Hacker News Reader

Comment by gear54rus | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to remind you and everyone else about Firefox reader mode. Solves like 99% of this user-enslaving shit.

Screw that, I just close the page. If a publication disrespects their readers like that, then the content is trash anyway.

Outside of HN, most content creators, especially professionally, don't have the option to make significant changes to the platform on which their content is published. I agree that an entire publication's site can be trash, but good writers can still write on bad platforms.

They do as much as engineers at Google or Facebook do to change their companies.

That is to say, each one cannot make much of an impact, but the responsible thing to do would be to not contribute or at least openly advocate for change from within. If enough people inside shift, then change can happen.

I just don't see a world where journalists walk out on their jobs over cookie pop-ups. It doesn't feel like the same level as what Google/FB do, not to mention the supply/demand looks completely different in their industry vs tech so the power dynamic is a bit different.

And this is really the solution to all of it in the end. A user agent which is actually an agent of the user.

Can't wait until first party isolation is the default in browsers.

You can't wait till websites use first-party cookies to track their users?

This doesn't work on Yahoo sites which redirect to a different URL for the consent.

Then give it.... in an incognito tab haha.

Incognito basically just means "doesn't show up in my history". There are many, many, ways to track users without needing cookies.

> doesn't show up in my history

AND drop all cookies from all domains.

> There are many, many, ways

There probably are. I haven't ever seen it work though. If I get into incognito, my ads show something different my normal profile.

In theory, they can track you from your OS/browser combination (and many more variables), but is there a way to test it?

It isn't theoretical. Google is currently facing a lawsuit (Brown et al v Google LLC et al) for tracking people who assumed Chrome's incognito meant Google would stop tracking them. [0]

[0] https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/06/google-facing-us5-7-billi...

That's a hilarious premise for a lawsuit, because that's never what incognito mode meant.

Font enumeration is the big one.

The EFF has a great tool demonstrating the method: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

It’s not theoretical; it’s used in practice today.

Temporary Containers: you can set all the cookies you want, but 15 minutes after I close the tab they are erased.

Oh and default no js means that I typically don't see those pubups in the first place.

I'm not going to do this because I'd still have to click the "I consent" button, which I do not.

Archive.is, it is.

Reader mode is awesome! I'd love an option to automatically use it for any page that it supports rather than having to select it each time though.

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