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Facebook Disconnect
- mdasen 15y agoThe author of Facebook Disconnect (Brian Kennish) has written another Chrome Extension called "Disconnect" (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhlakheieifhpjdfeo?hc=search&hcp=main https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhla...). Disconnect not only deals with Facebook, but also Google, Yahoo, Twitter, and Digg tracking.
- budwin 15y agoJust as an FYI, disconnect causes a number of login problems on a few of said sites rendering them unusable.
- Urgo 15y agoYeah I just installed the firefox version, saw it blocked even google charts, and uninstalled it. If it had adblock like control to whitelist domains it might be ok but as it is, cool idea, but no thanks.
- drivebyacct2 15y agoWhat? I've been running Disconnect for probably over a year now and experienced zero side-effects and I use all of those services (minus Yahoo).
- abraham 15y agoHave you reported the issues to the extension author?
- conradev 15y agoAlso, he gave a great talk at DEFCON about his current project, attempting to document what websites do with your browsing data. http://disconnect.me/db/ http://disconnect.me/db/
- Havoc 15y agoKinda weird that this extension requires more access to your data (e.g. history) than the previous one. Surely they do the same thing? Note that I'm not questioning the authors motives/integrity...it just strikes me as somewhat random & ironic.
- muyuu 15y agoSweet. Another thing you can do is opening an incognito window for all your facebook/google sessions. Obviously, one must be sure to have deleted all cookies/etc after the last time one logged in to Google/facebook (that includes youtube).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- karlzt 15y agohttps://blogs.windowsclient.net/wyvern/archive/2011/03/07/disconnect-vs-ghostery-vs-chromeblock.aspx https://blogs.windowsclient.net/wyvern/archive/2011/03/07/di... http://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/epzhu/disconnect_or_ghostery/ http://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/epzhu/disconnect_o...
- Urgo 15y agoAvailable for Firefox & Safari as well from the authors site: http://disconnect.me/ http://disconnect.me/
- Luyt 15y agoAlso see http://www.ghostery.com/ http://www.ghostery.com/ if you don't want to be tracked by web beacons in a more general way, i.e. not only by Facebook.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- knieveltech 15y agoYou'll forgive those of us that aren't interested in becoming the digital equivalent of stylite monks, but by all means feel free to conduct your business in the public eye if that's what suits your fancy.
- law 15y agoAbsence of malicious history/intent doesn't render them incapable of being (directly or indirectly) dangerous. One could easily pose a rational argument for users to take prophylactic measures (e.g., Facebook Disconnect, Ghostery, and the other browser plug-ins) based solely on the increasing number of data breaches.[1][2] However, this is a relatively weak argument, as it requires making an underlying assumption that the leaked data is dangerous. We have no evidence to support the assertion that leaked information of the kind shared on Facebook would pose any danger to the affected users. This is fundamentally different from the dangers of data breaches concerning health and financial records; these records contain information necessary to steal identities and engage in other nefarious operations. Facebook doesn't collect social security numbers or other extremely sensitive personally identifiable information. Facebook does, however, collect evidence of our predispositions and predilections. Arguably, this information is far more dangerous than mere personally identifiable information, because rather than identifying us outright, it gets to the heart of what makes each of us unique. We are incapable of imagining the complete set of scenarios where this information could be used nefariously, and as such, its dangers fall within the scope of ``unknown unknowns'' Compare this situation to the case of a breach of financial data: the uses of this data are well-enumerated, and one could argue that the cost of the next health information data breach is a known unknown. Based on historical evidence, we know that another breach will occur, and we know how criminals use the leaked information. With data on Facebook, however, we don't know whether this information could be used maliciously. Moreover, if it could be used maliciously, we don't know how it might be used. Therefore, it deserves as much privacy (if not more) as one's financial and health records. [1] http://www.idtheftcenter.org/artman2/publish/lib_survey/ITRC_2008_Breach_List.shtml http://www.idtheftcenter.org/artman2/publish/lib_survey/ITRC... [2] http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach
- irrumator 15y agoThis recent Facebook smear campaign is interesting to watch on HN. Is it the work of an organized group, or just the hivemind's gobbling up of anything anti-Facebook? Either way, it's poor form and not news, this plugin and its more broader 'disconnect' sibling have been linked before several times. Nb: I have no skin in this game, I personally don't have a Facebook account, but it's not because I'm some anti-FB zealot. The frontpage of HN has been very disappointing in the last week with non-substance links littering it, and even less worthwhile comments accompanying them. Let's try not to upvote such frivolous and low-signal links.
- espeed 15y agoIt's somewhat reminiscent of the anti-Groupon sentiment that began about the time some of the other major players started to get into the daily-deal game (however Groupon wasn't helping itself much either).
- barrkel 15y agoThere's a fairly wide appreciation among technically aware people of just how deep Facebook is getting its tentacles into things. Sentiment has been turning anti-FB for quite some time; it's been aggravated by FB's blunders in the past, by defaulting to over-invasiveness, then dialing back in response to outcry. So whenever FB gets press for something that can be viewed in the same light, there's a lot of judging them by their past actions. So while there may be an element of opportunism in covert anti-FB PR, it's working with dry kindling. There's real fire here, not just smoke.
- TallTalesOrTrue 15y agoSometimes I get a feeling that the hivemind of HN is critical of anything that is not associated google. I could be wrong as I am a fairly new user. But that's just what I have observed in last few weeks.
- click170 15y agoIf the Google+ Like button appeared on anywhere near as many sites as Facebook, I'd be concerned about Google too. I'm kind of surprised NoScript doesn't have an option of disabling scripts on a site-by-site basis. Ergo, if I have two tabs open, Google+ and some other page containing a Google+ Like button, I should be able to enable Google scripts on only the Google+ page. As it stands, when a script from a domain is enabled, it is enabled for any and all tabs you have open. I think that behavior can be improved.
- forgotmyuser 15y ago"This extension can access: Your data on all websites" is it just me or.. WTF?!
- ecocentrik 15y agoHow does Disconnect compare with Chromeblock? I find it kind of amusing that facebook doesn't display integrated comments at all if you block their cookies. Not to worry, TechCrunch w/out comments ≈ TechCrunch with comments.
- matmann2001 15y agoDoes anyone know of an Opera Extension like this?
- orijing 15y ago"This extension can access: Your data on all websites" This part made me chuckle a bit. We are so afraid of Google and Facebook tracking our searches/web pages, yet we freely install plugins from 3rd party developers that can easily gather everything that Google and Facebook can get, and more. In theory, I could make a Facebook Disconnect 2, which secretly sends data back home about what pages have been visited, and nobody except the most vigilant (enough to read the source of the plugin) would know. Why do we not trust large corporations who have billions of dollars at stake, but trust independent developers who have little skin in the game? Is it because we are those developers, so there's some form of camaraderie?
- alexgartrell 15y agoPeople don't trust Facebook because they don't know what we (fellow Facebook Engineer[0]) know about what it's like on the inside. They don't believe that people are just legitimately interested in making stuff that people will like and use, that we obsess over the stats to make sure that we're making stuff that people and use (they think it's tracking them), and that ultimately, we just want to give people ads that they don't hate (for some reason this is called "selling data to advertisers"). Ultimately though, the opinions of Hacker Newsers (a group with which I've proudly associated for ~3 years now) are only a hint at how much we're helping (or hurting) the world, and while we should always keep it in mind, we need to recognize that this is a group which is accustomed to the IRC style of social networking. I don't blame anyone at Hacker News for thinking "we" are evil, because we do a shitty job at communicating what we're actually doing and why[1] (and we can't really communicate everything anyway). Instead, we've just gotta try to address the problems that are legitimate and be as transparent as possible. Shortly, if you call tin foil hat theories tin foil hat theories (even with sound logic as to why they are tin foil hat theories), all you're going to do is convince the tin foil hat theorists that it's yet another elaborate step in manipulating them into believing The Corporate Directive. And, everyone else, for what it's worth, I'd much prefer it if we could just go back to hacker news on here. I'm a C Hacker first (before being assimilated, I contributed to open source projects like Chromium and Mongrel2, because I loved the problems (coincidentally the same reason I allowed myself to become assimilated into facebook -- I work on code that's hit my millions of users billions of times a day[2]) [0] Cache Infra in 1050 B2 [1] We've enabled applications to write to our network as they wish without introducing much friction or overhead (a single approval), but we've managed to communicate that in such a way that instead of leading people to believe that we've put the onus on developers (and users, as they must ultimately know which apps to trust), we've instead "put our tentacles" into yet another area and are again sharing without reason. [2] memcache protocol stack stuff, we issue lots (and lots and lots) of requests per page load :)
- skrebbel 15y agoOk so why would one use a browser made by Big Evil Privacy-hating Spy Firm #1 and then install an extension to prevent logging by Big Evil Privacy-hating Spy Firm #2? I'd be very amazed if Chrome would not, now or at some point in the (transparently and unstoppably auto-updated) future, keep track of what you're doing, too.
- megablast 15y agoWhy would somebody write comments dissing Microsoft in Internet Explorer? Why would someone write an anti-Microsoft message in Word? Why would someone ask such arcane questions. We trust the tools from Google, since it would be a huge backlash if they were caught doing something so nefarious as using Chrome to track people, without them knowing. And it is quite possible to test this.
- fragsworth 15y agoIf Google really did that with Chrome you would either A) know about it already, or B) find out later when someone discovers the secret logging mechanism. Scenario B is so potentially devastating to Google that I highly doubt they would implement something like that.
- eli 15y agoI'd be very amazed if Chrome would not, now or at some point in the (transparently and unstoppably auto-updated) future, keep track of what you're doing, too. If you'd like to put some money down, I'd take the other end of that bet.
- zecg 15y agoChromium?
- power78 15y agoI don't really like that he puts tracking javascript in his addons. Take a look at the source of this Facebook Disconnect addon, its at the bottom. Why don't people just write a simple bash script that toggles blocks for the facebook domains in the hosts file?
- jonknee 15y agoCan you link to that? The source of the extension is about a dozen lines and doesn't contain anything of the sort. http://code.google.com/p/byoogle/source/browse/trunk/google/chrome/fbdc/content.js http://code.google.com/p/byoogle/source/browse/trunk/google/...
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- power78 15y agoI'm sorry I was wrong. The file that the install button does not link to the addon like the Firefox addon site does, so saving the link is not the addon. I apologize.
- andrewljohnson 15y agoNon programmers don't use bash scripts.
- officemonkey 15y agoHeck, most programmers don't use bash scripts.
- eli 15y agoTo my knowledge, you can't do any wildcards in a hosts file, and facebook already has a fair number of subdomains and can create more at will.
- power78 15y agoEdit: I'm sorry guys, I guess the file that the install button links to is not the addon itself like the Firefox addon site does, so saving it does not give you the addon. I'm retarded. He does not have tracking cookies, I apologize.
- kaitari 15y agoI've already developed the habit of only accessing Facebook in an incognito tab, but cool extension nonetheless.
- missy 15y agoIn Europe there is a similar movment but it comes from the EU. There has been a big change in the handling of cookies and other privacy issues, so that now you are only allowed to save data if when someone visits your site and selects some pop to allow the site to save it. big problems with analytics http://www.ico.gov.uk/ http://www.ico.gov.uk/
- missy 15y agoThere is also another interesting site: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Facebook-vs-Datenschuetzer-Streit-um-Like-Button-geht-weiter-1338660.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Facebook-vs-Datenschu... This German site uses a double opt in button for button like "Like ". Press twice on the grey like button and then it only turns into a normal like.
- exit 15y agowhen i want to log in to fb i open an incognito window. i haven't looked into this myself but the assumption is that cookies from incognito will not leak into my normal session. it would be great if chrome allowed users to create a separate "sandboxed" browser session in each window. i'd like to maintain just one session for each service i log into, including google/gmail. hmm, maybe that's why they haven't implemented this.
- eli 15y agoThis broke parts of the Disqus admin page last time I tried it.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI use WidgetBlock. I'm not sure if it does exactly the same thing, but I use it against sites that are heavy with widgets and scripts and make the site load 5x slower (like Techcrunch, although I barely even visit it nowadays). https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hgiihiookhijpbhaflohognbhmamdnol https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hgiihiookhijpbhafl... I'm going to give Facebook Disconnect a try, too.
- poona 15y agoIn order to block Facebook, this extension is injecting javascript into every page you load. It absolutely should come with a large warning.
- poona 15y agoIn order to block Facebook, this extension is injecting javascript into every page you load. It absolutely should come with a large warning.
- poona 15y agoYou can copy the source code and make your own plugin from it ;)
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- jmonegro 15y agoThe author of this extension is also the author of Disconnect.
- devraj 15y agoWe are so afraid of Google and Facebook tracking our searches/web pages, yet we freely install plugins from 3rd party developers that can easily gather everything that Google and Facebook can get, and more. In theory, I could make a Facebook Disconnect 2, which secretly sends data back home about what pages have been visited, and nobody except the most vigilant (enough to read the source of the plugin) would know.