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Comment by dbushell | Hacker News Reader

The "replacement" is already being penned: https://www.w3.org/TR/privacy-preserving-attribution/

Which is just going to be in additional to 3rd-party cookies. Google's own study concluded removing 3rd-party cookies loses revenue and "privacy-preserving" tracking increases revenue: https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/15189422 So they'll just do both: https://privacysandbox.com/news/privacy-sandbox-next-steps/

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There are regulatory agencies which have specifically told Google it is not allowed to remove 3rd party cookies without a replacement as while Google would be able to continue to function fine, their competitors would take a major loss.

Sounds like a great argument for running a different browser not developed by an advertising company, and thus not constrained by that.

Agreed. Curious what HNers feel is the most viable replacement. I'm experimenting w Arc this week...

Firefox with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger at a minimum, other extensions to taste[0]

I’ve also been experimenting with Zen[1], which is Firefox based, recently and it seems quite promising in terms of a nicer default UI.

[0] I like Tab Stash, Vimium C, SponsorBlock, Decentraleyes, DeArrow, Archive Page, among others

[1] https://zen-browser.app/

Firefox is alright. I keep around a script called `chrome-new` for those rare case I still need Chrome.

  #!/bin/sh
  if [ -z $CHROME ]; then
      test -e "$(which chromium)" && CHROME="chromium"
      test -e "$(which google-chrome)" && CHROME="google-chrome"
      test -e "$(which google-chrome-stable)" && CHROME="google-chrome-stable"
      test -e "$(which google-chrome-dev)" && CHROME="google-chrome-dev"
  fi
  TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d /dev/shm/chrome-XXXXX)
  $CHROME --user-data-dir=$TMPDIR --no-first-run --no-default-browser-check "$@"
  rm -rf $TMPDIR

Cool script! Thanks for sharing! :)

I've been on Firefox for years, it's extremely good these days

Likewise. Even despite the multiple times Mozilla manages to carefully aim at their feet before shooting, Firefox still seems like the best available alternative.

I’m unhappy with Firefox’s new privacy policy so I jumped over to WaterFox. It’s working good for now, but I’m anxiously awaiting ladybird browser.

btw, Arc is in maintenance mode as The Browser Company focuses on building a new AI browser called Dia: https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/2/24310944/dia-ai-browser-v...

Do you have links for this? I'm curious about which bodies and what was their argument.

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/investigation-into-googles-priv...

Seems like the CMA are concerned for other advertisers who profit from 3rd-party cookies, no concern for user's privacy. That poor billion dollar industry, how will it cope?

their mandate is to regulate competition

not privacy

Another "trusted" third party based tracking system. All I need to know to avoid it even when it is printed on toiletpaper.

Yep, definitely "trusted third party". For example:

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t...

Owned by Mozilla, ran by ex-Facebook employees. I'm sure it's entirely coincidentally this W3C draft was written by Mozilla and Facebook employees.

I just want someone to explain how I can edit my own privacy preserving attribution database. Is it a local SQLite database or something?

I feel like storing my "preferences" locally without letting me edit them as a stupid move.

Google's design stores the tracking data locally. Chrome already has a UI to manage topics of interest (chrome://settings/adPrivacy).

> "privacy-preserving" tracking

Wow.

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