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I'm sort of surprised these users would care. They literally went to go download an extension to let anyone track/survellied them however they wanted. But oh n

I'm sort of surprised these users would care. They literally went to go download an extension to let anyone track/survellied them however they wanted. But oh no, now there's a big corp that owns the extension! And they might be survellied!

JohnFen 3y ago
I think the issue isn't just that it's a big corp. It's that it's Avast, specifically.
- norman784 3y ago
  Why does matter that is Avast? I have a decade not following antivirus scene.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Avast collects and sells your browsing history, among other pieces of your personal data. This caused a bit of a stink a while back when people discovered it.
yazzku 3y ago
Not really. Cookie banners are irrelevant and do not preclude tracking, they just take up space and give a false sense of privacy. These users installed the extension because they'd rather not see the pop-up to begin with. And then Avast bought the extension.
mynameishere 3y ago
Yeah, that never made any sense. Is there any add-on that basically...forces websites to adhere to the browser-configured cookie settings? And if any popups contain the word "cookie" to basically just remove the element? If it renders websites inoperable, I'm okay with that.
- tomrod 3y ago
  I browse mobile with Javascript defaulting to blocked. Not sure how it happened, truth be told, Brave just started blocking it one day. Most of the experience is unaffected.
larperdoodle 3y ago
>In most cases, the add-on just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. When it's needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what's easier to do)
- rektide 3y ago
  Im curious what the % rate is for users to not get tracked, versus great caring tools like Consent-o-mattic. The name itself screams apathy here. My understanding from a while back was that the tool actively accepted a wide variety of cookies, and did nothing to minimize selections. I don't know if this is a misinterpretation, or if the project has changed to actively start caring somewhat about cookies.
derefr 3y ago
I don't even care that they might watch me. I care that they might use my computer's resources to do so; or might start making the extension do other stupid stuff, like injecting ads for Avast AV. "Not caring about cookies" doesn't cost anything, CPU-wise.
londons_explore 3y ago
To be fair, websites can't track much about you - they can only track your visits to partner websites, and even then the website owner usually can't see all the detail - their ad platform won't share that with them. Whereas the extension has full access to not only your browsing history, but also every password, every credit card number ever typed, etc. Cookies are a minor privacy problem compared to an 'access all sites' chrome extension.

JohnFen 3y ago

I think the issue isn't just that it's a big corp. It's that it's Avast, specifically.

norman784 3y ago
Why does matter that is Avast? I have a decade not following antivirus scene.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Avast collects and sells your browsing history, among other pieces of your personal data. This caused a bit of a stink a while back when people discovered it.

yazzku 3y ago

Not really. Cookie banners are irrelevant and do not preclude tracking, they just take up space and give a false sense of privacy. These users installed the extension because they'd rather not see the pop-up to begin with. And then Avast bought the extension.

mynameishere 3y ago

Yeah, that never made any sense. Is there any add-on that basically...forces websites to adhere to the browser-configured cookie settings? And if any popups contain the word "cookie" to basically just remove the element? If it renders websites inoperable, I'm okay with that.

tomrod 3y ago
I browse mobile with Javascript defaulting to blocked. Not sure how it happened, truth be told, Brave just started blocking it one day. Most of the experience is unaffected.

larperdoodle 3y ago

>In most cases, the add-on just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. When it's needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what's easier to do)

rektide 3y ago
Im curious what the % rate is for users to not get tracked, versus great caring tools like Consent-o-mattic. The name itself screams apathy here. My understanding from a while back was that the tool actively accepted a wide variety of cookies, and did nothing to minimize selections. I don't know if this is a misinterpretation, or if the project has changed to actively start caring somewhat about cookies.

derefr 3y ago

I don't even care that they might watch me. I care that they might use my computer's resources to do so; or might start making the extension do other stupid stuff, like injecting ads for Avast AV. "Not caring about cookies" doesn't cost anything, CPU-wise.

londons_explore 3y ago

To be fair, websites can't track much about you - they can only track your visits to partner websites, and even then the website owner usually can't see all the detail - their ad platform won't share that with them. Whereas the extension has full access to not only your browsing history, but also every password, every credit card number ever typed, etc. Cookies are a minor privacy problem compared to an 'access all sites' chrome extension.