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Some unintended consequences: > This change caused my chromium browser to report that it's being managed by my "organization". I thought that my machine was so

Some unintended consequences: > This change caused my chromium browser to report that it's being managed by my "organization". I thought that my machine was somehow compromised. This is terrifying! I wound up deleting my entire chromium profile before I discovered that the root cause was this DuckDuckGo config change. https://bugs.debian.org/956012 https://bugs.debian.org/956012

DiabloD3 4y ago
That sounds like a Firefox bug (and a common one I've seen in other software). Tell me what organization. "Debian" would have been perfectly fine to show here.
- mattashii 4y ago
  How is that a Firefox bug if the software it is reported on is Chromium? Those are two very distinct projects.
  - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
    Perhaps it reminds them of a similar bug in Firefox?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - aendruk 4y ago
    - lohfu 4y ago
      how can you be sure? feigning verity isnt helping anything; at best you will not get downvoted.
      - aendruk 4y ago
        People sometimes absentmindedly misspeak. Either that happened and you can politely s/Firefox/browser/ so that the comment reads as a reasonable, even insightful contribution to the discussion, or the comment is utter nonsense and you can feel smug that you’re not as stupid as they must be. Granting the former interpretation is the more charitable option. You should also understand that “Surely…” doesn’t mean the same thing as “I am sure”. “Surely…” is a plea for sanity.
  - chippiewill 4y ago
    Mozilla's never been the same since they started putting bugs in Chromium
  - bscphil 4y ago
    They are referring to the fact that Firefox does the exact same thing as Chromium if certain settings are changed via enterprise policy. Here's a screenshot from my browser: https://i.imgur.com/pNMMKUC.png https://i.imgur.com/pNMMKUC.png I really don't understand why Debian wouldn't just patch the source code to change the default search engine rather than shipping an enterprise policy like this.
- DiabloD3 4y ago
  Whoops, meant Chromium. My bad.
vetinari 4y ago
If it was implemented by managed policy file, then Chrome/Chromium will complain exactly this way. You can see the details in the chrome://policy page.
neilv 4y ago
Yeah, that was alarming. Figuring out that it was innocuous took me 15-30 minutes of urgent, drop-everything-else work. I should've thought to post a Debian bug report after that (especially since the Debian bugs database was one of the first things I checked). I'd reported the cause informally to some colleagues, and then must've gotten distracted with what I was trying to do before I saw the suspicious message.
candiddevmike 4y ago
Sounds like a Chromium bug, not a Debian bug--it's an insidious way to keep Google search as the default.
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  Reporting that there is a policy is no bug, but maybe there should be a way to signify that it's customized by your software vendor (i.e. signed and keys are compiled in) and that it just sets the default search engine. Chromium does change the message to "This device is managed by <google workspaces domain>" if attached to Chrome Enterprise.
  - brnt 4y ago
    Being "managed by" and loading a policy config do not equate in meaning, unless we let PR departments redefine words. Moreover, defaulting to Google is also a policy.
    - sascha_sl 4y ago
      The intent behind policy loading in Chrome is to allow an MDM to configure the browser, not for distros to not write a real patch.
      - brnt 4y ago
        Perhaps. Describing loading a custom policy with "managed by" is still incorrect and potentially misleading.
    - kccqzy 4y ago
      The policy config is designed for enterprises, not software distributors. It's Debian that's taking an unnecessary shortcut here. They could've patched the source code to change the default search engine.
- yunohn 4y ago
  Preconfigured profiles are the right way to solve this, it’s just that the message could be worded more kindly.
sascha_sl 4y ago
Fedora did this for a while to inject the word "Fedora" into the User Agent. They eventually stopped because users were similarly spooked.
- fbhabbed 4y ago
  They still do it
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    I'm on a fresh install of Fedora 36 (KDE Spin) and my Firefox UA is currently showing as "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:103.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/103.0".
    - lohfu 4y ago
      cool, so don't switch to chromium. then the internet will know you run fedora.
      - fbhabbed 4y ago
        I mean all he has to do is to uninstall fedora-chromium-config
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Putting even more identifying information into User Agent strings seems completely insane, who's interests is that meant to serve? The number of people in any town with Fedora in their UA must be minuscule, that blows a huge number of 'privacy bits', and for what?
  - bravetraveler 4y ago
    I think it's for installation tracking to some degree -- they do this by the browser user agents but _also_ machine-ids sent with DNF (the package manager) I love the project, I really dislike this 'gather things that might be useful to someone' behavior and having to MITM my system to see what it's actually doing
bravetraveler 4y ago
This is actually not that uncommon... I've stumbled on a similar thing with the browsers as shipped by Fedora It's superficial but I completely understand the alarm For those noticing this, be aware that you'll likely see it elsewhere. Don't panic.

DiabloD3 4y ago

That sounds like a Firefox bug (and a common one I've seen in other software). Tell me what organization. "Debian" would have been perfectly fine to show here.

mattashii 4y ago
How is that a Firefox bug if the software it is reported on is Chromium? Those are two very distinct projects.
- nazgulsenpai 4y ago
  Perhaps it reminds them of a similar bug in Firefox?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- aendruk 4y ago
  - lohfu 4y ago
    how can you be sure? feigning verity isnt helping anything; at best you will not get downvoted.
    - aendruk 4y ago
      People sometimes absentmindedly misspeak. Either that happened and you can politely s/Firefox/browser/ so that the comment reads as a reasonable, even insightful contribution to the discussion, or the comment is utter nonsense and you can feel smug that you’re not as stupid as they must be. Granting the former interpretation is the more charitable option. You should also understand that “Surely…” doesn’t mean the same thing as “I am sure”. “Surely…” is a plea for sanity.
- chippiewill 4y ago
  Mozilla's never been the same since they started putting bugs in Chromium
- bscphil 4y ago
  They are referring to the fact that Firefox does the exact same thing as Chromium if certain settings are changed via enterprise policy. Here's a screenshot from my browser: https://i.imgur.com/pNMMKUC.png https://i.imgur.com/pNMMKUC.png I really don't understand why Debian wouldn't just patch the source code to change the default search engine rather than shipping an enterprise policy like this.
DiabloD3 4y ago
Whoops, meant Chromium. My bad.

vetinari 4y ago

If it was implemented by managed policy file, then Chrome/Chromium will complain exactly this way. You can see the details in the chrome://policy page.

neilv 4y ago

Yeah, that was alarming. Figuring out that it was innocuous took me 15-30 minutes of urgent, drop-everything-else work. I should've thought to post a Debian bug report after that (especially since the Debian bugs database was one of the first things I checked). I'd reported the cause informally to some colleagues, and then must've gotten distracted with what I was trying to do before I saw the suspicious message.

candiddevmike 4y ago

Sounds like a Chromium bug, not a Debian bug--it's an insidious way to keep Google search as the default.

sascha_sl 4y ago
Reporting that there is a policy is no bug, but maybe there should be a way to signify that it's customized by your software vendor (i.e. signed and keys are compiled in) and that it just sets the default search engine. Chromium does change the message to "This device is managed by <google workspaces domain>" if attached to Chrome Enterprise.
- brnt 4y ago
  Being "managed by" and loading a policy config do not equate in meaning, unless we let PR departments redefine words. Moreover, defaulting to Google is also a policy.
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    The intent behind policy loading in Chrome is to allow an MDM to configure the browser, not for distros to not write a real patch.
    - brnt 4y ago
      Perhaps. Describing loading a custom policy with "managed by" is still incorrect and potentially misleading.
  - kccqzy 4y ago
    The policy config is designed for enterprises, not software distributors. It's Debian that's taking an unnecessary shortcut here. They could've patched the source code to change the default search engine.
yunohn 4y ago
Preconfigured profiles are the right way to solve this, it’s just that the message could be worded more kindly.

sascha_sl 4y ago

Fedora did this for a while to inject the word "Fedora" into the User Agent. They eventually stopped because users were similarly spooked.

fbhabbed 4y ago
They still do it
- babypuncher 4y ago
  I'm on a fresh install of Fedora 36 (KDE Spin) and my Firefox UA is currently showing as "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:103.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/103.0".
  - lohfu 4y ago
    cool, so don't switch to chromium. then the internet will know you run fedora.
    - fbhabbed 4y ago
      I mean all he has to do is to uninstall fedora-chromium-config
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Putting even more identifying information into User Agent strings seems completely insane, who's interests is that meant to serve? The number of people in any town with Fedora in their UA must be minuscule, that blows a huge number of 'privacy bits', and for what?
- bravetraveler 4y ago
  I think it's for installation tracking to some degree -- they do this by the browser user agents but _also_ machine-ids sent with DNF (the package manager) I love the project, I really dislike this 'gather things that might be useful to someone' behavior and having to MITM my system to see what it's actually doing

bravetraveler 4y ago

This is actually not that uncommon... I've stumbled on a similar thing with the browsers as shipped by Fedora It's superficial but I completely understand the alarm For those noticing this, be aware that you'll likely see it elsewhere. Don't panic.