Chrome now tracks users and shares a “topic” list with advertisers

974 points by edvinbesic 1 year ago | 557 comments
  • ivan_ah 1 year ago
    Key actionable info: to fix this, go to this URL:

        chrome://settings/adPrivacy
    
    and turn off the toggles on each of the three subpages.

    Alternatively, go to this URL https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ to fix this permanently.

    • account-5 1 year ago
      Key actionable info: use Firefox.

      Completely immune from this and you don't need to worry that toggle will get mysteriously turn back on.

      • deely3 1 year ago
        > you don't need to worry that toggle will get mysteriously turn back on.

        I will be caustious with such statement.

        https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/ipa/

        IPA now allows these companies to track users across multiple IP addresses, and regardless of the user's cookie settings, via a unique tracking identifier. It is also proposed that the operating system provides the unique tracking identifier which can then be used by all applications or browsers on a device, allowing different devices behind a single IP address to be distinguished.

        Mozilla is one of the authors.

        • denton-scratch 1 year ago
          > IPA now allows

          Any more info on IPA? That link doesn't even say what the acronym stands for. I couldn't figure out how it's supposed to work, too complicated. Wikipedia doesn't seem to have heard of it, and a cursory websearch didn't offer an explanation.

          > Mozilla is one of the authors.

          Mozilla as a company, or is it that there are Mozilla developers contributing? If Mozilla are planning to introduce a built-in tracking system to Firefox, doesn't that imply shooting off your one remaining foot?

        • fweimer 1 year ago
          Mozilla has disabled privacy controls in the past without informing users. For example, they removed the “prompt when setting a cookie” (so that you could reject/accept/accept for this session only) without a replacement. Newer versions just accepted all cookies as persistent, non-session cookies automatically. There are other examples like this.

          It's difficult to deal with because as the code evolves, so do the configuration settings. The rate of change is high, and it's not always obvious what is relevant to users (and whether a new feature increases or decreases privacy!), so it's hard to communicate this in release notes.

          • gettodachoppa 1 year ago
            Ding ding ding! Switch now. If you use Chrome, you are complicit in what Google is subjecting the entire world to.

            This isn't iPhone vs Android. This isn't vim vs emacs. You can switch browsers in 5 minutes and never notice any meaningful difference.

            Degoogle today.

            • 2Gkashmiri 1 year ago
              ding ding ding.

              switching to brave is no better

              • 1 year ago
              • dig1 1 year ago
                > ... you don't need to worry that toggle will get mysteriously turn back on.

                Using Firefox Developer edition and toggle(s) will get mysteriously turned back on all the time. And Mozilla is not immune to this practice at all for standard Firefox.

                Use chromium-ungoogled [1] if you want chrome(ium) without Google-specific stuff.

                [1] https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

              • numpad0 1 year ago
                I wouldn't call it completely immune, Fx is just better Chrome for time being. Tons of dark patterns and inner circle decision makings.
                • r00fus 1 year ago
                  Okay - your solution? Safari? Edge?

                  I think Firefox is the least shitty option here.

                • j45 1 year ago
                  Agreed, using Firefox more and more and assisting everyone you know on how to switch and make it default with it is key.

                  Show someone how to do it, and they can be asked to show someone else

                • CommanderData 1 year ago
                  Until you can't. The Chrome team routinely remove options from settings, usually keep them for a few months until there's no way of changing them.
                  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 1 year ago
                    Mozilla actively supports online ads and tracking. Without their partnership with Google, they could not continue as a going concern for very long.

                    The deception is to make people believe that studying them as ad targets through their internet use can be "private". Many will believe this nonsense. Including regulators. "It's OK, folks. Privacy is preserved." Green light to keep on tracking, collecting data and serving ads.

                    But the study of people's internet use to enable programmtic advertising _is_ the problem. There will be more ads. They will be more personal. The www will become even more annoying. Perhaps moreso than any other medium that has come before it.

                    To Mozilla, there can be no www without advertising. The truth is that there can be no so-called "tech" companies, monopolisng intermediaries, without programmatic internet advertising. The www does not need it and the original www did not have it.

                    First Mozilla partners with Yahoo. Then Google. Perhaps Meta will be next. Mozilla is no different than so-called "tech" companies in at least one regard: it cannot find a "business model" besides internet advertising.

                    https://analyticsindiamag.com/despite-clashes-in-the-past-mo...

                    https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/ipa-the-meta-and-mozilla...

                    https://www.admonsters.com/eletters/mozilla-and-metas-ipa-fr...

                    • whydoyoucare 1 year ago
                      Yeah, that is my understanding as well. While many promote Firefox as an alternative to Google Chrome, it simply lacks adequate proof that Firefox is any better than Chrome at tracking. Else, how does Mozilla survive?
                    • mrtksn 1 year ago
                      What do you do if websites are "best viewed in Chrome"?

                      Embrace: Embrace the open web, create an excellent product and aggressively promote it until you take over the market

                      Extend: Chrome experiments and advanced features that improve the user experience and developer experience through Chrome only API and Google services. Even provide these services to everyone who wants to use them free or charge so that the user expectations are elevated to that point and web businesses depend on these by building their products around them. Maybe make developers depend on this "topics" feature even.

                      Exterminate: Cut off or degrade the free services to 3rd party browsers, remove or tame extensions that harm your business and recoup the costs of the free services. Since you no longer have viable competition, reduce the development of Chrome any further, optimize only for profit. Developers who depend on you ad tech can choose to refuse serving users using another browser or opt out of Google verification or account services? The users will stay like they sat with IE.

                      IE of the 2020s.

                      • barryrandall 1 year ago
                        Don't use them unless you must. The internet is a big place. Any piece of information of value can be found at its origin and no less than 10 copycat sites, one of which inevitably will work in Firefox with uBlock enabled.
                        • satvikpendem 1 year ago
                          • dspillett 1 year ago
                            > What do you do if websites are "best viewed in Chrome"?

                            Try Chromium?

                            Decide the site is too much hassle and back away?

                            Not always practical options, but they are options.

                            • mrtksn 1 year ago
                              Why do you think that Chromium will have the Google services that websites and users depend on?
                            • msh 1 year ago
                              Use edge for the websites that only work in chrome.
                              • mrtksn 1 year ago
                                How this helps with having the Google services that hypothetically some time in near future would ve a must have to view a website?
                            • mulmen 1 year ago
                              Does Google do the scummy thing where these toggles get reset to default after an update?
                              • rjh29 1 year ago
                                Yes. Very commonly they change a feature, put the old behaviour behind a config setting (flag), then silently remove the flag later.
                                • benterix 1 year ago
                                  No, this is mainly Microsoft's domain. Google's thing is boiling the frog under the hood.
                                  • Eduard 1 year ago
                                    same with Firefox in my case. after restart, it asks to be the default browser. and again. and again.
                                    • SushiHippie 1 year ago
                                      You can disable this in the settings, go to settings and you immediately see the checkbox "Always check if Firefox is your default browser"
                                  • dspillett 1 year ago
                                    Also note that Chrome on my home machine has asked me more than once to enable the new feature. Each time I've said no, I find it has turned on other related features. This may be the final irritation that makes me pull my finger out and switch to Chromium or back to FF¹. I used to switch back & forth every year or two, as one of them did something to irritate me⁴ I switched to the other.

                                    --

                                    [1] I switched to Chrome a few years ago when FF went through a period of being unstable²

                                    [2] and because certain extensions didn't have good FF alternatives, because they never were or because some were crippled by the changes in ~2017³, but that latter point is fairly moot as Google is now taking their turn to work towards crippling useful extensions

                                    [3] at least FF's change here were mostly due to massively misreading the room while trying to streamline their platform, where Google's seem to be more malicious when you consider most of the affected extensions are ones that go against their primary business of tracking people & selling adverts.

                                    [4] things breaking after updates, periods of general instability, not keeping up in the performance race for a while, etc.

                                    • ekanes 1 year ago
                                      Thanks. Somehow this latest ickiness from Chrome was the push I needed to switch to Firefox.
                                      • est 1 year ago
                                        Any binary hackers to modify the executable of Chrome directly?
                                        • 3np 1 year ago
                                          What's the point? It's open source. So some people naturally spend the effort to maintain something like https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

                                              In descending order of significance (i.e. most important objective first):
                                          
                                              1. ungoogled-chromium is Google Chromium, sans dependency on Google web services.
                                              2. ungoogled-chromium retains the default Chromium experience as closely as possible.
                                                 Unlike other Chromium forks that have their own visions of a web browser, ungoogled-chromium is essentially a drop-in replacement for Chromium.
                                              3. ungoogled-chromium features tweaks to enhance privacy, control, and transparency.
                                                 However, almost all of these features must be manually activated or enabled. For more details, see Feature Overview.
                                          • est 1 year ago
                                            > It's open source

                                            Harder to distribute than unzip-and-run binaries.

                                        • jacooper 1 year ago
                                          Or use brave.
                                          • mihaic 1 year ago
                                            Why do you consider a Chromium-based browser from another for-profit company that has done some morally debatable things as an alternative?
                                            • jacooper 1 year ago
                                              Because its a better engine with better security and faster performance?

                                              Mozilla did worse things than brave, at least brave actually does privacy by default rather than just talk about it!

                                              • tomalbrc 1 year ago
                                                The FF UX is terrible
                                            • thekevan 1 year ago
                                              Also alternatively, go to this URL https://brave.com/download/ to fix this permanently.
                                              • bronxpockfabz 1 year ago
                                                Please don’t use Chromium based browsers. Support real alternatives like Firefox.
                                                • sickofparadox 1 year ago
                                                  Why should anyone care about Firefox when not even their parent company cares about it? Mozilla exists solely at the whims of Google anyway. The fight is long over, people on here just haven't accepted it yet.
                                                  • ben_w 1 year ago
                                                    I have no idea why I'm supposed to care what it's based on.

                                                    Does this make any difference at all to the tracking?

                                                  • Zardoz84 1 year ago
                                                    [flagged]
                                                    • mixto 1 year ago
                                                      You mean the guy who created JavaScript and Mozilla?
                                                      • norman784 1 year ago
                                                        What has his political view or believes to do with his product?
                                                        • geuis 1 year ago
                                                          Yes, let's ignore all of the contributions from the vast and varied team of smart people that also contribute to a product that is no longer directly tied to "bro".
                                                          • ShrigmaMale 1 year ago
                                                            for anyone who can't parse the ridiculously reductionist and biased language, he means brendan eich, who created JS and led mozilla for quite a while.

                                                            brave is a good browser, and unlike firefox, doesn't leak memory with tons of tabs. you should use it.

                                                            • gettodachoppa 1 year ago
                                                              [flagged]
                                                        • ericpauley 1 year ago
                                                          Our research group does work in this space[1], so I’ll claim some familiarity.

                                                          This article has multiple problems:

                                                          1. Privacy Sandbox is a project, consisting of many proposals. To pitch it as some cohesive product is misleading.

                                                          2. Related: FLoC and Topics are completely separate things, aside from existing under the same project.

                                                          3. Topics is reducible to (implementable using) third-party cookies. While the proposal has issues and doesn’t resist tracking as well as Google claims (see below article), Ars’ implication that this is somehow making Chrome less privacy-preserving is patently false.

                                                          [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.03825

                                                          • chrismorgan 1 year ago
                                                            Although the source article here is clearly opinionated in one direction, I’m not impressed with your claims about actual problems in it. (For reference, I agree with the direction it takes and would make only minor adjustments to it if I were writing it—the only of any substance would be not calling the Privacy Sandbox an “ad platform” just because in a way it’s a little more like a shop that sells picks to ad platforms.)

                                                            > 1. Privacy Sandbox is a project, consisting of many proposals. To pitch it as some cohesive product is misleading.

                                                            Look, that’s how Google are branding it. It’s an initiative which has turned into a cohesive brand. Just look at how https://privacysandbox.com/news/privacy-sandbox-for-the-web-... speaks of it all. That’s pretty much how it’s being presented in the browser, too.

                                                            > 2. Related: FLoC and Topics are completely separate things, aside from existing under the same project.

                                                            They’re about as completely separate as Chrome 17 and Chrome 117, or StarOffice and OpenOffice.org. OK, these are both very imperfect comparisons, but although FLoC and Topics work in somewhat different ways, Topics is for all practical purposes just a fork that continues FLoC. They even treated it that way in the browser (at the time at least, no idea if it’s still so). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_Learning_of_Cohorts#... seems overall a fair enough portrayal. They simply rebranded the basic concept.

                                                            > 3. Topics is reducible to (implementable using) third-party cookies. While the proposal has issues and doesn’t resist tracking as well as Google claims (see below article), Ars’ implication that this is somehow making Chrome less privacy-preserving is patently false.

                                                            The first and last claims here are obvious nonsense. Third-party cookies only let you track stuff where your code runs, whereas the Topics API uses the entire browser history, so it’s not reducible to third-party cookies unless you mean something very different from me by that word. Ars’ implication is by no means patently false; as far as the current status is concerned, where they’ve added this and not removed third-party cookies, it’s patently true. In the longer term, it’s less clear, better in some ways and worse in others, but “patently false” is still an unreasonable characterisation.

                                                            • ericpauley 1 year ago
                                                              > Third-party cookies only let you track stuff where your code runs, whereas the Topics API uses the entire browser history

                                                              This is false. Topics only allows ad trackers to see topics associated with sites they were embedded in. In this way, topics is reducible to TPC.

                                                              • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                >whereas the Topics API uses the entire browser history

                                                                It doesn't use the full history. If a site is using the Topics API it will only get back topics that it has observed from sites in the last 3 epochs. For site X to observe a topic from site Y. Site Y must either:

                                                                * Be site X

                                                                * Embed site X in an iframe on the page with a special attribute on the iframe element

                                                                * Send a fetch request to site X with a special header and site X must respond with a special header

                                                                • troupo 1 year ago
                                                                  Your description claims that Google sends topics to site X only from history related to site X.

                                                                  Which makes this useless from advertising point of view. Which also means that Google is using the whole history to come up with "rough tooics".

                                                                  Let's see:

                                                                  --- start quote ---

                                                                  With Topics, your browser determines a handful of topics, like “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation,” that represent your top interests for that week based on your browsing history.

                                                                  https://blog.google/products/chrome/get-know-new-topics-api-...

                                                                  The browser observes and records topics that appear to be of interest to the user, based on their browsing activity.

                                                                  https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-chrome-115/

                                                                  With the Topics API, the browser observes and records topics that appear to be of interest to the user, based on their browsing activity. This information is recorded on the user's device.

                                                                  https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-sandbox/topics/ove...

                                                                  --- end quote ---

                                                              • StewardMcOy 1 year ago
                                                                I didn't read the Ars article as saying FLoC or Topics make Chrome less privacy-preserving than it was before, but rather that, once Chrome disables third-party cookies, they make Chrome less privacy-preserving than other browsers with third-party cookies disabled. What the author would prefer is that Google also disable third-party cookies and also not ship FLoC or Topics.
                                                                • summerlight 1 year ago
                                                                  > What the author would prefer is that Google also disable third-party cookies and also not ship FLoC or Topics.

                                                                  That's not an option now thanks to multiple antitrust regulatories. Google actually tried to get rid of 3p cookies to use it as an advantage against competitors as well as privacy friendly PR but this has been blocked. One example from CMA (but not limited to): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62052c52e90e0...

                                                                  • StewardMcOy 1 year ago
                                                                    Sorry for responding 12 hours later, but I felt I should actually read the ruling here before I replied.

                                                                    It's certainly interesting. The CMA seems to be attempting to balance interests of multiple parties, including both user privacy, healthy competition in the ads space, and the ability for digital publishers to generate revenue from displaying ads.

                                                                    However, most of it appears to focus on the way Google's superior access to information could distort competition. It's not just about cookies. For example. Google could mine synced history data from Chrome.

                                                                    Now, I'm not so naive as to think this would actually happen, but again, the Ars author's solution here could solve that particular problem: If Google ceased all behavior-based advertising in favor of, for example, subject-based advertising, there would be no distortions to competition. Google can't track you, and neither can other advertisers. Everyone has a level playing field.

                                                                    Of course, that would drop revenues for digital publishers and advertising networks, including Google, but it would solve the problems of user privacy and distorted competition.

                                                                    The one thing this ruling makes very clear though, is that it's very difficult to balance these concerns while Google makes a browser. There's a conflict between Google running a behavior-based advertising network and shipping a browser, and these regulatory bodies seem to be bending over backwards to try to find a solution where both of these things can exist. They could most certainly have taken the much easier road of forcing Google to discontinue Chrome.

                                                                • cageface 1 year ago
                                                                  Ron Amadeo has such a consistently snarky anti Google stance that I no longer read his articles. I haven't seen any other tech company get such dismissive treatment on Ars.
                                                                  • drivebycomment 1 year ago
                                                                    Agreed. I think he crossed the line way beyond being skeptical about Google, and into partisan politics level biased reporting against Google. E.g. his coverage of passkey was so bad - misleading half truths and outright incorrect claims - that made a subsequent article on the passkey by another Ars reporter look completely opposite from what he wrote.
                                                                    • ghusto 1 year ago
                                                                      Isn't that much like how reporting of Microsoft during the 90s wasn't "sceptical", but just calling the pot black? At a certain point — i.e. given enough history — it's a given that a company acts against your best interests. I don't see judging a company on their actions as bias.

                                                                      Google is a corporation that does terrible things. That's not bias, it's observation.

                                                                      Having said all that, what were his half truths and incorrect claims on passkey? genuinely interested to educate myself.

                                                                      • agentgumshoe 1 year ago
                                                                        Ars Technica has been a political hack rag for a while now
                                                                      • CatWChainsaw 1 year ago
                                                                        What are you upset about, that he's reflexively anti-big tech which includes Google, or that he's anti-Google out of all the big tech? Because personally I don't give any of the FANG+ the benefit of the doubt on anything now.
                                                                      • seanhunter 1 year ago
                                                                        > Topics is reducible to (implementable using) third-party cookies.

                                                                        Yes, but aren't 3rd party cookies going to get banned? That seems to be the common assumption in the adtech space. If that's true isn't topics just google's mechanism to continue the kind of tracking that lawmakers are trying to ban by banning 3rd party cookies?

                                                                      • 1vuio0pswjnm7 1 year ago
                                                                        Huh. I did not detect such an implication. The gist of the article for me was Google is using a new system. Perhaps there is an implication that based on the deceptive use of the term "privacy" some users might believe that Chrome is now more privacy preserving. That would of course be patently false.

                                                                        But it seems this comparison to third party cookies ignores the fact that now one company, Google, gets a maximum amount of tracking data without having to cooperate with any other entity. That potentially could be a loss for privacy because the concentration of personal data at one entity, i.e., Google, requires less cooperation, e.g., data sharing. It's easier.

                                                                        • hedora 1 year ago
                                                                          It's less privacy preserving in that it is anti-competitive, so now google gets a monopoly on this form of tracking. I assume they'll eventually combine all the data from their other monopolies, and continue to use lobbyists to block improved laws or even enforcement of the existing laws they break.
                                                                          • the8472 1 year ago
                                                                            > 3. Topics is reducible to (implementable using) third-party cookies.

                                                                            Even with 1st-party cookie jar isolation?

                                                                            • xinayder 1 year ago
                                                                              Disclaimer: you work for Google?
                                                                              • Rebelgecko 1 year ago
                                                                                If you go to his bio he doesn't say that on his CV, so seems kinda unlikely

                                                                                Disclaimer: I work for Google but my opinions and web crawling abilities are mine and mine alone.

                                                                                • ericpauley 1 year ago
                                                                                  No.
                                                                              • alufers 1 year ago
                                                                                I'm kind of torn on this. The general idea that the user's browser tracks him by itself instead of utilizing cookies or fingerprinting seems like a step up for privacy. Obviously the devil is in the details - Google controls that whole algorithm, and there obviously is a conflict of interest.

                                                                                But the alternative that the people who are against it are proposing is either to keep the status quo or kindly ask Google (and other ad companies) to stop existing, which is not gonna happen. They seem to ignore the fact that ad-tech is a huge industry and a large part of the internet relies on it. Basically the only way to make it go away would be to outlaw it.

                                                                                (Also so nobody accuses me as being pro-ads: I hate ads and tracking, but sort of in a way like I hate being sick. I can reduce my exposure to ads and tracking (adblock, not using certain apps, etc.), but I know that complaining about it won't make it go away)

                                                                                • heresie-dabord 1 year ago
                                                                                  > I hate ads and tracking, but sort of in a way like I hate being sick

                                                                                  What if the illness you hoped to avoid were leaking all your private behaviours to the world as though the sickness were the proper state of existence?

                                                                                  > ad-tech is a huge industry and a large part of the internet relies on it.

                                                                                  The Internet is not going away and advertising is not the Internet that we want.

                                                                                  • Silhouette 1 year ago
                                                                                    They seem to ignore the fact that ad-tech is a huge industry and a large part of the internet relies on it. Basically the only way to make it go away would be to outlaw it.

                                                                                    Not necessarily. It will also go away - or more usefully, change its behaviour - if its current model becomes less cost effective. Apple restricted what apps could spy on and Facebook complained like a spoiled child but the sky did not fall. The evidence of effectiveness for all these tracking-based "personalised" ads is limited at best anyway. If you're running a search engine where users have literally just told you what kind of thing they're interested in right now or you're hosting videos where you know which video a user is about to watch or you're serving ads to be included within someone else's web page and you can tell what the content of that page is then you already have very useful information to help you choose which ads might be relevant without needing any additional user tracking at all.

                                                                                    • nativeit 1 year ago
                                                                                      Thank you for this. There seems to be layers of delusions throughout this comment section where it seems many people simply cannot imagine a functioning world sans some bit of questionable tech and its derivative marketing strategies that are barely 20-years old.

                                                                                      Context-based advertising, AKA “advertising”, has been around forever, and respected privacy to the extent that Gatorade only needed to know that people at gyms might be thirsty. Still sold a ton of slightly salty sugar water, and didn’t even suggest that they should be allowed to rummage through every customer’s gym bag, follow them home, take notes on their dinner choices and television habits, watch them sleep while taking their pulse, and then slip random notes to them throughout the day reminding them that their electrolytes were dangerously slightly on the lower side of average (code RED).

                                                                                    • throwitaway156 1 year ago
                                                                                      This API wont remove or deprecate the already existing tracking methods, third party cookies can be disabled but alternative practices have been developed a good while ago (and new ones are actively being found). Advertisement networks _will_ find a way (avoiding fingerprinting is impossible, unless all browser companies decide to merge; exposing hardware to the web is the new trend for web technologies, and hardware can be extremely unique especially when combined with an IP yada yada) without depending on Google, their competitor in advertising, for their own product. Google, however, will hand your search history out to any website for free(?)
                                                                                      • izacus 1 year ago
                                                                                        The existence of this APIs will be very useful to argue that server-side data collection is not reasonable under GDPR anymore.

                                                                                        I hope it gets implemented because it will give significant ammunition to us in Europe to make server-side behaviour tracking marked as unreasonable under GDPR provisions.

                                                                                        • Silhouette 1 year ago
                                                                                          How would that work in practice? I'm not sure what kind of "server-side data collection" you're arguing against here.
                                                                                      • throw08092023 1 year ago
                                                                                        [flagged]
                                                                                      • bigyikes 1 year ago
                                                                                        I heard about this the other day and didn’t think much of it.

                                                                                        I got the actual update today on my work laptop and… just wow. How did the folks at Google ship this with a straight face? The changeboarding modal basically lies to your face.

                                                                                        I’ve always felt a little weird about Google’s tracking, but this takes it to another level. Creepy as heck.

                                                                                        • nazka 1 year ago
                                                                                          > How did the folks at Google ship this with a straight face?

                                                                                          You have been doing 60-70 hours a week for a few years at startups that never took off. You tried to go into some big companies but got rejected several times. You managed to pass the first screening to the process at being hired at Google. You go through all the process. It’s long and tiring. Somehow you went through it after several weeks and so many steps. After several years in your career of not so successful job/startups this is like a huge thing. You can say to all your family and friends and girlfriend that you work at Google. The pay is great but the work is bad. They ask you to code more stuff to track people into Chrome. You evaluate what quitting would be like and what other opportunities like this you could have. And then I guess they are like hmm no. Let’s code this things from now on.

                                                                                          • mattgreenrocks 1 year ago
                                                                                            I’m convinced at least 75% of devs consider working at a FAANG to be the absolute apex of a career, regardless of what’s worked on. Which, to me, says it’s purely about prestige.

                                                                                            It’s impossible to say for sure, but there’s a certain pervasive collective worship of these employers that will just not quit.

                                                                                            • callalex 1 year ago
                                                                                              If by “prestige” you mean “enough money to work for 4 years and retire anywhere that’s not the Bay Area and never work another day” then yea, it’s prestige.
                                                                                              • __MatrixMan__ 1 year ago
                                                                                                Is there? I'm happy to not be making hiring decisions these days but if I was I'd definitely think twice about hiring somebody who was ok spending their days making the web worse.
                                                                                                • jwr 1 year ago
                                                                                                  > there’s a certain pervasive collective worship of these employers that will just not quit

                                                                                                  That's my observation as well. And I think this applies especially to Google: for some reason it still has the reputation of this cool tech company here on HN, even though it's an advertising and user tracking/profiling company at this point, and there is really nothing "cool" about it anymore. But criticize Google on HN and you'll get downvoted really quickly.

                                                                                                  • gen220 1 year ago
                                                                                                    The collective worship is the set of people who (1a) have worked there previously and (1b) didn’t hate it, or (2) want to work there in the future.

                                                                                                    It’s a pretty large absolute number of people, although thanks to section 1 clause b, it’s growing smaller.

                                                                                                    YMMV, but “people who worship recent FAANG employment” can be a filter that’s positive to apply when seeking employment.

                                                                                                  • harryVic 1 year ago
                                                                                                    I think this would actually be bad for their careers. I believe this is all open source and in public and you would get really bad rep for building this. If it was me I would ask for a transfer to a different team.
                                                                                                    • JohnBooty 1 year ago
                                                                                                      Nah. You do this kind of dirty work at Google for a few years. Then you say that "after working at Google, you have decided to fight for users" or some other noble goal.

                                                                                                      Now you have it both ways. You have the resume prestige of working at Google and the faux prestige of being a "virtuous person" who is willing to forgo the comfy Google life to "do what is right."

                                                                                                      • IG_Semmelweiss 1 year ago
                                                                                                        devs should definitely have their names on the products they build. same for PMs
                                                                                                      • chiefalchemist 1 year ago
                                                                                                        > The pay is great but the work is bad.

                                                                                                        In just about any other context this is called a bribe. But you're right. If that person doesn't do it, someone else will.

                                                                                                        • choppaface 1 year ago
                                                                                                          There are also a lot of Googlers who got in on their first or second try and genuinely do not understand end-users, do not WANT to understand end-users, and thus are very happy to implement this stuff. Also PMs who are extraordinarily metrics-focused and will buy the koolaid 100%
                                                                                                        • kccqzy 1 year ago
                                                                                                          It's a government mandated bullshit as a replacement for third party cookies.

                                                                                                          When all other browsers disable third party cookies, everything is fine. Apple for example has disabled it for years. When Google does it, antitrust regulators fear that this could benefit Google ads more than non-Google ads. Hence this bullshit to "restore competitiveness" between Google and non-Google ad networks.

                                                                                                          My recommendation is to both disable third party cookies and this new thing. You don't need either of them.

                                                                                                          • ocdtrekkie 1 year ago
                                                                                                            > It's a government mandated bullshit

                                                                                                            This is definitely what Google would like you to believe. Considering indeed all other browsers have killed third party cookies, Google legally very well could as well. But they'd love you to believe they must provide a way to invade your privacy.

                                                                                                            The issue regulators had was Google retaining special access to user tracking, they have no problem with Google removing their own ability to track as well. Of course, that doesn't buy Larry and Sergey's next yacht or private island remodel.

                                                                                                            • modeless 1 year ago
                                                                                                              > The issue regulators had was Google retaining special access to user tracking, they have no problem with Google removing their own ability to track as well.

                                                                                                              I don't think you understand the issue. Without third party cookies Google still has search ads while adtech competitors without a search engine are decimated. That's the antitrust concern.

                                                                                                            • nottorp 1 year ago
                                                                                                              > It's a government mandated bullshit

                                                                                                              Who says that, google?

                                                                                                              To make an analogy, don't believe any EU country government when they blame some EU directive for a new law.

                                                                                                            • turquoisevar 1 year ago
                                                                                                              Some government regulators used to primarily focus on natural persons (i.e. citizens/consumers) and prioritize them above all else.

                                                                                                              Then neo-liberalism took over and they took a page out of the US’ playbook, and started prioritizing businesses.

                                                                                                              But unlike in the US they aren’t comfortable outright stating that they’re prioritizing business interests over consumer interests, so instead they do this weird thing in their communications where they act like they’re standing up for small businesses. Problem however is that their definition of “small” business is everything below a trillion euro market cap.

                                                                                                              It’s kind of jarring really, to hear them talk about having to protect those poor advertisers, like it’s some UNICEF donation ad.

                                                                                                              • riku_iki 1 year ago
                                                                                                                > My recommendation is to both disable third party cookies and this new thing. You don't need either of them.

                                                                                                                then you will see random low quality ads instead of something you may be interested in

                                                                                                                • JetSpiegel 1 year ago
                                                                                                                  Oh my god, how will I live my life knowing the parts of the web pages I tune out give pennies to certain companies instead of others. It's FOMO for ads!

                                                                                                                  Oh wait, I use uBlock Origin, so this doesn't affect me at all! I'm stealing all that data from servers that give it to me when doing an unathenticated GET.

                                                                                                                  • kccqzy 1 year ago
                                                                                                                    That's a fine choice by me. In the rare scenarios I turn off my ad blocker, I want to see generic badly targeted ads, not ads precisely engineered to cause me to make a purchase or change my worldview.
                                                                                                                    • seanhunter 1 year ago
                                                                                                                      I'd rather not see ads for things I may be interested in. Do you see why?
                                                                                                                      • mehlmao 1 year ago
                                                                                                                        We could have privacy protection as the default, and then you can opt-in to sharing your personal life with hundreds of companies so they can show you more relevant ads. Since everyone loves relevant ads, they'd be sure to opt-in, right?
                                                                                                                        • Larrikin 1 year ago
                                                                                                                          But if I block ads in my browsers, at the router level through Ad Guard, route all my personal devices through Tailscale, and use Firefox then I won't see those either.
                                                                                                                      • wbl 1 year ago
                                                                                                                        Because they don't get to kill third party cookies without shipping it.
                                                                                                                        • hirsin 1 year ago
                                                                                                                          Context? That whole project was kind of a cluster when I was involved with it, how does this help? Or is it more, without a replacement for 3p cookie tracking they couldn't break it (useful uses of 3p cookies be damned)?
                                                                                                                          • jsnell 1 year ago
                                                                                                                            Regulators in the US, EU and UK have made it clear that Chrome can't remove support for 3p cookies without building a replacement feature that works for non-Google ad networks.
                                                                                                                        • arendtio 1 year ago
                                                                                                                          When I saw that dialog, I didn't know which button to click. I knew I didn't want to share the topics I am interested in or have personalized / more relevant ads of any kind, but the text was so confusion and mixing so many things (like activate the privacy feature when in fact you are activating the tracking feature).

                                                                                                                          In the end, I reverted to clicking the non-primary button (which you are not supposed to click) and checked in the settings everything was in order.

                                                                                                                          • passion__desire 1 year ago
                                                                                                                            Maybe they are talking a leaf out of Zuck's playbook. Two steps forward and one step back conditional on backlash. Reddit did this recently. Outrage can be managed until things cool down.
                                                                                                                            • choppaface 1 year ago
                                                                                                                              I’m thoroughly impressed how HN also buried this story so quickly; usually something so dramatic would stick on the front page for days. Speaks a lot about Google-biases in the content moderation of HN.
                                                                                                                              • chaxor 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                The fix sounds easy to me.

                                                                                                                                Switch to a better browser.

                                                                                                                              • imiric 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                All this focus on cookies and FLoC feels like smoke and mirrors from Google.

                                                                                                                                Modern adtech can track users regardless if cookies are enabled or not, and whether they enable this new Chrome feature or not, via browser fingerprinting. They've been doing this for years.

                                                                                                                                So this new "privacy sandbox" is a diversion to the public, and particularly to law makers, that signals "see, we care about user privacy". When in fact it ultimately makes no impact on their revenue.

                                                                                                                                The public and law makers are barely starting to get an understanding about cookies, and there's a growing concern about them, so this is Google being proactive towards the blowback. Fingerprinting is much more complex to understand, and concern about it is so under the radar, that it will take many more years for the focus to catch up to these nefarious practices.

                                                                                                                                The frog is being boiled[1], make no mistake about that.

                                                                                                                                [1]: https://gazoche.xyz/posts/boiling-frog/

                                                                                                                                • soared 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                  This is a take from someone who’s clearly not a domain expert. The purpose of finger printing is to identify individual users - which is pointless if you’re able to use third party cookies, unless you want to do cross-device tracking or get around as blockers. If third parties cookies are not a targetable Id in the bid stream (in a post cookie world), there is nothing to match a fingerprint to, so fingerprinting is useless. You can talk about ID5 and IDLs in this same discussion, but they are explicitly opt-in.

                                                                                                                                  Additionally fingerprinting is not a tactic that advertisers want to use - anyone spending real money bets their vendors and wants to stay away from sketchy bs vendors who do that. Google doesn’t want it, TTD doesn’t want it, xandr doesn’t, cococola doesn’t, Nike doesn’t, etc. We all want a technology that is truly privacy focused for users, but still enables functionality that is critical to advertising like brand safety, frequency caps, and some semblance of targeting (even via context). That doesn’t even get into retargeting/dynamic retargeting.

                                                                                                                                  • imiric 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                    Way to ad hominem, but you're right, I'm not a domain expert. Just a web user who refuses to be tracked and manipulated by advertising, and highly skeptical that any of these changes are done to benefit the user.

                                                                                                                                    > there is nothing to match a fingerprint to, so fingerprinting is useless

                                                                                                                                    Huh? A fingerprint doesn't need to match _to_ anything. It just needs to be consistent across browsing sessions for a profile of visited sites and interests to be built.

                                                                                                                                    > Additionally fingerprinting is not a tactic that advertisers want to use

                                                                                                                                    Really? Citation needed. All advertisers want their ads to be highly targeted to a consumer who is most likely to make a purchase. The reason web advertising is much more appealing than advertising in traditional media is precisely because it allows microtargetting on a level not possible via traditional means. Advertisers are always chasing a higher conversion rate, and microtargetting is proven to yield better results than showing ads to a large and generic cohort of consumers. Advertisers aren't happy about the Topics API, and many will choose the technology that allows them to continue to target ads more accurately. Fingerprinting is so far the most foolproof method of doing this, since it avoids pesky cookie blockers, and is difficult to detect.

                                                                                                                                    > We all want a technology that is truly privacy focused for users, but still enables functionality that is critical to advertising like brand safety, frequency caps, and some semblance of targeting

                                                                                                                                    I call BS on the first part. Ad targetting goes directly against user privacy. There's no reconciliation of the two. Advertisers can go back to buying ad space in context-relevant places (e.g. show fishing ads on fishing-related sites), but none of them want to lose a _substantial_ part of their revenue by not taking advantage of user tracking.

                                                                                                                                    How you can be so defensive about this is beyond me, and leads me to believe you work in the ad industry.

                                                                                                                                    • soared 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                      I work at a DSP and directly manage a few million a month in ad spend. I talk to digital marketing managers, vps of marketing, heads of analytics, etc of household e-commerce and cpg brands weekly. All of them have extremely strict vetting practices to ensure their vendors are not fingerprinting or using any mildly questionable tactics. Literally all of them want privacy focused advertising, some of them are even requesting audits of environmental impacts of our server usage/etc.

                                                                                                                                      Their is a world that is privacy focused and gives advertisers what they need - that’s what the privacy sandbox is trying to achieve. My employer works with Google directly on topics and other solutions to achieve what we want and create privacy.

                                                                                                                                  • summerlight 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                    > Modern adtech can track users regardless if cookies are enabled or not, and whether they enable this new Chrome feature or not, via browser fingerprinting. They've been doing this for years.

                                                                                                                                    One of the explicit goal of "privacy sandbox" is preventing browser fingerprinting by limiting informational entropy from user environment. https://github.com/mikewest/privacy-budget

                                                                                                                                    • choppaface 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                      But the implicit goal is that _Google_ now owns fingerprinting in Chrome, versus the various other actors and tech in the space. Same as Apple owning fingerprints in iOS (and thus disrupting Facebook).

                                                                                                                                      For anything “privacy tech” you must divorce the adversarial case (an actor maximizing an attack vector) with the average case (a monopolistic company using the tech to control overall opportunity costs). The latter has under-funded public study because Google et al will both throw gobs of money against it and throw shiny privacy tech problems out there to distract researchers.

                                                                                                                                    • xg15 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                      That makes it even worse IMO.

                                                                                                                                      Google's justification for this was after all that it's a nerved alternative to persistent user identifiers (like 3rd party cookies), because you have to give the poor, starving advertisers something in exchange if you take away their ability to identify users.

                                                                                                                                      So far, so bad, but if advertisers can in fact still identify users, then FLoC will just be another, relatively high-quality signal that they can add to the profile. (In fact, fingerprinting isn't even needed yet as Google apparently feels it's fine to activate FLoC long before they disable 3rd party cookies. How that squares with the presentation as a privacy feature is a lection in corpospeak I guess)

                                                                                                                                      So especially in that situation, you should turn off FLoC.

                                                                                                                                      • Scion9066 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                        They have to set up the replacement (topics API) before they get rid of the previous solution (third-party cookies). Sites need time to adjust and implement the new systems.

                                                                                                                                        They also need to not make sweeping changes to the ad industry that could be described as anti-competitive or monopolistic. I doubt they'd get away with just turning off third-party cookies in their browser.

                                                                                                                                      • bad_user 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                        In the EU, as far as the ePrivacy Directive (cookie law) is concerned, fingerprinting is similar to using a tracking cookie, even if no cookies are actually involved. And as far as GDPR is concerned, fingerprinting can identify a visitor, it counts as personal data, therefore you need a legal basis for processing it.

                                                                                                                                        Not sure what the point you're trying to make is.

                                                                                                                                        Also, Google under Privacy Sandbox has been exploring ways to introduce a fingerprinting limitations and a budget. Which may as well be smoke and mirrors, but if you watch their marketing materials, they talk of fingerprinting in general.

                                                                                                                                        • imiric 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                          Sites that use tracking cookies rarely comply with the law as it is, and even then skirt around it via "legitimate interests" and other dark patterns. What makes you think they would disclose a behavior that is even more difficult to detect?

                                                                                                                                          We can't assume good will and behavior from an industry that is built on deceiving and manipulating the user. The GDPR is a good first step at regulating these practices, but it's too vague, and it's applied far too leniently. It also obviously only applies to EU citizens, and not to the global industry.

                                                                                                                                          I wasn't familiar with the privacy "budget", but it sounds like Google is trying to define privacy as a scale, where some amount of fingerprinting is OK. Users can be identified with just a few data points, and some are more valuable, depending on the context. Some might even be required for the site to function, so will there be "legitimate" exceptions to the budget in those cases? It sounds like a backwards approach that will be difficult to manage, so I'm not sure it will be a win for protecting privacy.

                                                                                                                                          More importantly, I don't trust that an adtech company will go out of its way to implement solutions that go against its bottom line. These companies have a track record of abusing user data, and the only reason they take these initiatives is for good PR, which is again protecting their bottom line. The entire industry needs much broader and stronger regulation for any of this to actually improve.

                                                                                                                                          • bad_user 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                            The parent complains that lawmakers don't understand fingerprinting, or that companies like Google are trying to avoid the regulation of fingerprinting by focusing on cookies. Such statements are false.

                                                                                                                                            You're moving the discussion towards law enforcement.

                                                                                                                                            Well, DPAs in EU are overwhelmed, but lawsuits and rulings are progressing. For instance, Facebook found out that they can't force behavioral advertising via their ToS or via legitimate interests:

                                                                                                                                            https://thisisunpacked.substack.com/p/the-eu-war-on-behavior...

                                                                                                                                            I'd also add that small companies may fly under the radar, but big companies like Google and Meta are big targets.

                                                                                                                                          • pharmakom 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                            Yeah and the Legal Basis will be something like “we need to track users to improve our services”
                                                                                                                                            • seanhunter 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                              That's not a lawful basis under GDPR. There are only 6.[1]

                                                                                                                                              (a) Consent

                                                                                                                                              (b) Contract

                                                                                                                                              (c) Legal obligation

                                                                                                                                              (d) Vital interests

                                                                                                                                              (e) Public task

                                                                                                                                              (f) Legitimate interests

                                                                                                                                              What a lot of companies are trying to do right now is weasel through under "legitimate interests" (eg a lot of scumbag seo-monkey websites have cookie consent dialogs stuffed with "legitimate interest" switches even though that doesn't work the way they think), but it's not clear that "improving my services at the expense of people's privacy" would pass the "legitimate interest" test if that ever goes to court. Legitimate interest requires them to pass "purpose", "necessity" and "balancing" tests. The "balancing" test in particular balances the companies interests against the interest of the user in maintaining privacy. Here's more about "legitimate interest" under GDPR.[2] it's not the get-out clause that people seem to think.

                                                                                                                                              [1] https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

                                                                                                                                              [2] https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

                                                                                                                                              • troupo 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                They are trying to present that as legal basis, and it's not.
                                                                                                                                            • Conting 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                              Google can also use people's IP address since so many use Gmail, Android, YouTube or Google Sync.
                                                                                                                                            • SquareWheel 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                              > Chrome's invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the "Privacy Sandbox,"

                                                                                                                                              Ars seems to be confusing the topics API with the privacy sandbox as a whole. Most features are early, like client hints, while others like privacy budget haven't even been released yet.

                                                                                                                                              https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/#proposals-for-the-web

                                                                                                                                              • ericpauley 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                The whole article is a mess of confusion. FLoC and Topics have nothing in common functionally, aside from being useful for ad targeting.
                                                                                                                                                • paulryanrogers 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                  IIRC the failure of the first lead to the second.

                                                                                                                                                  And if Steve Gibson is to be believed Topics is not only an improvement, it's an unqualified good. (I'm not yet convinced though if Google didn't have so many other harvesting avenues I'd see it as better for privacy too.)

                                                                                                                                                  • JoshTriplett 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                    > Topics is not only an improvement, it's an unqualified good.

                                                                                                                                                    It's still sending interest information to advertisers, so it's an unqualified negative. Stop sending information to advertisers. Kill third-party cookies, and anything purporting to replace them.

                                                                                                                                              • skybrian 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                Looking at 'Ad topics' in Chrome settings, they seem extremely generic and barely count as targeting. If disclosing these topics to a bunch of websites harms me, I don't see how? I don't care who knows them.

                                                                                                                                                Here you go:

                                                                                                                                                   * Arts & Entertainment
                                                                                                                                                   * Computers & Electronics
                                                                                                                                                   * Internet & telecom
                                                                                                                                                   * News
                                                                                                                                                   * Online communities
                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                Seems reasonably accurate, but so what? What am I missing?
                                                                                                                                                • josefx 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                  Those are only some of the top categories, the taxonomy file currently has ~600 more detailed entries and it is rapidly growing. The goal seems to be well in the thousands.

                                                                                                                                                  https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics/blob/main/...https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics/blob/main/...

                                                                                                                                                  https://developer.chrome.com/en/docs/privacy-sandbox/topics/...

                                                                                                                                                  • skybrian 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                    Are these subtopics somehow not shown in Chrome settings, or did it not find any?
                                                                                                                                                  • jansan 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                    I think Google is being reasonably transparent here:

                                                                                                                                                    - When this was introduced, Google asked my if I permit using those topics. I declined and now in the settings the toggle is switched off, just as it should be.

                                                                                                                                                    - Your topics will be listed when you open the ad settings.

                                                                                                                                                    - Instead of disallowing topics, you can also block individual topics.

                                                                                                                                                    • troupo 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                      If you count the dark pattern of "we've improved privacy, got it" while having all ad-related toggled on is not "reasonable transparent"
                                                                                                                                                    • two_in_one 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                      Is it true Chrome keeps third party cookies while all other major browsers have disabled them long time ago? And disabling in Chrome isn't even scheduled, right? Then this is in addition to cookies.

                                                                                                                                                      Second, if you have a bunch of parameters attached to you, then you can be tracked. What exactly those parameters are doesn't matter, as long as the set is more or less stable and unique.

                                                                                                                                                      Third, do you really want to disclose your interest to every website? Without a way to opt out.

                                                                                                                                                      • soared 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                        It is scheduled for 2024.

                                                                                                                                                        It does matter what is tracked, because advertisers need to be able to match on-site behavior to what they can identify and target in a bid.

                                                                                                                                                        You’re not disclosing your interest to every website. Your allowing your browser to store a list of your interests and then advertisers can target users who have those interests. This is miles more privacy focused than the current solution where any vendor can place pixels all over the web to build any audience they want, small or big. They can track really any data they want, combine it with any offline data see they want, and sell it to anyone they want.

                                                                                                                                                      • _ZeD_ 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                        you know what is even better? disclosing nothing.
                                                                                                                                                        • RubyRidgeRandy 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                          At the end of the day, I think the categories are very broad and better respect people's privacy compared to what we had before. Some people in the privacy community seem to think advertising and tracking in any form should not exist and will always make a stink about whatever incarnation they take.

                                                                                                                                                          These proposals were made directly because of legislation like GDPR. It's not as if Google got up one day and said "Let's make our job harder."

                                                                                                                                                          • rapind 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                            > Some people in the privacy community seem to think advertising and tracking in any form should not exist and will always make a stink about whatever incarnation they take.

                                                                                                                                                            I don't think I'm in the "privacy community". It's my opinion that advertising will always exist, but tracking is complete horseshit and should be abolished ASAP. I don't think this is a very unpopular opinion either. There seems to be an attempt to Stockholm us all into thinking tracking is a necessary evil we must accept.

                                                                                                                                                            • yetanotherasian 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                              I'm not apologizing for google, but think many people who are against all forms of this aren't really thinking the problem through. The same way newspapers said "stop linking headlines to us" and then once some popular service did and all their traffic disappeared they came back and said "oh, wait, no, you can link to us"

                                                                                                                                                              For the ads, a large portion of the internet that people want (maybe not you in particular but lots of people in general), run on ads. Arstechnica runs on ads, theverge runs on ads, slashdot runs on ads, the register runs on ads, kotaku runs on ads, tech crunch run on ads. To name a few sites that might be popular here

                                                                                                                                                              If those sites can't support themselves they'll more than likely disappear. If all those sites disappeared I feel like plenty of people (maybe not you but more people than not) would realize that they thought they wanted (zero disclose) lead to outcomes they didn't want

                                                                                                                                                              I feel like Google is genuinely trying to do something positive here. Provide a way of those sites to still target ads, still check if an ad was effective, still try to check for bad actors making fake clicks, but also be practically un-attributable to a single user.

                                                                                                                                                              Going through the actual specs, they really are trying to make it so you can't track and individual but sites can still function based on ads.

                                                                                                                                                              Is it in Google own interest? Yes. But it's also in the interest of sites people want which means it's also in the interest of the people who want those sites.

                                                                                                                                                              Apple on the other hand, would prefer you be tracked directly by having you download an app for each site where that app can track you way more than a browser with these features can track you.

                                                                                                                                                          • dbbk 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                            It's not harmful.
                                                                                                                                                          • hooby 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                            So, here's the question:

                                                                                                                                                            When a large, publicly traded ad-company (that relies on collecting data and tracking users for most of it's income), creates a product that costs them quite a lot of money to make, and then gives that product to you for free...

                                                                                                                                                            Do you expect them:

                                                                                                                                                            A.) to be taking a loss on that product because they really just want to gift it to you from the goodness of their heart with no ulterior motives?

                                                                                                                                                            B.) to actually have another way to make money from that product, which makes the whole endeavor financially worthwhile to them?

                                                                                                                                                            • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                              People are bending over backwards to justify why they should continue using a browser that is actively hostile to them made by a company whose sole revenue comes from collecting the entire world's data at all times.

                                                                                                                                                              I don't mean to trivialize it but it seriously reads like an abusive relationship. Or an addiction or something. Just leave, man.

                                                                                                                                                              • stephenr 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                I read a very apt quote[1] on HN a month ago, about how much Google values Chrome users thoughts:

                                                                                                                                                                > Chrome user opinion to them is important to their business in about the same way meatpackers care about what cattle think of the design of the feeding stations. As long as they keep coming to eat, it's just mooing.

                                                                                                                                                                1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37035733

                                                                                                                                                                • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                  This is beautiful and I'm saving it. Thank you.
                                                                                                                                                                • npteljes 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                  It 100% is an abusive relationship. And it's the same as with Microsoft and Windows. People struggle a lot against it, but at the end of the day, they are completely vulnerable to Windows, as they depend on it.
                                                                                                                                                                  • account42 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                    I don't use Chrome as my main browser but I can see one reason why people continue to do so despite the problems with it: there are simply no good alternatives, only slightly less bad ones. Mozilla absolutely does not care about your privacy as anything other than a marketing tool or they wouldn't keep pushing adding a million different ways the browser phones home and in some cases executes remote code each release. They are also funded by Google. Brave is mired with crypto and also involved in ads. Edge is Microsoft, enough said. Same for Apple's walled garden browser.

                                                                                                                                                                    If you have to chose one devil over another anyway it becomes easier to put your convenience first and ignore the rest.

                                                                                                                                                                    • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                      We can ignore everything except the last sentence because convenience is all it boils down to. Protecting yourself is annoying. It's annoying in part because companies like Google make it annoying on purpose. They make so much insane money from preventing people from protecting themselves (from Google) that they fund their competitors to buy public goodwill.

                                                                                                                                                                      Even if you somehow think that Mozilla is as bad as Google, which, to me, is a ridiculous notion, you can still choose the lesser of two evils. At the end of the day Mozilla is a foundation, a legal entity which is driven by its mission[0], and Google is a corporation, a legal entity which is driven by profit and data collection. And there are also tons of other browsers that are less bad than the worst one.

                                                                                                                                                                      To choose Chrome is, again, to bend over backwards to justify continual use of an abusive tool, in the name of convenience.

                                                                                                                                                                      [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

                                                                                                                                                                  • fxtentacle 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                    I'd expect the government to step in because that is a highly anti-competitive distortion of the market. Microsoft once got punished pretty badly for including a free Internet Explorer with Windows, to the detriment of Netscape. I'm not sure Google pushing a free browser to the detriment of Mozilla is much different.
                                                                                                                                                                    • hooby 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                      Not the best example though, as Windows these days is pushing Edge as anti-competitively as ever.

                                                                                                                                                                      Windows now comes with three built in browsers: IE, Edge(Blink), Edge(Webkit) - none of which can be uninstalled.

                                                                                                                                                                      Every other update users will bugged about switching to Edge again (exact amount varies by version and locale).

                                                                                                                                                                      System apps will ignore default browser settings and use Edge to open all links (except in the EU they very recently went back to using the default browser again).

                                                                                                                                                                      Browser-choice dialogue is gone, instead Edge will pester you if try to use it to download another browser.

                                                                                                                                                                      Point being, all those punishments did absolutely nothing to stop or curb the anti-competitive behavior.

                                                                                                                                                                      • fxtentacle 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                        “Not the best example though, as Windows these days is pushing Edge as anti-competitively as ever.“

                                                                                                                                                                        I'd say that makes it an excellent example because it clearly shows that government enforcement of those rules used to have teeth. But since lost them.

                                                                                                                                                                        • jhasse 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                          Edge never used Webkit, but their own implementation called EdgeHTML.
                                                                                                                                                                      • meheleventyone 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                        I’d expect them to consider Chrome a loss-leader to get people online since the vast majority of their advertising is online. So giving people the best possible web experience will increase the amount of ads they’ll see.
                                                                                                                                                                        • victorbjorklund 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                          Everyone already have built in browsers. If chrome was shutdown tomorrow its not like people would all go offline because they cant access the internet.
                                                                                                                                                                          • Xelbair 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                            Guess what's the engine that majority of those build in browsers use.
                                                                                                                                                                          • atoav 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                            No. It is their way of influencing how the web shapes out to be.

                                                                                                                                                                            Your theory doesn't make any sense since every OS/device comes with a free web browser since I can think.

                                                                                                                                                                            • meheleventyone 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                              My theory is not just giving people a browser but giving them the best possible experience. Chrome has an enormous market share given every OS and device comes with a free web browser. Further the developer experience using Chrome is also superb!
                                                                                                                                                                          • hkt 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                            Google aren't doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. Dominating the browser market means de facto free reign on setting standards. Chrome isn't a nice freebie, it is the most important moat Google has for its AF business.

                                                                                                                                                                            Without Chrome, Google has no control over its product (your eyeballs as you browse) at all.

                                                                                                                                                                            • podgorniy 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                              > that relies on collecting data and tracking users for most of it's income

                                                                                                                                                                              How then duckduck go managing to compete with them wituhout collecting data and tracking user to the same extend? https://fourweekmba.com/duckduckgo-business-model/

                                                                                                                                                                              • stephenr 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                My understanding is that DDG relies on selling "keyword match" type ads based on what you searched for.

                                                                                                                                                                                For example: if you search for "standing desk", it will include one or more paid ads that are keyed for some combination that matches with the search query. Those ads aren't targeted at you based on your gender, or your home address or where you eat lunch on Tuesdays or how many devices you regularly use or any number of other creepy shit Google tracks about it's flock of willing cattle.

                                                                                                                                                                              • bjt 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                It's a good point but also not that cut and dry. Chrome started as Webkit, which forked from KHTML, which was part of the very open source KDE.

                                                                                                                                                                                Has Google benefitted more from other people's open source contributions, or have we benefitted more from Google's open source contributions? The answer is not obvious to me.

                                                                                                                                                                                • hooby 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                  I honestly don't see how "who benefited more" matters to the question of whether it's bottom-line worthwhile for Google to give Chrome away for free.
                                                                                                                                                                                  • yunohn 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                    Google impacts infinitely more lives than KDE does…
                                                                                                                                                                                    • stephenr 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                      This is very true.

                                                                                                                                                                                      KDE never ran any PII data collection programs targeting 70% of browser users, for the sake of selling ads.

                                                                                                                                                                                      Oh you meant impacts positively? No. Chrome is a blight on humanity.

                                                                                                                                                                                      • mcherm 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                        I think your math is wrong.

                                                                                                                                                                                        If (as was stated) Google's Chrome is based on KDE, than any user of Google Chrome is necessarily impacted by KDE. Meanwhile there could in theory be some user of KDE who has never used Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                        So the set of lives affected by KDE is the same or larger than the set affected by Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                        • fidotron 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                          Yeah they made v8 which beget node and npm.
                                                                                                                                                                                        • nottorp 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                          > Chrome started as Webkit, which forked from KHTML, which was part of the very open source KDE.

                                                                                                                                                                                          Safari started as Webkit which forked from KHTML which was part of KDE.

                                                                                                                                                                                          The various forks of webkit incl Chrome came later. If Chrome was ever based on webkit, iForget.

                                                                                                                                                                                        • caskstrength 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                          Option C. (shutdown unprofitable project) would be preferable for me ;)
                                                                                                                                                                                          • hooby 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                            Google is definitely no stranger to shutting down and killing unprofitable products - often pretty early even. They have a long history of doing just that.

                                                                                                                                                                                            And being a publicly traded company - they would have to shut down Chrome as well, if it actually were unprofitable/not worthwhile.

                                                                                                                                                                                            And they do have the data needed to actually get a relatively accurate picture of how Chrome affects their bottom lines overall. They know what they are doing, giving it away for free.

                                                                                                                                                                                        • MBCook 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                          “I want real Chrome on iOS. Safari sucks! It’s the new IE 6! Chrome is moving the web forward!”

                                                                                                                                                                                          Yeah. Things are going great in Chrome world. Totally should give them dominance over the one sliver they don’t control.

                                                                                                                                                                                          (I have no problem with letting people have FF/etc. but let’s face it, it will be 90%+ Chrome within days)

                                                                                                                                                                                          • linuxhansl 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                            Honestly I never quite understood why most folks switched so easily and unquestioningly to Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                            Maybe I'm just an open source purist. However, I will say that in almost all tests with websites I am actually using Firefox is faster.

                                                                                                                                                                                            (Maybe not that much of a purist: I do use Chrome at work as we're using various Google products... docs, meet, etc, and those work better on Chrome. Go figure.)

                                                                                                                                                                                            • samcheng 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                              When it first came out, Chrome was much, much more performant than Firefox, and had better standards compliance than Safari. It was just a better browsing experience. V8 was a big deal performance-wise.

                                                                                                                                                                                              Firefox has since largely caught-up from a performance perspective, although there is still some functionality inconvenience.

                                                                                                                                                                                              Of course the stated attitude toward the user is night and day - I switched back to Firefox about the same time they started integrating Gmail / Google accounts into Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                              • mshroyer 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                Another key differentiator for Chrome, when it came out, was its process isolation model. Firefox has that too now.
                                                                                                                                                                                                • troupo 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                  > When it first came out, Chrome was much, much more performant than Firefox, and had better standards compliance than Safari

                                                                                                                                                                                                  When it first came out, it was almost literally Safari (well, WebKit).

                                                                                                                                                                                                  • 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                  • plorkyeran 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                    When it first came out, it really was so much faster than every other option that even ordinary users would immediately notice a difference. 2008 Google also had an incredibly positive reputation. If you tried to tell someone in 2008 that Google was an advertising company, you might convince them to agree that it was technically true, but they'd tell you that it was a stupid and reductive view of the company. Everyone was on board with the idea that Google's goal in creating Chrome was to help grow the web because obviously google search was reliant on the open web doing well.
                                                                                                                                                                                                    • slotrans 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                      Everyone who was there when it came out knows/remembers why. It was unbelievably fast and lightweight compared to Firefox and IE.
                                                                                                                                                                                                      • jupp0r 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                        WebRTC support in FireFox and Safari had been abysmal for years. This has now gotten much better.
                                                                                                                                                                                                        • StewardMcOy 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                          I wouldn't underestimate the impact the Chrome TV ads had on regular computer users. The banners atop Google search results encouraging people to switch also played a big role. by the time Chrome launched, I think there were a ton of people who were sick to death of hearing one extended family member or another who was into tech cajole them to drop Internet Explorer. Switching to Chrome was easy. Just click the link that Google gave them, and plus, they were familiar with it from TV.
                                                                                                                                                                                                          • yomlica8 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                            Chrome also stealth installed itself with Adobe flash and reader updates with a default check. I remember it in antivirus software and who knows what else.

                                                                                                                                                                                                            I'll admit this traditional installer dark pattern seems quaint compared to what OSes regularly attack users with these days but this was the behavior of most pay-to-pack-in crapware at the time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                          • roydivision 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                            Let’s not forget the bubble we’re in here. Google are aiming for Jane and Joe Muggle who click on that icon to get the internet. Google have done a really effective marketing job there, Chrome in that sense is almost like a virus in the way it has propagated for no other good reason.
                                                                                                                                                                                                            • raxxorraxor 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                              Firefox also can display images correctly if the site happens to not include a web optimized version in the correct resolution. I don't know the web you visit, but that is pretty common in a lot of places.

                                                                                                                                                                                                              Chrome users looked at worse versions of images on the web for years. It is a completely bonkers performance optimization.

                                                                                                                                                                                                              Chrome did kick Firefox off in web development tools though, so I can understand some people. But today I don't think there is much difference anymore. I am not web dev though. On the other hand webdevs should know about image quality on websites.

                                                                                                                                                                                                              • mshroyer 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                Following this launch I've been test-driving both Firefox and Vivaldi. I'm surprised how few issues I've encountered browsing with Firefox, despite it not being part of the Chromium borg.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                I dare say it's actually a nicer experience overall than Chrome, with the caveat that I haven't looked into battery life impact yet.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                • devnullbrain 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                  There are a few replies on performance here: I didn't notice at the time, I just did it because Google was still a 'cool' company.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  In the intervening years I bounced between the two depending on which made the most asinine UI decisions but settled on Firefox when my FOSS sensibilities and distaste for Google hardened.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • josefx 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Google sites and services where constantly nagging users to "upgrade to Chrome" and some even broke on Firefox (unless you changed the user agent string to chrome). It was also bundled on nearly every software download site, so you got it even if you never explicitly asked for it.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • Unfrozen0688 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      When Chrome came out, it was and FELT waaaay faster than Firefox or any other browser. By miles. And back then, Google had a great reputation.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • javajosh 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I use Chrome in development on a Windows box. Here is my experience with this upgrade:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         1. Upgraded manually from 116.0.5845.179 to 116.0.5845.180 through About dialog.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         2. Restart. No notification that anything has changed.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         3. Go to settings, privacy and security, privacy guide, and on the 4th page (only 3 pips!)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Or go to settings, privacy and security, Ad privacy (the new element)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         4. The privacy guide blurb: Privacy Sandbox trial
                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Chrome is exploring new features that allow sites 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                            to deliver the same browsing experience using less of your data
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Under Ad privacy:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         5. Ad topics: Site-suggested ads. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Based on your activity on a site. This setting is on.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         6. Site-suggested ads. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Based on your activity on a site. This setting is on.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         7. Ad measurement. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Sites and advertisers can understand how ads perform. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                           This setting is on.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      This roll out is filled with dark patterns. At (2) there is no notification that anything has changed. If not for this article, I would not have known about this at all. At (3) the feature seems intentionally hidden. At (4) the description of these features misleads the user that the purpose is to "use less of their data". This is false, or at least badly misleading. At (5,6,7) they've defaulted all new "features" to "on".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      This is all so shady, and very un-Google like. I have such high regard for the Chrome team: was there push back on this? Do they realize what a bad look this is?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • dylan604 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Do they realize what a bad look this is?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Let's say that they do realize it. The 0.x% of users that are aware of, understand, and will do anything other than just blindly continuing to use the software is an acceptable number of lost users. In other words, everyone reading HN could stop using Chrome right now, and Googs would not notice the blip

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • bhaney 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > This is all so shady, and very un-Google like

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Where have you been the last several years?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • javajosh 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I was expecting this response, and let me say: it fills me with distaste. You cut off any possibility of improvement, on their part, because no matter what they do, you won't accept it. It is the opposite of constructive criticism: it is an ideological stance.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • redserk 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I'm having a difficult time trying to remember the last time Google benevolently made a change to improve user privacy without trying to further entrench their status.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              This doesn't seem fair to wholly categorize skepticism of Google's motives as an "ideological stance" if Google hasn't demonstrated any willingness to change.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • chiefalchemist 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                > because no matter what they do, you won't accept it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                It's not about acceptance. It's about trust. Trust has two key components:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                1) It's earned. Full stop.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                2) Regardless of how much trust equity you've built, it can be lost instantly.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Like it or not, this is how trust works. Accepting what Google does is one thing, but at this point there's no reasonable reason to trust it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • jppittma 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  New privacy features that ship less finger printing data? Part of some nefarious plot to harm their competitors ability to harvest data. Won't anybody think of the poor third party tracking/finger printing providers?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • CatWChainsaw 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Trust is like a mirror - you can break it and you can fix it, but you'll always see the cracks and wonder what the future holds.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • wernercd 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  "This is all so shady, and very un-Google like"

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Since when has shady been un-google like? they ditched "Don't do evil" decades ago.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • jkaplowitz 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    They are definitely acting in far more ethically concerning ways than they used to, but as for literally ditching the phrase “don’t be evil”, most of the internet conventional wisdom on that is incorrect.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    When they reorganized to have Alphabet as a new parent company, Alphabet’s code of conduct said “do the right thing”, but the subsidiary Google that still makes everything we usually discuss as Google kept “don’t be evil” in its code of conduct. At a later point Google did move that sentence out of of the most prominent position in the preamble, but it’s now in the second-most prominent place, right at the end.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    But, yes, as I said at the start of this comment, they do a lot more awful or potentially evil things than they used to.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Disclosure: I worked for Google years ago, but I left before all the changes I discuss in this comment and had nothing to do with any of them. I am sad to see Google decline to roughly the level of being at least as ethically good as most of their major competitors, instead of far better as they used to be.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I got a notification in browser of this change.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • javajosh 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Really? Where? What did it look like?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • tzs 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        On the first launch of a given profile I'm getting a modal pop-up window that says this:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Enhanced ad privacy in Chrome [this is bold, centered, and larger font]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > We’re launching new privacy features that give you more choice over the ads you see.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Chrome notes topics of interest based on your recent browsing history. Also, sites you visit can determine what you like. Later, sites can ask for this information to show you personalized ads. You can choose which topics and sites are used to show you ads.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > [a graphic]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > To measure the performance of an ad, limited types of data are shared between sites, such as the time of day an ad was shown to you.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > More about ads in Chrome [V]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > You can make changes in Chrome settings

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > ["Settings" and "Got it" buttons]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Clicking the V-looking thingy next to "More about ads in Chrome" expands that to add this:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > More useful ads [that is in bold]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Sites can ask Chrome for information to help personalize the ads you see.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > • Chrome notes topics of interest based on your recent browsing history.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > • Sites you visit can also determine what you like based on your activity on the site. For example, if you visit a site that sells long-distance running shoes, the site might decide that you’re interested in running marathons.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Later, a site you visit can ask for this information — either your ad topics or ads suggested by sites you’ve visited.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Chrome auto-deletes topics and sites that suggest ads within 30 days. Or you can block specific topics and sites you don’t like.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Measuring how well an ad performs [that is in bold]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Sites you visit can ask Chrome for information to help them measure the performance of their ads. Chrome lets sites collect limited types of data, such as the time of day an ad was shown to you.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        > Learn more about how Google protects your data in our Privacy Policy.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It was a popup explaining it and a button that took you to the ad privacy settings.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • fh9302 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      It's nefarious how they ask you if you want to turn on "ad privacy", indicating that this feature increases your privacy when in reality it does the opposite.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • afavour 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Technically they’re correct: the privacy offered by this new system is superior to that which is offered by the web with no tracking protection.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Thinking about it in a very abstract way I find the whole thing fascinating. Google is clearly terrified that the tracking protection offered by other browsers is going to become the norm and they’re trying to head that off at the pass by implementing this compromise. But I’m not sure why they’re all that worried about it, they still have the lions share or the browser market. Maybe they’re worried about incoming legislation?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • ndriscoll 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          If I'm understanding correctly, they're not turning on some other tracking prevention when you enable this "feature". It's strictly a privacy downgrade.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • Scion9066 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Not yet but they can't just turn off third party cookies arbitrarily in their browser without giving time for sites and advertisers to update their systems to account for the removal. They're already facing anticompetitive/monopoly scrutiny on many other fronts, they don't need to shoot themselves in the foot in the advertising space as well. Thus the first step is to implement a replacement technology first and then make the change.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • modeless 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              After the launch of this feature they plan to disable third party cookies. It's not happening simultaneously because they would get hit with antitrust suits by adtech companies if they gave no time to transition.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • JKCalhoun 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                That sounds then like a class action lawsuit waiting to be filed.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • dbbk 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  We're in a transition period to turning off third-party cookies. When that happens, this is objectively more privacy-secure.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • handsclean 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  > Technically they’re correct: the privacy offered by this new system is superior to that which is offered by the web with no tracking protection.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  That’s not true, this new system is a tracker, not tracking protection. Simply turning it off improves privacy.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • afavour 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    There’s literally no point in implementing this system if you aren’t going to pair it with tracking prevention, as Google plans to do.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • redox99 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    As of right now they don't turn off 3rd party cookies when you enable this, so no. This objectively decreases your privacy.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • turquoisevar 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      It’s beautiful, from a sociopath’s perspective, if you think about it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      “If you let me punch your teeth out, the stabbings will stop (sometime in the future, terms and conditions may apply)”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      All while refusing to acknowledge that there is an option that requires neither punching nor stabbing.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      To an uninformed user that takes Google’s words at face value it sounds like an upgrade.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      >in reality it does the opposite.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Third party cookies can do everything the topics API can do and more. Third party cookies lets sites collect granular data about what exact site you on and any data they want from it. This API just gives them some topics which may even be a random chosen one and not a real one.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • ericpauley 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Precisely. The article (and seemingly everyone else) fails to realize that topics is reducible to TPC. If you have TPC then topics provides no additional tracking capability.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Topics is a mess (see a great analysis from a colleague of mine[1]), but it’s a hard sell to call this current step nefarious.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.03825

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • fh9302 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Can you give me a source that enabling the topics API disables third-party cookies? And once Chrome has phased out third-party cookies the topics API will strictly decrease my privacy, not increase it.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            >Can you give me a source that enabling the topics API disables third-party cookies?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I never claimed that. The current estimated timeline for phasing out 3rd party cookies as of last month is:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            23Q4 Opt in testing for sites

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            24Q1 1% disabled

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            24Q2 fully disabled

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            > And once Chrome has phased out third-party cookies the topics API will strictly decrease my privacy, not increase it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            You are free to disable topics, sites, or even the entire system altogether. While it does decrease your privacy in return you can get more relevant ads. With 3rd party cookies if you disable them all you will break things even if those things are unrelated to ads.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • atty 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I think the Ars writer here is very uninformed. Floc is completely different from Topics, and if you actually read the Topics spec, it seems to be significantly better than 3rd party cookies? At least to me. Maybe I’m missing something.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • youngtaff 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Topics is a refinement of FloC… no third-party cookies and no Topics would be significantly better but Google is an adtech company and there’s anti-competitive concerns from other ad tech providers
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • arpowers 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          My friend Jake runs an analytics company.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          He's faced enormous challenges due to Google's "privacy" policies... Google is removing nearly all access to user data, they don't even like you looking at the user agent string (which issues a warning)... not to mention its impossible to know about search traffic and even referring urls.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Meanwhile Google has access to all this data, so he tells me all this is just gaslighting so they can illicitly protect their monopoly on web data.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • dceddia 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Seeing this all go down, it feels like this is exactly Google’s master plan.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            1. Roll out stuff they brand as “privacy respecting” that actually collects data for their own use.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            2. Brand anything that would give competitors access to that data (third party cookies, user agent strings, etc) as a threat to user privacy.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            3. Lock all of that stuff down so that nobody can access it (“we’re protecting you!”)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            4. I don’t think we need the ???, it’s just straight to profit, via monopoly over the data.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The brilliant/terrible thing about this is that third party cookie tracking is not great so it’s hard to set up a defensible argument where leaving things as they are is the better alternative. Apple and others have been waging a war on third party tracking for years now, and pushing public opinion in that direction, and it seems to me that Google is playing 4D chess here and using it against them (and frankly, the entire internet).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • smashed 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The solution is very easy for consumers looking for a real privacy solution:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Use a browser that is not made by an advertising company.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              In other words, just drop chrome. It has never been easier to do, with Edge and Safari readily available on all major platforms and Firefox for those who prefer it, and of course the many other chromium forks that are around.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              There is no reason to be dependent on chrome today. There was a few years where it was overly dominant and very hard to avoid for compatibility and performance reasons, but that is just not true today.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Personally I use Firefox on android and desktop and I don't miss chrome at all. I uninstalled (technically, disabled) it on mobile as Google widgets like to open links in it otherwise.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I have chrome on the desktop as I work in software so I need to test compatibility with it, but that's it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • lxgr 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I agree in principle, but wouldn't wish the coupon catalog emulator that Edge has become onto anyone. It's beyond bizarre.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                My personal picks are Firefox on Windows and Linux, and Firefox or Safari on macOS.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • Gibbon1 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  > Use a browser that is not made by an advertising company.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Personal opinion we need to tweak business incorporation rules to firewall ad business from all other types of businesses. Meaning General Motors can't sell ads. And ad companies can't sell cars.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  And as someone on this site suggested extend antitrust dumping laws to services.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • jmbwell 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I’m so hurt by how Edge has turned out. I was ready for a tier-1 browser experience on Windows comparable to Safari on Mac. Microsoft has utterly wasted its leadership opportunity here, cramming in scammy garbage.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Firefox, god love it, is a rough and clunky browser by comparison. Sure you can make it what you want, but it’s an investment. As the only viable noncommercial cross-platform option though, what else are we gonna do

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • TX81Z 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Microsoft is also a web display ads company, what exactly do you think the business model for Bing is?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      There’s zero point in switching from Chrome to Edge.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Firefox to my knowledge has no ads revenue, apples limited ads revenue doesn’t come from the web.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Brave I think is a low-key crypto grift run by a homophobe, but still better than Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • alwaysbeconsing 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        On Apple OS also two alternative browsers rising: Arc https://arc.net and Orion https://browser.kagi.com Both making nice progress with their own strong points.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • nottorp 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > Use a browser that is not made by an advertising company.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > In other words, just drop chrome. It has never been easier to do, with Edge and Safari readily available

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Considering Windows 11 has ads in the operating system, how is Edge not made by an advertising company these days?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • airtonix 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            [dead]
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • jacquesm 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            This is why the worlds largest advertising company should not be fielding a search engine, a massive email platform and a browser as well.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • flagrant_taco 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              At least it anti-trust laws are hard at work! Glad it's not like the dark ages, when your operating shipped with a default browser that could be used to install any other browser you wanted.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • dceddia 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                They sure have done a job at positioning themselves at the intersection of maximum control over the web.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • taneq 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                > stuff they brand as “privacy respecting” that actually collects data for their own use

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The kool-aid is in their definition of the word "privacy." You and I might think "privacy" means "other entities aren't observing you" but Google in their benevolence knows that it really means "Google will keep your data safe from third parties." Their newspeak doesn't even allow the concept of "data that Google does not collect."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (A friend of mine was involved in the launch of Google Allo. I asked them if it would be possible to use the virtual assistant features offline without sending everything to Google. They never spoke to me again.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • soraminazuki 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I don't think there's any 4D chess going on here. Nobody is buying Google's "privacy" argument. This is a simple case of other browser vendors improving actual web privacy and Google undermining that effort.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • petre 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I hope the regulators are not and wish Google would be hit with huge antitrust fees in the EU due to this. We shall see.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • conradev 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    That is Apple's plan, too, except for the collecting data or profiting part. They still have a monopoly on your data, it's just locked on your devices.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • rovr138 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      > except for the collecting data or profiting part

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Isn’t that pretty much the issue here?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Anyway, what’s really locked? Text messages?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Because I can export pretty much everything else. Images, videos, documents, passwords, bookmarks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Maybe Apple Music’s playlists?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • taneq 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        In what sense is this Apple having a monopoly on your data? If it's "locked on your device" then they don't have it. This is literally what we're asking for, or at least half of it. I agree it'd be nice if we could retrieve everything from the device ourselves, but I'll settle for this (and ensure I never give my iPhone the last copy of anything I care about) over carrying a hostile observer everywhere I go.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • Tagbert 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Data collection isn’t really central to Apple business model though. I’m not too worried about them.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • raydiatian 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It’s the AI thing. Everybody is building walls around their data.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • bagels 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Same playbook with apple vs Facebook
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • lukev 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            This doesn't make sense. The browser provides the user agent as a header in HTTP requests. They can't detect if or how the server is using that information.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Or do you mean your friend's product is a browser plugin? In which case, um, yes, I don't want it having access to any more information than it it needs to do it's job (and honestly, probably not even that.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • re-thc 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              > The browser provides the user agent as a header in HTTP requests.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              They (Chrome) are taking it away [0].

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              [0]: https://developer.chrome.com/en/docs/privacy-sandbox/user-ag...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • matheusmoreira 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Excellent. Sites shouldn't know what user agent we're using anyway. Pretty much the only thing they use this for is to lock us out when we use "unsupported" browsers. The less information they get, the better. Hopefully they'll get rid of referrer too and weaken fingerprinting methods.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I have no doubt Google has self-serving motivations here but the result is still a win for us. I wish Firefox had enough leverage to force decisions like this down people's throats whether they like it or not but it just ain't so. Reality is imperfect so I'll take what I can get.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • infogulch 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I'm all on board calling Google out for slowly implementing a user data protection racket, where Google owns all the data and everyone else is squeezed out and has to go through Google as The central data broker. At the same time this user agent reduction thing seems like a decent idea at first blush and good for users privacy.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • afavour 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  > Meanwhile Google has access to all this data

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I’m loathe the defend Google but I don’t think this is the case. The replacement for user agent sniffing (client hints? I forget) is a universal thing and I don’t think Google has a secret back door tracking mechanism their ad network is able to use. It would certainly be a big story if they did.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • riku_iki 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    > I don’t think Google has a secret back door tracking mechanism their ad network is able to use.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    they have 80% population using search, youtube, storing browsing history etc while logged into google account, so they have lots of data about most of the people.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • afavour 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Right but that’s not a secret back door tracking mechanism. It’s a pretty blatant one!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      My point is that even this blatant logged in user tracking won’t be able to use user agent strings to track either.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • rhaway84773 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Google’s ad network might not have access. But does Google have access?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Because there are many ways Google can leverage this data without giving their ad network access.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Privacy isn’t just about privacy from ads. There are all sorts of non ad related privacy abuses that can exist.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • foobarian 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        A while ago now I booked a room on Expedia, which ended in me getting a confirmation email with an itinerary to my Gmail backed address. Lo and behold, few minutes later a CTA pops up on my Android phone offering to create a matching trip in Google's trip planning product. I'm sure it's all above board once you got into the fine print but it was not a pleasant experience.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • notatoad 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        yes, client hints.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        google "has access to all this data" in exactly the same way any other website does. you request the information you need from the client, and the client can choose to provide it or not. clients provide it by default.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        hate on google all you want, but UA reduction is objectively a good thing. "my friend jacob wants to slurp up everything from the user-agent string on the first request" is not a good argument.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • jacquesm 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          You only need a backdoor if you do not also have a 6 lane highway to your users premises.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • hotstickyballs 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            > I don’t think Google has a secret back door tracking mechanism their ad network is able to use. It would certainly be a big story if they did.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Like Chrome??

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • makeitdouble 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            > Meanwhile Google has access to all this data, so he tells me all this is just gaslighting so they can illicitly protect their monopoly on web data.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            To throw them in the same pit, they're taking a page from Apple's playbook: the privacy benefits for the user will justify any market effect from closing the platform and keeping all user data internals. Platform owner gets to protect the user from some of the abuse, while gaining a critical edge on the competition.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            In the current climate, I'm not sure there is any good angle to solve this, short of strong regulation limiting the advantage they get from doing these "privacy first" moves (basically find a way to forbid the platform owners from using their own users' data...I'm not holding my breath)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • eru 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              > In the current climate, I'm not sure there is any good angle to solve this, short of strong regulation limiting the advantage they get from doing these "privacy first" moves (basically find a way to forbid the platform owners from using their own users' data...I'm not holding my breath)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Well, you could also look into removing some rules, in addition or instead of piling on new ones. Eg you could weaken intellectual property rights, to make it easier for upstart competitors to take on the established giants.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Or you could make it easier for foreign competitors to enter local markets. (As an example, the US has become more protectionist of their tech markets. And the EU has a lot of red tape that's even harder to follow, if you are from outside the area.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • makeitdouble 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                > make it easier for upstart competitors to take on the established giants

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                No specific regulation is stopping this. If anything, all the regulation that are getting added have as a goal to reduce the red tape around smaller players and limit the extent of the giant players' monopoly.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                If you were thinking about the rules forbidding dark patterns to suck client infos and accelerate growth, it would be a tough sell to be honest.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • scarface_74 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Are we suppose to feel bad for your friend’s analytic company?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • bhaney 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I took it more as an anecdote to show how Google is intentionally using its size and influence to engage in anticompetitive practices by forcing the adtech industry to standardize on technologies that only Google can use effectively.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                More of a "be upset with Google" than a "feel bad for my friend" kind of thing

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • wbl 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The privacy preserving ads tech has been around a while and a lot developed outside of Google and Meta. I made a stab at it while an intern at Mozilla, and we basically succeeded at the very easy part of accounting. Training the bandit is a lot harder.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Also the adtech industry in it's current form is harmful to users. First of it exploits tracking vectors. Secondly it's a malware distribution technique second to none.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • raincole 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  You're supposed to feel bad for people who use Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  That is about the entire desktop user base btw.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • swader999 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    We all suffer when competition is stifled.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • soraminazuki 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The market for private user data should not even exist. So the call for more competition in that area is absurd.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • notatoad 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        it's not stifling any competition. the data that used to be in the user-agent header is now in the sec-ch-ua header. servers can set response headers to request more information if they want it, assuming the website makes more than one http request, which every website does.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • matheusmoreira 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Surveillance capitalism corporations should not even exist at all. They should be illegal.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • midoridensha 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            So it's bad when there's less competition for organized crime?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • Scoundreller 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > not to mention its impossible to know about search traffic and even referring urls.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I think it was the migration to https everywhere that killed that. Not sure why it went down that way, or if Google was responsible.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          But yeah, when I ran a blog, I would look through the referrer URLs to see what people were actually searching for and write articles about that because it was obviously an untapped void in the market.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • jacquesm 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            That's exactly what it is. Google spends a fortune on lobbying Brussels to let the natives know that they have their best interests at heart. That's proof of the opposite as far as I'm concerned. Check out the ads on Zaventem airport (right next to Brussels) if you're ever passing through there, it's comical.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Or check this video if you can't make it in person:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0UevGxfXXY

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • avs733 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Years ago I remember having a very similar reaction to many online platforms switch to https. It was pitched as protecting people from isp packet based ads but it always felt more motivated by locking the competition out of the data stream
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • sensanaty 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                No offence, but your friend Jake can go fuck himself.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I have very little trust for Google and other megacorps like it, but I have even less trust for parasitic entities like Jake that just piggyback on top of Google's already horrid practices to extract wealth from, so you'll find no sympathy for Jake from me.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • kyle-rb 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I just don't want Google adding extra tracking, I don't mind if they stop your friend Jake from tracking me.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • wnc3141 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Such is the issue with any business connected to a single large and private infrastructure provider. Of course this is, in part, why we have anti-trust laws.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • judge2020 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Is there a write up examining the replacement (cohorts I guess) and showing how it is worse for user privacy?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • shadowgovt 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        It's arguably not, depending on how you slice "worse."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Google's philosophy on this sort of thing has been pretty consistent for over a decade: they trust themselves with user data. It goes in a vault, it's very hard to access inappropriately, and they have some of the best security possible on the modern web. Practically speaking, yes, it's still a risk; if the data collections get breached, that's all the data. But they don't see themselves as more of a risk than anything else out there, so for them it's not philosophically inconsistent to claim other companies doing what they are doing should be considered a privacy threat.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        ... And honestly, I think there's a good case to be made that if you don't trust Google to respect your privacy and secure your data, You shouldn't be using Chrome period, because the organization you don't trust controls the source code of that browser.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • judge2020 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I guess my question is: how is Google getting that data now? Is FLoC or Topics beamed to Google ad preferences? Is it included in chrome sync?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • matheusmoreira 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Sounds great. Now we just need to figure out a way to stop Google instead of Google and numerous other surveillance capitalism corporations.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        >this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        This is factually incorrect. It works like third party cookies, but with privacy. A web page can only retrieve a topic if that site has already observe you visit pages of that topic. In order for you to observe a site that site must send a fetch request to you or embed you in an iframe.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        If a random site calls document.browsingTopics() they get no topics as not enough data has been observed by them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • joobus 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I wonder how Brave and Microsoft Edge will handle this change. Are they also going to ship this "feature"?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • dylan604 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Everything I'm seeing is that it is Chrome doing this, not Chromium. If the Googs decides to add features on top of Chromium in its Chrome release, that does not mean that other Chromium based browsers will have those changes automatically as well. It totally makes sense to me that Googs would not want these in the base Chromium as it's the secret sauce just for the Googs
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • charcircuit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The code for it is included with Chromium. Responsibly phasing out 3rd party cookies is important for the whole ecosystem.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:com...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • joobus 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I would think Google would want this in Brave and Edge also. Google will want to advertise to the users of these browsers even though they aren't using Chrome.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • dylan604 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Then why are the articles not saying Chromium and specifying Chrome? Has Chrome become the new Kleenex/Xerox/Rollerblade?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • phendrenad2 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Microsoft will probably redirect it to their own servers. Brave will probably disable it. It's not hard.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • hobobaggins 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Right now third-party cookies are blocked in Brave, so they'll probably also block this as well, but it remains to be seen. (I avoid Edge)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • kumarvvr 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Microsoft has much more data about you, that just what can be gleamed from the browser.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      It doesn't matter if edge does not have this "feature".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Microsoft can simply scan documents on your PC.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • bluedays 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Jokes on you, I don’t use Windows
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • doublepg23 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      My friend who was the biggest Google evangelist 10yrs ago who went through a round of interviews there (stellar Kotlin programmer) has completely written off the company after this announcement some months ago.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      He's committed to deGoogling his life now and is even migrating off Gmail this weekend - I think I'll be joining him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        As someone who has left, let me try to help.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Nextcloud

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Syncthing

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Bitwarden

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Aegis

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        GrapheneOS

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        F-Droid

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        ntfy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        NewPipe

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Signal

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Stop using email or do custom domain + some service. Sync locally with Thunderbird or whatever you like.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • Gustomaximus 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The silver lining is maybe we can return to the days of browser wars. Chrome came out of nowhere to win this and it seemed to dial down in prominance.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Would be great to see more attention being brought to the independent browsers: Firefox, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi etc

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Not sure if we are there yet, but seems we are heading that direction.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • asadotzler 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi are just Chromium with an extension or two added and a Chrome feature or two disabled. They're not legitimate browser competition.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            There are only 3 real browsers today that meaningfully compete and control their own destiny: Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Everything else is mostly just a fresh coat of paint on one of those browsers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Apple, which owns Safari, is the largest company in the world. Alphabet, which owns Chrome, is the 4th or 5th largest company in the world.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Mozilla is a small non-profit that exists to provide meaningful choice. Those others are small businesses trying to make a buck riding Google's treadmill or surfing their wake.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • imiric 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              What makes you think Chrome's market share will decrease? Google has a strong hold of their position, and other browsers are barely competing.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              If anything, it wouldn't surprise me if Mozilla announces that they're discontinuing Firefox. Those alternative browsers you mention don't even register on the usage radar to be relevant in a browser "war".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Everything seems to indicate that we're heading towards an even worse single-browser dominance than IE had in the 90s.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • slashtab 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                You shouldn't be suggesting Opera. Opera is full of Chinese foot print.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • jlarocco 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I still miss the original Opera browser.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  It was lightweight and fast, but still managed to have a built-in mail client, RSS reader, and IRC client.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  All with a consistent and clean UI that treated the user like an adult. Maybe I'm just old, but I hate the flat "everything looks like a webpage" UIs in today's browsers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • asadotzler 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    That's not the original Opera. That's middle-aged Opera at best, maybe even over the hill Opera.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I was there for nearly all of it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I first played with the original Opera when it came out of beta in '96, as an attempt at an alternative to my regulars of Netscape and Thomas Bruce's Cello. It had none of that email or RSS or IRC, just a clean and simple MDI browsing experience.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    It was great. By '97 and '98, their capabilities (they added JS, cookies, and image blocking) and performance were solid enough that Opera became my primary browser.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Opera, during '98 and '99, was absolutely the best browser UX around, for me anyway. MDI made up for Windows 95's and later 98's windowing UI which never anticipated that users might have dozens of web pages open at once completely destroying the utility of the Taskbar.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Opera's MDI, like Excel's MDI had done for accountants a decade earlier, was great for "power users" like me, while everyone else making browsers (mostly Netscape and Microsoft but there were a few others) seemed to be targeting newbies or "the enterprise". (The Web was early then, and bringing in new people faster than just about any tech had ever done before, but it didn't have much of the value it does today, so I guess it was reasonable to target new and casual users on the road to critical mass, but after MDI there was almost no going back for me.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Opera 4, in mid 2000, soon after I joined staff@mozilla.org to help lead the Mozilla project, was the last version I used with any regularity, mostly because I really disliked the redesign and they began cluttering things with each new release while I was trying to convince Mozilla to do the opposite and simplify.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Opera did introduce an MDI switching toolbar then, which is sort of like tabs but really isn't, and that was a good step. But I'd used an actual tabbed browser in the late 90s on occasion, Adam Stiles' Netcaptor, and Opera's MDI toolbar wasn't that. It helped the MDI experience some, but it didn't transform it into tabbed browsing in any meaningful way.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Then Opera 5 introduced the banner ad later that year, just as Mozilla's browser component from the larger internet suite was starting to get decent, good enough that I stopped calling myself an Opera user/fan/booster and started identifying as a Mozilla user.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    (The integrated search box on the Opera 5 toolbar did inspire us though, so about a year later we put one in the young Firefox toolbar.)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I checked in with most new Opera releases for many years, but by 2002 Blake and I were deep into working on Firefox and so I was able to help design in some of Opera's earlier simplicity, but with tabs rather than MDI. Rather than wait for Opera to get things back on track, I simply started building the browser I wanted with Firefox.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    By the time Opera added email in 2003 and RSS and IRC in 2004, Opera was 8 and 9 years old. Jón S. von Tetzchner's original Opera browser was EOL in 2012 when Presto got cancelled, and was probably dead a year earlier when Jón was forced out (and perhaps even a year before that, when he stepped down as CEO) so yeah, email and RSS and IRC are almost exactly mid-life features in my book. Considering that Opera never recovered after those features were added suggests it was probably over the hill already. Today, and for the last 7 years or so, Opera is little more than a Chinese equity firm's mostly meaningless plaything.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • ColinWright 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I use Firefox almost exclusively, and have done for years. But there are sites that only work with Chrome. So far I've always either:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (a) Ignored them, or

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (b) Used an incognito window.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                But now, when I'm forced to use Chrome, I'm seriously looking at disguising my IP address, etc. But this is not my field.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Would a VPN do what I need? Where are instructions that a n00b can follow?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Every site I've found so far has either been:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (i) Advertising;

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (ii) Assuming too much competence;

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (iii) Out of date, or

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                (iv) Wrong.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Clear, robust, and up-to-date advice welcome, as I'm sure it would be for many.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • sah2ed 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  > But this is not my field.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  > Would a VPN do what I need? Where are instructions that a n00b can follow?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Never used them myself but lots of HN commenters think highly of the VPN services offered by Mullvad [0]. In fact, right now, Mullvad is currently on the HN frontpage [1], from a blog post by Tailscale.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  0: https://mullvad.net/en

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37420053

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • chatmasta 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Disable it here: chrome://settings/adPrivacy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  (for now)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • quickthrower2 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Time to uninstall chrome! I keep it around just incase but nah.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • midoridensha 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    For almost all the times when you really need Chrome because Firefox doesn't work, Chromium will work just fine. You probably don't need Chrome.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • Calamitous 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Out of curiousity, what do you use instead?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • bigyikes 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Not the OP, but I use Safari on my personal devices, or Firefox if I have to use Windows. The efficiency of Safari is unbeatable, and I prefer its UX.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I also use Kagi instead of Google search.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • sdm 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Firefox -- faster, better feature like container tabs, more secure and more private
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • hobobaggins 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Brave, Firefox, or Vivaldi.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • 0x49d1 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Vivaldi's team made a statement on the matter:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-viva...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Shortly: they disable the tracking forcibly, even if "someone" tries to enable it remotely or via flags.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • Schnitz 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I’ve been waiting for years for Safari to support multiple profiles so I can have a work and personal profile, instead of using Chrome for work. Finally this year we’re getting that, goodbye chrome, it’s been a fun 10 years. Unfortunately Chrome turned into a bloated mess over time, even before this news I was waiting to switch.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • mattxxx 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Glad this is getting press!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Google was playing 3D chess when they started developing Chrome, and when they started making moves to strip away things like user agent strings, they were really just making the final moves of a campaign set years before to create a walled garden of ads data.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • darrmit 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              As much as I hate what Google has done with Chrome and I choose not to use it, the comparisons to the IE6-8 dominance are even more acute when you consider that Chrome is also successful in the enterprise due to its support for both typical group policy/Mobile Device Management configuration as well as its integration into Google Workspace.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Edit: I had initially said “dominant” in the enterprise, but I imagine that title still goes to Edge?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              It would be impressive if it wasn’t so depressing and gross.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • Timber-6539 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Not that am in support of Google's ad model or use Chrome with defaults but I would personally take this over 3rd party cookies given the choice.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • hef19898 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  How about, well, just neither?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • Timber-6539 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Depends on your situation.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • hef19898 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      How so? I still fail to see any benefit for me from being spied on by the likes of Google only to show me adds that, despite all the profilong they do, fail to have any relevance for me. And browser choice is still up to me.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      If Google and Chrome are mandatory for work, well, tough luck. But I do have the feeling that the enterprise versions are much less intrusive. And even if, I never do private stuff at my work machines and devices anyway.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • JohnBooty 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Congratulations to everybody who's been working overtime to simp for Chrome for so long.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Firefox has had its ups and downs, but it and its progenitors have been great daily drivers for me over 20 years now. It's not too late. The best time to switch was, well, forever ago -- but today is also a great time to switch. Get on the fucking bus.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    "Part III. Put Users First; the Rest Will Follow

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Like most companies, Google has a mission statement or "philosophy." Google's philosophy is divided into 10 points; each point is one sentence long. The first and most interesting is quoted in the title of this part of the book. Unlike most corporate mission statements, this phrase did not come about through long committee discussions: This statement is Larry Page's mantra. Early on, when people asked him about financing his projects, he always replied with something like, "Don't worry about it. If our users are satisfied, if we give them all they want and more, we'll be able to find some money.""

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-google-way/97815932...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • imgabe 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Switched to Firefox years ago. Hopefully now more people will.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • turtleyacht 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Wonder if there is a "Gentoo for browsers," where you specify certain parts of the stack: layout engine, HTTP engine (cURL), JS engine (V8, none) and conveniences (password management, bookmarks), and the script builds it for you.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The conceit is the ability to view responses as nodes in a graph, and laying filters on top. The tradeoff for performance being introspection and control.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • raydiatian 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          So stop using chrome. Tell your CTO that your engineer department no longer wants to develop for chrome as the primary web app target.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • savingsPossible 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            In what sense did google 'get its way'? Was there some legal attempt to stop them that they somehow defeated?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • ultimoo 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I stopped using Chrome and uninstalled it from all my devices a year ago. It was hard at first, but you get used to other browsers pretty quickly (took me two weeks). Safari on macOS works like a champ, and if I'm doing web development I switch to Firefox which has excellent developer tools (remember firebug?)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • Unfrozen0688 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Using Firefox or Brave mostly now, good to have another article to use against Chrome. Not to mention MS Edge...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • hooby 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I'm wondering about the "now".

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Didn't the very initial release of Chrome, many years ago, already create a unique, identifiable ID per user, and open a connection to phone home to Google servers (using that unique ID) on every single key-press and mouse click done anywhere in the browser?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • mwinatschek 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I just want to say that I’m glad Apple does the exact opposite with Safari of what hostile things Google, Microsoft, and sometimes even Mozilla do to their browsers. Call me an Apple fanboy all day long but they proved for years that they care about speed, privacy, and even simplicity.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • tapatio 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      "Do no evil". What a joke.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • clouddrover 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The solution is simple: use Firefox.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • emmanueloga_ 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I found about https://librewolf.net/ from a web search. Has anyone here tried it or can recommend any other alternative firefox build without telemetry?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • maxslch 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          lol just updated my chrome before I saw this, I instantly got what it's about and didn't allow, why would I want any ads at all, I have a blocker, it doesn't matter, but that's sneaky from them and unhumane to push for that.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • Gud 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Why do people still use Chrome? I can kind of understand Google search, Gmail and Maps(though search kind of sucks nowadays), but chrome is turning into one of the most user hostile pieces of software.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • mcv 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              And there are perfectly fine alternatives that do not sacrifice features or convenience in the slightest. I don't see a legitimate use case for Chrome.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • jononomo 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I like the Brave browser, but it is based on Chromium -- how badly is it affected?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Should I just restrict myself to Safari now? I don't really like Firefox for some reason.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • yoyohello13 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Firefox.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • timw4mail 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  And how is Chrome not the new Internet Explorer?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • recursive 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Because it's been less than 6 years since the last Chrome update. Probably less than 6 weeks even.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I'm not a fan of Chrome though. But the problems with Chrome are not identical to the problems of IE.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • rhaway84773 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Because Firefox exists. And anyone can use Chromium to compete with Chrome fairly rapidly.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      It’s not the new IE. In my mind it’s worse than the new IE because it achieves similar goals as the IE abuse but without necessarily doing anything illegal.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • netdoll 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Mozilla and Opera existed at the time, as well as a bountiful amount of IE shells which essentially acted as the Chromium derivative equivalents. Outside of Chrome (technically) shipping the same binaries across all the platforms it supports, and using scope creep in a more subtle way compared to 90s-era IE, I don't see how the situation is materially different between now and then.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • rhaway84773 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          This is not exactly right. Netscape Navigator was the original browser. Microsoft invested a lot of money to bring IE up to par and exceed Netscape’s capabilities. And once they wiped out Netscape they coasted and used IE as a Trojan horse to control the web. It was after IE6’s stagnation that Firefox was spun out of Netscape and took some time to compete. Firefox was first released in 2004 and IE6 in 2001. Opera which had been around was proprietary. To the extent they were interested in making the internet a better place it was only to serve their company interests.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Thars very different from the situation we have now where Firefox is well known and open source, and even Chromium’s open source so it can be leveraged by better stewards of the internet.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Don’t get me wrong. My argument is not that Google is better than Microsoft. My argument is simply that the situation we’re facing right now is very different from the IE era. If anything, I’m arguing that the Chrome era is worse because of how much more insidious Google’s actions are.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It was easy for the EU to essentially eliminate the IE threat by forcing MS to unbundle IE and for Firefox (and later chrome) to replace IE purely on the basis of providing a better software. Replacing Chrome on the other hand is a very different kind of problem that is possibly much harder.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • imiric 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Firefox is barely surviving. Skinning Chromium hardly counts as competing with Chrome.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I agree with you that Chrome is even worse than IE ever was. Mostly because Google is much smarter than MS was when it comes to ensuring market dominance. It will be much harder to dethrone Google, simply because Chrome is a much better product.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • dylan604 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Because the new Internet Explorer is Chrome-wannabe
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • wernercd 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Chrome is not baked into the operating system.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • oldmanhorton 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Maybe not yours, but it's baked into the operating systems used by billions of phones (Android) and millions of kids/others with generally lower tech literacy who may not have great context on the privacy implications of these changes (ChromeOS)?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • tikimcfee 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Just… just stop using google.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Stop.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Stop excusing it. “It’s work. It’s my hobby. I like it. But I can make it work.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Just stop. It’s only hard because you think you’re in this world technology that’s more important than you as a human.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Uninstall chrome. Tell others to do it. Tell others why. Tell others the lies, deceit, marginalization, and corruption. And then don’t participate.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • RagnarD 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Any thoughts on pros and cons of usung Brave browser on iOS?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              • otabdeveloper4 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Um, sweety, Chrome is the user-tracking ad platform.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                • sizzle 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Beginning of the end
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Hey guys, please stop giving market share to Chrome. Firefox is not only an objectively better browser but you're supporting an open web instead of a terrifying data behemoth.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • mirkodrummer 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I think here on hn many people us Firefox, with Chrome as backup for institutional sites that won’t work on FF(at least it’s the case for me). Or other alternativies or all of them interchangeably based on purpose. What makes the real market share is the rest of world outside of hn
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      • reacharavindh 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        It is really hard to fight the advertising and luring of The Google machine. I never mind being annoying to my friends and relatives and talk about how Firefox is a safer and better alternative. People are often surprised that a choice even exists. To many just outside my circle, browser == Chrome , mail == Gmail, phone == Android, maps == Google Maps, payment solution == Gpay, and instant communication == WhatsApp.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        It is hard to beat free.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        My own 74 year old dad says.. be practical, I don’t care if Google wants to profile me as a 74 year old man interested in watching my regional language news and religious videos. Nor do I care if Google knows that I spend the little retirement money of mine buying these medicines or paying for the taxis. They can try targeting ads to me all they want, but good luck to them, I’m not going to book an expensive holiday in the Himalayas, nor am I going to buy something I don’t want to buy. I just want something that works in a way I have gotten used to. I don’t want change at my age.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I can sympathize with his argument. I just wish young people don’t find an argument like his..

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        We have regulations preventing some rich dude flooding the market with free product to gain a monopoly and then charge exorbitant prices. Why not the same for digital services in this internet age? I wish we regulated internet services the same way. No “free” email, chat, social services paid for by creepy ad companies. The real cost of these services at the scale of the number of users is minuscule anyway. The field Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple plays at should be leveled for new competition - that is a Government’s duty to enable.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • goku12 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The biggest issue isn't that behemoth companies will try to do bad things. It's in their nature to do as much as they can get away with - even illegal ones - even at a short term loss. The biggest problem is apathy from others. Freedom isn't guaranteed - it's something you always have to fight to protect. It's not a choice.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > They can try targeting ads to me all they want, but good luck to them, I’m not going to book an expensive holiday in the Himalayas

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I don't know if this argument is deliberately understating the issue. I'm going to assume it's not. The real cost of pervasive tracking and ad isn't forcing you to buy something. It's much deeper - like increased insurance premiums, denied insurance (based on data that insurance companies buy from data brokers), locked down and unrepairable devices (to force you to consume ads), massive scale political manipulation (like in case of FB and CA), suppression of labor rights and free-market employment (based on racial profiling, search trend analysis etc) and similar. It's going to cost you more than a ticket to the Himalayas - it's just not very obvious.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          > Why not the same for digital services in this internet age?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It isn't hard for large companies to capture regulatory bodies. It isn't even effective in open market or even in cases where lives are at stake (recent cases of air crashes is an example). No regulatory body or the government is going to protect your rights unless you demand it. It's their duty, but it isn't going to happen without your insistence.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I can understand how such fights can be very tiring. However, dissuading others is irresponsible. Everyone has the right to ask for a non-dystopian future.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            I know you understand this but Google doesn't care about the data insofar as they can sell it to the highest bidder in their literal real-time ad placement auctions. 4th and 5th parties are using thousands of behavioral signals to influence the reality that your father consumes in his regional language news and religious videos over years and decades.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • onthecanposting 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Firefox is mostly paid for by Google, so I wouldn't suspect it's a threat to their goals. I think a 'dumb' protocol or partition of the web might be the best we can do.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        • jsnell 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          • sharts 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            People hate on Google yet...continue to use their services and want to work there. Therefore, people do not disapprove.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            • phendrenad2 1 year ago
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Perhaps those are mutually-exclusive groups of people.