10 ms·

Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting

261 points by laktak 3y ago

tobr 3y ago
Just got this blocking modal. In mine, the title says “Turn on an ad privacy feature”. That is misleading to say the least. This is a privacy-invading feature, leaking summaries of my browsing history to anyone who wants to have a look. What’s worse, the modal completely blocks the UI, so you can’t even search for it to understand more. Why am I even using this browser anymore? EDIT: Note this section about privacy goals, from the draft proposal by two Googlers: “Users should be able to understand the API, recognize what is being communicated about them, and have clear controls. This is largely a UX responsibility but it does require that the API be designed in a way such that the UX is feasible.” [1] I guess it’s just a little oopsie that made the people responsible for the UX present it to the user through misleading copy. 1: https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics
- ht85 3y ago
  The popup is absolutely disgusting. I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.
  - xmprt 3y ago
    I was wondering why I didn't see this popup and realized that I've been using Firefox for almost a year now. Haven't looked back.
    - talonx 3y ago
      Ditched Chrome years ago.
  - johnchristopher 3y ago
    > I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing. I am gonna make a generalization but HN readers is not the demographic pushing for Firefox usage and when they do it's usually for the wrong reason: "performance".
    - benterix 3y ago
      Which is false BTW, unless you are using some Google services optimized for Chrome, such as Google Sheets.
- weikju 3y ago
  > Why am I even using this browser anymore? Yeah, stop putting up with all these anti-features! Firefox, Brave etc are not perfect but at least they're not THAT. No matter how many hoops you jump through, still using Chrome means it is being endorsed. Wish more people would reconsider it like you and jump ship!
  - nicbou 3y ago
    I've been back to Firefox for 3-4 years and it has been rock solid on MacOS and Android. I have only very minor gripes not worth mentioning.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Firefox seems ok to a layman so far. Time to throw Chrome of the Windows part of my daily now.
  - mangecoeur 3y ago
    I have been using Firefox since version 2.x and I never understood what downsides people find with it. I've used chrome and the only difference i saw was annoying pushes from google to log in so that i could be tracked all the time. Otherwise, it shows web pages, what more do you want?
    - laserdancepony 3y ago
      I quite dislike all the crap they try to tack on like Sync or Pocket, sometimes cluttering the UI after an update. But still everything can be disabled, so not too much of an annoyance.
      - bmicraft 3y ago
        I wouldn't use Firefox if it cloudn't sync history and bookmarks between computers and my phone. Sending tabs is also a nice bonus.
    - permo-w 3y ago
      Firefox's branding has always felt a little unusual to me. not as bad as some other popular free apps (SumatraPDF, VLC) but perhaps that subconsciously puts people off? Chrome has always looked and sounded quite clean and cool in comparison. I say this as someone who only ever uses FF or Safari
- tacker2000 3y ago
  Im sorry but if you are using Chrome as a “pro” nowadays, its your own fault. There are countless alternatives available, starting from Firefox, to Brave, to some exotic browsers, and if you must use Chrome, then there is a de-Googled one called Chromium. Its clear that Google is milking every single one of its users using their browser, since they have access to your computers. Probably this is the “vector” they use to gather the most info about users, apart from Android maybe.
  - maleldil 3y ago
    > there is a de-Googled one called Chromium There's Chromium and there's Ungoogled Chromium[1]. If you're looking for (some) independence from Google, you want the latter. Or just avoid it altogether and use other browsers. I wouldn't recommend Blink-based browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc.) You're still indirectly giving Google power over the web by using their engine. [1] https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
    - akyuu 3y ago
      IMO the browser is far too important to use third-party builds containing patches that don't receive serious audit. For example, the Chromium packages provided by the vast majority of Linux distros disable security features like CFI (check your favorite distro's x86_64 Chromium package build log and look for the "is_cfi" argument). I think Arch is the only exception. ungoogled-chromium has similar problems https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ If you are going to use a Blink-based browser, I would recommend just using the official Google release, or maybe Edge or Brave if you trust the organizations behind them. Otherwise, just switch to Firefox. It has its own problems, like being overall less hardened than Chromium, but it's far less user-hostile. And regarding security, for browsing untrusted sites, I think you should always virtualize the browser since they're all routinely exploited anyway.
      - bmicraft 3y ago
        > Linux distros disable security features like CFI Why would they even do that?
samspenc 3y ago
Related tweet from Paul Graham: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1699021936573940154 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1699021936573940154 "If you go to chrome://settings/adPrivacy you can turn off the spyware that got inserted into the latest version of Chrome." And I found PaulG's tweet from this earlier Hacker News discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517
- jtriangle 3y ago
  Or you could... use any other chromium based browser that doesn't do this. Might I suggest Vivaldi? It's nice, lots of built in features that you probably are running extensions for currently.
  - turblety 3y ago
    Please, do not use Vivaldi or any other closed source, secret codebase browser. Can you imagine signing into your bank with a closed source browser.
    - AndroTux 3y ago
      This argument lacks for the average consumer. Heavily. Do you compile every update of Firefox yourself (and this assumes that you have read every line of code that changed during updates)? Especially when on Windows or macOS, you just download the version that is distributed by mozilla.org on their website. There is no guarantee that they're using the actual sources to build. They could just as well add in a little patch that does some nasty things. But they won't, because they have a reputation to loose. So does Vivaldi.
      - xigoi 3y ago
        I download the version from my distribution's package manager, which is compiled by independent volunteers.
        3y ago
c0l0 3y ago
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Ad Targeting Is Privacy.
- riku_iki 3y ago
  I think the premise is that this will be replacement for 3p cookies, and privacy will improve.
the_gipsy 3y ago
And there is no end in sight. For the love of God, please switch to Firefox.
- aquir 3y ago
  I have this weird issue with Firefox: any time when is fast forward in a YouTube video it drops my USB-C connections!
  - notrealyme123 3y ago
    Interesting. Is hardware acceleration enabled?
    - aquir 3y ago
      I have disabled it an now it's fine! What is also interesting that this is happening with two different laptops. The Sound Device btw is a USB DAC that is connected through the USB-C hub. Maybe this is what is causing the issues. This issue is relatively new, what I am experiencing is "reaching" the USB DAC Sound Device is getting slower and slower. Maybe this is a driver issue in Windows.
  - Takennickname 3y ago
    Perhaps your usb c and audio devices are on the same hardware bus and Firefox is doing something there. I had that problem with discord once.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    I have a similar issue with hardware accelerated videos in general that drops all my USB connections randomly when stopping or skipping in a video. I think it's a power state change issue with my GPU because it never happens if I have a video game running.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  There is an end in sight: Firefox's. Mozilla has billion dollars and is cutting back on Firefox software development to focus on paying executives and pushing agendas.
nunodonato 3y ago
You got to wonder how much more it will take for people to start switching to another browser. Hopefully not too late
- talonx 3y ago
  Sadly, as long as Chrome remains the default in Android, the vast majority of people (read non-technical folks) will continue to use Chrome.
- aembleton 3y ago
  How does this change anything for an end user? There's a pop up that will be clicked through and soon forgotten and then there will still be ads. The ads might be slightly less targetted as they may now be showing for general browsing categories rather than individual websites visited but its not a big change.
  - nunodonato 3y ago
    said the frog, while getting cooked
seydor 3y ago
Like Brave browser?
- gowthamgts12 3y ago
  care to elaborate?
  - seydor 3y ago
    https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026361072-Brave-Ads-FAQ https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026361072-Bra...
pjmlp 3y ago
And people insist spreading Chrome via Electron.
- raverbashing 3y ago
  Is there an Electron based on FF tech?
  - SahAssar 3y ago
    Mozilla used to work on it: https://github.com/mozilla/positron https://github.com/mozilla/positron Currently I'm guessing https://tauri.app/ https://tauri.app/ would be the easiest way to get away from electron.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Best alternative is not using any at all. Web, Web widgets (available on most OS for 30 years), or native.
- izacus 3y ago
  Does Firefox support web apps via PWA APIs yet? That was one of the biggest issues I had with it on desktop - it removes the need for Electron and Mozilla just dropped the plans.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    No and it doesn't matter. Electron is for lazy developers that cannot master Web widgets available for 30 years on mainstream OSes. Or step out of their comfort zone into pure native applications, or background services making use of default browser for UI. If people like myself have been able to master multiple native since decades, and also use such approaches during the dotcom boom, it is hardly an excuse for younger devs lacking such skills, other than laziness. And yes, even MS, VSCode isn't as bad, as it relies on several external processes, renders into WebGL, and has the excuse they use it to sell services into Azure and Github, back at X-Windows/one UNIX development server.
scopeh 3y ago
Its 2023, how have we come so far with this nonsense. I would have thought Firefox would be king of the browsers by now. But nope, people love their data being sucked up and used by the big G.
- Scoring6931 3y ago
  Mozilla dug their own grave, to be fair.
- dindobre 3y ago
  Mozilla focused on the wrong things for a few years
  - pyrale 3y ago
    It doesn't really matter what Mozilla did. They never had the budget to compete with Google on browser advertising anyway. If you look at the market share progression of the old opera and mozilla vs. internet explorer, and you compare it to the stellar rise of Chrome when it came out, it's really obvious that Chrome's success is due mostly to advertising.
    - chomp 3y ago
      Blows my mind that people think that there’s some magical way that Firefox could have competed. Chrome had ads on google.com, like the home page. No one except Google gets those ads. 90-second prime time tv spots. And they also scattered nudges throughout their entire website. Google ran a relentless ad campaign to get people to switch, and no browser on Earth was able to compete with that.
      - dindobre 3y ago
        I agree Firefox never had a chance, but there is losing a battle and there is diving head first onto the floor. Mozilla played the few cards it had not that well.
- tazjin 3y ago
shmde 3y ago
Have installed firefox with uBlock Origin on all of my family members android phone + laptops. Always bug my friends to switch over to firefox. I am doing my part. Just make sure that you export all the bookmarks/history/passwords over to FF to make it easier for them to switch.
Zetobal 3y ago
It's getting to the point were I am really questioning the characters of people that still work at Google. I mean some of the people implementing and designing this shit must be right here. Is it really just the money?
- bbor 3y ago
  Many of them think they’re supporting the free and open internet. I can promise you that many ad engineers take privacy very seriously, and from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech. I seriously doubt the people in this thread will agree with any of that, but I thought I’d answer the question. Of course, the money helps too - Google just recently laid off thousands of workers in an attempt to scare the rest into compliance
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Zetobal 3y ago
    So google has their campuses in Bizarro World, got it.
  - dgan 3y ago
    On another spectrum, RuZZians invading Ukraine right now are really thinking they are "liberating" it.
    - izacus 3y ago
      Yeah, please don't compare ads with actual murdering, raping and civilan massacres.
      - maleldil 3y ago
        I don't think they're comparing the merits of either, but rather how can humans can convince themselves they're doing the right thing when it's obvious to us that they aren't. "no one thinks himself a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong".
petargyurov 3y ago
Is this is a privacy win for anyone using a non-Chrome/ium browser? Given the majority of the population use Chrome, will most websites stop relying on cookies and instead use the Topics API? Though I suppose cookies will always be a fallback option if the website detects that the browser doesn't support the Topics API...
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  You can feed websites fake topics to mislead them, or even allow the user to pick their interests if they do want ads. That's a lot easier than sending your browser through random websites to shake off trackers and analysers. Cookies are hard because other browsers do isolation based on top-level domains. Fingerprinting is the only way to track non-Chrome browsers. Google wants to do cookie isolation as well, but ad companies threatened to sue them over it, so they can't for now, not until there's a viable alternative.
- aembleton 3y ago
  I think it is a privacy win. Every now and then, probably once every few months, I come across a website on Firefox where I have to disable enhanced tracking protection. If Chrome stops allowing 3rd party cookies then sites will have to be built better and should see fewer problems with the enhanced tracking protection.
thorio 3y ago
This is absolutely fantastic! It releases me from my region beta paradox and finally gives me enough activation energy to break my laziness of using chrome mobile (only left-over). Would like to head for Firefox, if they would only add some usability features I'm so used to (like tab groups). So Brave it will be, i guess... Still the sad thing is, that both Brave (technically) and Firefox (financially) are heavily dependent on Google.
- popol12 3y ago
  You might want to investigate tree style tabs addons like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta... It's not exactly tab groups but it makes tabs management so efficient that I'm not using tab groups anymore
alex-moon 3y ago
Ministry of Privacy
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
a9ex 3y ago
Is any other major browser vendor planning to remove 3rd party cookies as well?
- jfk13 3y ago
  I believe Firefox blocks them by default. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-cookies-firefox-tracking-protection https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-cookies-fir...
- AfterAnimator 3y ago
  They're blocked in Safari
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Ranked6815 3y ago
[dead]
blacklight 3y ago
If you're still using Chrome, then this is the shit you deserve, period.
artichokeheart 3y ago
The sad thing is people who should know better will still find excuses to keep using Chrome. And people with ulterior motives will help amplify their excuses.
- artichokeheart 3y ago
  And just to prove my point this is now on page 3.
ranting-moth 3y ago
I think this might be a new low for Google. What happened Google? You were this promising young boy 25 years ago. Now you're the filthy pervert on the corner.
- aembleton 3y ago
  They took investment, that needs to provide maximum returns.
ranting-moth 3y ago
We value your privacy. The valuation is about $20 and we've already sold it to the highest bidder. Thanks for choosing us to auction it off. We'll keep the money as per T&C (we're looking forward to the firstborn too!). As a token of good will, here's an ankle bracelet.
- aembleton 3y ago
  They're giving this away for free. There is no charge for a website to call document.browsingTopics()
okeuro49 3y ago
The Google Chrome history deletion feature has always been dog slow. I did read an explanation that it does some complex operations, but you have to wonder if it is deliberately made complex to make people avoid deleting their history, as it takes so long.
- lopis 3y ago
  Well, it's always been slow in Firefox as well.
notpushkin 3y ago
Honestly, I'm just waiting for the adtech bubble to burst now.
UberFly 3y ago
God. They just can't help themselves anymore, can they. They used to at least lie to us that they weren't evil.
mythz 3y ago
It's pretty clear that this privacy invasive behavior from Chrome and Edge browsers by mega corps fueled by ad seeking revenue are only going to worse over time. For macOS my choice of using the faster and more energy efficient Safari is fairly easy. Windows also has a lot of good options, I prefer Vivaldi as a Chrome alternative since it sports a Blink engine, has a focus on privacy and is actively developed that sees frequent features and improvements in each release [1]. [1] https://vivaldi.com/blog/releases/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/releases/
gmerc 3y ago
Ah the good old fake pattern of having to switch this on every single installation despite being able to switch it on account level technically. Some needs to sue Meta for this too, “presence” across all their apps behaves the same. And resets on every major update.
Broge 3y ago
Made a Chrome extension (hardy har har) to disable these. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/no-privacy-sandbox/jhladehmdkeodebhhkaebgneankeeelf https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/no-privacy-sandbox... Source: https://github.com/kevin51jiang/no-privacy-sandbox https://github.com/kevin51jiang/no-privacy-sandbox
nunez 3y ago
What's the point. Yeah, these kinds of "features" are horribly invasive and anti-consumer, but so, so, so many people just could not give less of a shit as long as they can hit up Facebook or YouTube or whatever work requires them to visit. It's not like the early 00s when Firefox rose to dominance because IE sucked so badly in comparison. Chrome is not only the best and "most-compliant" web browser (isn't it awesome to be compliant with standards you created?), but it is also what most of the web tests against by default and, consequently, works the best with. Not that this even matters, really; most web traffic is shifting to the apps, which have free-reign to track everything you do. Theoretically, app privacy scorecards should dampen this, but it's all too easy to tap "OK" to the "can I use your contacts, your mic, your camera and every sensor and contact I can get away with?" I was not expecting to become a curmudgeon at 35, but between this, WEI, Cloudflare becoming the Internet's global firewall, and the Great Enshittification of Reddit, Twitter, and others, all of this bums me out. Anyone got a positive counterpoint?
- MongoTheMad 3y ago
  Parks are excellent places to enjoy life.
bigjay517 3y ago
The comments I am reading here seem to imply that this is more privacy invasive than tracking cookies. Steve Gibson did an analysis on Topics and his conclusion was that this is an approach to provide targeted ads (which websites need to make money) without being invasive. Here is a link to his podcast where he explains the specification: https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/935?autostart=false https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/935?autostart=fa... Although if you believe that being online you should be 100% anonymous and share 0% of personal data then of course Topics is not good (but then no other ad targeting solution will be either).
Gud 3y ago
Stop using Chrome and other Google products - They are hostile towards the open web. Use Firefox instead of Chrome, DDG or Kagi for search, Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, and a privacy respecting e-mail provider. They will only stop this bullshit once they go bankrupt - the Google we all loved died a long time, only through branding do they still appear nice.
webworker 3y ago
I'm going to get roasted, but it looks like they're abstracting your history into topics and not wantonly sharing it. Dropping 3rd party cookies is a cool thing. They could maybe take that a step further and just ask you what you'd like to see ads for. That said, even though I "know better" I actively choose to use Safari as a daily driver to avoid things like this. I'm a lot less worried about Apple's intentions, especially since Safari is backed up by all the profits they rake in from iPhone sales. Writing good luck wishe from Safari to all you all chrome users out there! :-P
kcartlidge 3y ago
I really miss the days of the original Opera. Back when the browser was lean, and they were innovating with their own engine and UI.
ptman 3y ago
We need a way to fund Firefox development in particular https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-donate-money-to-the-firefox-development-team-directly/idi-p/198 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-donate-money...
godDLL 3y ago
How about a Do-Not-Track alternative where I can specify what kind of ads I'd be OK to show up alongside my browsing? It could be a header with a hash of an entry in a public list of lists of interest. Cars, travel, fashion, whatever; any order or preference you might come up with. I could flip a switch or install a plugin in the browser to help learn from my browsing history locally, and populate that list accordingly. Adsense needs to respect that header, is all. I'd ditch ad-block if that happened. Provided ads are alongside my content and don't replace it's space and time. I'd use that. EDIT: apparently, the basic idea is there; but also cookies will now only come from the website being viewed, not tracking you across the whole Web.

261 points by laktak 3y ago

tobr 3y ago

Just got this blocking modal. In mine, the title says “Turn on an ad privacy feature”. That is misleading to say the least. This is a privacy-invading feature, leaking summaries of my browsing history to anyone who wants to have a look. What’s worse, the modal completely blocks the UI, so you can’t even search for it to understand more. Why am I even using this browser anymore? EDIT: Note this section about privacy goals, from the draft proposal by two Googlers: “Users should be able to understand the API, recognize what is being communicated about them, and have clear controls. This is largely a UX responsibility but it does require that the API be designed in a way such that the UX is feasible.” [1] I guess it’s just a little oopsie that made the people responsible for the UX present it to the user through misleading copy. 1: https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics

ht85 3y ago
The popup is absolutely disgusting. I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.
- xmprt 3y ago
  I was wondering why I didn't see this popup and realized that I've been using Firefox for almost a year now. Haven't looked back.
  - talonx 3y ago
    Ditched Chrome years ago.
- johnchristopher 3y ago
  > I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing. I am gonna make a generalization but HN readers is not the demographic pushing for Firefox usage and when they do it's usually for the wrong reason: "performance".
  - benterix 3y ago
    Which is false BTW, unless you are using some Google services optimized for Chrome, such as Google Sheets.
weikju 3y ago
> Why am I even using this browser anymore? Yeah, stop putting up with all these anti-features! Firefox, Brave etc are not perfect but at least they're not THAT. No matter how many hoops you jump through, still using Chrome means it is being endorsed. Wish more people would reconsider it like you and jump ship!
- nicbou 3y ago
  I've been back to Firefox for 3-4 years and it has been rock solid on MacOS and Android. I have only very minor gripes not worth mentioning.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Firefox seems ok to a layman so far. Time to throw Chrome of the Windows part of my daily now.
- mangecoeur 3y ago
  I have been using Firefox since version 2.x and I never understood what downsides people find with it. I've used chrome and the only difference i saw was annoying pushes from google to log in so that i could be tracked all the time. Otherwise, it shows web pages, what more do you want?
  - laserdancepony 3y ago
    I quite dislike all the crap they try to tack on like Sync or Pocket, sometimes cluttering the UI after an update. But still everything can be disabled, so not too much of an annoyance.
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      I wouldn't use Firefox if it cloudn't sync history and bookmarks between computers and my phone. Sending tabs is also a nice bonus.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    Firefox's branding has always felt a little unusual to me. not as bad as some other popular free apps (SumatraPDF, VLC) but perhaps that subconsciously puts people off? Chrome has always looked and sounded quite clean and cool in comparison. I say this as someone who only ever uses FF or Safari
tacker2000 3y ago
Im sorry but if you are using Chrome as a “pro” nowadays, its your own fault. There are countless alternatives available, starting from Firefox, to Brave, to some exotic browsers, and if you must use Chrome, then there is a de-Googled one called Chromium. Its clear that Google is milking every single one of its users using their browser, since they have access to your computers. Probably this is the “vector” they use to gather the most info about users, apart from Android maybe.
- maleldil 3y ago
  > there is a de-Googled one called Chromium There's Chromium and there's Ungoogled Chromium[1]. If you're looking for (some) independence from Google, you want the latter. Or just avoid it altogether and use other browsers. I wouldn't recommend Blink-based browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc.) You're still indirectly giving Google power over the web by using their engine. [1] https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
  - akyuu 3y ago
    IMO the browser is far too important to use third-party builds containing patches that don't receive serious audit. For example, the Chromium packages provided by the vast majority of Linux distros disable security features like CFI (check your favorite distro's x86_64 Chromium package build log and look for the "is_cfi" argument). I think Arch is the only exception. ungoogled-chromium has similar problems https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ If you are going to use a Blink-based browser, I would recommend just using the official Google release, or maybe Edge or Brave if you trust the organizations behind them. Otherwise, just switch to Firefox. It has its own problems, like being overall less hardened than Chromium, but it's far less user-hostile. And regarding security, for browsing untrusted sites, I think you should always virtualize the browser since they're all routinely exploited anyway.
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      > Linux distros disable security features like CFI Why would they even do that?

samspenc 3y ago

Related tweet from Paul Graham: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1699021936573940154 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1699021936573940154 "If you go to chrome://settings/adPrivacy you can turn off the spyware that got inserted into the latest version of Chrome." And I found PaulG's tweet from this earlier Hacker News discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517

jtriangle 3y ago
Or you could... use any other chromium based browser that doesn't do this. Might I suggest Vivaldi? It's nice, lots of built in features that you probably are running extensions for currently.
- turblety 3y ago
  Please, do not use Vivaldi or any other closed source, secret codebase browser. Can you imagine signing into your bank with a closed source browser.
  - AndroTux 3y ago
    This argument lacks for the average consumer. Heavily. Do you compile every update of Firefox yourself (and this assumes that you have read every line of code that changed during updates)? Especially when on Windows or macOS, you just download the version that is distributed by mozilla.org on their website. There is no guarantee that they're using the actual sources to build. They could just as well add in a little patch that does some nasty things. But they won't, because they have a reputation to loose. So does Vivaldi.
    - xigoi 3y ago
      I download the version from my distribution's package manager, which is compiled by independent volunteers.
      - 3y ago

c0l0 3y ago

War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Ad Targeting Is Privacy.

riku_iki 3y ago
I think the premise is that this will be replacement for 3p cookies, and privacy will improve.

the_gipsy 3y ago

And there is no end in sight. For the love of God, please switch to Firefox.

aquir 3y ago
I have this weird issue with Firefox: any time when is fast forward in a YouTube video it drops my USB-C connections!
- notrealyme123 3y ago
  Interesting. Is hardware acceleration enabled?
  - aquir 3y ago
    I have disabled it an now it's fine! What is also interesting that this is happening with two different laptops. The Sound Device btw is a USB DAC that is connected through the USB-C hub. Maybe this is what is causing the issues. This issue is relatively new, what I am experiencing is "reaching" the USB DAC Sound Device is getting slower and slower. Maybe this is a driver issue in Windows.
- Takennickname 3y ago
  Perhaps your usb c and audio devices are on the same hardware bus and Firefox is doing something there. I had that problem with discord once.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  I have a similar issue with hardware accelerated videos in general that drops all my USB connections randomly when stopping or skipping in a video. I think it's a power state change issue with my GPU because it never happens if I have a video game running.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
There is an end in sight: Firefox's. Mozilla has billion dollars and is cutting back on Firefox software development to focus on paying executives and pushing agendas.

nunodonato 3y ago

You got to wonder how much more it will take for people to start switching to another browser. Hopefully not too late

talonx 3y ago
Sadly, as long as Chrome remains the default in Android, the vast majority of people (read non-technical folks) will continue to use Chrome.
aembleton 3y ago
How does this change anything for an end user? There's a pop up that will be clicked through and soon forgotten and then there will still be ads. The ads might be slightly less targetted as they may now be showing for general browsing categories rather than individual websites visited but its not a big change.
- nunodonato 3y ago
  said the frog, while getting cooked

seydor 3y ago

Like Brave browser?

gowthamgts12 3y ago
care to elaborate?
- seydor 3y ago
  https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026361072-Brave-Ads-FAQ https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026361072-Bra...

pjmlp 3y ago

And people insist spreading Chrome via Electron.

raverbashing 3y ago
Is there an Electron based on FF tech?
- SahAssar 3y ago
  Mozilla used to work on it: https://github.com/mozilla/positron https://github.com/mozilla/positron Currently I'm guessing https://tauri.app/ https://tauri.app/ would be the easiest way to get away from electron.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Best alternative is not using any at all. Web, Web widgets (available on most OS for 30 years), or native.
izacus 3y ago
Does Firefox support web apps via PWA APIs yet? That was one of the biggest issues I had with it on desktop - it removes the need for Electron and Mozilla just dropped the plans.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  No and it doesn't matter. Electron is for lazy developers that cannot master Web widgets available for 30 years on mainstream OSes. Or step out of their comfort zone into pure native applications, or background services making use of default browser for UI. If people like myself have been able to master multiple native since decades, and also use such approaches during the dotcom boom, it is hardly an excuse for younger devs lacking such skills, other than laziness. And yes, even MS, VSCode isn't as bad, as it relies on several external processes, renders into WebGL, and has the excuse they use it to sell services into Azure and Github, back at X-Windows/one UNIX development server.

scopeh 3y ago

Its 2023, how have we come so far with this nonsense. I would have thought Firefox would be king of the browsers by now. But nope, people love their data being sucked up and used by the big G.

Scoring6931 3y ago
Mozilla dug their own grave, to be fair.
dindobre 3y ago
Mozilla focused on the wrong things for a few years
- pyrale 3y ago
  It doesn't really matter what Mozilla did. They never had the budget to compete with Google on browser advertising anyway. If you look at the market share progression of the old opera and mozilla vs. internet explorer, and you compare it to the stellar rise of Chrome when it came out, it's really obvious that Chrome's success is due mostly to advertising.
  - chomp 3y ago
    Blows my mind that people think that there’s some magical way that Firefox could have competed. Chrome had ads on google.com, like the home page. No one except Google gets those ads. 90-second prime time tv spots. And they also scattered nudges throughout their entire website. Google ran a relentless ad campaign to get people to switch, and no browser on Earth was able to compete with that.
    - dindobre 3y ago
      I agree Firefox never had a chance, but there is losing a battle and there is diving head first onto the floor. Mozilla played the few cards it had not that well.
tazjin 3y ago

shmde 3y ago

Have installed firefox with uBlock Origin on all of my family members android phone + laptops. Always bug my friends to switch over to firefox. I am doing my part. Just make sure that you export all the bookmarks/history/passwords over to FF to make it easier for them to switch.

Zetobal 3y ago

It's getting to the point were I am really questioning the characters of people that still work at Google. I mean some of the people implementing and designing this shit must be right here. Is it really just the money?

bbor 3y ago
Many of them think they’re supporting the free and open internet. I can promise you that many ad engineers take privacy very seriously, and from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech. I seriously doubt the people in this thread will agree with any of that, but I thought I’d answer the question. Of course, the money helps too - Google just recently laid off thousands of workers in an attempt to scare the rest into compliance
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Zetobal 3y ago
  So google has their campuses in Bizarro World, got it.
- dgan 3y ago
  On another spectrum, RuZZians invading Ukraine right now are really thinking they are "liberating" it.
  - izacus 3y ago
    Yeah, please don't compare ads with actual murdering, raping and civilan massacres.
    - maleldil 3y ago
      I don't think they're comparing the merits of either, but rather how can humans can convince themselves they're doing the right thing when it's obvious to us that they aren't. "no one thinks himself a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong".

petargyurov 3y ago

Is this is a privacy win for anyone using a non-Chrome/ium browser? Given the majority of the population use Chrome, will most websites stop relying on cookies and instead use the Topics API? Though I suppose cookies will always be a fallback option if the website detects that the browser doesn't support the Topics API...

jeroenhd 3y ago
You can feed websites fake topics to mislead them, or even allow the user to pick their interests if they do want ads. That's a lot easier than sending your browser through random websites to shake off trackers and analysers. Cookies are hard because other browsers do isolation based on top-level domains. Fingerprinting is the only way to track non-Chrome browsers. Google wants to do cookie isolation as well, but ad companies threatened to sue them over it, so they can't for now, not until there's a viable alternative.
aembleton 3y ago
I think it is a privacy win. Every now and then, probably once every few months, I come across a website on Firefox where I have to disable enhanced tracking protection. If Chrome stops allowing 3rd party cookies then sites will have to be built better and should see fewer problems with the enhanced tracking protection.

thorio 3y ago

This is absolutely fantastic! It releases me from my region beta paradox and finally gives me enough activation energy to break my laziness of using chrome mobile (only left-over). Would like to head for Firefox, if they would only add some usability features I'm so used to (like tab groups). So Brave it will be, i guess... Still the sad thing is, that both Brave (technically) and Firefox (financially) are heavily dependent on Google.

popol12 3y ago
You might want to investigate tree style tabs addons like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta... It's not exactly tab groups but it makes tabs management so efficient that I'm not using tab groups anymore

alex-moon 3y ago

Ministry of Privacy

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

a9ex 3y ago

Is any other major browser vendor planning to remove 3rd party cookies as well?

jfk13 3y ago
I believe Firefox blocks them by default. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-cookies-firefox-tracking-protection https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-cookies-fir...
AfterAnimator 3y ago
They're blocked in Safari

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Ranked6815 3y ago

[dead]

blacklight 3y ago

If you're still using Chrome, then this is the shit you deserve, period.

artichokeheart 3y ago

The sad thing is people who should know better will still find excuses to keep using Chrome. And people with ulterior motives will help amplify their excuses.

artichokeheart 3y ago
And just to prove my point this is now on page 3.

ranting-moth 3y ago

I think this might be a new low for Google. What happened Google? You were this promising young boy 25 years ago. Now you're the filthy pervert on the corner.

aembleton 3y ago
They took investment, that needs to provide maximum returns.

ranting-moth 3y ago

We value your privacy. The valuation is about $20 and we've already sold it to the highest bidder. Thanks for choosing us to auction it off. We'll keep the money as per T&C (we're looking forward to the firstborn too!). As a token of good will, here's an ankle bracelet.

aembleton 3y ago
They're giving this away for free. There is no charge for a website to call document.browsingTopics()

okeuro49 3y ago

The Google Chrome history deletion feature has always been dog slow. I did read an explanation that it does some complex operations, but you have to wonder if it is deliberately made complex to make people avoid deleting their history, as it takes so long.

lopis 3y ago
Well, it's always been slow in Firefox as well.

notpushkin 3y ago

Honestly, I'm just waiting for the adtech bubble to burst now.

UberFly 3y ago

God. They just can't help themselves anymore, can they. They used to at least lie to us that they weren't evil.

mythz 3y ago

It's pretty clear that this privacy invasive behavior from Chrome and Edge browsers by mega corps fueled by ad seeking revenue are only going to worse over time. For macOS my choice of using the faster and more energy efficient Safari is fairly easy. Windows also has a lot of good options, I prefer Vivaldi as a Chrome alternative since it sports a Blink engine, has a focus on privacy and is actively developed that sees frequent features and improvements in each release [1]. [1] https://vivaldi.com/blog/releases/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/releases/

gmerc 3y ago

Ah the good old fake pattern of having to switch this on every single installation despite being able to switch it on account level technically. Some needs to sue Meta for this too, “presence” across all their apps behaves the same. And resets on every major update.

Broge 3y ago

Made a Chrome extension (hardy har har) to disable these. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/no-privacy-sandbox/jhladehmdkeodebhhkaebgneankeeelf https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/no-privacy-sandbox... Source: https://github.com/kevin51jiang/no-privacy-sandbox https://github.com/kevin51jiang/no-privacy-sandbox

nunez 3y ago

What's the point. Yeah, these kinds of "features" are horribly invasive and anti-consumer, but so, so, so many people just could not give less of a shit as long as they can hit up Facebook or YouTube or whatever work requires them to visit. It's not like the early 00s when Firefox rose to dominance because IE sucked so badly in comparison. Chrome is not only the best and "most-compliant" web browser (isn't it awesome to be compliant with standards you created?), but it is also what most of the web tests against by default and, consequently, works the best with. Not that this even matters, really; most web traffic is shifting to the apps, which have free-reign to track everything you do. Theoretically, app privacy scorecards should dampen this, but it's all too easy to tap "OK" to the "can I use your contacts, your mic, your camera and every sensor and contact I can get away with?" I was not expecting to become a curmudgeon at 35, but between this, WEI, Cloudflare becoming the Internet's global firewall, and the Great Enshittification of Reddit, Twitter, and others, all of this bums me out. Anyone got a positive counterpoint?

MongoTheMad 3y ago
Parks are excellent places to enjoy life.

bigjay517 3y ago

The comments I am reading here seem to imply that this is more privacy invasive than tracking cookies. Steve Gibson did an analysis on Topics and his conclusion was that this is an approach to provide targeted ads (which websites need to make money) without being invasive. Here is a link to his podcast where he explains the specification: https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/935?autostart=false https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/935?autostart=fa... Although if you believe that being online you should be 100% anonymous and share 0% of personal data then of course Topics is not good (but then no other ad targeting solution will be either).

Gud 3y ago

Stop using Chrome and other Google products - They are hostile towards the open web. Use Firefox instead of Chrome, DDG or Kagi for search, Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, and a privacy respecting e-mail provider. They will only stop this bullshit once they go bankrupt - the Google we all loved died a long time, only through branding do they still appear nice.

webworker 3y ago

I'm going to get roasted, but it looks like they're abstracting your history into topics and not wantonly sharing it. Dropping 3rd party cookies is a cool thing. They could maybe take that a step further and just ask you what you'd like to see ads for. That said, even though I "know better" I actively choose to use Safari as a daily driver to avoid things like this. I'm a lot less worried about Apple's intentions, especially since Safari is backed up by all the profits they rake in from iPhone sales. Writing good luck wishe from Safari to all you all chrome users out there! :-P

kcartlidge 3y ago

I really miss the days of the original Opera. Back when the browser was lean, and they were innovating with their own engine and UI.

ptman 3y ago

We need a way to fund Firefox development in particular https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-donate-money-to-the-firefox-development-team-directly/idi-p/198 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-donate-money...

godDLL 3y ago

How about a Do-Not-Track alternative where I can specify what kind of ads I'd be OK to show up alongside my browsing? It could be a header with a hash of an entry in a public list of lists of interest. Cars, travel, fashion, whatever; any order or preference you might come up with. I could flip a switch or install a plugin in the browser to help learn from my browsing history locally, and populate that list accordingly. Adsense needs to respect that header, is all. I'd ditch ad-block if that happened. Provided ads are alongside my content and don't replace it's space and time. I'd use that. EDIT: apparently, the basic idea is there; but also cookies will now only come from the website being viewed, not tracking you across the whole Web.