4 ms·

>Unlike IE and FireFox and Safari it comes from a company that is notorious for wanting to know everything about you. That's not true. Microsoft has now gotte

>Unlike IE and FireFox and Safari it comes from a company that is notorious for wanting to know everything about you. That's not true. Microsoft has now gotten into the spying business, and is infamous for the Windows 10 telemetry. They're basically copying Google. Firefox and Safari are the only ones that come from companies that aren't notorious for wanting to know everything about you. And Firefox doesn't try to get you to spend scads of money on massively overpriced but mediocre hardware that locks you into their ecosystem. Firefox has its warts, but it's the only choice that really makes sense if you care about privacy and freedom and avoiding vendor lock-in.

MBCook 9y ago
I see telemetry as fundamentally different from the kind of data that you want to use to push advertising to people.
- imron 9y ago
  So you think the telemetry is not going to help with things like this? https://www.extremetech.com/computing/245553-microsoft-now-puts-ads-windows-file-explorer https://www.extremetech.com/computing/245553-microsoft-now-p...
  - sp332 9y ago
    They seem to have sent that to everyone, so there's no targeting, and telemetry won't make a difference.
    - yuhong 9y ago
      And even if it did it would be probably separate from for example SQM.
- _jal 9y ago
  There is no clear line to be drawn between the two, and it really depends on the use to which the data is put, something that's opaque to end users. Sure, error reporting feeding in to a QA database is one thing. But is there the capability to target Win10 OS ads to, say, folks with old video cards? I'd be very surprised if someone in Redmond didn't think of that.
  - yuhong 9y ago
    That being said, I do believe that currently SQM is separate from ad tracking and crash reporting for example.
themihai 9y ago
Firefox sends the DOM hashes to Google just like Chrome.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Can you explain this? I've never heard of "DOM hashes" before.
  - acqq 9y ago
    Not "DOM" but a hashes of the URL or a part of it, to check if the domain or URL is "safe." Also downloads are checked. And AFAIK it's more nuanced, there's also a database that can be checked and allow "offline" checks. But it would still be interesting to find one independent serious analysis of the behavior.
    - themihai 9y ago
      Actually it sends the DOM model too. It's named client side detection. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403
  - themihai 9y ago
    It's named client side detection and it sends the DOM model(actually hashes of it) to Google. I found about it on HN too. Obviously you may check FF/Chrome source too. I would love to be proven wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403
- st3fan 9y ago
  Can you please explain this in more detail? Ideally with an example request that you see? (I highly doubt that there is any truth to this claim)
  - helb 9y ago
    I think they were referring to https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing … which uses safebrowsing.google.com, but doesn't send any "DOM hashes" to them.

MBCook 9y ago

I see telemetry as fundamentally different from the kind of data that you want to use to push advertising to people.

imron 9y ago
So you think the telemetry is not going to help with things like this? https://www.extremetech.com/computing/245553-microsoft-now-puts-ads-windows-file-explorer https://www.extremetech.com/computing/245553-microsoft-now-p...
- sp332 9y ago
  They seem to have sent that to everyone, so there's no targeting, and telemetry won't make a difference.
  - yuhong 9y ago
    And even if it did it would be probably separate from for example SQM.
_jal 9y ago
There is no clear line to be drawn between the two, and it really depends on the use to which the data is put, something that's opaque to end users. Sure, error reporting feeding in to a QA database is one thing. But is there the capability to target Win10 OS ads to, say, folks with old video cards? I'd be very surprised if someone in Redmond didn't think of that.
- yuhong 9y ago
  That being said, I do believe that currently SQM is separate from ad tracking and crash reporting for example.

themihai 9y ago

Firefox sends the DOM hashes to Google just like Chrome.

majewsky 9y ago
Can you explain this? I've never heard of "DOM hashes" before.
- acqq 9y ago
  Not "DOM" but a hashes of the URL or a part of it, to check if the domain or URL is "safe." Also downloads are checked. And AFAIK it's more nuanced, there's also a database that can be checked and allow "offline" checks. But it would still be interesting to find one independent serious analysis of the behavior.
  - themihai 9y ago
    Actually it sends the DOM model too. It's named client side detection. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403
- themihai 9y ago
  It's named client side detection and it sends the DOM model(actually hashes of it) to Google. I found about it on HN too. Obviously you may check FF/Chrome source too. I would love to be proven wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971403
st3fan 9y ago
Can you please explain this in more detail? Ideally with an example request that you see? (I highly doubt that there is any truth to this claim)
- helb 9y ago
  I think they were referring to https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing … which uses safebrowsing.google.com, but doesn't send any "DOM hashes" to them.