9 ms·

The new "social" web is really creepy. Browsing in an incognito browser and logged into nothing has sortof become my default. I don't want google chrome savin

by blhack 14y ago

The new "social" web is really creepy. Browsing in an incognito browser and logged into nothing has sortof become my default. I don't want google chrome saving my search history, or to accidentally read an article on some news website that then broadcasts that fact to all of my facebook friends.

vladd 14y ago
You can no longer browse Quora while being logged out: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978
- _delirium 14y ago
  I'm still confused how that gets by Google. The full text shows up in search results, but is blurred by CSS for humans. Isn't that not allowed? Even experts-exchange includes the readable plaintext answers way at the bottom if you scroll down, for that reason. edit: removed discussion of googleoff/googleon directives in the HTML source. Seemed suspicious, but apparently it's something to do with Google Search Appliance.
  - relix 14y ago
    That's insane, that's a bannable offense in Google. How do they still show up in search results?
    - lucisferre 14y ago
      It's a pretty recent change, give it time.
      - dasil003 14y ago
        Yeah Google better kick them to the curb on this one. Man, for all the quibbling over Google latest activity being evil or not, they still do a much better job with basic ethics than Facebook and their ilk. The non-stop attempt to actively change privacy norms by constantly defaulting existing users into more and more revealing new preferences is starting to get really irritating. Facebook I sort of have to put up with because of friends and family, but Quora I'm done with until they reverse this braindead decision. Seriously I don't know who they think they are.
        slurgfest 14y ago
        They don't think they are anybody special. What they think is that it is acceptable, normal behavior. This is not even irrational, considering the precedent set by Facebook - not only doing the same kind of awful stuff over and over again, but actually maintaining that nobody should have privacy. And Facebook has thousands of full-time defenders. Apparently you (like a lot of savvy people otherwise concerned with privacy) will tolerate it from Facebook but not from Quora. So I guess what Quora should do is just get bought by Facebook; then you will not (be able to?) complain about their sketchy behavior.
  - brador 14y ago
    You can tap CTRL+A to see through the blurred text.
  - wahnfrieden 14y ago
    Google allows this if you show the first page's content for visitors that came from Google. If Quora does this, it's fine - it's Google's concession to old-world media.
  - JeremyBanks 14y ago
    I just asked about this on Quora (ha). Apparently the full results do not show up in search results: http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for-hiding-answers-from-search-engine-visitors/answer/Dan-Leveille http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for... (If anybody has a counterexample I'd be interested to see it, but try to make sure it's not just an old result that hasn't been re-indexed since the change.)
    - SilasX 14y ago
      Why do I find it so funny that that question is being asked on Quora?
- pygy_ 14y ago
  There's a Chrome extension that allows to read without logging in (not sure how long it will work, though). https://github.com/benvinegar/Spectacles/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/benvinegar/Spectacles/blob/master/README....
- DodgyEggplant 14y ago
  direct links work. try http://www.quora.com/Conversion-Optimization http://www.quora.com/Conversion-Optimization
- roguecoder 14y ago
  Just get rid of the css style for .blurred_answer_wrapper span.blurred_answer and add display: none to .blurred_answer_wrapper .signup_cta_on_answer. Not that I've had more than one Quora result pop up since that began, but css is easy ;-)
manaskarekar 14y ago
Unfortunately with supercookies, IP address-based identification (maybe even machine signature based id-ing?) and such, I think incognito mode is practically a placebo.
- blhack 14y ago
  You'd be wrong. Try this from incognito: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/
  - manaskarekar 14y ago
    I'm aware of that link and here's my result in Chrome on Incognito. Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in 1,172,808 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 20.16 bits of identifying information.
    - Herring 14y ago
      I changed my user agent string & managed to get down to 15.99 bits of information (one in 65,161). Curious if anyone did better.
      - J_Darnley 14y ago
        Would you care to go into detail about what you changed? Wouldn't changing too much make a user agent stand out? Now I come to think about it, changing the GB to US in my user agent would probably make it less unique.
        Herring 14y ago
        Then you'd be a British IP with a US user agent, which is probably a ton of bits. I just used User Agent Switcher & changed it to firefox 5.0 under XP.
      - GoodIntentions 14y ago
chermanowicz 14y ago
While I agree with you, I think Quora did announce in advance that they were rolling this out
- minm 14y ago
  This should not be a default option. I accidently found out after reading an article in YC. So creepy.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    The default will always be what supports their desired business model the most.
- timmyd 14y ago
  They should have provided clear notification on the next login with a link to the details of the implementation. I recall no such action occurring in anyway.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  If they announced such a change properly, then you should not need to "think" they did so. There shouldn't be any uncertainty.
its_so_on 14y ago
Blhack, I ran across this comment of yours - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 - and certainly appreciate your privacy concerns. A healthy private life is undoubtedly everyone's personal choice. At the same time, HackerNews is YCombinator's tech blog, and highly visible. Frankly, your opinion comes off as somewhat paranoid. It's not that it isn't justified, I'm not saying that one way or another, but I would strongly consider the impact statements like this have on your image in the social space. I heard back from Kenneth. He actually said that your social strategy is a "shambles", which is excusable, and also that you "had 0 interest in improving this" -- which is not. He said that you were more interested in getting to the moon than in building a social network around the project. blhack, the money we entrusted you with not appropriate to spend idly dreaming up conspiracy theories. The world is social. People chirp, tweedle, and most recently iMessage those they care about and feel a community with. This community is now your top priority. I want to be able to show Ken that you have put together at least 10,000 likes and 30,000 followers by the end of the year. Consider this "stage one" of your rocketry design phase. While we are not saying that failure to meet this metric means the board will necessarily replace you, consider it a part of your job description. We are also denying your proposed budget. Please work on your social program. Your board.
- nandemo 14y ago
  Relevant: (?) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366002 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366002
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    I'm double confused.
  - wtvanhest 14y ago
    This has to be a joke. If so, it is kind of funny. If not, it is ridiculous.
- jrockway 14y ago
  What? I'm not sure what's going on here. If you want to send blhack an email, do that. This personal letter is not an appropriate use of HN comments. And sending private messages in public is quite non-cool.
brown9-2 14y ago
I think actions like this give everyone a bad name. I'm not sure if it's the "social web" being creepy - it's Quora being really creepy, and destroying their own goodwill.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Well it seems they've learned from the company they came from - Facebook.
- boomzilla 14y ago
  I think this is a very bad move from Quora. My guess is that they have goals on user growth and had to resort to this tactics in order to achieve that. If you want to grow your user base, provide more value to registered users. Here are a couple of bullet points you can start with: 1. Grow the community with real content. Do that by first focusing on a specific domain/topic that has a natural draw of users. Stack Exchange draws the programmers crowd and nailed that community. Once you got to a critical mass, other communities will follow. E.g., when you have enough programmers in the same place, some of them will share some common interests like photographs, salsa dancing, etc ... Looks like Quora's base supporters are Bay Area's start up community. This is probably too small a support base for sustainable growth. Either Quora needs to expand this support base quickly or it's the END ... 2. Better relevance/recommendations. I am reasonably active on Quora. I follow 82 topics and got 8 answers. However I don't see any good question in the main page even though I scrolled at 10 page lengths.

by blhack 14y ago

vladd 14y ago

You can no longer browse Quora while being logged out: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332978

_delirium 14y ago
I'm still confused how that gets by Google. The full text shows up in search results, but is blurred by CSS for humans. Isn't that not allowed? Even experts-exchange includes the readable plaintext answers way at the bottom if you scroll down, for that reason. edit: removed discussion of googleoff/googleon directives in the HTML source. Seemed suspicious, but apparently it's something to do with Google Search Appliance.
- relix 14y ago
  That's insane, that's a bannable offense in Google. How do they still show up in search results?
  - lucisferre 14y ago
    It's a pretty recent change, give it time.
    - dasil003 14y ago
      Yeah Google better kick them to the curb on this one. Man, for all the quibbling over Google latest activity being evil or not, they still do a much better job with basic ethics than Facebook and their ilk. The non-stop attempt to actively change privacy norms by constantly defaulting existing users into more and more revealing new preferences is starting to get really irritating. Facebook I sort of have to put up with because of friends and family, but Quora I'm done with until they reverse this braindead decision. Seriously I don't know who they think they are.
      - slurgfest 14y ago
        They don't think they are anybody special. What they think is that it is acceptable, normal behavior. This is not even irrational, considering the precedent set by Facebook - not only doing the same kind of awful stuff over and over again, but actually maintaining that nobody should have privacy. And Facebook has thousands of full-time defenders. Apparently you (like a lot of savvy people otherwise concerned with privacy) will tolerate it from Facebook but not from Quora. So I guess what Quora should do is just get bought by Facebook; then you will not (be able to?) complain about their sketchy behavior.
- brador 14y ago
  You can tap CTRL+A to see through the blurred text.
- wahnfrieden 14y ago
  Google allows this if you show the first page's content for visitors that came from Google. If Quora does this, it's fine - it's Google's concession to old-world media.
- JeremyBanks 14y ago
  I just asked about this on Quora (ha). Apparently the full results do not show up in search results: http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for-hiding-answers-from-search-engine-visitors/answer/Dan-Leveille http://www.quora.com/Quora/Why-hasnt-Google-banned-Quora-for... (If anybody has a counterexample I'd be interested to see it, but try to make sure it's not just an old result that hasn't been re-indexed since the change.)
  - SilasX 14y ago
    Why do I find it so funny that that question is being asked on Quora?
pygy_ 14y ago
There's a Chrome extension that allows to read without logging in (not sure how long it will work, though). https://github.com/benvinegar/Spectacles/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/benvinegar/Spectacles/blob/master/README....
DodgyEggplant 14y ago
direct links work. try http://www.quora.com/Conversion-Optimization http://www.quora.com/Conversion-Optimization
roguecoder 14y ago
Just get rid of the css style for .blurred_answer_wrapper span.blurred_answer and add display: none to .blurred_answer_wrapper .signup_cta_on_answer. Not that I've had more than one Quora result pop up since that began, but css is easy ;-)

manaskarekar 14y ago

Unfortunately with supercookies, IP address-based identification (maybe even machine signature based id-ing?) and such, I think incognito mode is practically a placebo.

blhack 14y ago
You'd be wrong. Try this from incognito: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/
- manaskarekar 14y ago
  I'm aware of that link and here's my result in Chrome on Incognito. Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in 1,172,808 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours. Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 20.16 bits of identifying information.
  - Herring 14y ago
    I changed my user agent string & managed to get down to 15.99 bits of information (one in 65,161). Curious if anyone did better.
    - J_Darnley 14y ago
      Would you care to go into detail about what you changed? Wouldn't changing too much make a user agent stand out? Now I come to think about it, changing the GB to US in my user agent would probably make it less unique.
      - Herring 14y ago
        Then you'd be a British IP with a US user agent, which is probably a ton of bits. I just used User Agent Switcher & changed it to firefox 5.0 under XP.
    - GoodIntentions 14y ago

chermanowicz 14y ago

While I agree with you, I think Quora did announce in advance that they were rolling this out

minm 14y ago
This should not be a default option. I accidently found out after reading an article in YC. So creepy.
- rhizome 14y ago
  The default will always be what supports their desired business model the most.
timmyd 14y ago
They should have provided clear notification on the next login with a link to the details of the implementation. I recall no such action occurring in anyway.
jlgreco 14y ago
If they announced such a change properly, then you should not need to "think" they did so. There shouldn't be any uncertainty.

its_so_on 14y ago

Blhack, I ran across this comment of yours - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 - and certainly appreciate your privacy concerns. A healthy private life is undoubtedly everyone's personal choice. At the same time, HackerNews is YCombinator's tech blog, and highly visible. Frankly, your opinion comes off as somewhat paranoid. It's not that it isn't justified, I'm not saying that one way or another, but I would strongly consider the impact statements like this have on your image in the social space. I heard back from Kenneth. He actually said that your social strategy is a "shambles", which is excusable, and also that you "had 0 interest in improving this" -- which is not. He said that you were more interested in getting to the moon than in building a social network around the project. blhack, the money we entrusted you with not appropriate to spend idly dreaming up conspiracy theories. The world is social. People chirp, tweedle, and most recently iMessage those they care about and feel a community with. This community is now your top priority. I want to be able to show Ken that you have put together at least 10,000 likes and 30,000 followers by the end of the year. Consider this "stage one" of your rocketry design phase. While we are not saying that failure to meet this metric means the board will necessarily replace you, consider it a part of your job description. We are also denying your proposed budget. Please work on your social program. Your board.

nandemo 14y ago
Relevant: (?) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366002 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366002
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  I'm double confused.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  This has to be a joke. If so, it is kind of funny. If not, it is ridiculous.
jrockway 14y ago
What? I'm not sure what's going on here. If you want to send blhack an email, do that. This personal letter is not an appropriate use of HN comments. And sending private messages in public is quite non-cool.

brown9-2 14y ago

I think actions like this give everyone a bad name. I'm not sure if it's the "social web" being creepy - it's Quora being really creepy, and destroying their own goodwill.

mtgx 14y ago
Well it seems they've learned from the company they came from - Facebook.
boomzilla 14y ago
I think this is a very bad move from Quora. My guess is that they have goals on user growth and had to resort to this tactics in order to achieve that. If you want to grow your user base, provide more value to registered users. Here are a couple of bullet points you can start with: 1. Grow the community with real content. Do that by first focusing on a specific domain/topic that has a natural draw of users. Stack Exchange draws the programmers crowd and nailed that community. Once you got to a critical mass, other communities will follow. E.g., when you have enough programmers in the same place, some of them will share some common interests like photographs, salsa dancing, etc ... Looks like Quora's base supporters are Bay Area's start up community. This is probably too small a support base for sustainable growth. Either Quora needs to expand this support base quickly or it's the END ... 2. Better relevance/recommendations. I am reasonably active on Quora. I follow 82 topics and got 8 answers. However I don't see any good question in the main page even though I scrolled at 10 page lengths.