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We, the consumers, have to make trade-offs. For example, Chrome sends your browsing habits back to Google who uses that data to "personalize" other services. I

by mfer 8y ago

We, the consumers, have to make trade-offs. For example, Chrome sends your browsing habits back to Google who uses that data to "personalize" other services. I think of ads when I see this. I wouldn't be surprised if using chrome caused google to get data on unreleased projects, corporate networks, and other bits leaked to them. I wonder how they use it. In any case, you trade one risk for another. Different people are going to evaluate those differently. I do like more disclosure to help people decide all around.

MBCook 8y ago
Consumers are not in a position to make informed choices about the security implications of the way a browser is implemented.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Frankly the idea of consumers making informed choice is hogwash from end to end. Either we do so on whims, or we pick whatever is in front of us because we can't go another day without. Neither allows for "informed" decisions in the sense the economics textbooks present.
  - oblio 8y ago
    Even if we study: I can only devote X hours per product while your average company has one or several full time company that know the market much better than I do and are also probably working on way to trick me, one way or another. It’s not a fair fight.
d1zzy 8y ago
You can always use Chromium (premade build or make your own build), get the benefits of Chrome's security without the potential tracking. Also, AFAIK Chrome doesn't send anything to Google if you disable corresponding options, I think the only thing that cannot be disabled is sending an unique installation ID when you first install it (so that they can track number of installations). Do you have some data on Chrome doing more than that which cannot be disabled from settings?
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > You can always use Chromium (premade build or make your own build), get the benefits of Chrome's security without the potential tracking. My understanding is that statement is false; let's be careful not to mislead people about these issues. And in that spirit, I should make clear that my understanding is based only on the following, not on direct knowledge: * The ungoogled-chromium project, which aims to remove from Chromium the privacy threats from Google: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium A number of features or background services communicate with Google servers despite the absence of an associated Google account or compiled-in Google API keys. Furthermore, the normal build process for Chromium involves running Google's own high-level commands that invoke many scripts and utilities, some of which download and use pre-built binaries provided by Google. Even the final build output includes some pre-built binaries. * There's also the Inox patchset, with similar aims: https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset Inox patchset is applied on the chromium source code and tries to prevent data transmission to Google to get a minimal Chromium based browser * And finally, Iridium, a browser based on Chromium: https://iridiumbrowser.de/ https://iridiumbrowser.de/ Chromium (which Iridium is based on) is a very secure browser, yes. But it does call home to Google and we did even more to enhance security to the maximum extent possible.

by mfer 8y ago

MBCook 8y ago

Consumers are not in a position to make informed choices about the security implications of the way a browser is implemented.

digi_owl 8y ago
Frankly the idea of consumers making informed choice is hogwash from end to end. Either we do so on whims, or we pick whatever is in front of us because we can't go another day without. Neither allows for "informed" decisions in the sense the economics textbooks present.
- oblio 8y ago
  Even if we study: I can only devote X hours per product while your average company has one or several full time company that know the market much better than I do and are also probably working on way to trick me, one way or another. It’s not a fair fight.

d1zzy 8y ago

You can always use Chromium (premade build or make your own build), get the benefits of Chrome's security without the potential tracking. Also, AFAIK Chrome doesn't send anything to Google if you disable corresponding options, I think the only thing that cannot be disabled is sending an unique installation ID when you first install it (so that they can track number of installations). Do you have some data on Chrome doing more than that which cannot be disabled from settings?

forapurpose 8y ago
> You can always use Chromium (premade build or make your own build), get the benefits of Chrome's security without the potential tracking. My understanding is that statement is false; let's be careful not to mislead people about these issues. And in that spirit, I should make clear that my understanding is based only on the following, not on direct knowledge: * The ungoogled-chromium project, which aims to remove from Chromium the privacy threats from Google: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium A number of features or background services communicate with Google servers despite the absence of an associated Google account or compiled-in Google API keys. Furthermore, the normal build process for Chromium involves running Google's own high-level commands that invoke many scripts and utilities, some of which download and use pre-built binaries provided by Google. Even the final build output includes some pre-built binaries. * There's also the Inox patchset, with similar aims: https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset Inox patchset is applied on the chromium source code and tries to prevent data transmission to Google to get a minimal Chromium based browser * And finally, Iridium, a browser based on Chromium: https://iridiumbrowser.de/ https://iridiumbrowser.de/ Chromium (which Iridium is based on) is a very secure browser, yes. But it does call home to Google and we did even more to enhance security to the maximum extent possible.