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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

We are well past the point where nobody has any reasonable excuse to use Chrome, and the choice to do so is to actively compromise their own safety and security.

Every other browser has already done this. Every. Single. One. But Google won't until they have added a new way to violate user privacy instead. Privacy is a fundamental part of security, you are not reasonably secure if using Chrome. Full stop.

If you absolutely need the Chromium engine, there's Edge or Brave. Both are pretty much 100% compatible, but don't think security is a joke.

If you work on "security" at Google, and you actually mean it, walk out until third party cookies are disabled by default. Tell managers you won't gaslight people into believing they're safe when Google has placed ad revenue so squarely above security and plans to not solve it for at least another two years.

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Just a point of fact, security and privacy are not the same thing.

They absolutely are, you cannot have one without the other. The fact that these concepts are inescapably linked together is something many in tech have failed to recognize. Behavior that compromises your privacy will compromise your security (ex. ads are the primary source of malware), and behavior that compromises your security will compromise your privacy (ex. malware generally likes to exfiltrate your private data, and sometimes also track you and display ads). If a company chooses to violate your privacy, they are willfully compromising your security by default.

> ex. ads are the primary source of malware

This doesn’t make logical sense. Ads are a source of malware because it’s a convenient way to distribute content to many people. Email is also a significant source of malware for the same reason.

A better example might be that excessive and unnecessary data collection by a system that gives you limited visibility over use and limited control, exposes you to a higher possibility of security incident. But that isn’t intrinsically true if the data is properly secured.

I tend to agree with the inverse; bad security is probably not good for your privacy.

So, ads are a source of malware because they allow someone to pay to take a trusted position: People trust Google not to send them to the wrong place, but Google sells the top result slot to the highest bidder (users can't tell they're ads anymore). This is ultimately why search ads are the king of malware, and email is kinda secondary.

There are other more clear links between bad privacy and your security. Consider the concept of opsec. Generally celebrities avoid people knowing where they're going day to day.

>They absolutely are, you cannot have one without the other

You cannot have privacy without security, but you can have security without privacy. I think DNSSEC is a good example.

The EU won't let Google remove 3rd party cookies lol

This is false. The problem is that Google is trying to replace an open method of tracking users (third party cookies), with one which places them in the sole source of authority (FLoC, Topics, etc.).

If they did what every other browser has already done, and just blocked third party cookies entirely, because it's a security issue, they would not face a legal issue. In fact, they would be able to entirely defend the move behind "we're just doing what every other browser did first".

The choice to monopolize tracking instead of removing tracking is the issue at hand there.

https://www.ft.com/content/eccf5514-8b83-4d85-8305-f882adf5d...

Fake news. There is a legal issue and publishers are suing and the eu is launching an anti trust investigation targeted at the removal of 3rd party cookies.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_...

> nobody has any reasonable excuse to use Chrome

Maybe they work at Google

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