Google shutters Google+ social network after WSJ reports a huge security lapse | Hacker News Reader

Google shutters Google+ social network after WSJ reports a huge security lapse

businessinsider.com

46 pointselsewhen14 comments

Pretty bad look for google not reporting a security incident, especially one related to personal information. Google hasn’t had a good track record recently and this seems to be showing that google has really changed for the worse. If google is willing to cover up a social media breach, what happens when my email data is breached?

I don’t know if I can trust google with my data anymore, or anyone for that matter. As much as my online data is tied to google, it might be time to remove them as painful as it might be. Anyone else done this or have any recommendations about getting away from gmail / chrome? I have used chrome and google/gmail for a long time. I have looked into Firefox previously and the only thing stopping me is the lack of multiple profiles with each having its own window, running at the same time. I usually have one personal profile, one for school and one for work and I would like to keep that setup.

Firefox has something called multi-account containers (this is technically an extension but it's developed by Mozilla) that lets you basically have profiles but on a per-tab basis instead of a per-window basis. It color-codes the tabs to let you know which container it's running in, and you can set it up to always open a given site in a particular container if you want.

Here's the help page if you want more info: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

Thanks, I have heard about this before when it was released but never used it. It seems like it has gotten a lot better.

I use it all the time for the main websites (Google, FB, Amazon, banks, etc).

It's also useful to access the same site with multiple accounts from the same browser in development.

The one feature that would probably make me switch to Firefox again with no hesitation is if these multi-account containers can also have different plugins active/inactive.

Without it, it's still cool but not quite as useful for me.

Quoting the top comment from the other discussion, which I think hits the nail on it's head:

Company finds a security vulnerability caused by a bug. Logs show that it has never been used by anyone. It patches the vulnerability. Should the company announce it publicly?

PS: Keeping in mind that this is part of the Murdoch vs. Google war going on for about 10 years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169083

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound if no one's around to see it or hear it fall? That seems to be Google's logic for not disclosing this.

WSJ discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169027

Google blogpost discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169243

They wanted to shut it off anyways, this is a scapegoat.

Gosh, I like Google+

Am I the only one?

Google+ was successful.in limited groups, where others were more likely to be also involved (for example, tabletop RPGs have a much stronger g+ community than many other hobbies).

This inevitably leads to confusion about popular/competitive it is. See also the final years of word perfect, where it was the norm in medical and legal circles but nowhere else.

You and my father. I just logged into G+ for the first time in months (apparently not shuttered quite just yet...)

... and there are about five hundred political posts from him that I'm glad I didn't see, and six or ten cute bear cubs/cat photo things too. I guess he's shared privately with me, and they've just been going into a black hole?

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169243

This isn't really a dupe, because the press release by Google hides pertinent facts.

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