29 ms·

Why I’m done with Chrome

• hyperpape 8y ago
  I agree with Matthew that the supposed problem this is solving doesn't seem to be an issue for the case where no one is logged in to Chrome. In addition it seems to me as if it has a non-invasive solution: If A is signed in to Chrome, and the user then signs into gmail as B, sign A out of Chrome, perhaps with a notification telling them what to do.
  • codethief 8y ago
    Exactly! I'm really surprised they didn't think of this…
• 0xmohit 8y ago
  Yesterday, news broke that Google has been stealth downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google. Effectively, this means that Google had taken itself the right to listen to every conversation in every room that runs Chrome somewhere, without any kind of consent from the people eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off the practice with what amounts to “we can do that”. Source: Google Chrome Listening In To Your Room Shows The Importance Of Privacy Defense In Depth https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google-chrome-listening-in-to-your-room-shows-the-importance-of-privacy-defense-in-depth/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google-ch...
  • allenz 8y ago
    "Listening in" is inaccurate. "Ok Google" was opt-in only, and did not record users without consent. Chromium downloaded but didn't run the binary blob. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409 including Google's perspective: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9735795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9735795
    • bordercases 8y ago
      Why download it in the first place?
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • CydeWeys 8y ago
        A mistaken include in a build file, most likely. I've removed all sorts of dumb stuff slowing down the build that was included by accident or unnecessarily on my project at work. Never attribute to malice ...
        • craftyguy 8y ago
          > A mistaken include in a build file, most likely. Yea, "whoops we accidentally downloaded a surveillance device on your system!"... If that sort of negligence can happen, what else is the browser currently doing, or capable of doing in the future, "accidentally"?
          • allenz 8y ago
            It was an intentional download so that Chromium users could use "Ok Google".
            • craftyguy 8y ago
              Even worse, though the comments I was replying to seem to indicate that you are wrong?
              • allenz 8y ago
                craftyguy was just speculating. "Chromium does download hotword-x86-64.nexe on startup, but it has been carefully designed as an opt-in feature" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9735795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9735795
  • ourcat 8y ago
    I always have my sound input/mic levels set to zero in settings. They can't bypass that.
    • JoshMnem 8y ago
      I think they could do that if they wanted, if you're entering your root password during the install.
• jcims 8y ago
  I’m a partially savvy user and was surprised when I went to view my recent tabs on (the new) Chrome for iOS and it has my recent desktop tabs on as well. Unsettling.
• sarcasmOrTears 8y ago
  Thank God we have the GDPR protecting us from evil corporations, oh my god I love the EU
  • kryptiskt 8y ago
    The EU at least have slapped Google with some modest fines. Hopefully their Chrome nonsense will get them one as well.
    • bbcbasic 8y ago
      Deckchairs at the Costa Doing Business.
• aphextron 8y ago
  So I wanted to drop Chrome a while ago, and looked at Chromium. Apparently using the "no sync" version you can no longer even log into Gmail (or any other Google service) on the web. That was definitely the last straw for me losing trust in Google, but there's just no good alternative. I'm not sure where to go from here because it seems pointless to even use Chromium if I can't remove Google from it and still be able to login to Gmail.
  • inferiorhuman 8y ago
    Maybe you should ditch Gmail instead?
    • reaperducer 8y ago
      Maybe you should ditch Gmail instead? I'm thinking about doing that. The single reason I started with GMail was because at the time, it had the best spam filter in the industry. But that was years ago. Has everyone else caught up? Is there another option with equally good spam filtering?
      • 0xmohit 8y ago
        It appears that GMail addresses attract more spam. IMO, options like ProtonMail are much better. A service that isn't free but doesn't exploit users in order to make $$ ought to be a better option.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • inferiorhuman 8y ago
        I used to self-host because I could run really strict spam filtering. Unfortunately Sonic dropped their plans to offer static IPs and reverse DNS with their fiber products so I'm stuck with using their servers as a smarthost at least. Can't say I enjoy it (especially with their all-day outage this week), but it does give me a chance to at least easily run aggressive spamassasin filters.
• zbrozek 8y ago
  I engaged with the folks pushing this feature internally when my own browser started enforcing omnidirectional login. One of my specific complaints was that it was an end-run around the user-provided sync passphrase, which nominally prevents Google from hoovering up my logged-out history. They didn't grok my privacy issue. Maybe they were deliberately misunderstanding me. Doesn't matter either way. Now I use Firefox.
  • brian-armstrong 8y ago
    Google's culture breeds internal arrogance and blindness to outside concerns. Arguing with Google people about issues with their products is approximately as effective as arguing with a brick wall.
    • discordianfish 8y ago
      That’s unfortunately even true years after they left Google.
    • Endy 8y ago
      No, a brick wall doesn't stare at you blankly. Nor does it argue back arrogantly and defy you that whatever Google wants is best.
      • ethbro 8y ago
        I stopped using Chrome when I wanted to have downloads automatically save to the desktop (no dialog). Turned out, there was a 2 year old open bug on the missing feature, in which Google UX engineers repeatedly argued allowing the save location to be changed was counter to the desired user experience. I switched to Firefox the next day and haven't touched Chrome since.
        • Stratoscope 8y ago
          Was that a long time ago? Chrome has supported the option of a fixed download location for many years. I don't remember it ever not having that option, in all the time I've used it.
• brian-armstrong 8y ago
  Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now. I've been using it again for about 2 years and haven't regretted it at all. There have been a couple of weird feature hiccups but generally Mozilla seems to get things right.
  • ferongr 8y ago
    >Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now I've been seeing people repeat that for the past 5 years. It turns out to be false though.
    • nAwYz 8y ago
      Could you elaborate in this?
      • ktta 8y ago
        My opinion is that the UX is no where near as polished. The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago, and subtler things that are just given thought to because there seem to be dedicated UI/UX designer on the chrome team.
        • chinhodado 8y ago
          > The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago It's actually a selling point for me, I just can't stomach all the material design craps that Chrome forces on me where a page lost like 70% of usable space to useless whitespace.
          • andrepd 8y ago
            I agree with both of you, really, both interfaces are shit. Chrome has that hideous whitespace that's wasteful even for touch interfaces, let alone for mouse+keyboard, and Firefox has a cumbersome and too basic interface. I can't even do an advanced search on my bookmarks.
    • 8y ago
• Go0the0gophers 8y ago
  Brave browser is LGTM
  • rhizome 8y ago
    Is that a Rick and Morty reference?
    • eganist 8y ago
      It's a Google reference. LGTM is their approval acronym for change control. "Looks/looking good to me"
      • adtac 8y ago
        Huh, I didn't know it originated at Google. I thought it was just a code review thing.
      • mi_lk 8y ago
        Is it really a Google reference? Do you have any source for that?
        • eganist 8y ago
          Closest I've got: > While the story behind the coinage of LGTM remains murky at best, the earliest known use and explanation of the acronym can be traced to a feature summary of Google Mondrian, a peer-review software application for programmers, posted by Niall Kennedy[3] on November 30th, 2006. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lgtm?full=1 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lgtm?full=1
  • baal80spam 8y ago
    What does LGTM stand for?
    • grzm 8y ago
      Looks good to me.
• kris-s 8y ago
  Google is incentivized to do this, they make good money off of it. It’s boring and true. They’ll keep doing stuff like this until it reaches some publicly unacceptable limit. Until then use browsers like Firefox or Safari where the incentive to be creepy is far smaller.
  • aphextron 8y ago
    > They’ll keep doing stuff like this until it reaches some publicly unacceptable limit Which as we know from things like Facebook, that limit will never be reached. These things are far too opaque for the general public to understand or care about. Even we software engineers barely understand the scope of what Google is capable of. It's going to take a principled stance from within the industry to push back against the encroachment of these corporations on personal privacy.
    • lbriner 8y ago
      I'm not sure that's true. Facebook numbers have been falling for a while and I'm sure part of that is backlash over privacy abuses. https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-decline-instagram-snap-emarketer https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-use...
      • adjkant 8y ago
        And yet it's rising significantly when it comes to Instagram where they are employing the exact same business model.
    • MarkMc 8y ago
      > These things are far too opaque for the general public to understand or care about. Or perhaps your preference is a minority opinion, and most people will trade privacy for convenience even when fully informed and aware of Google's behavior
      • aphextron 8y ago
• 0x0 8y ago
  This + the screwup of hiding ".m." and ".www." substrings in URLs + the public threat of getting rid of URLs entirely = patience wearing very thin. Also, enabling webUSB and webMIDI by default earlier, both of which apparently unneccesarily exposed vulnerabilities makes me wonder who's in charge, marketing or security engineering?
  • albertgoeswoof 8y ago
    Well google is an ad company so you don’t need to wonder who’s in charge of their core products
  • strictnein 8y ago
    And this somewhat related bug, when you're in view-source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=882902&can=4&q=&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Stars%20ReleaseBlock%20Component%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=882902... Whoever was in charge of the updates to the URL bar seems to be lacking something. But at least the URL doesn't show "https://" https://" anymore, I guess?
  • na85 8y ago
    Marketing is in charge, of course. This has been abundantly clear for years if not from the outset.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• orbifold 8y ago
  At least on iOS and macOS I see no reason not to use Safari, Edge on Windows is pretty good too. Power users will stop recommending Chrome to the average user after these changes and over time market share will hopefully decline.
  • Chazprime 8y ago
    It’s tough to use Safari if you’re a web developer; Chrome tends to be better at rendering pages and in overall performance, as well as adopting features quicker than Apple.
    • r00fus 8y ago
      I just recently visited a site (afterschool program) that silently failed for me using Mac Chrome where Safari worked fine. All other assets other than the login form loaded making me wonder what I was missing. I almost missed a mandatory form that finally resolved by calling the number on the contact page. This is the sort of thing that used to be the other way around...
    • simplify 8y ago
      Performance may have been an issue years ago, but nowadays safari is just as fast and consistent at rendering. I use safari as my default now, including for web dev, and have chrome ready in the rare case I need it.
    • justinph 8y ago
      Web Developer here. I find Safari to be much faster than Chrome. I still use Chrome as my "work" browser due to the ecosystem of useful extensions (react, graphql, a11y, etc). But I close Chrome at 5pm, and when I need to do non-developer-y things, Safari is a much more pleasant experience (especially now that it has favicons).
  • colordrops 8y ago
    On Android, and desktop for that matter, Brave is a nice chrome fork with all the anti-privacy garbage stripped and a built in ad blocker.
• magicalist 8y ago
  > For all we know, the new approach has privacy implications even if sync is off. The Chrome developers claim that with “sync” off, a Chrome has no privacy implications. This might be true. But when pressed on the actual details, nobody seems quite sure. This seems more like, I'm being told the thing I'm worried about isn't happening, but I don't believe it. Which is fine, but not sure what's changed with what's being done, rather than a change making clearer what's possible (when signed into google, chrome has your google cookie). > For example, if I have my browser logged out, then I log in and turn on “sync”, does all my past (logged-out) data get pushed to Google? What happens if I’m forced to be logged in, and then subsequently turn on “sync”? Nobody can quite tell me if the data uploaded in these conditions is the same. These differences could really matter. Again, how is that possibility any different than before this change? It seems this is mostly a well intentioned (for a subset of chrome users) but poorly thought out UI change (giant blue button).
• mehrdadn 8y ago
  For now at least, there's this escape hatch: chrome://flags/#account-consistency Edit: Some are saying this doesn't work on Chrome 69. :(
  • colemickens 8y ago
    Maybe they've revised the flag, but the flag did not disable the feature as much as the text might lead you to believe. My comment from a couple weeks ago... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17943524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17943524
    • mehrdadn 8y ago
      Thanks for letting me know! For some reason I don't see that on my toolbar, though I haven't tried creating a new profile. I'm on Chrome 68 on Windows, if that might explain anything?
  • stefano 8y ago
    When you're looking for escape hatches, you know the software is working against you. At that point, it's better to move to an alternative browser, it's not worth it to fight it with hacks. If too many people use the escape hatch, they'll remove it.
    • mtgx 8y ago
      That was also my argument against all the "hacks" people posted online against Windows 10 tracking. Most of them were short-lived because Microsoft had an incentive to stop them from being used in the next update of Windows.
    • mehrdadn 8y ago
      I know. I was just trying to help another poor soul like myself in the interim of figuring out how to switch. For me at least, it's very nontrivial work.
    • SiVal 8y ago
      It seems as though the needed escape hatch is a browser that simply CAN'T send info about you back to home base. Firefox might qualify, but I don't know for sure, and I don't want that to be our only option. There's a lot of great engineering that goes into Chrome. So I'm wondering: Is enough code open sourced to make it possible for an organization such as Apache, GNU, or whatever, to create a sanitized fork of each new version of Chrome? This would be a version of Chrome with no privileged party other than its user. Every other party would be limited to the same set of features (cookies, local storage, etc.) that apply to all 2nd parties.
• vladletter 8y ago
  I just did the same because of this login shit. Long live Firefox.
• ExtremePopcorn 8y ago
  > DJB’s custom search engine I can't find anything on this, does anyone have more info?
  • jwilk 8y ago
    I guess it's a joke.
  • tcmb 8y ago
    Probably refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Bernstein#Secure_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Bernstein#Secure_sof.... Almost an inside joke for cryptologists.
• nautilus12 8y ago
  I stopped using chrome a long time ago because its user experience was horrible and it ate up all my computers memory. This would push me over the edge if I hadn't already gone there.
• arthurrichards 8y ago
  I use firefox and have an addon to specifically erase my google cookies when I close the browser. I don't see a problem with this new chrome feature. Ive seen users logging into eachothers browser gmail, maybe google is democratizing the info they collect so everyone can access it? :) Ill point to this again https://youbroketheinternet.org/trackedanyway https://youbroketheinternet.org/trackedanyway
  • b3n 8y ago
    Instead of erasing cookies, why not enable Firefox's first-party isolation?
    • arthurrichards 8y ago
      Great idea thank you
  • Brakenshire 8y ago
    The Mozilla container plugin is really good. Just set all google domains to automatically open in their own container. Takes 30 seconds to install and 30 seconds to set that configuration.
    • arthurrichards 8y ago
      This is nice but id rather not try and guess which domains they use, tho i suppose trying to guess cookies may pose a similar problem.
• ausjke 8y ago
  Just watched youtube on the newest chrome it immediately brought my PC to a near-freeze status with 2GB swapped to disk, unusable. Opened firefox and it worked smoothly. This started to occur recently, combining with the fact that each chrome tab needs about 120MB memory along, yes it is about time to be back to firefox
  • abecedarius 8y ago
    Related: the morning Chrome updated itself to 69, it went into spinny-beach-ball hell (I had a zillion tabs open, which hadn't been too many before). This mattered because I had a plane to catch, and info on my trip to review and save. It wasn't immediately obvious why it was suddenly unusable, the first workarounds I tried didn't help, and every step of trying things took a long time. (E.g. bookmark all tabs, close the window, and restart: now you're just back seeing the same zillion tabs, where in previous versions with my setup this would come back with an empty window.) OK, things change and we're kind of stuck going along for the sake of security updates, but going near-unusable at an important moment without obvious warning is a problem. (I'm looking at Firefox and Brave now too.)
• Teckla 8y ago
  I have a question for those people that don't like this change in behavior: Doesn't this change in behavior make things far less confusing for non-technical users?
  • prolikewh0a 8y ago
    If the power users can't figure it out, is it less confusing for non-technical users?
• mikedilger 8y ago
  I switched to firefox (linux) several years ago for my main browser and I couldn't be happer. I also run chromium when some webpage isn't working in firefox (rare) or when I need to use my companies LastPass account (I avoid LastPass in firefox because that plugin sucks balls), but I never use chromium for google services. I run all google services in a "google" multi-account container in firefox.
  • the_duke 8y ago
    Were you taking about the old plugin pre webextensions? Because I haven't noticed any difference between Chrome and FF extensions now.
    • mikedilger 8y ago
      No, I mean that I don't want the plugin operating unless I need it to be operating. And maybe the plugin is better now, but it used to agressively autofill my passwords into forms that were not password forms, and agressively ask me questions I did not want to be bothered answering.
• woranl 8y ago
  Forcing users to sign in to their browser is simply bad taste. Ever since Sundar Pichai became CEO, Google changed for the worst. It’s very unfortunate.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• mehrdadn 8y ago
  Edit: evidently this comment is unwanted, so I'm removing it.
  • chrisper 8y ago
    Corruption in which direction? Host or guest?
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • pembrook 8y ago
    That sounds like a delightful user experience for everyone.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • yorwba 8y ago
    Deleting the content of comments with replies is even less wanted.
• remote_phone 8y ago
  I log into my personal gmail and Facebook on Firefox and everything else on Chrome. I’ve been doing this for years now and I’m perfectly comfortable. For the most part I’ve forgotten about any differences between the two browsers.
  • rando444 8y ago
    If this is your strategy, you're going to also need to avoid google documents and signing into youtube.. and there's also the fact that at some point you need to ask yourself if Chrome is really great enough to warrant using multiple browsers when Firefox containers take care of everything privacy related for you.
    • magicbuzz 8y ago
      Using Brave for a bit will give you some perspective on what sort of things (e.g. location) are being requested whenever you hit a Google-related page.
• skndr 8y ago
  For those who've switched over to Firefox recently and find Youtube inexplicably slow, it's "because YouTube's Polymer redesign relies on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome." [0] The YouTube Classic extension will speed things up: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-classic/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-class... [0] https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021626510296285185 https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021626510296285185
  • pessimizer 8y ago
    I feel so stupid for not knowing this existed; thanks a lot.
  • boyter 8y ago
    Seems that the days of "Best viewed in browser X" have come back sadly.
    • Brakenshire 8y ago
      When you give a browser a 70% market share it will always start abusing its position. Same as last time.
      • majani 8y ago
        It's more of an OS issue here. Google doesn't view Android as a separate line of business. It's merely a moat for the search business. There's no way for an OS to be a moat for another business without abusing the OS.
      • SquareWheel 8y ago
        Microsoft left IE6 stagnant. They didn't "abuse their position" other than through inactivity. Google is actively involved in the standardization process, and moved Youtube over to a new API too prematurely (v0 of a spec). Now that v1 has been standardized, they're updating to that instead. These are opposite problems. Microsoft got complacent whereas Google moved too fast.
      • deleted 8y ago
• Chazprime 8y ago
  .
  • unstuckdev 8y ago
    It started at Stanford University and got its early funding from various tech people. Where did you hear otherwise?
    • colordrops 8y ago
      They and Facebook were also funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture fund.
• masswerk 8y ago
  Something, I missed in the article, is Chrome's background in WebKit. (Rather, it seems to convey the impression that this was an original project by Google.) Anyway, this may also directing us towards a viable alternative: A new, independent and cross-platform repackaging of WebKit2 / WebCore.
  • dannyw 8y ago
    Any problems with Safari?
    • masswerk 8y ago
      Webkit and Safari were meant synonymous, Webkit referring to the framework, Safari to the specific application packaging. On a practical level, it's been quite some time since Safari isn't cross-platform anymore. Also, it's fixed to a specific version of the operating system, which also applies to the open source Webkit release. I'd love to see an implementation with less external dependencies.
• Havoc 8y ago
  Between this and their shady browser in China I'm starting to think Google just starting to become straight up evil.
• swingline-747 8y ago
  Yeap. I left Firefox because it was slow. Now, Google wants everything. Plus, Chrome hogs all of CPU on relaunch now. With Quantum's Servo, I'm going to give FF another bite at the proverbial apple.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• swingline-747 8y ago
  It seems anti-competitive in historical Microsoft monopoly-regulated way with Google using GMail to give Chrome data.
• rad_gruchalski 8y ago
  These changes are really shocking. I’ve stopped using chrome a week ago for entirely different reasons and happy to hear one has managed to avoid sll this mess. I’m using 3 different gapos accounts, that would be some serious mess. Even if this change is reverted, I’m not going to switch back. By chrome, it was nice for a pretty long time.
• rumblestrut 8y ago
  I switched to Firefox after the recent Chrome update. It's awful.
• pg_bot 8y ago
  I want to switch to Firefox, but the developer tools simply do not work at all. Every time I try to use the console on the site that I'm working on, the tab freezes and everything just stops working. (This immediately happens, not after a period of working and then bugging out) If any representative from Mozilla wants to reach out, I would be glad to help you fix your software because we need better competition in this space. (email is in my profile) Current Firefox version: 63.0b8 OS: mac OS High Sierra (10.13.6 17G65)
  • rando444 8y ago
    You don't need developers to reach out to you, just file a bug report like a normal person. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
    • pg_bot 8y ago
      Have reported there before and have gotten no attention to any issues previously posted. In my experience bugzilla has been a black hole and reaching out via public channels is more effective at influencing change in an organization. I understand that you may think this is uncouth but letting other people know publicly why their product isn't being used is effective.
      • mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Try vacuuming the sqlite files, or make a fresh new profile.
  • jonathanyc 8y ago
    I’ve never seen this happen on any website, ever, and I’ve used the dev console on some pretty insane websites. Come up with minimal steps to reproduce and file a bug like a normal person, like the other comment suggests. People like me use Firefox for their paying job daily and somehow we still don’t find it beneath ourselves to file bugs.
    • 8y ago
• nwellnhof 8y ago
  Another surprising dark pattern related to Google logins is that in recent versions, it's basically impossible to log out from the Youtube Android app. It seems that Google is hell-bent on having everyone logged in to their services at all times.
• pimlottc 8y ago
  Another wrinkle with this: if your account is with a private G Suite instance, logging into the browser can have a profound effect since it will apply any management policies. This will probably be sold as a security enhancement - you can’t access your organizations data without active management (at least, if you’re using Chrome), but for users with access to multiple G Suite domains, this will become a real nuisance.
  • r00fus 8y ago
    Would multiple profile / personas help for this?
  • teddyfrozevelt 8y ago
    When I last had to do it, adding a managed G Suite account to Chrome warns the user that it will allow the browser to be controlled by the organization. It would make sense that this same warning would show up in this scenario.
  • stephenSinniah 8y ago
    So if you pay for a G-suite account it's safe to say google does not mine your data?
• suyash 8y ago
  I left Chrome years ago, now my main browser is Safari. Firefox is the most unsafe browser in my opinion.
  • adtac 8y ago
    Care to explain why Firefox is the most unsafe? I've been using it for a while now and the built-in privacy protections are great (would be better if they were on by default, but hey, we have this at least).
• qwerty456127 8y ago
  I try leaving Chrome every now and then but every time it turns out Firefox is just too slow to tolerate and this was the initial reason why I've moved to Chrome some years ago (yes, my PC is old and I make heavy use of extensions).
• beezischillin 8y ago
  I use Google Chrome very casually, mostly for development exactly for the very same privacy concerns as people have so I stopped using the Google Account integration for a long time explicitly because of these worries. I was extremely surprised to randomly see the browser logged into the account I use for YouTube. As a user this is greatly worrying to me. I want my browser to not do anything like this without my explicit consent -- especially since I knowingly avoided doing it... I moved out as much of my digital identity from the Google Cloud as I could. I obviously can't escape needing to use YouTube, but everything can't be perfect. I gotta be honest, I have some worries regarding Firefox, too. Too often they have pulled shady things and got into bad with terrible people. (the unwanted advertising stuff being auto-downloaded for Mr. Robot, the "fake news detector" thing, etc. etc.) I find it extremely important to have good, independent open source alternatives to commercial web browsers and each step like this is a step towards one interest trying to take over the core of our internet experience. Pretty scary.
• ChicagoDave 8y ago
  Firefox here I come. Google’s update, to automatically take an action on my computer that I specifically don’t want, is an egregious misuse of technology. This is what Microsoft might have done in the early 2000’s for which they were rightfully vilified. What happened to “do no evil”?
  • kerng 8y ago
    Once in a position of power the true colors show.
  • fma 8y ago
    Money is the root of all evil. That's why they got rid of the mantra, as it meant 'Do no money'... And they need to please share holders. I got rid of chrome when I noticed it hoggged my memory and CPU, and decided to try Firefox. Firefox is much more processor friendly for me at least.
    • krapp 8y ago
      >Money is the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil.
      • yunruse 8y ago
        When you think of money as “intermediary token of value”, this makes a lot of sense. If you have a love of money, you will naturally tend towards whatever has the highest money-in-to-value-out ratio. With Google, however, the user is the product, so Google only want to put as much value in as to make sure the user stays. And yes, that does result in a good and polished browser, but only because it’s what keeps users from going to another one.
      • rsyring 8y ago
        > The love of money is the root of all evil. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. (1 Tim 6:10 ESV) :)
  • JoshMnem 8y ago
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• akayoshi1 8y ago
  Why I'm leaving [Insert name of disliked social media network or web browser here]
• alistproducer2 8y ago
  I've successfully transitioned away from all google products with the exception of Android. It seemed impossible at first but all it took was a rpi3, dd-wrt router, free ddns from freedns.afraid.org, letsencrypt cert and nextcloud.
• partiallypro 8y ago
  Has anyone else been getting a lot of Chrome ads lately from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter? It's gotten to be a bit much.
• amanzi 8y ago
  Google today is like the Microsoft of 10-15 years ago. Grossly dominant, arrogant, user-hostile, and thinking they're above the law. Microsoft got knocked off their perch and are a much better company today than they were 15 years ago. Google's turn to fall is rapidly approaching.
  • aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
    Implying Microsoft wouldn’t turn back into the scumbag it used to be, had they regained their market dominance.
    • eigenbom 8y ago
      There's no implication there.
  • liftbigweights 8y ago
    > Microsoft got knocked off their perch and are a much better company today than they were 15 years ago. Microsoft didn't get knocked off their perch. They won the antitrust fight. Do you remember microsoft being broken apart? I don't. And they aren't a much better company today. They are arguably an even bigger privacy threat since they are leveraging their ubiquitous OS to gather data and to sell ads. > Google's turn to fall is rapidly approaching. Microsoft never fell. They are ahead of google in the race to be the next trillion dollar company. I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that google is going to fall. Especially if you think microsoft "fell".
    • thrower123 8y ago
      Google is much less adept at avoiding the ire of antitrust agencies, particularly under the current administration. Google is considerably more evil in the popular imagination at this point.
      • slededit 8y ago
        Were you around back then? It’s realy hard to describe how much MS was hated. There’s nowhere near that animosity towards Google today.
• anm89 8y ago
  Just imported my bookmarks and writing this message from firefox. I was hesitant to move for a long time because I liked chrome dev tools a lot but it looks like firefox has caught up.
• partiallypro 8y ago
  Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting off their blacklist, is literally impossible. Then came Chrome and Android, which grew to collect so much information on people that it was genuinely baffling. Then my agency work and work with previous Google employees telling me about Google sales tactics to SMBs in Adwords. Intentionally not focusing on ROI because they knew the companies had such high burn out rates. They would, and continue, to milk them for whatever they are worth. They know the company is statistically going to go out of business in a year, so just take them for whatever they are worth! Luckily agencies act as a middle man, if not for that, the abuse would be so much more widespread. But if you deal directly with Google ad sales (and this is something I never knew existed tbh) they will intentionally screw you if you are under a certain spend. Now they have growing and creeping monopolies in advertising, and their only real competitors are Amazon and Facebook... which to me are both on or near the level of sleaze that Google has crept to. Now things are accelerating, with Chrome's increasing intrusion, Android's increasing intrusion, deals with Chinese governments to stifle freedom of expression and speech. Google AMP being a closed system that's only goal is to push Google into controlling more of the web. Add to that, let me preface that I am not a Trump voter and never will be and probably lean more towards the politics of Google leadership, but the video that leaked out (it sucks it leaked to nutty Brietbart and not a real new organization, maybe it would have been taken a lot more seriously) of the Google town hall also baffled me. I think Facebook might even take their moral obligation of objectivity more seriously than Google...and that's a serious problem. Algorithms can determine electoral outcomes, and Google is one of the top tech lobbyists in Washington. Doesn't that bother anyone? This is no longer a company I can advocate anyone using. Unfortunately because of their monopoly status in advertising I have to deal with them.
  • naringas 8y ago
    I used to think that google today is like microsoft back in the late 90s and early 00s but your comment makes me think it might be even worse.
• rwc 8y ago
  The timing couldn’t be better with a new, even more privacy focused, version of Safari shipping in tomorrow’s new macOS.
• cryptozeus 8y ago
  Anyone using brave as alternative browser? I have been using it as 2nd browser for few weeks now and really digging it
  • kadfak 8y ago
    I switched to Brave on iOS after the Chrome redesign that ruined the UX for me. Pretty happy with it so far. It has some pretty neat features as well -- a visible tab strip that you can swipe and select/close tabs, for example.
• newscracker 8y ago
  Time and again [1] we've seen that a company's need to make money from user profiling and user data trumps broader privacy protections and wellness of its user base. Whenever these two seem to be in conflict and the company seems to be avoiding privacy intrusions out of benevolence, the truth is that the convergence is yet to happen. This is just a matter of when, and not if. The broader public either doesn't understand this well or the companies take these decisions to cause fatigue and resignation among the public. The end result is that effectively nobody will care about these unless people who care (like the ones here, as one among many groups on the web) take some time to dissuade others from using these applications/platforms (be it Chrome or WhatsApp or Facebook or anything else). An ungoogled Chromium is not the solution for this because maintaining a fork that stays true to other advancements takes a lot of effort and time, and in this case cannot be relied on either (unless, as someone pointed on another post here about ungoogled Chromium, you take the trouble of building it yourself every time spending hours). For now, evangelize Mozilla Firefox and push anyone you know who uses Chrome to move out. Even if Google makes changes to this tracking feature because of backlash, it will only be a temporary holdout. [1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/what-facebook-and-whatsapps-data-sharing-plans-really-mean-user-privacy-0 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/what-facebook-and-what...
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• strictnein 8y ago
  Still shocked that all of this junk ended up being a version of Chrome that some of the Chrome leads were hyping on Twitter as something they were super excited to be releasing. Nothing in it has been an improvement.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
  Tangentially related: the iOS YouTube app is constantly trying to get Chrome installed on my phone by showing a “browser selection” dialog when e.g. tapping on a link in a video description. It says “Download Chrome, or open in Safari”, and even though there’s a switch which says “Always ask which browser to use”, unchecking it (it’s checked by default, of course) only gets rid of this popup for a few days, then they show it again!
• profalseidol 8y ago
  Not totally unrelated: What do you think about the state of Ethereum and it's progress and Brave + BAT? Also just in case you you've checked other blockchain-like projects, are they legit?
• Klonoar 8y ago
  While everyone's on the subject of Firefox... can someone explain why the hell this is still an open bug on macOS? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124108 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124108 This is a core thing for the system, and it contributes heavily to Firefox not feeling native.
  • bbcbasic 8y ago
    Way off topic.
• JoshMnem 8y ago
  > Even if the browser never produced a scrap of revenue for Google... I think that Google Chrome was always about ads. The browser has an auto-completion algorithm that sends users to Google Search to click on well-disguised ads on the way to their destinations rather than sending users directly to URLs. (Until recently, Firefox would send people directly to URLs instead of search. You have to enable the two separate boxes in Firefox to make that work now -- ctrl-l for URLs and ctrl-k for search.) Chrome has a few serious dark patterns if you look closely. Also watch out for Google's current attempts to get rid of URLs, because it's probably motivated by getting people to become more dependent on search to click on ads (as well as hiding from people that they are visiting AMP "caches" instead of people's real (HTML) websites).
• rustcharm 8y ago
  I don't like to be "forced" to do anything, but I happen to like browsers that sync! This way I can save a file to my "reading list" or add a bookmark at work and I'll see it at home. Very handy.
  • mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    I feel opposite of this. I want my bookmarks to be separated on desktop and laptop. Sometimes my wife will use my laptop and I’ve had occasions where I’d bookmark something as a surprise for her (a gift I wanted to purchase) or I’d research some activity- only to have her find out just because google decided it was okay to sync my stuff. If there is an option to disable that I’d like to know. Ah hell, the latest UI update to chrome makes me want to dump it entirely. Worst part, it didn’t even ask me if I wanted to update.
• mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I checked out brave a few times but every time stopped using it due to the bulky feeling of their interface and the forced remembered sites you visited that show as an icon when you open a new tab. I take as much offense at browsers showing me every single site I went to without an easy “turn off this feature “ toggle as I do with chrome forcing itself into my browsing experience. When will a browser come around that is light and does what it’s supposed to do - let you browse.
• TigerHimself 8y ago
  The solution is Safari
• bunsenhoneydew 8y ago
  My default is now Brave, great for privacy. I like the features in Vivaldi so sometimes use that too. Firefox just grinds to a halt for me on my Mac. I only use chrome on the very rare occasions I still need to do a little front end work.
• ourcat 8y ago
  Ironically, I arrived at this blog site pre-logged in to my Wordpress account.
• Imburr 8y ago
  Anyone who thinks Google doesn't already have all of that mined data on you, wether you are signed into sync or not, is kidding themselves.Google search, Google plus, chrome, play, Android, analytics, wifi, isp services- that already know where you go on the internet. By not syncing your fooling yourself into believe that your internet usage is yours.
  • bvinc 8y ago
    Genuine question: what are you advocating should be done? Give up on privacy? Or something else?
  • azdle 8y ago
    This thought is addressed in the submission: Google wouldn't be doing it if they didn't think they'd be getting value out of it.
• exodust 8y ago
  Google already forces the "Account Chooser" for web sign out on everyone with no option to disable. This is all related. There was previously a link to an opt-out switch that set a cookie to disable account chooser, but Google have now removed that. They don't like to give people choice, not even advanced users. Account chooser basically re-invents the concept of signing out. Google keeps your name and email displayed on the page after sign out. It takes multiple annoying clicks to "remove account" from the account chooser. Their suggestion to use private browsing mode to sign in, is not always convenient. Often you just want to sign out properly with one click, as per the way the rest of the world does it, and have no record of your credentials lurking around. Google says no to that, and forces their account chooser on everyone for their own agenda, and nothing to do with user preference. Sometimes I think the law should step in, as it does with privacy. "Sign out" should mean exactly that, nothing less.
• pmorici 8y ago
  On mine I see the new icon but when I click on the menu that pops up has a "sign in to Chrome" button that you can click. I wonder if it hasn't signed me in yet because my Gmail cookie hasn't expired and so I haven't retyped my user name and password since it upgraded.
• mustaflex 8y ago
  After they dropped inbox, I'm actively trying to leave google products but it is definitely hard. The band-aid is fused with the skin. It also made me realize that tying oneself to a single product/company is definitely to avoid.
• noypi 8y ago
  i switched to firefox after quantum. didn't like memory hogs.
• kwijibob 8y ago
  A minority view: I do care about privacy but this behaviour is what I expect from Chrome. We have a number of profiles on our shared family PC and people expect logging into chrome or gmail will also log into the other. For me it's the price of entry for using the google ecosystem. I was already using gmail/gdocs/chrome sync daily, so it just makes life easier. If I really need privacy I go to incognito or another browser.
  • ummonk 8y ago
    Yeah, I actually understand the experience they're trying to create here, and it jives with the general goal of trying to create a consistent identity-based experience for all Google products. However, this isn't for me (I used to be annoyed enough by my Android phone wanting to sync everything to Google's servers, and switched to an iPhone as a result), and what I hate is that Google never notified users of the change - I probably would have taken a long while to notice this if I hadn't heard about it on HN.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • lucio 8y ago
    shouldn't you use different OS users?
    • kwijibob 8y ago
      That would slow things down, also we share the same files/dropbox.
      • pmlnr 8y ago
        It would also be the only reasonable way to deal with multiple users on the same machine.
      • yakubin 8y ago
        Files can be shared in a directory everyone has access to. On Unix-like system it doesn’t pose any problems (create a special group and assign permissions to it). I would suspect that on Windows you can do something similar (setting up a “D:” “drive”?). Slowing things down... Logging in and out today is negligible in times of time spent. I’m not sure what other factors can come into play here for you in terms of a slow-down. Having different OS users for different users seems to be a straightforward thing to do.
• maz1b 8y ago
  Gave the new FF a serious try, and I definitely like it. Will be switching over soon. Did not like how Google forces your google account to be active at all times, and the new UI of Chrome is a regressive step in terms of design.
• commandlinefan 8y ago
  Although I agree with and respect the author’s opinion here - I’ve all but given up on not being tracked across the internet. At this point, dozens if not hundreds of faceless corporations can easily put together who I am and what I’ve looked at and posted on the internet for at least the past 15 years, and there’s nothing I can do about it any more.
• vturner 8y ago
  Suspected something strong arming us was in the works when Google silently disabled the setting for complete always private browsing. I have this set on both Firefox and Chrome, no history, data, nothing remembered on my work computer. One day I noticed history in Chrome and surprise the settings for no history were gone.
• tokyodude 8y ago
  I know this will be downvoted into oblivion but this isn't evil. 99% of users want this feature. They want their passwords synced and they don't want to have to log in multiple times. With a data point of one I want this feature. I'm sure if I poller my non tech friends they'd almost universally want this feature. An option to opt out might be good but most people are helped not hindered by this.
• KING_ZEUS 8y ago
  does anyone know if this affects Vivaldi?
• mdekkers 8y ago
  I have been using Google for pretty much as long as they have been around. I was one of the first gmail users, one of the first Android users, one of the first gsuite users. And I'm done. I really don't like the whole Apple experience for many reasons, and not for lack of trying. The Apple IOS system just doesn't do it for me and the whole walled garden approach just isn't my thing. Having said that, I am fed up with Google waging this relentless war on their own users, and I'm done with them. I am ordering the new iPhone Xs Max, and given that I am just as tired with the impossibility of dealing with disabling all the crapware in Windows 10, and the very ominous messages from MS that "windows is a service" (no it isn't, you greedy fuckers, it is an OS) am eyeing up the options replacing my surface pro (new model) with a mac. Again, I am no fan of the Apple experience, but they appear to be a lot more committed to privacy and security. Google, you used to be awesome. Not anymore though, so bye.
• fogetti 8y ago
  I am also planning to leave for partly similar reasons. Other reasons would be that their shipped product is a heap of sh#t. Removed loading indicator, blank pdf pages, removed html5 video control buttons, broken network traffic inspector in dev tools, frozen and crashing html pages, broken password manager. Not to mention that they also allowed to make the browser a managed instance by your company's administrator when you are logged in with your company's gsuit address which turns the browser into an absolutely miserable experience (and for this reason the new signin process is really vile). I am not saying that all of this started with the latest release, but all of these are present in the latest release. It's a s###ty product just like IE6 was back in it's heyday.
• cnst 8y ago
  To be frank, I think the ship has already sailed. * Where were all these cryptography engineering folk when Google decided that it didn't have to ask any permissions to install autoupdates to Chrome? * Subsequently, instructions were published on how to disable the autoupdate — published by Google itself, mind you — yet somehow after some time has passed, the same versions of Chrome that were supposed to have stopped looking for updates were somehow able to magically automatically update themselves in the end after a number of releases anyways — so much for the browser being secure against remote execution attacks by a powerful-enough party! BTW, if you think Brave is any better, they refused to disable the autoupdate. https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/1877 https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/1877 TBH, between the lines, I got the impression that it's part of the business plan, where an outdated browser is basically worthless to them as an investment anyways, so, spending any engineering resources on such causes is fundamentally not worth it. Who cares about the good-will of the user if there are so few alternatives anyways?! So, I basically stopped using Brave at that point, as I didn't feel like being the product. Mozilla may have gone away with asking for your permission to download and install the update as well, but at least there's still a clear setting in the interface which lets you be the boss, and, compared to the quirks that Brave may offer, at least once configured, you do know they won't go behind your back to do the dirty work anyways.
• S_A_P 8y ago
  I’ve recently launched an experiment to get off of google. I can’t say I had any real reason other than curiosity. I have some privacy concerns but can’t say that was the main driver here. I think I just looked at my laptop, phone, etc and thought about how prevalent google code was in my life. It was my navigator, my file store, my calebdar, my email, my search engine and my browser. It knows everything about me. That said I have started migrating from the ecosystem. I’m using safari for the web. Duck duck go for search, and Apple for maps. So far results are a mixed bag but I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I’m hoping to get completely off of google in the next 3-6 months as long as viable alternatives that respect privacy exist.
  • tjr225 8y ago
    I did this a while ago and it really ain't bad at all. Unfortunately to the lay person to search the Internet is "to google."
  • wincy 8y ago
    I’m reading all this and was commenting to my wife we should stop using Chrome, then felt really foolish because I remembered we have Google Fiber. I’m not sure what to do about that. I’m also not sure if it’s something I should worry about or not, are there different rules on what Google can do as my ISP vs as my web browser?
    • romanovcode 8y ago
      I bet as your ISP they can do hell of a lot more.
• sbr464 8y ago
  I actually took a few moments today and thought about what it would take to launch a new browser. Obviously it’s a lot, but since the browser is becoming so important, almost like an OS itself, it is only going to become more important that privacy and neutrality are core designs. I know it’s been clear for a long while, but I’m just really realizing that an Ad company completely manages this new type of “OS”. By only this test alone, Microsoft would be a much more trusting/reliable company, since their core business model wasn’t in Ads, not so much when considering other test points. I honestly don’t think the Linux approach is going to work either, since design/ux is so important in the browser, and those are fundamentally ignored more than not in that ecosystem. (To make a point, I love Linux). I personally would pay for a browser, at least a premium version, as long as a free version with the basics was avail. I’ve never had to think about any of these things before the last major Chrome update, it’s kind of scary.
• jiggunjer 8y ago
  What bothered me with Chrome is that when you log in the sync functionality is checked for all boxes by default. Let's say you're in an internet cafe using their PC, you have to move very quickly if you want to prevent Chrome from pulling your synced passwords onto their local drive. Isn't it obvious design to disable those boxes by default?!
• modzu 8y ago
  there's also opera. almost worth it just for the speed dial :)
• ChuckMcM 8y ago
  As I have mentioned this is consistent with a trend of trying to squeeze money out of things that didn't need to generate cash back when search advertising paid for everything. Now, not so much and not getting better. That said, I appreciate the discussion with even my "non-tech" type friends who are starting to understand the cost of 'free' stuff. That folks are learning I find refreshing, it makes the opportunity for products that explicitly protect privacy or disavow surveillance-as-a-service type businesses that much more competitive.
• jiggunjer 8y ago
  The author gives 3 arguments for not wanting to sign in at all. I find them all rather weak. The first two are actually a single argument. The first argument: He likes to give consent. He fails to mention why he feels the need to consent to signing in, but the second argument implies it, making this just a prelude to that argument. This need seems irrational as there is no difference in the browsing experience between being signed in (and unsynced) vs being not signed in. The only difference is a minor UX change: you can now accidentally sync (which is his second, and most significant, argument). His second argument, making it dangerously easy to sync, is actually a good thing for the average user. It is also not that simple to do by accident if you have a separate password set-up for syncing. I think it is safe to say on the whole that people who never sync will still not sync. His third argument can be written off as paranoia: "For all we know, the new approach has privacy implications even if sync is off. ". Sure, maybe by simply being signed in you are being data-mined in secret, but if you trust Google that little why are you using their services? And what would be preventing them from mining you while not signed in? Lastly, I think the author is slightly conflating "sync" with "data mining"? For all we know synced data is end-to-end encrypted and Google can't even read your bookmarks? The terms of service "signed-in mode" just states that data gets saved to the cloud, not that Google uses it?
• Myrmornis 8y ago
  Can't these issues be solved by using the "People" feature and using a different identity for gmail vs your browsing when you want not to be signed in? I use the different identities extensively (work gmail, personal gmail, and other identities) and the quick switcher in the top right is for me the biggest reason why I've been unable to move to Firefox. (FF containers are not the answer, I know that much. I think FF identities are but they lack easy switching.)
• tjpnz 8y ago
  And yet Google still doesn't get held up to the same level of scrutiny as Facebook. I would argue that Google are far more dangerous.
• francasso 8y ago
  TLDR?
• r2dof 8y ago
  Some of you here might be thinking, "well you can always use a passphrase while using chrome sync" to mitigate all privacy issues. I generally advocate use of a passphrase to people I know. BUT digging a bit into it I found that chrome's encryption is NOT STRONG AT ALL. Here[1] the author describes that brute force is possible within 4 days if the sync passphrase has 40 bits of entropy, with $1000 hardware. So with more expensive hardware, this can be done within minutes. TBF even firefox is not excellent in this regard(based on the article), but it is much better. [1]:https://palant.de/2018/03/13/can-chrome-sync-or-firefox-sync-be-trusted-with-sensitive-data https://palant.de/2018/03/13/can-chrome-sync-or-firefox-sync... and associate chrome bug : https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=820976 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=820976
  • palant 8y ago
    Yes, Firefox could do better, but at least Sync there was designed with privacy in mind - Chrome Sync wasn't, and even if you set a passphrase it will only encrypt passwords and none of the other data such as your browsing history. Either way, Chrome exists to give Google's web services an advantage, that's the only reason. I wrote about that seven years ago: https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-installed-web-apps https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-installed...
    • r2dof 8y ago
      >even if you set a passphrase it will only encrypt passwords and none of the other data such as your browsing history. This[1] seems to imply otherwise. [1]:https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/165139#passphrase https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/165139#passphrase
      • palant 8y ago
        Yes, it does. I just tried this, when I set a passphrase everything shows up as encrypted in the Google Dashboard. So maybe things changed since I wrote this, or maybe I misunderstood it initially. Either way, the default is not having a passphrase, and the passphrase setting is buried pretty deep, so most people won't set it. What's worse, you cannot really avoid an initial unencrypted sync before you can set up a passphrase. The point still stands, this isn't a system designed for privacy.
• konschubert 8y ago
  I understand why people are angry here, but the argument of consistency between logged-in account and browser account makes total sense from a UX point of view. Even for power users it's sometimes confusing why you have to log in twice. And yes, of course if you're not logged in this chrome then this problem doesn't apply but most people are actually logged in and the article just skims over that.
• jondubois 8y ago
  There is a huge problem with the way our economy and legal system views technology. Software is made up of code, it's bits of information; in its simplest forms, code can be like math formulae; an elegant algorithm or architecture is more like something you know than something you have. Many algorithms are in the public domain but the majority of the world's most important code is not in the public domain. Unfortunately the law doesn't regard computer code as knowledge, it regards it as an asset that can be protected as private property - That's why today we have insane monopolies that are seemingly impossible to take down. The world's most important code should be in the public domain and belong to anyone who cares to learn it.
  • code_duck 8y ago
    The ‘code’ to Facebook and google, if one can say there is such a thing, is not particularly important. Their control of their networks and IP is important. Reading various code to Facebook would not enable me to create a competitor to Facebook in any way.
• M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
  > Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing your data to Google — yet. See further below The Julius Malema of tech. "We are not calling for the syncing of user data to our servers. At least not yet".
• jrockway 8y ago
  I think it's interesting that this is the straw that broke the camel's back. Chrome already handled cookies for every website that you viewed, but now that it says "and I'm going to use them to log into Google outside of a tab" everyone freaks out.
• DoctorOetker 8y ago
  >The extreme version holds that I ought to be using lynx+Tor and DJB’s custom search engine, and if I’m not I pretty much deserve what’s coming to me. What is this "DJB’s custom search engine" ? I fail to find it with both DuckDuckGo or google..
  • josejuanisaac 8y ago
    ditto
  • JCC1 8y ago
    Man, a "DJB custom search engine" would probably be amazeballs. You would submit queries via an environment variable with additional data on FD6 and get data back 1024 chars at a time, prefixed in TAI64N, and IPv6 sites would be completely banned. I'd use the F- out of that.
• teekert 8y ago
  Chrome: Here, log in, so we always know it's you! FireFox: Here, create cookie containers so nobody knows it's you!
• CitizenTekk 8y ago
  I think google has been starting to help people in getting investment and money in returns rather than helping people gain important information just like before. It's become monopolized in a way people will think of having money rather than gaining knowledge.
• rdednl 8y ago
  I read an interesting thread on Twitter by an engineer at Chrome. https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1044109217903198210?s=21 https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1044109217903198210?s=21
  • hobofan 8y ago
    This was already mentioned in the blog post: > (However, and this is important: Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing your data to Google — yet. See further below.)
• stojano 8y ago
  just complain about the www... the rest you must accept. oh wait... fsf.org
• baud147258 8y ago
  Personnaly I don't care about the login thingy, but I dislike their latest redesign, so I switched to Firefox at work and I'll see how to switch for personal use.
• whyagaindavid 8y ago
  Remember all of GAFA is building tools for the next billion. (i.e) China/India/Indonesia/{Africa}. There you have this very issue - people sharing one computer with one another. Same with AMP. HN is prominently Europe/US is missing this.
• craftoman 8y ago
  Chrome was always spying and collecting data from users since the very first day, every developer knew it that's why most of hackers and devs switched to Chromium. The open source edition which you can patch and modify to completely disable any communication with Google servers. Last I checked on GitHub there were tons of patches. Just switch to Chromium and problem is solved. Chrome is garbage.
  • pnenp 8y ago
    Or switch to another browser such as FF where you have to worry less about the problem in the first place and are guaranteed to get updates.
    • craftoman 8y ago
      Indeed
  • imhoguy 8y ago
    Just today's HN top front page entry: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
• sjwright 8y ago
  Oh come on, that's just an absurd example. Gun rights and an article about gun control are literally the same thing. The article surfaced by Google's algorithm is the more relevant and comprehensive one when it comes to gun rights. I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control".
  • jsega 8y ago
    >I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control". How open-minded of you. There is no better way to partake in a discussion in good faith then to use the old: If you disagree with me [insert negative suggestion here].
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      I'm an owner of firearms and in favor of the second amendment and I still agree with parent, Gun Control being highlighted as a relevant article makes complete sense, since Gun Control is fundamentally about rights related to firearm ownership.
      • dhimes 8y ago
        It's not absurd, but there is a page that fits the search term better in the same domain. That's what makes it "suspicious."
        • rovr138 8y ago
          The title and domain is not the only thing that matter for Google’s ranking.
          • jMyles 8y ago
            Right - of course. So the question is: are the other "things that matter" designed to: 1) Inform the user and help the user quickly find facts, narratives, and meaningful content related to the search phrase? 2) Sell things? 3) Promote modes of political control by narrowing the scope of acceptable thought and connection between search phrase and content? We all hope for #1. We all accept #2. But I think that most of us, at least until recently, had thought that #3 wasn't happening to any significant degree. I agree that results like this one are befuddling - a search for "Politically controversial and anti-state concept <foo>" brings as the first result, "Related but saccharine pro-state concept <bar>" when both foo and bar appear in approximately equal stature in the domain in question. Yeah, I think that's odd. And I don't see a way to easily explain it in the context of numbers 1 and 2 above.
• znpy 8y ago
  This is the kind of thing that the European Union should take a look at. Hopefully with a(nother) big fat fine...
• Legogris 8y ago
  The clear break for me came in version 39. I am staying on Chromium 38 for the few sites and extensions where I still depend on Chrome and using Firefox for everything else. Once version 38 becomes obsolete I will stop using Chromium alltogether.
  • romanovcode 8y ago
    You are not doing any favours to yourself by staying on older version of Chrome. There have been many vulnerabilities and your data might be compromised because of this. Why not just use a different modern browser instead, I don't get it.
    • Legogris 8y ago
      You are right, of course. I still use Firefox for everything except the few extensions I haven't replaced yet. I expect this interim period to last up to a month.
• kashosoft 8y ago
  Google Chrome offline installer 2019 http://www.programsnow.com/2018/09/google-chrome-offline-installer-2019.html http://www.programsnow.com/2018/09/google-chrome-offline-ins...
• drakonka 8y ago
  I just downloaded Brave and am trying it out. If all goes well I'll be uninstalling Chrome by the end of the day.
• ogfomk 8y ago
  With the Chrome Incognito mode you can do all of your stuff on a cookie to cookie basis. Just do something, log out, close incognito, then open again. Of course this involves trust that incognito is real.
• Tade0 8y ago
  I switched to Firefox for two reasons: -Google tried to block Ad Nauseam(its debatable effectiveness and value is a different matter - the fact alone was what irked me). -Firefox is being slowly, bit-by-bit re-written in Rust. What kind of Rustacean I would be not to use the product that's been the raison d'être of this language?
• ncfausti 8y ago
  Brave (with default search engine Qwant) has been a nice replacement. Of course, there is always Firefox/DuckDuckGo
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• whyagaindavid 8y ago
  Not that I am supporting Chromium (never used Chrome) or google but you could create a /etc/chromium-browser/policies/managed/test_policy.json with contents { "DownloadDirectory": "/tmp", "DefaultNotificationsSetting": 2, "DefaultGeolocationSetting": 2, "AutoplayAllowed": false, "SigninAllowed": false, "RestrictSigninToPattern": "^$", "SyncDisabled": true, "CloudPrintProxyEnabled": false, "CloudPrintSubmitEnabled": false, "SpellCheckServiceEnabled": false, "TranslateEnabled": false, "SearchSuggestEnabled": false, "NetworkPredictionOptions": 2, "BrowserNetworkTimeQueriesEnabled": false, "MetricsReportingEnabled": false, "SafeBrowsingEnabled": false, "SafeBrowsingExtendedReportingOptInAllowed": false, "DefaultBrowserSettingEnabled": false, "SavingBrowserHistoryDisabled": true, "DefaultSearchProviderEnabled": true, "DefaultSearchProviderName": "DuckDuckGo", "DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL": "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}&kp=-1&kd=1&kl=uk-en", "DefaultSearchProviderIconURL": "https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico", "URLBlacklist": ["facebook.com", "https://www.facebook.com"], "CookiesAllowedForUrls": ["[*.]whatever.com", "[*.]whatevercdn.com", "[*.]whatever.io"], "CookiesBlockedForUrls": [ "[*.]doubleclick.net", "[*.]wideopenpets.com" ], "BackgroundModeEnabled": false, "WPADQuickCheckEnabled": false, "VideoCaptureAllowed": false, "AudioCaptureAllowed": false, "EnableMediaRouter": false, "NativeMessagingUserLevelHosts": false, "DefaultWebBluetoothGuardSetting": 2, "ExtensionInstallForcelist": ["geddoclleiomckbhadiaipdggiiccfje;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx","cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx","kljjfejkagofbgklifblndjelgabcmig;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx"] } For more flags: use chrome://policy https://www.chromium.org/administrators/linux-quick-start https://www.chromium.org/administrators/linux-quick-start P.S: I do understand your concern. But I see that increasingly google is building for its billions outside of EU/US where people share devices and look at security in a totally different way.
• baalimago 8y ago
  What about making some sort of "auto logout" addon for chrome?
  • mscasts 8y ago
    That still doesn't solve the problem that it will probably be enough time for Google to send your browser data to them if they change that to be the case, which honestly they probably will.
• bdz 8y ago
  https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
• oedmarap 8y ago
  I switched to Firefox some years ago but still dabbled with Chrome, up until FF introduced multi-account containers that is. Performance results always seem to be subjective, but in my opinion Quantum made FF an absolute beast, even when running the usual lot of security add-ons like NoScript, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc. However, Firefox Containers I would argue is the number one feature from a usability standpoint. Being able to wall off cookies/supercookies, trackers, and work with multiple identities simultaneously in tabs (especially when using Google services) changes the entire relationship one has with the browser account, website accounts, bookmarks, and productivity. Containers is one of many Firefox test pilot projects that are really thoughtful (FF Send is another). Pair that with great cross-device compatibility, Firefox Focus for mobile and the general granularity of about:config and you have yourself a browser you can both trust and call your own. It also doesn't hurt that Mozilla isn't evil; all things considered.
  • chupasaurus 8y ago
    FF Focus is based on Chromium.
    • oedmarap 8y ago
      Yes that's true. I referenced Focus more as a nod to their development of a lightweight privacy-focused mobile browser without bells and whistles, and marketing it next to their regular mobile browser with equal attention. Notably though, Focus is on track to move away from it's Chromium roots: "The switch from Chrome WebView to Gecko doesn’t seem to be performance related. Instead, the reason has to do with the core goal of FireFox Focus in the first place: privacy. Mozilla has found a reason to believe that the Chrome WebView engine can leak someone’s data. So in the spirit of maintaining data privacy, the team behind Firefox Focus has decided to switch to the Gecko engine." [0,1] [0] https://www.xda-developers.com/firefox-focus-switching-chrome-webview-gecko/ https://www.xda-developers.com/firefox-focus-switching-chrom... [1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release-tracks https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release...
• raffael-vogler 8y ago
  Is it possible to get Netflix to run on Firefox or Chromium on Linux? Last time I checked I could only watch it in Chrome (Ubuntu).
  • hmaarrfk 8y ago
    Yes.
• throwawaymanbot 8y ago
  I trust Matt Green over google on this.
• dwighttk 8y ago
  I only use chrome for the built in flash, and it looks like they are moving away from that, so I may be done with Chrome myself soon.
• eudora 8y ago
  I'd strongly suggest people create separate users in the browser, one for daily, one for Google, one for Facebook. This way in my regular browsing there's no Facebook or Google cookies reporting on what websites I visit. And with this new change, presumably in your daily profile, your browser remains signed out also. It's really easy and doesn't impact at all on workflow, if you want your Gmail you just click the user button, and click Google. You could even set that user's homepage to Gmail. That said, you could also just switch to Firefox or Brave. (Copy pastaing myself. With an addendum: I don't know if this will actually result in less of your private data compromised, but it seems plausible)
  • crc32 8y ago
    Firefox has a feature called "Containers", which is kind of this concept but with perhaps a better UX. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers
    • eudora 8y ago
      I've tried containers, and I really want to switch to Firefox because I support their aims, but I found containers really clunky. It might have been the fact that they were tabs in the same window, and it made it harder for me to control/organise/understand what was in what container. Especially when opening new tabs. I can't remember the details but I remember finding it fiddly. Maybe I'll give it another go.
• tinus_hn 8y ago
  They are pulling the same tricks with the iOS apps, if you use Google Maps not logged in and you login to one of the Google Docs apps your Maps activity is now associated with your account once again. It’s sleazy and it’s a shame Apple doesn’t allow you to block it (this developer is not allowed to share information between apps and websites)
  • adestefan 8y ago
    I also noticed this weekend that the iOS Youtube app now asks if links should be opened in Safari or Chrome. If Chrome isn't installed on the device the button says "Install" instead of "Open." I don't know how new this is, but it's pretty sleezy.
• eudora 8y ago
  Is it just me who wishes all the organisations supporting user rights banded together and hit the market as a viable 3rd ecosystem of products? All the Linux vendors, all the distributed social media (PeerTube, mastodon, hubzilla), all the private search engines like duckduckgo, all the open source hardware like Purism... Imagine them doing an EU and pooling all their resources to produce a coherent yet distributed, open and free ecosystem with a browser by Firefox, search by DDG, OS by Linux, phone by Purism, etc... They could cross-support each other's efforts, promote eacother etc. I'd live there instead of Google/Microsoft/Facebook world.
  • billylindeman 8y ago
    The missing piece IMO is funding, but that may be something that the crypto-currency world could fill. Not sure what the road to that world looks like, but we definitely need a contender because all of the major tech companies have become disturbingly anti-consumer.
    • eudora 8y ago
      Ubuntu's (failed) Kickstarter raised 12.8 million to build a phone which seems like a lot Purism raised something like 2.5 and are using it to develop their first phone, and it seems to be going great, on track for April release. Ubuntu etc are making money and doing good work. While that's great, I think you're right. That for example, GNOME releases don't have nearly as much goodies as say Mac OS, because they're working with drastically less money and employees. Take Firefox OS or Ubuntu touch. The amount of money being pumped into iOS and Android must be absolutely incredible. How do these open source vendors compete with the billions of platform investment from these giants? They just end up with an interior product, so they end up with no market share. Some bright lights are Ubuntu and duckduckgo, they're profitable and have their niches. I think I'm suggesting they band together because that can only increase adoption amongst them all - if for example Firefox had duckduckgo as default, and Linux had Firefox as default, that would help those services quite a bit. I guess though, that if Firefox is targeting mass adoption, they'll have more luck with Google as default. Which is sad.
• microcolonel 8y ago
  I don't know what's going on, but from the perspective of somebody who follows the beta and dev channels of Chrome and Chrome OS, I can tell you that a drastic change in direction happened in M69, and almost everything about it has been awful. This new direction is expensive, unpopular, confusing, and in general sets Chrome (and Chrome OS) back something like two years in terms of quality and user trust. It's no laughing matter, whoever is in charge of this major change should be seriously evaluated; because if you go by the results alone, it is hard to distinguish from corporate sabotage.
• ihateeveryone 8y ago
  Are you done with the free product you have used for free for 10+ years? Oh, you are still going to use Gmail and other free services for free? Quit your wining then.
• octosphere 8y ago
  Why are people so loyal to one browser? Where is it written that one has to be married to a specific browser and shun all others? A common thread I hear is that certain browsers are slow and don't feel fast (which is something you can partially fix by adding additional RAM to your machine and running the browser on an SSD). OP shuns Chrome but forgets there is more competition than previous years where the main three contenders were IE, Firefox and Chrome. Now we have Brave, Vivaldi, Qups, Iridium browser, Ungoogled-chromium[1], Tor Browser Bundle, Waterfox, Palemoon, Comodo Dragon, and a few other flavors of Chrome exist out there but are very buggy and unsecure and not updated often. Personally I run several browsers and isolate my sessions with them - so one for Facebook, one for Twitter, another for shopping, etc (Just to make sure there is no cross-talk between the various services I use). [1] https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
• samch 8y ago
  At little off-topic, but in a similar vein I had been waiting and hoping for Google Fiber to show up in our neighborhood. I was mostly of the mindset that Google, of all ISPs, would be the most Net Neutrality-friendly provider. Meanwhile, AT&T showed up first with their gigabit fiber offering, and I signed up for it. Google still hasn’t come through despite earlier promises, and I’m increasingly glad they haven’t. I’m not suggesting that AT&T is perfect. They’ve had some significant shortcomings in the privacy area themselves. I’m simply saying that I no longer view Google in the simplistic terms I once did. They are a complicated organization with seemingly conflicting priorities. For the same reason, I’ve also switched away from using their 8.8.8.8 DNS. My wife is on Duck Duck Go, but I haven’t been able to make that leap myself (yet).
• sreejithr 8y ago
  Firefox - The free man's browser!
• jiveturkey 8y ago
  hmm, well yes and no. > If you’re in basic browsing mode, your data is still stored locally. The problem is that you no longer get to decide which mode you’re in. But yes you do! Don't use gmail and you will remain in basic mode. I get the author's point, but he seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. If you're using gmail, Google already owns a very very significant part of your personal data, enough that you should be worried about it. If you don't trust Google to treat your cookies and other web-data with proper controls, then you shouldn't trust Google to manage your email either. So from a principled perspective, yeah it's a step backwards for sure. But from a practical perspective, it isn't nearly as substantial. I for one did find this new misfeature useful -- because Chrome signin and sync are buggy as hell. I get logged out all the time for no apparent reason. Loading gmail (usually without a new signin) re-signs me into Chrome now. I am not going to switch browsers based on this slide in user privacy from Google. They already suck wrt user privacy and this isn't that significant for me (as a gmail user). Chrome is still much better than FF for me. And come on, FF has had its own privacy flubs as well. didn't they force pocket on everyone? If you switch browsers everytime one of the vendors makes a misstep, there are going to be no more browsers to choose from, save elinks. Still, here's hoping someone writes an extension or figures out how to block sign-in at a network level.
• kmn 8y ago
  720751 6654
• dbg31415 8y ago
  Google Forms now requires you to sign in with a Google Account before you can use a public form. Total pain in the ass.
• jijji 8y ago
  I think the leaked video of Sergy Brin and his army of senior executives crying at the loss of Hillary Clinton on election night didn't serve the public well. Their hope for lower wages for new hires via unbridled immigration was a big defeat. If anything, it shows what they really care about. The fact that you have senior people, owners even, in a publicly traded company outwardly pandering to a left-leaning ideology and being partisan in nature, this isn't going to sit well with anyone from the outside looking in. They really are this way -- from the owners, all the way down. I woulnd't be surpised if they lose common carrier status, safe harbor status, and being regulated as such. It's a real shame too because they had a good thing going for a while. Hopefully duckduckgo and similar search engines dont follow the same path.