevertheless, I agree that concerns should be raised by everyone in the org, but the only ones that might lead to an actual change is stock holders/board of directors.
While Google could easily find engineers to implement anything, they can't as easily find people who know what to implement: People with a deep understanding of the web. The power grab we could observe over the last year has alienated a lot of people. In hindsight we will know whether that grab worked for them.
Right now, they are burning through goodwill at a high rate.
>If you take the engineer off the hook because “they can’t change things,”
He never said this, and in my reading is not trying to say this. What I read him trying to say is:
"Quitting is not the only way to handle the problem."
Or the harsher:
"The solution is not to run away from the problems."
More or less the equivalent of:
"If the US is going downhill, the solution isn't to run away from the country, but work to fix it"
As an engineer you're part of the company. And putting a recent unfortunate case aside, Google is relatively open to engineers voicing their opinions. If you're fatalistic or meek, sure, you can leave. But that's the weakest of all options.
Why do they have to uproot their family? Why can't they just work from home? I don't understand why we still insist on making people physically show up for jobs that can be done from home in someone's PJ's.
I'm not necessarily making any judgement here, I'm not saying "those assholes, why don't they quit?". I'm just saying that you cannot be unwilling to make a sacrifice for your "values" and then claim you have "values". Pick one.
Not all job changes are so drastic. Refusing to implement this behavior might be as simple as just requesting to switch teams within Google. If one chooses to leave, finding another high paying job in the same area is not typically a great challenge for a Google engineer. No uprooting necessary...
Google isn't the only tech company in Silicon Valley.
I frankly can't disagree more with this statement. That's how you get VW's defeat devices etc. Engineering ethics matter. And engineers are not "poor". Maybe not everyone realises it but we, engineers, have substantial powers. We need to exercise them.
That said, as a customer I'm using an Android phone because IMHO anything else is a worse choice for a number of reasons. At least I'm signed out of any Google service except Play.
Yeah, that's enough, that logs you in on google play services, which has god mode on your phone.
People accept a LOT with gradual changes over a few years that they would never accept as an upfront bulk package. This is not just in engineering. But there is a flip side to this -- once bureaucrats are in control and engineers who stay accept "that is the way we do it" as a justification they often lose energy and become set in their ways. This is more dangerous to a company than a rotting executive class. My 2c.
I bought a surface pad for my dad. Setting up was a pain, my dad had constant issues where he’d do something and didn’t know how to get out of it. UX was inconsistent. Bing ads everywhere. Yuck! It still very much felt like features were created for someone to get a promo.
Google at the moment feels like a ruthless data driven company. “Our charts show that with this change people use more google services. It invades user’s privacy and pisses off a bunch of HN users but who cares? This will make us a trillion dollar company, and it is working!”
And this is why everyone should fear Google. If they are willing to do this, as their AI capabilities advance, their actions show they value their stock price far above their users privacy. God knows what they’ll do next. It’s not the first time they’ve done something like this.
On the other hand. The current US govt is in bed with Google. They lobby like crazy. The govt will not do anything. Gogo is a behemoth that can pretty much get away with anything now. May be the EU will. I really hope they get fined for this.
I would not either, but this just reinforces the opinion that it is very hard for a company to get out of this state. Once engineers are domesticated even if the leadership wants to reinvigorate the company (and I think Microsoft's would like), empowering tame engineers is unlikely to produce earth-shattering results. Product improvements, sure; new technologies, probably not. My 2c.
This. A million times. Be prepared for the next step: http://decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html
Thanks!
The page is pretty sparse; do you know if there are any winning conditions, or it just goes on until `Number` in JS oveflows?
"Google executives, including CEO Larry Page, knew about this stuff and condoned it":
"Mr. Page, now Google’s chief executive, knew about the illicit conduct, said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island who led the multiagency federal task force that conducted the sting. “We simply know from the documents we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going on,” he said in an interview after the August settlement… “Suffice to say this was not two or three rogue employees at the customer service level doing this on their own,” said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney. “This was corporate decision to engage in this conduct.”"
This is way, way beyond most company scandals. It made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Page could have ended up doing federal prison time.
[1] https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_journal_takes_us_insi...
Just because you are a benefitting part of an organization, it doesn’t mean you cannot disagree with management and if you disagree it doesn’t mean you have to quit or stop being critical.
In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty small issue compared to all the other tracking they do and things like "Project Dragonfly".
Now it's obvious to everyone but I am almost certain that Google did this already with search at least since 2008. The low hanging fruit was picked with Matt Cutts being their PR mouthpiece, and what's left to do now stinks. They can't hide behind the "search" and ads are separated lie. Special mention to his pal, Danny Sullivan, the "fair and balanced" search expert.
Edited to ad: If they claim that SERPS are unbiased and not connected to ad revenue, doing otherwise would fraud. Tens of $billion worth.
This approach doesn't work in the real world because Google's consumers are neither perfectly informed nor perfectly rational. It also ignores the fact that major corporations can enlist the help of the US government in maintaining and extending their de facto monopolies.
People often forget that patents, copyright, etc. are just an arbitrary social construct with little real justification for their existence. Yet the overall effect they have is to make it considerably harder to start a new company to compete with a tech giant.
It may be that the problem is that we have too much regulation rather than too little.
The engineers not being in charged happened a long time ago.
To wit: the current CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, was never an actual engineer.
He actually learnt the ropes of his job at McKinsey.
If its just one person, it often easy to fix the problem by eliminating that one person(like Microsoft).
But if an entire cartel is at work in the top layers. Like the political brotherhood, to say. It will be impossible to solve the problem until an eventual IBM like corporation will come to happen. Basically you fire one exec, and the brotherhood will bring one from their golf buddies to replace them, and this process will go on. No one know what's to be done to fix the problem, because whatever new boss you will get will be the same as the old boss.
I'm also fairly sure by now that the 20% spare time project culture/process is fairly dead by now.
No political exec will let some programmer create a project leading to creation of a new threat to their fiefdom.
I'm guessing most of Google's growth will now come only from Acquisitions.
Mainstream people dont need and dont value products being great in every detail.
I don’t know what they need. But as google is still successful with a search engine that used to be great a decade ago because it delivered results for exactly what i was looking for and nothing else, and now is more a „whatever you search, we‘ll serve you some results no matter if words you search really appear there, they seem to be happy being served anything wether it’s what they ordered or not...
For the minority with high demands on products his is difficult because we have to look for new providers again and again after the logic of growth makes companies shift to cater there products to the mainstream... after using us as beta testers and advertisers.
Microsoft were always a marketing first company. Even in the early days they sold BASIC and DOS before they'd even written a line of code. And Windows certainly didn't become the dominant desktop OS through being the best at engineering (in the 80s and 90s they were usually amongst the worst in terms of performance and stability).
Having good engineering and being product focused doesnt mean you'll have a successful product. In fact all too often it takes underhanded stunts to get your neck in front simply because most people are not like us, they're not engineers. So you'd be amazed at how little most people would care about what's happening here (assuming they even understand it in the first place)
Microsoft didn't create DOS
Besides, my point clearly wasn't who originally authored MS-DOS but rather that MS didn't even have a product to sell -let along a well engineered one- back when they first visited IBM.
Microsoft BASIC was the original Microsoft product, written by Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1975. It was already wildly successful and the default microcomputer BASIC dialect by the time they had talks with IBM.
MS-DOS was originally 86-DOS, née QDOS, by Seattle Computer Products.
And yes, MS-DOS was originally a SCP product - however you've left out the important part: when Microsoft visited IBMs headquarters to sell their disk operating system after Digital Research struck out with IBM (though accounts regarding what happened there differ wildly depending on who you ask), Microsoft did not have a CP/M nor DOS clone at that time which is why they approached Tim Patterson of SCP and later bought the OS for a pittance compared to what Microsoft then licenced it for. Thus once again I'm completely correct to say Microsoft didn't have a product to sell.
I don't know why you and the former poster have gotten so hung up on who originally created MS-DOS since I was only discussing it's licensing to IBM. But hopefully you now understand the point I was making.
You can't blame them, their user base is in free fall.
> Our long-term plan is to:
>
> Incrementally replace components in Firefox with ones written in Rust and shared with Servo
I don't know if they have a date in mind for the delivery of a 100% Rust Firefox, but they're not stopping the initiative.
The page goes on with a list of stuff they planned to add to Servo in 2018, which will eventually go into Firefox.
Edit: fixed the formatting of the quote
It was not just Ballmer. When Gates was in charge, the technology was never the priority. Gates understands the tech, but MS never worked trough technology towards their goals. They used their monopoly power and bought tech, almost never build it.
MS products started to gradually improve after Gates stopped being the chief technology officer of the company.
"Okay, users are confused by how they're logged into Google but not Chrome, or Chrome but not Google - let's make them one and the same".
"Okay, but once you're logged into Chrome now, every post we check to see if we have the Google cookies to keep that sync... so that means when you clear the cookies the Google ones will automagically reappear"
"Ugh, let's just notify the user that clearing the cookies won't clear the Google ones"
"Yeah, that works".
Come on, we're all developers here, we all know how these conversations work.
Given Google's size and power it's irresponsible for them to not do so.
And given that there are really smart people working for Google, including a whole department working on analyzing the threats and preserving user privacy, I won't believe for a second that nobody thought of this. Which may mean that they don't care, even if they did once. And again, given their size, their power, their potential for harm, that's not OK. With great power comes great responsibility, bla, bla.
So I'm not buying that.
Also, now that the shit has hit the fan, lets see what they do in response. Probably nothing ;-)
Can you answer this for me?
Given the scenario - when you clear cookies all cookies are cleared but new cookies for google services are set again, what is the privacy concern for end users?
Both read to me immediately like high octane, weapons grade, 200 proof naiveté.
"Everyone at UPS, for anything they do, should ask a simple question on any proposal ... how does this impact bicycle couriers?"
"Everyone at Amazon, for anything they do, should ask a simple quesiton on any proposal ... how does this impact local mom and pop general stores?"
The organization you're talking about is diametrically configured to oppose the thing you're saying they should be mindful of. I just don't even know how it's a thing you can imagine is possible in this world.
This comment reads to me like someone saying. "When anyone in the world is about to shoot another person, they should stop.. think about what they're doing and then _not_ shoot them. This would reduce the number of shootings dramatically."
I uh.. atleast to some degree agree with all the above things.. despite that, there's a whole axis of maximum confused exasperation I feel reading about them.
True. That's precisely why engineering ethics is our last hope.
It's at this point I am tempted to unpack what precipice we're about to go over when our last hope disappoints. Instead i'll stop on an optimistic note: everything is terrible and nothing matters, but humans will keep doing human stuff for as long as we can. By some measures things will continuously improve and by some others we'll regress and retry old tyrannies under new epochs. The ebb and flow can't be arrested by unity while we all hate each other like we do.
Fortunately, we'll only keep on hating each other until we get something else we hate even more. Make no mistake, some day we'll all come together to hate something else again. The unity of action that'll afford will allow us to do some pretty remarkable things. Hopefully the thing we all hate together actually deserves it this time. It doesn't always work that way ;(
Industries are regulated because they don't naturally do what society wants. Regulation changes their incentives and behavior to make that happen.
A leopard can't change its spots and an ad-tech company is never going to design their products with preserving privacy first, because they can't [1]. It's like a body rejecting an organ transplant.
As another comment stated, direct governance in the form of regulation is the appropriate tool for this problem. Other options, especially hoping for an application of a particular ethical framework, is dreams.
I don't see how any of those is analogous the parent's suggestion. Privacy is not a business rival to Google (as Amazon to small shops or UPS to bike couriers).
True, the attribute privacy hurts one of Google's profit channels; but then, it also makes the product less attractive [1] to the users it needs and exposes it to legal liability, or may leak information that hurts users and hurts profitability in other ways. Even if Google benefits from loss of privacy in some respects, it is hurt in other ways by not consistently, predictably enforcing privacy boundaries.
Neither is true for Amazon vs mom-and-pop or UPS vs independent bike couriers.
Lumping them together is unfair and only communicates "there exists a superficial similarity to an argument that's stupid".
[1] I get it, "if you're not paying, you're not the customer..." My point should be clear though.
Data about A is the fuel for the machines that allow them to provide value for group B. I removed the indirection in my metaphors to try and communicate how the "consciousness" of a large company views the assertion. If you view google as a sentient entity, it looks upon comments like the GP as though they're coming from children.
I could've added more parity by replacing the business rivals with the words "decentralization" on all of my examples, but I think it muddies the message for no gain.
"Google should think about what it's doing to people's privacy!" sounds naive to me because google does exactly this! The levy of google's smartest are constantly trying to find ways to gather more data, or infer more things from the data they've got.
Privacy is more of a business rival to google than any other company. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri -- they're all just new pump jacks.
Really, the whole concept of the parent shows a lot of naiveté I didn't even address. 7/10 engineers on a floor agreeing not to take the "mind control plebs" ticket doesn't do a thing when there's enough people to complete it anyways. Your gesture didn't do anything.
Publicly martyring your career for your idealism DOES add a nugget of fuel to society's awareness and opinions about the thing, but I suspect the issue is just too oblique right now for that fire to get started.
Off topic, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Facebook / Google are >100 years ahead of everyone else in sociology. At some point the code's just cracked, and taking away the keys doesn't do anything but deepen the moat around Facebook / Google.
If those companies are ever defeated in war, I suspect that their contribution to society will be similar to Unit 731, Ahnenerbe, or any of number the other non consensual human experimentation throughout the years. We'll tut tut about the unethical mongrels while telepathically scheduling the chores of our vat grown slaves made possible by the abuses of this era.
Or maybe engineers will just agree to stop sometime soon and that'll be that!
This to me is the social contract that binds our relationship as consumers with these companies.
If I cannot trust them, it means I can no longer recommend Google. And I already stopped recommending Google's products a while ago. What changed now is that ... I'm actively recommending against them to everyone I know and that is using a Google product that I happen to notice.
Of course, I'm a single individual, I can only influence my friends and my Twitter followers maybe, and I'm sure most of the time I'm preaching to the choir.
But I felt that way when I was recommending against Microsoft, since 2005. And guess what, enough people started to do it and it started eroding on their influence and market share, coupled with their own blunders of course, the classic "inovator's dilemma".
And as a datapoint, I think one of the primary reasons for why Windows Phone was a failure was because developers rejected it, due to it coming from Microsoft. Now you can talk all you want about market share, monetization and tell people that developers go where the money is, but I remember people hacking for Android phones ever since they hit the market and it took a really long time for Android to become barely profitable for app developers (it still isn't actually), not to mention a worse experience compared with Apple's APIs, yet developers embraced Android. Thus that lost sex appeal and trust that Microsoft had back in the days of Windows 95 was lost and they still haven't recovered, which prevented them from getting a foothold in a market that really matters for their future.
Nowadays Microsoft is doing fine, but they had to make some drastic changes to regain the lost trust, as they were going downhill, even if it wasn't necessaril and please notice that in spite of their best efforts, they still haven't regained that trust. Notice what happened when they acquired GitHub. Not the kind of reaction you expect when you buy something for 7.5 billion. Although I'm sure people will get over it soon, if they don't screw it, like they screwed Skype that is.
So you know ... I might be idealistic, my colleagues too, but judging by HN's reaction and the reaction of people I follow on Twitter, to me it's clear Google's image has changed and it does matter because we can influence their future.
Companies can choose to not care. But that's how they eventually become irrelevant.
Maybe it's even more important to ask "how does this impact the user privacy for those that don't care?"
Because that group appears to be the majority...
I remember the five billion dollar fine sourced out of GDPR, but is that ever actually initiated or part of an ongoing power play?
Answer: no way in hell. Legal most assuredly signed off; Google decided they have no liability, formally.
Example Use Case: I was contacted by my poor old mother recently who said that she was logged into "The Google" but was seeing the wrong emails! She was horribly confused.
What had happened was that my sister had checked her email on my mothers computer and forgot to log out. My mother was logged into Chrome (as it correctly said on the top right of the browser) but didn't understand that logging in/out of Gmail was a different thing.
To blame non technical users for being confused here is unfair at the least. And I'm sure there are millions of them with the same problem.
A technical user who cares about privacy can:
- not log into Google and use an external email client for Gmail
- use Gmail in incognito
- disable Chrome auto log in via the preferences (although I haven't tried this myself some people say it works, although I've seen conflicting info about if this works in future versions of Chrome).
- use Firefox (but if you are still using Gmail I'm rolling my eyes here)
I personally don't think it is too evil that Google cares more about people like my mother than advanced privacy conscious technical users.
Also I can't see how auto syncing ones account with Chrome really damages privacy any more than what is there now? If you are logged into Gmail they have your cookies while you browse the web anyway. If you privacy conscious enough that you log out of Gmail every time you are done, fair enough, but I would suggest not using Gmail at all in that case.
But most importantly I'd like to hear a better engineering solution for people like my mother?
Sounds like not having to be logged into your web browser would be a good start, then you'r mother wouldn't have been confused between being logged into chrome and logged into gmail. This is a problem google created in the first place and now you're giving them credit for fixing it.
> I personally don't think it is too evil that Google cares more about people like my mother than advanced privacy conscious technical users.
They care about her so they can harvest her data and manipulate her.
Rubbish.
What's confusing is having a zillion usernames and passwords for every site on the internet, and "doing it right" (which only a tiny percentage do) requires installing password manager extensions in your browser. In practice billions of users use the same insecure password everywhere including their banks.
You may or may not like the implications of centralizing authentication to a few players, but it is a massive improvement in security and usability over what we have now.
I am quite happy with this change, and hope to see "log into chrome" as the equivalent of "log into all websites that use google auth". It will simplify not only my own life, but all of my customers' lives (my B2B SaaS service uses Google auth).
The problem is that users are confused by the fact that "logging into your browser is not the same as logging into all the sites you use". You can literally sign into chrome with one google account and then sign into google with a totally different google account. Futhermore chrome has different "people" (browsing profiles) which confuses them even more; there's three different things that look vaguely like identity here.
You think this is just fine, Mr. Oauth, but I guarantee you it's a giant mess for the 99.9% of humans who have no idea what oauth is.
Chrome usability would be significantly improved by collapsing "logged into chrome" and "logged into google" into a single thing.
People don't need to understand oauth to use it.
(and before you pull that one again - I am supporting technically-illiterate people quite often)
I should also mention, there's another place it gets used - in Chrome extensions. That should use the same identity.
Google login then becomes one reasonable choice for "log into the internet". Right now it's too fractured to be a coherent identity.
That's actually good use case for the browser login feature. (when one is using some google-acc-connected extension)
But for ordinary users I don't think this solution would work flawlessly, because it is different than ones before (and users learn new things slowly).
However if that would be the actual implementation (force logging everywhere into the same acc) I agree it would be simpler for end-users. But it is not, therefore original point (browser login is confusing people) still stands. And therefore teaching users to rely on it does not seem like a good idea.
That should be OS level. The fact that the OS does not provide good, lightweight ways for mortal users to whip up additional user-accounts for guests and family-members without breaking a lot of things should not mean that Google makes their own into the browser and adds yet-another-layer-of-login.
I log into things from my apple laptop, my android phone, and occasionally from a chromebook I have lying around. Credentials shouldn't be tied to one OS or one OS maker. I'm happier with authentication baked into Chrome, which straddles all three.
I agree with the problem but not the cause. I don't feel that this has anything to do with being complacent. If anything, this is the downside of being a publicly traded company that has the pressure to meet Wall Street's myopic expectations of growth every quarter.
This is how Firefox (pre-bloat) gained traction at the expense of IE, and this is how chrome gained traction at the expense of Firefox/IE.
And now this is how chrome's market share will decline as tech leaders, journalists and then the public find out how much of a privacy nightmare it really is.
I just made the commitment to move back to Linux from Windows 10 last week.
I was hoping to at least stick with chromium, now I'm reconsidering that.
Now that I think about it, should I really be trusting Android? Is iOS any better? Apple does appear to show some commitment to privacy, but their anti repair stance is crazy. Will I have to switch to custom Android ROM with all the Google services neutered?
trust apple to make you pay 500 dollaridoos for broken glass back repair when Samsung makes you pay 50 dollars at max. the apple support tax you have to pay is really insane. doesn't help that they basically want every company to follow their model so they can go even more insane(Right to repair laws)
I don’t know for sure if I can trust Apple with my data, but on the balance of probabilities I feel slightly safer with the company that makes its revenue from hardware sales, vs the company that makes its revenue from advertising.
I'm a high school IT teacher and have some influence over hundreds of students each year. I've already started to sprinkle in some discussion about privacy and will be sure to inform my students about the issues. Of course I won't brow beat my students, but i will encourage them to make informed decisions.
In aggregate, over time this kind of behaviour by google will hurt them. No such thing as too big to fail in tech.
If you're going to the hassle of actually switching, at lest don't do it from one big corp to the next.
Personally I use https://www.webfaction.com and am very happy with it. Also heard good things about FastMail, but Australia has some crazy laws coming so not sure about that. ProtonMail seems solid as well.
However.... re-decentralization resonates quite well these days when it comes to the web. I wonder what it would take to be re-applies to email.
It's trivially easy to get blacklisted as spam that way...
I don’t know where this myth comes from that running your own mail infra means your mail will be marked as spam. You’re not the first (or second or third) person to mention it though.
Aside from Yahoo though, we generally haven't experienced any blacklisting or deliverability issues. It does require time to setup properly and maintain however, you can't just set it up and forget about it.
Can any random adversary easily have you blacklisted just for fun?
Can some Wordpress or other such service you run with your own email get you in trouble?
What about any when viruses (and botnets) in any PCs you have in your company go bezerk with your account?
And so on...
Sure, it's 'easy' to get around, by throwing more money and complexity at the problem, but it isn't some made up tale.
Granted you can't set up your own Google Mail domain for free today like you once could, but some of us are grandfathered in... I am, and I'm still looking at this as a better alternative to Gmail because even though it is Gmail, I can take my address with me if I do ultimately change my mind about Gmail.
(That's the first step, at least. You can never take @gmail.com with you, but if you want to start moving away, you could forward to your own domain and start thinking about where you would host it.)
I've been running my mail server for 10 years now, I got on blacklists 2 times: once due to a worm that got in through PHP, the other was a client's laptop that got a virus and used outlook express to send mail.
So how's that an argument that "it's fine"? Sounds like 2 times more than a regular person would want to deal with such issues within a decade, much less a small company. And it can take long to clear those things out if you're small fish...
But before switching email services, do yourself a favor and ditch webmail interfaces first. Pick up a desktop/native email client and switch to IMAP / SMTP.
On MacOS a solid option for us power users is MailMate (https://freron.com/) ... markdown composer, GMail shortcuts, useful bundles, fast, uncluttered, it's basically what I wanted Thunderbird to be. Development on Thunderbird is apparently ongoing too and they just released version 60. Apparently Web Extensions are in the works too.
Transitioning to a native client is painful at first, but it's worth it.
GMail's web interface is a piece of shit lately anyway.
What kind of emails need markdown composing?
And for formatting in general, the resulting email (composed in MailMate) will be very friendly to clients that prefer to display emails as plain text, since the text version is going to be very clean.
There's also a browser extension working with GMail's web interface too, but it doesn't work as well as MailMate: https://markdown-here.com/
But there's a certain amount of irony that people are ditching Chrome, while still using an OS which literally does spy on you.
When accessing web-sites over a public network, I sort of expect (not necessarily like or agree) to be tracked and others to know what I'm doing. I'm always in the mindset of "what ever I do within this window, others will see" (regardless of browser).
For what I do on my local desktop? No. Not at all.
All this so that I could have an OS that isn't actively spying on me, and play games on it. Thank goodness valve is making progress on linux...
it might be my filter bubble, but if I google "hacker news mac vs windows" the only results I get are posts where people are moving away from Mac to something else[1].
[1]: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/969743/46010063-fa... (that's just the top of the page, but the whole first page is like that).
It's just that. All talk. Including the usual empty threats of "don't piss of the technical people".
Meanwhile, they're still logging into Facebook using Chrome on their Windows machines.
However when someone says "I am moving away from windows because of X" it never hits the frontpage since most people don't care since they are not on windows.
This is obviously not great quantitative research. But if I go into any co working space or coffee shop where people work on their laptops. I find a lot of people on macs, and all the technical ones are on HN. Whenever I meet technical people with a windows laptop they are never on HN.
I thought this was quite well established that HN is very apple'y, so I'm having a hard to come up with proper data to back this up.
What about you? You think the opposite?
I mostly agree with everything you said.
But I speculate, a good collection of today's "chrome leavers" here already use another browser - and are just adding fuel to the fire.
Or, they're not actually leaving chrome - just threatening, because they care.
Haha you got me! I did leave Chrome (for privacy reason) for Firefox. Not during this big debate, but during a previous one (when Firefox came out with the big Quantum update and it started to perform on the same level as Chrome). Though I haven't stated I would leave today.
It's not a big change like migrating to another country. Most plugins have add ons for all big browser platforms. I do think that you'll see a decent amount of people in this discussion on HN change browser. But for Google this is just a blip in the graph.
I'd agree with that assessment, macOS probably first, Linux second, but then you have to remember how many Windows users there are. The HN regulars are probably mostly on Mac/Linux, but I'd imagine just the drive by Windows traffic would put it at the top spot.
Those who leave comments are a small fraction of the total HN traffic.
If you saw the a recent thread which asked people why they stalk HN, you'd understand that many visitors aren't start up guys, programmers or even technical in nature.
In other words, I bet HN's actual traffic log will show mobile devices and Windows as the predominant OS.
10% of their monster revenue is selling your data to advertiser backchannels.
And if you happen know user Y matches user earenndil in a data set you control, now you know user earenndil belongs to demographic Z.
I want to go to an iPhone because Google is starting to really piss me off, but the year with the iPhone keeps turning me away. I wish there were other options.
Anyone knows if Telegram/Signal etc exists for KaiOS or similar?
https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000649/WhatsApp-for-JioPhone-on-...
Wouldn't we expect Bing to log/analyze/correlate user behavior as hard as they possibly can? Or are you betting that Firefox at least won't cooperate with Bing in such an endeavor because it's not a Microsoft product?
It's MSFT, they don't collaborate w/ anyone anyways. Even if they do, it's unsuccessful. /s
Thank you for your service.
https://www.qwant.com/?q=Remove%20firefox%20tabs%20tree%20st...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Remove+firefox+tabs+tree+style+tab...
https://www.bing.com/search?q=Remove+firefox+tabs+tree+style...
How so?
But then hubris and greed have done their usual job now that Chrome is the default.
Personally browse using Safari + FF on macOS.
I personally recommend Bitwarden as a good compromise between security and usability. It's totally open source, so you can run the API and webservice on your own hardware if you want.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-bookmarks-data-a...
I just have to find a Windows computer then :p
Is 1Password able to provide passwords and credit card information inside other apps?
Passwords sync just fine to Firefox on iOS too. No need for a dedicated password manager.
I'd suggest to just try it, it's completely free and pretty straightforward to install after all.
https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...
Or after they (ab)used systems intended for testing features to inject, what's basically an ad? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass
And to be honest, unfortunately, I think most of the average users just want features.
Their gain?
- Less of a monopoly status.
Their losses?
- The privacy concerned.
- Ad-blocker users.
- Over-opinionated users.
Good move, for them.
Who knows... if IE was already as good as early Chrome, perhaps there would be no Chrome.
Then they didn't bother to do anything for close to a decade and "suddenly" everyone had passed them.
Google on the other hand seems to be actively making things worse. Might not take so long time for chrome.
One can hope.
But there was competition, that's why they made the original effort. Once the competition was killed, they stopped.
Sure, they wanted it to be the best browser - but not better than desktop.
The desktop was never threatened, most people were on dialup. Javascript was about changing link colors, not creating "software".
Since IE was so much better than the competition it didn't really matter that it got monopoly. Until it stagnated. Same as today, since Chrome was so superior it didn't really matter that all other browsers faded into niches. Until google started abusing it.
Maybe we should start prioritizing open software rather than waiting for a monopoly to be formed?
The reason for why Fusion 360 is "free" isn't because autodesk are nice guys, it's because that's an effective way to ensure that they won't have to deal with competition in the future.
Websites get less money from Firefox users per user then Chrome users. If Firefox users make less money, going to future, devs will not optimize for it.
If the only remaining Firefox users block Ads and block analytics, I do not think google or some other search engine will pay to them to keep their default. There is literally no benefit of having such people on your platform.
Yep.
I have been a FF user since.. well, Netscape. Yet, FireFox-specific bugs have always been a lower priority.
Because, it's "a bug effecting 100 users" vs "a bug effecting 900 users"
When you consider FF users are harder to monetise (admit it, we generally are), you can start saying "a bug effecting ~50 potential customers, vs ~800".
*(fortunately, now that IE/Edge is out of the picture, those types of issues are rare)
I think the main problem with Firefox is the tiny user share, not the composition of said share. We need to make Firefox more mainstream and the problem will solve itself. Unfortunately it's an uphill battle, Firefox is not cool anymore.
Approximately 99.99% of those people do not know what cookies are, nor do they care.
Handhelds are different, but computers are just like back in the ol' days. This is how IE lost.
By another stat counter, for 5 years from 2004 to 2009, Firefox raised from 2% to 20%, while IE fallen from 95% down to 67%.
Google is behaving like a malware company.
We were in this situation with Microsoft in the late 90s-early 00s. I was glad when they got a slap on the wrist and told to stop taking the piss. I hope the EU will do the same for Google.
That's were google is heading its efforts :)
The people who fix your computers or help you over the phone are the family friends who are geeks/programmers. Once the geek herd has moved on to something else, then the mass follows whatever they're currently using, because they're the ones that advocate the change. It will take a few years, but once Google has lost the geek vote, they will die a slow death like Microsoft did. At this point my money is on Microsoft taking the geek mindshare back.
This looks exactly like what happened when Chrome started killing IE.
For something like Chrome, one price of alienating devs is, among other things, that everyone who thinks "damn, I wish I had an extension for X, I guess I'll make one!" develops it for Firefox instead.
IMHO the vast majority are not interested in understanding in the technology, they just want their stuff to work.
80 years ago if you had a car then generally you'd need some understanding, 30 years ago spark plugs needed changing every 5k miles, points needed cleaning etc etc. Now anyone can hop in a car and without doing anything the first problem you'd probably have is the tyres wearing out.
People don't want to know how or why, they just want it to be reliable and easy to use.
I actually really like this feature and find it really convenient for my usage habits.
I also don't really care that Google is tracking me, I give them my data and in return they provide some really useful services for me. They only thing that bothers me about the privacy issue is the off-chance that an individual will be able to browse my personal data but as long as it's mixed with everything else I don't really care (I understand it's a slippery slope though).
We geeks love to complain about Google invading our privacy yet we eagerly devour their services (search, maps etc...) which are very much as good as they are because of all of the data Google has. If privacy advocates want to keep the moral upper hand they should avoid using Google services altogether (logged-in or not) because at the moment we, the "ignorant masses", are helping Google improve those services with our data.
No, but they _are_ able to better catch spam, categorize your emails for you, highlight the emails that are most important to you, suggest pre-written responses for you, and more -- by incorporating your data into the service.
>Google doesnt need to track me 24/7 to tell me where XYZ restaurant is on the map.
No, but they _are_ able to suggest restaurants you'd probably like, compare them to other places you've been/rated, warn you about traffic on your commute, show you photographic places you might be interested in, and more -- by incorporating your data into the service.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Google _could_ provide these services without using your data. Obviously, they could. I think the debate stems from whether those services are worth the data they depend on.
I wouldn't (and don't: see Google Apps) use any Google service that costs $5/month. In the same vein, if the features of those services got gutted in the name of "we won't use your data anymore", I wouldn't use the services either (assuming I could find a competitor that provides a better service... probably with my data).
I want personalized search. I want the ads I'm forced to see to be things I'm actually interested in. I want Chrome to log me into everything automatically. I want my data synced across all my devices. I want technology to just work for _me_.
The internal name for the feature is "DICE" (desktop identity consistency feature)
There is a build flag to disable the feature: ENABLE_DICE_SUPPORT
Even YouTube's stuff are left, that's crazy.
I lost all trust in public cloud after Snowden, but somehow remained convinced that yes, Google reads my email, but that's about it. I migrated everything but email to a selfhosted solution, and simplified things a lot. Recently i've also migrated mail away from Google.
These past years have sadly proven (to me) i was right. What makes me even more sad is that the common user has very few options to avoid it. To the best of my knowledge, Apple doesn't track you, neither on Mac OS or iOS, but there's a steep price, one that most consumers are not ready to pay. Linux may be ready for the desktop, but it's still a long way away from my parents installing it.
My best guess that Chrome works this way would be due to combining the sign-in cookies with the general cookies of the browser (e.g. 1 cookie store instead of 2).
So when you log in to Google, you log in to Chrome - and vice versa. For non-technical users this is a convenience feature, though for many it does come with privacy concerns.
Judging by the comments re cookie clearing, there is some part of the login still separate from that, but as it re-establishes itself the cookies come back and you stay logged-in to Google.
Is this perhaps preventable by having a "Guest" Chrome account? What happens then?
Because Google has been screwing up so much, by this point they don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
> My best guess that Chrome works this way would be due to combining the sign-in cookies with the general cookies of the browser
Why keep Youtube cookies, then? https://twitter.com/ctavan/status/1044286636991877120
I have switched to Firefox and have used this as an opportunity to begin my transition away from GMail.
Because based on their history big tech companies (possibly with the exception of Apple) lost any benefits of a doubt.
When they screw up like that I now assume that it's intentional and unless they run into a massive pr disaster or an EU fine of a couple billions they give exactly zero fucks about their users.
As it is, I think it's quite transparent. You get new cookies. It shows you their age. They're new. You're still logged into your Google account.
Solution: Log out of your Google account.
The implementation details around cookie recreation don't matter if users are still being tracked. Especially bad if this lets them track you on third party sites that contain Google Plus buttons or advertising iframes.
By ensuring users always remain logged in to the browser they gain a strong advantage over other companies that track users. Users attempting to remove tracking cookies shouldn't find Google ones permanently bundled with the browser.
The intent was likely to aid convenience and avoid users being unexpectedly logged out, but combined with Google automatically logging users into the browser this is a sign that the Chrome team is paying less attention to user privacy than they used to.
Perhaps users who regularly clear all cookies will start using guest accounts instead. Myself I'm more concerned about the general trend of unexpected behavior.
> Brief correction: Cookies seem to get removed and re-created immediately. At least the cookie content and creation date seems to change. Nonetheless: After hitting the "remove all" button you still don't end up with an empty cookie jar.
I don't (and never did) log into Chromium with my Google account however, so no syncing is happening.
Sync kicked in, noticed a mismatch between your current setup and the one you had set up many years ago while testing the “sign into chrome” process and set your setting to the one in the cloud.
It’s caught me out a couple of times too.
Has anyone tested this behavior if you aren't signed in, or have disabled the google/chrome login equivalence?
Everyone here is blaming marketing but somebody pretty technical came up with that.
Imagine little indicators that show which identity providers you are logged into, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, .... You could do this by passively reading the site cookies in an extension (are you allowed to do that nowadays in extensions?). Even better, if you are not logged into, say, Facebook, block third party cookies from their domains so it's harder for them to track you.
I think I have a good idea for a weekend project...
I.e.
"if you are logged-in to chrome, it won't delete google cookies because it need it for you to be logged-in to chrome (because of some UX excuse, like user confusion why it's logged-out from chrome).
If you are logged out of chrome, it will delete everything."
If it works this way, I would be willing to give them benefit of doubt, since there is reasonable UX reason to do it this way (given that logged-in to chrome now equals to logged-in to gmail). I personally would expect that deleting cookies will not log me out of chrome.
A few days ago I posted an article about how the EU proposes a new law that could give up to 6 years in jail for social media posts. A discussion got started but for some readon the post was immediately “flagged” and that put an end to all discussions and upvotes on it. Yours, I notice, was “dead” so probably flagged as well?
> Latest version of Chrome doesn't remove Google cookies when you clear browsing data. I feel like Google is adding super cookies to track users even after clearing browser data.
Privacy implications aside, and boy are they some big ones, Google should be worried about this leading to accusations of abusing the monopoly power of their browser.
Imagine if Google started delisting sites with Facebook Partner Network ads on them...
The ease of switching is completely irrelevant.
All browser have had the ability to do that, for many years now, if you install a PDF printer driver. Adobe was the first with a commercial one, but I'm sure there are free ones now.
Recommending Chrome is an easy enough way to get that functionality.
Imagine if “rm” just decided to occasionally set aside files instead of removing them. The “star” in “rm star” means “remove everything”, not “remove, asterisk” where at the bottom of the page the asterisk lists exceptions like some kind of marketing weasel. Sheesh.
We want competition.
Now I kinda hope Mozilla will make an official addon like Facebook Container but for Google services. We're being tracked too much, and it's time to fight back and making it easy to the average user to do it is the only way to change that.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...
That was the only hangup I had to move over to Firefox.
Most things work on Firefox, or there's a similar plugin.
Still looking for a few:
* Flix Assist - Chrome Web Store || https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flix-assist/jeeccn...
* WhatFont - Chrome Web Store || https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgc...
And... Lighthouse.
A few of the plugins I used on Chrome don't quite have perfect matches...
* Create Link - Chrome Web Store || https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/create-link/gcmghd... -- haven't found a Firefox addon that lets me copy URL + Title via keyboard shortcut.
Also looking for a way to change Firefox's default Apple + Shift + 5 to not try and take a Firefox screenshot, as Apple + Shift + 5 is my Skitch shortcut.
Really good part is that it's possible to create a shortcut to a site/service from a particular user session in Chrome and launch that shortcut as a headless standalone window that looks like Windows native app, not a browser. The shortcut is connected to the user session it was created from. So, for example, I have Gmail icon on my desktop and taskbar that launches a dedicated window to access mail without even starting Chrome browser session for Google user. Simultaneously I have Chrome opened with another, not Google, user/session. Problem solved--check mail, calendar, whatever in one sandboxed environment and browse the web in another one.
That was the time I started actively avoiding Google services, and I still do. This incident is a good reminder of why I do so.
Every time a user clears their cookies your site will be at a disadvantage if your business depends on ads or account login, not Google.
I have downgraded to Chrome 68 and disabled auto updates.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/D0dB6j...
Disabling any browser's auto-update is one of the worst computer security ideas in 2018.
Be a good netizen and reactivate those auto-updates or simply uninstall Chrome.
Since Firefox 60 you don't need Chrome for that, so I'm back to Firefox. Firefox isn't perfect, and that was OK because there was always Chrome. Now it starts to feel like it is Firefox or nothing, which isn't ideal.
Is this just the nature of the beast?
In a small company every manager can weight more factors. As it gets bigger and specialization grows a manager must reduce what it considers to focus on more specific tasks.
In a small company, a development manager can weight privacy concerns and use it judgment to change features. In a bigger company the development manager must delivery whatever it reaches him as a request, only the privacy department can make decisions regarding that.
Btw, can someone recommend a good alternative to Google Maps API?
If you had told me a few years ago that Google was the reason I wasn’t buying an Android phone I wouldn’t have believed you.
Given how google is embracing and building for totalitarian markets, such as China, as are its peers in the tech space - I think this is maybe a way to warn people to get the hell away from Google's products.
The outrage begins but only for .000001% of users. Google could not care less.
I haven't switched like most people here say they have, I have made an effort to install alternatives and use them. A better way to protest is to begin supporting Firefox in other ways such as writing your web apps and extensions.
This is starting to look like early-00s Internet Explorer all over again, just with a different BigCorp behind the wheel.
Still need to buy a few things to make self-hosting email and my personal site practical, but hopefully that'll all be set up in a few weeks as well. Bye Google.
And no, even this won't stop me using Chrome. You know what will? If I can identify it's causing BSOD on my system, like I've seen 2 yesterday.
Job well done chrome.
Really? I've been using it for years and I haven't felt a problem. But this could be a bug, and it'd be a good idea to report it.
personally i’m still on chrome. i stay signed in all the time anyway. not deleting google cookies is a feature from my POV. when google throws up an anti ad blocker, that’s when i’ll defect.
However... what's probably happening here is that the cookie is being deleted but then created again immediately afterwards because something in the user's browser is connected to a Google server and that makes a new cookie if it detects the old one has gone away. The message in the tweet is informing the user that will happen. Arguably that's a reasonably useful notification - it stops the user mistakenly believing purging their cookies will log them out.
EDIT: Or, more likely, Google are actually storing the user's logged in state in localstorage or something, so clearing cookies won't log you out because there isn't a cookie.
However in chrome://settings/siteData?search=cookies there's just a "Remove all" button which in fact doesn't remove all cookies. See: https://twitter.com/ctavan/status/1044517442993737729
No they didn't. It's right at the bottom here.
I think we are looking at the public face of something significant to have happened in Google search (and AI) and this attempt to start plugging all the gaps in our browsing habits is so that Google have as good as 95-100% understanding of human habits.
Foil hats on everybody :)
Chrome 69 - Fucking users right in the face
Or like Microsoft still does with machines with handwriting / touchscreens?
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-touch-security-wai...
It is their new game theory play:
1/ Start making people think you are super ethical (don't be evil)
2/ Gain traction
3/ Change rules and take advantage of inertia. People are lazy to change browsers.
They do not need their first adopters anymore.
I am trying to stick to duck duck go and a safari/firefox combo. The browsers are fine. But, its hard to give up that !g search. I worked in the ad-tech space in the past. Google's tech is amazing, but, the price we pay for all this free stuff ... scary/creepy.
duckduckgo.com qwant.com
It hasn't been ever since Gmail, Google Calendar, Chrome and Android took off.
At best, you can claim misleading advertising (which, is often handled by the fair trade commission or something similar, and often has to show damages before they can award anything).
Does that cookie get read by Google? Of course, or there would be no point. Does it enhance their tracking? Most likely. Is there a GDPR compliant opt-out without loss of features? At first glance it seems not.
I'm glad the GDPR is in effect, so instead of "this should be illegal" we can say "of course this is blatantly illegal".
I hope they get a fine for this, with multipliers for how deliberate it is, and for keeping on defending the behaviour even after being called out.
This illegal things needs to be stopped it is not enough that only the people that understand it stop using Chrome.
If you can answer that question, and then suggest a possibility for them to actually lose that much market share, then you may be able to demonstrate that losing the market share is far more impactful than any currently possible fines.
Many people credit a small group of Microsoft employees for getting the company to embrace open source. This group grew from within as I'm told.
I've been wondering how this transition came about. Do you have more information on that (e.g. an article or a blog post that you could refer me to)?
Quick Google Search:
Credits Hanselman & Guthrie - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596268
AMA w/ Hanselman mentions it being 10 yrs ago - https://hashnode.com/ama/with-scott-hanselman-cjbx98jh506b34...
This article might be exactly what you're looking for - https://thenewstack.io/microsoft-finally-came-around-open-so...
But, IMO, Google has gone to black
It's all good and well placing generalised ethics on individuals to do the right thing but in those kind of ideal world scenarios you also wouldn't have accountants finding tax loopholes, lawyers perpetuating patent abuse, nor company directors asking their staff to do morally objectionable things to begin with.
So what? Standing up for what you believe in is never easy, and almost always involves challenges like those. Imagine if Dr. King gave up because he was anxious and depressed with death threats coming in on a regular basis.
Failing to take a moral/ethical stand because you're worried you might lose money or have to withstand some social anxiety blatantly shows that you don't really believe in those morals/ethics.
Do you just say "fuck it", and quit, ignoring all your responsibilities? Over cookies?
Of course, when its not about cookies, but about something more drastic, say something ludicrous like giving google nuclear launch codes, then the whole thing looks different. Some things are worth the fight, some are not.
That argument goes both ways. If the Chrome team were unionized/organized in some form, and said "hell no" to the cookie change, then I doubt Google's management would shrug and replace the whole team with fresh H1B workers just to get this small change in.
I also find it fascinating that so many people bring up children as a reason to give up your ideals. My dad gave up a well-paying job for a more fulfilling one, and it would never occur to me to blame him for it; if anything it's inspiring. This was in Europe, with a reasonable safety net, but I don't think that Xooglers would hit rock bottom anyway.
If you follow the news about Google at all, you'd know its obviously not just about cookies.
>Of course, when its not about cookies, but about something more drastic
It's about the the greatest surveillance apparatus in history encroaching towards total informational awareness.
No, cookies would be the straw that broke the camel's back. The context you're ignoring the the countless other straws beneath it.
>The decision is "Do I implement this, or do I tell my kids I dont know how to feed them"
False dichotomy
I don't think anyone would blame him. I couldn't handle the pressure, how could I demand it of someone else?
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
That being said, is it really a concern for the average Google engineer? I mean sure, if we're talking about Google's cleaning staff I can imagine that leaving their jobs can be risky but software devs? Even assuming that they have multiple children and a huge mortgage, surely they can easily find other well paying job without much difficulty?
You won't have me believe that the majority of Google's engineers is financially unable to quit their job.
>Some have social anxiety and find job hunting an impossibly scary prospect.
I'm sure that can be a factor but does it really justify anything? As far as looking for a job is concerned we have it super easy. If you can't stand for your values because of "social anxiety" then maybe you don't value your values that much?
And I realize that I sound like I'm on a high horse right now and I am, but I'm talking out of experience. I've been in that situation in the past, doing a job that I found morally questionable but finding myself excuses. Don't make my mistake, it's not worth it. There's more to life than working full time tricking people into watching ads.
I’m not going to downvote you, but if you don’t suffer from social anxiety, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. As someone who is affected by it, I can tell you it’s soul crushing when it prevents you from making a move out of a bad situation. It’s completely paralyzing.
My overall point is basically: if Google engineers can't justify quitting their jobs on moral grounds, then who can? We're utterly privileged compared to 99% of job sectors. If we are willing to give them a pass then we really can't complain about, say, people working for PRISM or military personnel in the drone programs, because I'm sure many of these people are in a much more precarious situation than your average Google engineer.
If someone's spending say 14+ hours a day on a Google campus, leaving can be a lot harder than just "finding a new job".
Even some of those publicly protesting Google's behavior or pushing for a union will turn around and help promote their friends' products or encourage people publicly to apply to join Google.
So I'd point out they've successfully made it as hard as possible, socially, to quit.
This already played out with the NSA after the Snowden leaks. The money is good, the tech is cool, so who cares if it's technically unethical as long as it's not illegal, nobody's going to hold you personally accountable and you still can easily find a job if things get too shady and you finally decide to leave.
Also, people can rationalise doing all kinds of evil things as long as they're allowed to safely live in a bubble ("Facebook is about connecting people, which is a good thing, so Facebook is a force for good and improves people's lives" is a recent one I heard from an FB employee).
You can argue it is unethical to build tech for the military. But you have a really broad definition of unethical if it includes improving a product so the default is what most users want, and you need to adjust some things to make it the way you want.
Let's not pretend that developers are powerless.
Not to be blunt, but your perspective on Google employees is irrelevant in the context of how they're perceived by the broader market. I think that's why your other comment is being downvoted; it seems like what you're saying isn't wrong per se, it's just inconsequential to the job prospects Google employees actually have. Even though you're a hiring manager and don't personally consider Google employment to be a plus, most other hiring managers really do.
He never claimed it was. More importantly, he is providing a data point, whereas the original claim did not provide anything to back it up.
Mentioning the word luck draws it in a different light, as if next time the odds might be on their end. Luck is meaningless if there's enough skill. Its an overused (if not downright abused) word.
In my experience, most of the H1-B workers we have are very much Yes Men when it comes to doing what's asked of them. There are also cultural factors that come into play (e.g. never admitting ignorance on a topic, pleasing authority ) and .
Eh, there's a power imbalance, but let's not go overboard.
They are offered a good job with good pay in another country. That means they have less power in negotiations, and may be deported, but they don't lose the money they earned, and it's not like they are being exiled to some foreign place, they are literally sent home.
Nobody's freedom is being taken away, and nobody's rights are being infringed (that I know of). It may not be morally acceptable depending on your point of view, but it's not slavery. Using that word here lessens how strong it is when used in other contexts, modern day (human trafficking) and historically (in America and eslewhere). We don't need that.
Than slavery? Yes it does make it better. Much better.
"I have to do something immoral or I won't be able to feed my family" is not a position they're likely to be in.
To bring things back to the ancestor comment this was all responding to: people who can't leave a job because they're relying on a paycheck are definitely less powerful when it comes to being able to take a stand and make change at that job. People who are able to rely less on a paycheck have a bit more of a cushion in this area (especially when they have some savings for e.g. doctors, car problems, etc, and have enough set aside to find another job before those savings run out).
Anyone can put a % of their paycheck aside each month to become more financially independent. Whether they're at Google or not doesn't really matter here -- but, it is probably a bit more likely that an engineer at Google might be able to put aside a little bit more than a grocer at Target (and, is probably more capable of finding another job faster).
These are skilled workers, with options, that happen to be foreign.
Not foreign workers that are just skilled enough and grateful enough.
I highly recommend talking to many more people on H1B and if even a few doesn't fit your preconceived notion, kindly stop this bashing. It is people you are dealing with.
Sure, they'll hire someone else. But that's not the point. The point is sticking to your ethics.
http://www.google.com.somedomain.com
Looks a lot like "google.com" to me.
If google is this bad, I wonder what microsoft is really storing. I wonder what ISPs are storing. Also, this type of news doesn't give me much confidence when it comes to android either.
Also, I find Firefox UI sluggish to use, relative to Chrome UI.
You consent to being tracked -> google gets money off of tracking you -> google can pay more engineers to work on chrome and make it faster -> you get more tied into chrome’s performance quirks and ecosystem -> google gets more money by tracking you -> and so on...
If that sounds fair to you, then none of google’s actions should bother you (probably). But for me personally, I switched over to Firefox a long time ago when I noticed that chrome was becoming increasingly user-hostile in design.
You seem to be exactly the kind of user that would benefit from chrome’s recent changes.
Is there anything google could do that could make you move away from their services? I can’t imagine that any further anti-privacy actions by google would justify the cost of having to having to switch away from google’s platforms.
If you just want to browse without your existing cookies, I suggest opening a Guest Window. Just open the "Current User" menu and then "Open Guest window". That way you don't have to delete them at the end.
This is assuming you're in good faith trying to delete cookies, and just can't figure out how.
Thought the whole point of a private tab was to completely isolate a browsing session, now you can never be certain your Google credentials are not being shared in these private sessions or even contaminate my non-private sessions.
Going to have to use another browser for my work sessions from now on.
If you mean "Incognito mode", then that's always happened. You need to close all tabs.
Exactly the same for FireFox's private browsing.
Safari's private tabs are each completely independent.
Yes. This is not new behavior. And yes, it frustrates people that assume each window is a separate incognito instance. It's not, and hasn't ever been.
What happens when you middle click a link on a page that requires login?