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Microsoft Edge Sucks Up Chrome Data Without Permission

50 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

sonicanatidae 3y ago
Wait.. Microsoft over-reaching?!?!? Perish the thought.
- Natsu 3y ago
  Microsoft doesn't like taking "no" for an answer. No matter what setting or app you try to get out of your way, they default it back at some point to bother you. No, I'm not going to use Edge. No, I don't want to send feedback on Teams, but since you'll never just leave me alone, I'll keep giving you terrible reviews saying to leave me alone and quit asking, etc.
  - sonicanatidae 3y ago
    Luckily, we have the legal system in place, so when they step over lines, a pittance fine is leveraged. smh.
  - Rodeoclash 3y ago
    Exactly like a creep at bar harassing people.
devwastaken 3y ago
Call it a low quality comment, but any site that displays a full screen email sign up immediately loses credibility and cannot claim to be a solution for the problems discussed. Promote change through high quality, do not adopt the same tactics tech uses to spam people.
- snitch182 3y ago
  Although it is pretty agressive there is a 'no thanks' option .. then you can just read the article.
  - heyoni 3y ago
    I don’t know what I would do without reader mode
    - eviks 3y ago
      Waste more time clicking useless buttons
- tzs 3y ago
  They also ask for donations but I've not been able to find any information on who they are or what they use the money for. Googling the names of the authors I just find stories at the site, or blogspam at other sites based on those stories. Most of what they cover has already been covered at more well known sites whose ownership and authorship information is more open. It gives off a vibe as being scammy.
fooker 3y ago
There goes Edge's edge!
cod3ddy 3y ago
I have it to be honest, at first I thought it was a good idea, but then having y history in a software I wasn't using that's just not it.. they should remove that feature....
- sonicanatidae 3y ago
  It's a great idea for users, but they left a key piece out. Permission. Users should have been able to enable/disable this, but as usual, that's not what happened.
- two_in_one 3y ago
  If only it stayed on user's system. Likely MS makes a 'backup' on its servers. Verizon used to do it. With each update they turned on backup option and siphoned contacts before user could react.
_emacsomancer_ 3y ago
More discussion at: https://9to5google.com/2024/01/30/microsoft-edge-chrome-data-update-windows/ https://9to5google.com/2024/01/30/microsoft-edge-chrome-data...
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] More discussion from earlier this week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39179929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39179929
adr1an 3y ago
Leaving Microsoft aside, maybe that data should be encrypted/ unaccessible to begin with. That would be another paradigm (e.g. android has app isolation afaik)
- calamari4065 3y ago
  You really can't hide information from the operating system while expecting to also use that information in the same OS you're trying to hide it from. The problem isn't that the data is available. It simply has to be available if you are to use it. The problem is that your OS is now a virus all on its own. The OS is not a threat vector you can easily mitigate without just using a different OS.
  - Krssst 3y ago
    I wonder if it would be possible to store the data in such a way that another program importing it without user consent would be trivially illegal.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    >You really can't hide information from the operating system why should tab information from Chrome be exposed to the OS to begin with? Of course an executable can prevent leaking unencrypted data. But we're not even talking about this in a 'hard' sense here. Edge is likely just using some API or export feature or reading some history file. Of course browsers can prevent this.
    - calamari4065 3y ago
      Quite literally everything is exposed to the OS. It can't really be any other way. If it weren't exposed to the OS, then you can't access it either. Any protection mechanism you're imagining is managed by the OS. You trust it to enforce file permissions, to enforce memory isolation, to prevent a rogue program from snooping on data as it's unencrypted. You can't hide these things from the OS because the OS is the only thing that can hide data. The OS has full, unrestricted control of the hardware at a level much deeper than you do. The OS can just read your encrypted data from 'secure' memory. It has to be, otherwise you couldn't read it. The OS can access any file because it has block level access to all drives. And there's not one single thing you can do about it. There's absolutely nothing stopping your OS from spying on you in this way. Unless you use an open source OS which can be proven to not do bad things.

50 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

sonicanatidae 3y ago

Wait.. Microsoft over-reaching?!?!? Perish the thought.

Natsu 3y ago
Microsoft doesn't like taking "no" for an answer. No matter what setting or app you try to get out of your way, they default it back at some point to bother you. No, I'm not going to use Edge. No, I don't want to send feedback on Teams, but since you'll never just leave me alone, I'll keep giving you terrible reviews saying to leave me alone and quit asking, etc.
- sonicanatidae 3y ago
  Luckily, we have the legal system in place, so when they step over lines, a pittance fine is leveraged. smh.
- Rodeoclash 3y ago
  Exactly like a creep at bar harassing people.

devwastaken 3y ago

Call it a low quality comment, but any site that displays a full screen email sign up immediately loses credibility and cannot claim to be a solution for the problems discussed. Promote change through high quality, do not adopt the same tactics tech uses to spam people.

snitch182 3y ago
Although it is pretty agressive there is a 'no thanks' option .. then you can just read the article.
- heyoni 3y ago
  I don’t know what I would do without reader mode
  - eviks 3y ago
    Waste more time clicking useless buttons
tzs 3y ago
They also ask for donations but I've not been able to find any information on who they are or what they use the money for. Googling the names of the authors I just find stories at the site, or blogspam at other sites based on those stories. Most of what they cover has already been covered at more well known sites whose ownership and authorship information is more open. It gives off a vibe as being scammy.

fooker 3y ago

There goes Edge's edge!

cod3ddy 3y ago

I have it to be honest, at first I thought it was a good idea, but then having y history in a software I wasn't using that's just not it.. they should remove that feature....

sonicanatidae 3y ago
It's a great idea for users, but they left a key piece out. Permission. Users should have been able to enable/disable this, but as usual, that's not what happened.
two_in_one 3y ago
If only it stayed on user's system. Likely MS makes a 'backup' on its servers. Verizon used to do it. With each update they turned on backup option and siphoned contacts before user could react.

_emacsomancer_ 3y ago

More discussion at: https://9to5google.com/2024/01/30/microsoft-edge-chrome-data-update-windows/ https://9to5google.com/2024/01/30/microsoft-edge-chrome-data...

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] More discussion from earlier this week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39179929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39179929

adr1an 3y ago

Leaving Microsoft aside, maybe that data should be encrypted/ unaccessible to begin with. That would be another paradigm (e.g. android has app isolation afaik)

calamari4065 3y ago
You really can't hide information from the operating system while expecting to also use that information in the same OS you're trying to hide it from. The problem isn't that the data is available. It simply has to be available if you are to use it. The problem is that your OS is now a virus all on its own. The OS is not a threat vector you can easily mitigate without just using a different OS.
- Krssst 3y ago
  I wonder if it would be possible to store the data in such a way that another program importing it without user consent would be trivially illegal.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  >You really can't hide information from the operating system why should tab information from Chrome be exposed to the OS to begin with? Of course an executable can prevent leaking unencrypted data. But we're not even talking about this in a 'hard' sense here. Edge is likely just using some API or export feature or reading some history file. Of course browsers can prevent this.
  - calamari4065 3y ago
    Quite literally everything is exposed to the OS. It can't really be any other way. If it weren't exposed to the OS, then you can't access it either. Any protection mechanism you're imagining is managed by the OS. You trust it to enforce file permissions, to enforce memory isolation, to prevent a rogue program from snooping on data as it's unencrypted. You can't hide these things from the OS because the OS is the only thing that can hide data. The OS has full, unrestricted control of the hardware at a level much deeper than you do. The OS can just read your encrypted data from 'secure' memory. It has to be, otherwise you couldn't read it. The OS can access any file because it has block level access to all drives. And there's not one single thing you can do about it. There's absolutely nothing stopping your OS from spying on you in this way. Unless you use an open source OS which can be proven to not do bad things.