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I’ve said it before: Chrome is a data collection app with a built-in web browser to keep you entertained while it does its real job.

by gaius 8y ago

gundmc 8y ago
Source? Google makes Chrome because they can default the URL bar to search on Google without paying Traffic Acquisition Costs (Google pays browsers _a lot_ of money to have Google be their default search). Google only makes money from Chrome by driving more traffic to their profit centers (like Search). And it works really, really well. Chrome itself is not monetized and does not collect client data. Please, provide evidence to the contrary.
- gaius 8y ago
  Please, provide evidence to the contrary. Uhhh, this whole article is literally about Chrome exfiltrating personal data to Google... all the evidence is above.
  - gundmc 8y ago
    No, it isn't. This isn't even an article. It's a reddit post from a French user who had configured Chrome to automatically translate French (this is not a default behavior) and was then horrified when Chrome tried to translate his web page. Maybe Chrome incorrectly detected French as the language, but we have no way of knowing because they didn't post any screenshots or additional information about the alleged event.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      > It's a reddit post from a French user who had configured Chrome to automatically translate French (this is not a default behavior) First of all, the option was not to automatically translate. It was to suggest to automatically translate. Which is the default in Chrome for all languages other than whatever the system language is. Now, the whole thing about "suggest" is that it shouldn't just blindly translate, but ask first. But in this case, apparently, it just translated anyway. And second, the user specifically said that they disabled translation for French. Which is almost certainly true, as anyone who is not a native English speaker but uses an English OS and browser can testify (you get bugged by Chrome about whether you want to translate every time you open a website in your native language, so after the first 2-3 times you click "Never").
- codedokode 8y ago
  > does not collect client data If you have Google as a default search engine in Chrome, then every time you open a new tab, it is loaded from Google's servers with cookies. So Google knows how many times a day and when exactly you open a new tab. This works even in Debian which usually cares about privacy. Google doesn't warn about this (maybe they have a clause in the Terms of Usage, I don't know). You can see this yourself using Developer Tools on a new tab page. By the way, adding a new search engine named, for example, "Gogol" instead of "Google" and using it by default fixes this problem. Or at least fixed two years ago.

I’ve said it before: Chrome is a data collection app with a built-in web browser to keep you entertained while it does its real job.

by gaius 8y ago

I’ve said it before: Chrome is a data collection app with a built-in web browser to keep you entertained while it does its real job.

gundmc 8y ago

Source? Google makes Chrome because they can default the URL bar to search on Google without paying Traffic Acquisition Costs (Google pays browsers _a lot_ of money to have Google be their default search). Google only makes money from Chrome by driving more traffic to their profit centers (like Search). And it works really, really well. Chrome itself is not monetized and does not collect client data. Please, provide evidence to the contrary.

gaius 8y ago
Please, provide evidence to the contrary. Uhhh, this whole article is literally about Chrome exfiltrating personal data to Google... all the evidence is above.
- gundmc 8y ago
  No, it isn't. This isn't even an article. It's a reddit post from a French user who had configured Chrome to automatically translate French (this is not a default behavior) and was then horrified when Chrome tried to translate his web page. Maybe Chrome incorrectly detected French as the language, but we have no way of knowing because they didn't post any screenshots or additional information about the alleged event.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    > It's a reddit post from a French user who had configured Chrome to automatically translate French (this is not a default behavior) First of all, the option was not to automatically translate. It was to suggest to automatically translate. Which is the default in Chrome for all languages other than whatever the system language is. Now, the whole thing about "suggest" is that it shouldn't just blindly translate, but ask first. But in this case, apparently, it just translated anyway. And second, the user specifically said that they disabled translation for French. Which is almost certainly true, as anyone who is not a native English speaker but uses an English OS and browser can testify (you get bugged by Chrome about whether you want to translate every time you open a website in your native language, so after the first 2-3 times you click "Never").
codedokode 8y ago
> does not collect client data If you have Google as a default search engine in Chrome, then every time you open a new tab, it is loaded from Google's servers with cookies. So Google knows how many times a day and when exactly you open a new tab. This works even in Debian which usually cares about privacy. Google doesn't warn about this (maybe they have a clause in the Terms of Usage, I don't know). You can see this yourself using Developer Tools on a new tab page. By the way, adding a new search engine named, for example, "Gogol" instead of "Google" and using it by default fixes this problem. Or at least fixed two years ago.