Contra Chrome: How Google's browser became a threat to privacy and democracy
contrachrome.com
contrachrome.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Comics
Even if you don't like comics, it is an incredible take on how the brain processes images. Comics are art, more than anything else, about humans. And, this book is a work of art itself because it explains in detail how humans process images of other humans. I cannot recommend it enough.
And, if you are a computer scientist it provides an additional definition for closure, which was surprising to me.
I stopped buying anything online. The only thing I pay for is the internet access itself. I'm not sure this hurts Google enough though.
They do try to trick you into accepting Amazon credit instead of cash refund though.
Exactly like IE before it, but even more extreme. In IE's case, websites avoided IE extensions because they only worked on IE, even when it was the dominant browser.
Removing features from browsers isn't a realistic "solution" if the end result is a "minimal browser" that normal users don't want to use. There are many simpler/minimalist web browsers: https://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+open+source+brows...
The common issue with all of them is "some websites don't work with it". This means the minimalist browsers create a tiny self-selected group of hardcore technically savvy users because they are they only ones who are willing to put up with random incompatibilities.
Whatever <X features> you want to hypothetically remove from browsers such that an individual coder can "hold the smaller source code all in their head" -- will create a limited and more "broken" browser from the perspective of normal mainstream web surfers.
As for video and audio, they could be done better AND more simply than the typically are at the moment.
25 years ago, on my 1GHz computer, with 512MB of RAM, I had no trouble watching videos, playing music, sending files & emails, making calls, etc--all over the internet. So many people are confused into thinking that computing didn't begin until javascript, which was not the beginning, but the beginning of the end.
With the virtualization/containerization facilities baked into common desktop OSes today, we could deliver a complete (and far more secure) experience, needing only a fraction of the boilerplate WHATWG stuffed into Chrome and Firefox over the years.
And with the magic of compilers, we could transpile most existing work down to the new simplified VM. Most “web apps” are already getting transpiled from typescript/javascript to minified javascript. Changing the target is not an insurmountable task.
https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/xitterpng-privacy-friendly-...
Come to think of it, Chrome is not much different from a xitter embed circumventing the third party cookie blocking rules.
And if you think CC info is too sensitive to be remembered by the browser, I consider it a lot less sensitive than many of my passwords which I let it remember. I am assuming they know something about how to store this stuff in a secure way. And residing in the EU I can't even use my CC at places that haven't implemented 2FA for credit cards, like e.g. godaddy last I checked. I need to sign every transaction with my electronic bank id.
Are there other options out there for Browsers that aren't Fx or Chrome? Which one is actually good (technically as well as ethically)?
either get the 'beta' one from the store or the fennec one from fdroid, if you want the real Firefox on Android experience.
it's about time the community abandon Mozilla... so many easy to fix screw ups
Yes, but they aren't ready for use as a daily driver yet. See: Ladybird.
If even on HN peoples care so little for privacy it's no wonder Mozilla could not truly push the privacy angle and are forced to resort to IA crap ...
Their recent update, deleting the promise to not sell their users' data, doesn't instill confidence either.
I hope that Firefox finds a new home outside of this organization, there's a fantastic piece of software somewhere in there still.
"Bananaz sez: SIGN IN FOOLZ!"
You don't have to agree with what you watch. Sure, propaganda immunity does not exist but I'm more mellow in my beliefs because I know I'm getting into echochambers. Even people under regimes with media consisting of 100% propaganda can see the real picture. of course at that point you don't have a good vote because you'll end up in a camp but that has little to do with media diet.
Which is a valid but separate concern. If we’re only using words like “good” and “bad“ we don’t really need to agree on what those point to for a consensus.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say your health suffers if you eat poorly. In other words, it’s harder to be in good health if your diet is bad. Same thing with media diet and voting: it doesn’t seem controversial to say if your media diet is bad your vote is misinformed.
> I know I'm getting into echochambers.
Good for you. I don’t think that’s true of most people, though. And I’m certain there are people who believe they see the truth when they don’t (false conspiracies).
> Even people under regimes with media consisting of 100% propaganda can see the real picture.
I don’t think that’s true at all. What’s your basis for that opinion?
This is an instance of the naturalistic fallacy [1] and it contradicts your very first sentence.
To pull it to an extreme of simplicity, we can all agree that good things are good and bad things are bad without having to agree on which specific things are which.
However, during communism in Bulgaria people didn't openly talk about the issues of the system due to fear of essentially snitches and there was a whole lot of propaganda going around in the form of the little TV access they had, radio, local events, etc. In spite of that, practically everyone knew that despite the marketing of everyone being equal, some were "more equal".
From there you had a split of people who knew how to play the game, and those who didn't.
The grandfather of a friend used to be one of the top people in National Security and was privately against communism despite benefiting from it greatly (warehouse full of western cars, properties, etc), helping good people with big mouths whenever he could. He had the right vote ready but wasn't suicidal about using that right.
My grandfather was incarcerated for not being subtle about disliking communism and fear of retaliation for the regime killing his grandfather without judge or jury and incarcerating his father. Later he learnt to play the game and got pretty far career wise, passing a couple luck roll checks since his big mouth sometimes got him in trouble. Luckily there were quite a few people willing to help good people in spite of their opinions on "the party". That's someone who was punished, drilled with communism propaganda non stop in prison and still maintained his beliefs. He also read a LOT of the books sold at the time (colored to fit in with the beliefs of the regime whenever appropriate). We have an entire library at home since he bought every book he could.
My grandmother also had a big mouth on her but she was stationed as a special needs teacher by the turkish border so she mostly avoided trouble by being in bumfuck nowhere around a disliked by the regime minority.
Mentioning the particular examples because those are actual people, who, if you went to as a tourist in Bulgaria 40 years ago and asked "Do you like communism/Zhivkov" would most likely nod and go on despite being aware the situation is shit and would only give you their actual opinion if they trusted you to a certain degree which makes it very difficult to go to a place with no freedom of speech/opinion and get an actual picture of the political opinions of people.
It’s the “practically everyone” that I question. Some people, sure, but “practically everyone” seems like a stretch. Your previous claim (which is consistent with that one) was:
> Even people under regimes with media consisting of 100% propaganda can see the real picture.
But what we can see is that even under regimes where media is not 100% propaganda it is not true that “practically everyone” “can see the real picture”. You need only look at the USA right now. Regardless of what you think the real picture is, about half the country believes the opposite of the other half. By definition, that cannot be “practically everyone”.
Unless you mean that specifically in countries where media is 100% propaganda, practically everyone can see the real picture. Which I don’t think is true either, and I’m close with people who lived in a dictatorship which can attest to that.
In the US the picture is generally unclear. You have a big direction change in maybe the most influential country in the world and I believe everyone without learning difficulty realizes the situation is unpredictable since it's changing significantly on a weekly basis.
The confidence in comments is not people being convinced they can read the future but positions of confusion being unworthy of sharing causing everyone to present theories as facts.
Also hyperboles. Plenty of hyperboles going around to push the needle further in the direction you want it to go. You'll see topics about muslims "conquering" Europe and calling for a race cleansing written by people who fucking hang with the homie Mahmood but want to display their dissatisfaction with the general situation online and hence say some dumb shit.
Anyway, I believe the US is a bad example at the moment because the situation is very volatile and I believe no one can tell what will happen. I believe a situation being unknown is viable and that a lot of the discussion on it mentions how unpredictable it all is with a side note on confident extreme predictions IMO being a cry for a stronger move of the needle in a certain direction via either propaganda botting, irrational people or, most often, hyperboles.
The democratic faith, this: that a choice made regarding the governance of a mob is categorically [2] better when made by the mob itself than by one man. Or phased differently: A choice, pertaining to the governance of a mob, is right if made democratically and wrong otherwise.
"Democracy is not founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded on reverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on fear of him. It does not champion man because man is so miserable, but because man is so sublime. It does not object so much to the ordinary man being a slave as to his not being a king, for its dream is always the dream of the first Roman republic, a nation of kings."
"This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state."
"The mere machinery of voting is not democracy, though at present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But even the machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practical sense—that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; it is specially trusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom. There is nothing really humble about the abnegation of the Buddhist; the mild Hindoo is mild, but he is not meek. But there is something psychologically Christian about the idea of seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious course of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say that voting is particularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. To say that canvassing is Christian may seem quite crazy. But canvassing is very Christian in its primary idea. It is encouraging the humble; it is saying to the modest man, "Friend, go up higher." Or if there is some slight defect in canvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is only because it may possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the canvasser."
[1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/hypothetical-imperative
[2]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/categorical-imperative
> But if you are not, are you against democracy in undeveloped or developing countries, then?
Not more than I am against it in developed countries.
> Do you think apartheid was right to not give black people votes because they weren't "developed" enough?
No, I think that was racist. You can not determine enlightenment by skin colour.
> Do you think British colonialism was right because the "savages" weren't capable of ruling themselves well?
No I think that was an invasion.
I was referring to people being able to know what is going on and what effects the acts politicians propose might have on them and others and being able to know if the person they vote for is trustworthy.
...also, threat to privacy, definitely yes, but to democracy? Unregulated social networks are a threat to democracy, but they could exist very well without Chrome.
One point of concern is that the idea of free speech has been used by foreign influences to change the opinions of people over the years.
Anyway, counterpoint, unless there was voter fraud etc, democracy allows people to vote against democracy, so if that is the will of the majority, so it goes. Of course, one could argue it wasn't the will of the majority but of a vocal minority, which is the other problem with democracy.
when company sell people's profile and allow political parties to target them with personalized advertisement,
When journalists are allowed to be completely biased that no one trust them anymore,
When fake news are allowed to be spread across social networks without any obstacle,
You remove people's right to make an educated vote on who is best going to represent their interest.
So yeah chrome, Google and other data harvester are part of the problem with some social network and the unregulation of such an important democracy tool that is journalism.
By providing them better information.
Politics is complicated, and most people are neither interested nor qualified to determine what's "best." Even the experts often do not know or agree on how to "fix" things that are broken, so how should the voters? Most just want to be able to afford the groceries.
If a really bad thing is imposed on me when I do X, then I'm not free to do X. Otherwise we'd all have the right of free bank robbing (despite going to jail).
We can rob banks, we just have to decide whether or not it's worth paying the price of being caught and going to prison.
I literally have no idea how you've come up with such a crazy take on things.
why not all social networks? Frankly being served content at whim of company optimizing profits is as bad. In best case it is a feed optimized to extract as much value from you, while serving you content from bubble that entrenches your beliefs.
In worst case scenario - company is politically motivated in similar vein to lobbying and just pushes views that fit their agenda.
Regulated(censored in opinion of some) or not - the sentiment in society exists, you just hide it from policymakers. It will spread slower, but it will fester and can explode and catch society unaware. Encrypted chats exists, and in worst case people can just talk when they meet up.
Honestly i find all the pushes for censorship to be as bad as loss of democracy - in fact, they are one and the same if you can say only approved things. It is even harder to understand why would you push for that if you come from a country that did suffer from censorship in the past. I personally didn't experience it, but my parents did - and the nightmare stories live on in my generation.
Lets not lie to ourselves - 'regulated', 'hate speech' and other such phrases are doublethink words for 'censorship that we like'. and the problem with social media runs deeper than just 'regulation' - it is an inherent conflict of interests between social media corporation itself and society - the goals of both do not align at all.
and before anyone starts defending this approach - think what happens when your worst enemy gets the same powers you give yourself.
to give example - DOGE works with such powers because one of previous Democract administration created such agency with such overreaching powers.
You know, it's not a democracy for everyone, it's just a democracy for a small group op people in power with correct opinions and a monopoly on state media.
And indeed, social media, free speech, even elections, not all elections, but elections where people vote for a wrong party, are a threat to Our Democracy(tm).
Yeah, sure, you could argue that it's not democratic to keep extreme parties out of power, but there are multiple examples across history of parties coming to power democratically and then destroying democracy from within - it happened in Germany in 1933, in Russia, in Hungary, and it's currently happening in the United States. How to prevent this phenomenon (assuming that you want to prevent it, which of course the people profiting from it don't - see JD Vance's speech at the Munich security conference) is a controversial topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy).
No, you don't ;)
Anyways, it's not only about Germany. It's the whole Europe. The establishment uses tricks, fraud, and deception to stay in power despite diminishing support and introduce policies opposed to the majority will of the people.
In Germany, one party was prevented getting into the parliament by theft. In Romania, the election was annulled, and the leading candidate prevented to candidate because he was the wrong one. In Moldova, the election was manipulated by the government deciding which diaspora has the right to vote, and which not. In Slovakia, the elected president got shot for the wrong politics. In the Ukraine, president refuses to organize an election or transfer the power to the Head of Parliament, as the constitution requires, since he's a good guy. France, Ireland, Italy, Poland, everywhere the same or similar story.
JD Vance was right. It's not democracy and not free speech and not freedom, when one group op people have the power to decide about election results, and no real opposition is allowed.
And the party you think I voted for is getting bigger and bigger, not because they offer any solution. They don't. It's because the ruling parties keep pushing policies and laws that suit only a small minority, and which a majority of people oppose. It's the current (and future) German government that is bringing us closer to 1933. You can't blame an opposition for that.
This article conflates data sent from Chrome to search and other public APIs with data sent from Chrome to Chrome APIs for metrics/telemetry and safe search.
The data sent to Chrome APIs like Safe Search, UMA/UKM, stored passwords, auto-fill data and Sync cannot be used to build an ad profile - thanks EU!
With that in mind, let's go through the article.
1. The Omni-box: This data is sent to the Google Search API. So you shouldn't type anything there that you wouldn't send in Google Search. The article is correct here.
2. The amount of money Google gets from Chrome: very very little. The only source of revenue Google gets from Chrome are the ads on the Home page (if that's not disabled). These are just normal ads and don't get access to any special Chrome information. The article implies that Chrome is a significant part of the "257 billion in revenue", but that's not true. Google operates Chrome at a loss. Why does Google operate Chrome if it loses money? Because having a free and open web is essential to Google's main business of search. If the web is hidden behind login prompts or Flash animations or take off entirely into an App then Google's main business, search becomes much less useful (and therefore profitable). So Google is standing against the App-ification and Facebook-ization of the web (and also standing for it - big organizations are complicated and the right hand rarely knows what the left is doing).
3. Chrome does collect data about Chrome's performance on the websites you visit (assuming you opted in to sharing anonymous metrics). This data heavily anonymized (dropping data that doesn't appear for at least 50 users) and access is limited (need to know only). It is intended to be used to improve Chrome - finding slow things to make faster, things that use to much memory to use less, and to help fix things that crash the browser. It explicitly can't be used for ads purposes and can't even be shared outside of the Chrome teams. Each use case requires a separate privacy approval. This is also the case for any other Chrome APIs you might use (page translation, Sync, etc - really everything except the Omni-box).
4. Incognito protects against anything in the Omni-box being associated with your profile and uses temporary storage for all website data. Chrome still gets anonymous telemetry/metrics, which is probably how the article justifies saying Chrome still collects data.
5. Google Chrome as a "central hub". I honestly have no idea what this is trying to say. Yes, you use a web browser as a common way to visit many websites. If Chrome is a "central hub" for this then so.is every web browser.
6. Google maps. Yes, when you browse Google maps in Chrome, Google maps records what you look at, what your zoom level is and other things like that, but it's nothing to do with Chrome. It does that for every web browser.
7. "Your data is retained indefinitely". This is not true. Google has to follow EU law regarding information retention which places strict limits on how long information can be retained, even "for business purposes". Chrome can't keep non-anonymized data for more than a couple of months and anonymous data more than a couple of years. This is probably the most blatant lie in the piece.
8. Chrome bugs. The piece then refers to several Chrome bugs with privacy implications with scare quotes to imply they are intentional. This is very far from the case, as Chrome takes privacy very seriously. Chrome has a strong bug bounty program that pays users for reporting bugs like this to be fixed. If there were an intentional plan to add "bugs" for nefarious purposes then you would think they would fit a common theme or actually benefit Google in some way. Instead they just point to a couple of scary sounding bugs and wave their hands.
9. Manifest v3 - aka the end of ad block. This doesn't prevent ad blockers. It just moves to a declarative API instead of a functional one for request blocking. This means that the extension just had to say, in advance, what requests to block instead of being called for each request on an ad hoc basis. This avoids about 4 inter-process calls for each resource request. Needless to say that makes browsing the web much faster. If Chrome were actually against as blockers then it wouldn't ship with it's own ad blocker, based on EasyList, which it uses to identify and body ads that significantly disrupt the use experience (violating ad standards or using too many resources).
I'm not saying that Chrome is the most private web browser - far from it, but I'd rather criticize them for what they are doing than for a bunch of stuff that they aren't.
For instance, Chrome is likely going to be the last browser to get rid of third party cookies. Part of it is that Chrome was a bit late to the privacy party. The other part is that, since Google is also an advertiser, any major move they make that adversely affects advertisers can be seen as anticompetitive. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has delayed Chrome's planned 3rd party deprecation by years and eventually forces Chrome to water it down into some sort of "user choice" thing that's rolling out...sometime. And even when Chrome gets rid of third party cookies, there's still the dumpster fire that is Related Website Sets allowing for some domains to effectively keep 3rd party cookie equivalents.
Chrome is made by private company with terms of use that you agree with by using it. If you don't agree, don't use it. That's pretty much all you can do. Use competition and shape development by abandoning software with pathologic attitudes.
I find weird titling private companies as threat for democracy and privacy even though you are not obligated to use it. While government intervention threats are used against citizens under laws without possibility to opt-out.
Note that most people don't even know what a browser is, and certainly can't distinguish from a Chrome reskin and a truly independent browser.
Also keep in mind that students don't choose the browser on their ChromeOS laptops.
I find myself over the years drifting from this philosophy, having originally been an ardent advocate of it.
The practical reality, i.e. the one we live in and therefore what actually matters, is that corporate power has massive influence on society and de facto control of government.
Individuals do not have the resources to become experts in every domain and industry which creates a huge disadvantage in their ability to regulate via wallet/feet. Social consensus on this is proven by the existence of agencies like the FDA, SEC, many more. If individual/consumer choice and knowledge was enough to regulate all corporate behavior they wouldn’t exist.
Unfortunately in many cases these regulators have been corrupted and captured by corporate power and the result is corporations doing whatever serves their interests at society’s expense.
If you resign for your personal responsibility and adopt conformity behaviour, you will be easily manipulated. Certainly, you don't have expertise and time to process certain narratives, but do you want so called experts to dictate to you what to do? Always for your safety, right?
Personal responsibility is not all or nothing, and some of it belongs with wise voting. As experts are concerned, that can mean experts in regulation which is fine. Currently that’s often conflated with industry insider experts which is a mistake and the root of a lot of this corruption. Police prove that approach is unnecessary, there are many fine drug detectives for example that were never involved in the illicit drug trade.
Isn't voting giving up personal responsibility to unknown electorate? Also your wise voting is easily conter by anyone who don't care.
How experts of all kind fields could possible compete in predatory environment where only experts in politics win? Whole system doesn't make any sense.
But, now I'm don't like what they do as a company. I've definitely changed my mind.
I think what worries me is not what is happening now. I think about how Twitter almost died in 2016 and was very close to selling a bunch of exact location data on their users. To a cell company who wanted to know when users were going into their competitors stores. That's so nuts that two parties were actually in conversation about that. Corporate desperation is worse than a fentanyl addict, sometimes.
https://x.com/stevekrenzel/status/1589700722983305216
I bring it up because if Google is broken up as the Trump administration intends to do, the world inside Google will be chaos. Anything can happen. If one of the businesses spun out of Google decides it will be best for them long term to sell my data collected ten years ago to the Belarusian secret service, what's to stop them? Nothing really is stopping them now, but in moments of chaos, really crazy unexpected things can happen. Maybe it won't be the Belarusian secret service, maybe it will be my health care company who buys some innocuous like I made on Google+ and I'll be permanently relegated to some un-insurable class of people living in Trump's America.