Wow. I am very strongly considering switching to Firefox now, just from this paragraph.
However, if people frequenting a tech forum are not aware of the privacy benefits that Firefox has been pushing for a long time now, we as "tech folk" have a responsibility to push out the message.
So you can find out more about Firefox tracking here - https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/03/todays-firefox-bloc...
And the Firefox Facebook Container may also be of interest - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/facebookcontainer/
Hopefully, you're now reading replies to your initial comment in Firefox!
Both of which were thankfully completely off target. Apparently those two categories are the birdshot of advertising.
Worse advertising is a sacrifice I'm willing to make (as much as I do really like ads for things that are on sale when I happen to need them).
For me, a second reason to prefer them is that ads are noise. If the semantic content of that noise stays irrelevant, it is easier to ignore.
People can have a ton of other reasons, like avoiding temptation.
My turn - genuine question: did you honestly not know people feel this way?
How am I a targeted ad? I didn't say everyone on HN is a targeted ad. However, HN does show targeted ads.
> which seems to be your thesis.
Not even close. You should reread my comment for what it says, not what you want it to say so you can try to reply with a witless comment.
I don't mind supporting companies by not blocking ads on a page, but I do mind being "followed" by them around the internet and IRL.
In short, this allows me to strengthen my focus. Even though this all happens semi-unconsciously, it makes me more immersed in the content I'm actively trying to pay attention to.
I'm sure they'd prefer or even like advertisements that are relevant from page content NOT invasive personal tracking or profiling.
IE: You go to a bathtub website and see an ad for rubber ducks and soap because those products make sense with bathtubs, not with the users browsing history.
Sadly, sacrificing relevancy is currently the only move to speak out about tracking, as a consumer.
Let's say I like cars and I don't care for travelling.
If both sides of the page are background image of a car, I will check what car it is because I like cars. If it's a huge picture of a beach I won't even notice because I don't care for beaches.
On the other hand, when I'm later visiting pornhub I'm unlikely to consider purchase of those tools even though they may appear relevant to my interests based on my previous browsing history. On the other hand, I am more likely to be interested in meeting hot moms from my area then - which is again solely context based.
Advertising works, on everyone, including on me.
No matter how hard I try to not be affected by advertising, I can't stop it from working.
Now, with that said, if I have the option to be exposed to an advertisement for a category of products that I am likely to purchase anywhay, or a category that I will never purchase: Isn't it obvious that my behaviour is more likely to be influenced by the relevant add than the irrelevant one?
Some people might think that the word "brainwashing" is too strong to be used for describing advertising, and maybe it is, but is it really that strange that I would prefer a tiny amount of "brainwashing" over a small amount?
I dont have a solution, as often it is with all these questions, but I hope there is a better way going forward.
So I am in a similar position as you in terms of getting the ad companies to just throw random guesses at me.
But here is what gets me. There is this new push by YouTube that let's you clearly label your videos just for kids.
If I am on YouTube and I am playing a video that clearly is made for only kids, why does YouTube show advertising that is targeted for adults?
Perfect mobile duo for me.
Maybe it's because this is a tech forum. I take care of cookies and third party (and even first party) resources myself - so I don't know and don't care what Firefox does by default. Defaults are good for the other 99% of the people (who usually don't visit tech forums).
But I've always disabled it, on general principles.
Plus they fixed their issues with performance, so it works just as well as the other browsers on my mbp.
I will also take a moment to rant about the fact that YouTube allows you to select from a bevy of lower resolutions, but doesn’t allow you to select a lower frame rate. Many times I would rather watch a 1080p30 video on slower hardware instead of the 720p60 I am forced into selecting.
I've thought about this too. I'm not certain, but I suspect this has to do with streaming video compression, specifically the fact that most video compression schemes I know of are temporal (i.e. they can eliminate the need to transmit a lot of data based on unchanged or productively changing pixels between consecutive frames). With a lower frame rate, the probability that pixels in consecutive frames being related decreases. That's my guess anyway.
I recently went to a website which had 250 (!) tracking cookies for marketing purposes... As you might suspect it was ridden with ads.
https://github.com/containers-everywhere/contain-google
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
I stopped recommending them.
I'm under the impression that Safari and Firefox have this enabled by default. Is the only difference that it's disabled by default in Chrome?
Chrome is working on fingerprinting resistance and developing privacy preserving APIs that can replace third party cookies: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb... https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy... https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-priv...
(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself)
> Chrome is working on fingerprinting resistance and developing privacy preserving APIs that can replace third party cookies
And what will their (business and thus vital) interest in doing this probably be? Probably not what's in my, the user's interest. But what's in their customers' interest - advertisers.
> I work on ads at Google
Well...
(Thank you for the disclosure though.)
Honestly it's kind of a rhetorical question because by having the nag screen the damage is already done to Google's reputation and it makes me feel really icky. Opting out of the nag screen just hides the grossness, and I would rather be reminded that using Chrome, and by extension all Google products, is just a bad idea.
Google's ad networks do use cookies for ad targeting, even in Chrome.
If you can point me towards a source that discusses the technical details of how Google tracks its users, I'd be interested in reading it.
That's not how identity works on the web. Cookies are how every site tracks logged-in identity, including Facebook. To test this, clear your facebook.com cookies and observe that you're logged out.
But they may also be fingerprinting; I don't know how they do things.
The key thing from my perspective, though, is that Google ads don't have any sort of special treatment in Chrome.
Fingerprinting is less reliable and more difficult to use, but it's powerful enough that multiple companies will have a clear picture of your browsing history whether your browser blocks third party cookies or not.
Fingerprinting is worse for users because you don't have control over it. If you open a private browsing window, close it, and open another one you're a different user from a cookie perspective but the same user from a fingerprinting perspective.
> what will their (business and thus vital) interest in doing this probably be?
My understanding from what Chrome has said publicly is that they're trying to get both (a) websites can make similar money from ads as they do now, keeping browsing free and (b) users have much more privacy than they do now, keeping third parties from being able to compile browsing histories for users.
Users benefit from (a) because they value these sites and from (b) because they don't want their browsing histories leaked.
[1] https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb...