'Secret agents' warning removed from Chrome incognito tab | Hacker News Reader

'Secret agents' warning removed from Chrome incognito tab

src.chromium.org

146 pointsshill41 comments

Terrible change, IMO.

Even if the older expanded list skewed a bit into jokey territory in the wording (which I think is fine, even for -- maybe especially for, the secret agent bit because jokes are a fantastic way to highlight injustices) it gave Joe Random user a much better idea of what things incognito won't protect him from than the new text does.

The dividing line of protection incognito gives you may seem completely obvious to anyone reading HackerNews, but I assure you that it is non-obvious to my non-tech friends and family who tell me their new computer has "2 terabytes of memory".

I once had a conversation with someone about how Incognito Mode doesn't actually provide anonymity, and he said, "No, it's cool dude. I have my DSN [sic] set to 8.8.8.8 -- that makes you totally invisible online. It just makes it look like you're Google. Don't worry."

This seems to happen a lot after a certain half life - all of the little quirky personality-showing additions get stripped over time in projects like this. Even happens in code comments too.

Things slip through the cracks and go to production, and then everyone complains and then things with too much color get pulled.

Software grows up too, for better or worse. I find this less surprising than nmap losing "...requires root privileges which you do not appear to possess. Sorry, dude."

I think like people software should have character and history as long as they do not interfere with functionality. I am always a bit sad seeing either one go.

If you come up with a way to make sure no one ever gets offended again, let us know. =/

We had to pull a Konami code easter egg from our website when a customer complained.

What a sad human they must be to know the Konami code but somehow not appreciate it.

I can imagine people being offended depending on what happened when the code was entered.

Just https://kickassapp.com/

(I actually don't know where we got the source code from; it was added before my time.)

Woah, sweet!!

If the result of entering the Konami code were sexist, misogynist, homophobic, racist, etc. I could see how someone might not appreciate it. I don't know what the issue was in this instance...but, I've seen nerds make pretty stupid jokes that cross lines. (And, I'm coming at this not from a politically correct sort of perspective, but instead from a, "check your privilege and try to stop being an asshole to people who have less power and privilege than you".)

People had apparently been complaining for awhile (search for the bug thread on this); for instance: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.chromium.bugs/1815...

on unreasonable grounds...

>> Government surveillance is nothing to joke about

i didn't consider it a joke, and i'll let the next one speak for itself:

>> it isn't performed by secret agents, but via lawyers and engineers

Offended by use of via.

Orwell says that using Latin is evil.

Now that makes sense.

If government surveillance isn't performed by secret agents, then clearly the secret agents joke has nothing to do with government surveillance.

The quote is "surveillance by secret agents".

Given that "secret agent employed by the gov't" is by far the most common usage of "secret agent", anyone fluent in English would parse the original warning as "government surveillance performed by secret agents". That isn't to say that I agree with the complaint, but your comment makes no sense.

Sure, it was just meant to be a joke.

-_- my bad. I guess the fact that I took it seriously is testament to the fact that that kind of statement (said in all seriousness) is pretty common these days.

People will complain about anything. I, for example, am going to complain about this slight decline in my browser humor.

Try NetPositive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetPositive#Error_messages_in_...

It was a disruption tactic: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

Some of the comments after that article are rather bizarre. Sometimes I forget just how good the comment quality is on HN, even though it can get pretty bad.

As one of the complainers (and the person who filed the bug you linked to), I'm happy to see Google make some progress here. I'm even happier to see that they hired Adrienne Felt, who is excellent, and are letting her improve the usability of Chrome's warnings.

What are your feelings about the "Aw, Snap!" error message?

So, uh, your complaint sucks. First, although it may have been interpreted jokingly by some, the text absolutely had a serious meaning behind it. Now that meaning is gone. Second, your suggestion of a link to the tor project is the real joke. Third, if you file a bug complaining about wording without suggesting a precise and usable alternative, you suck.

Interesting that this change from early December is being discussed now. A more recent commit (from @__apf__) in mid-December changes the text to, as the author puts it, "increase emphasis on what incognito doesn't provide".

https://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=revision&revisio...

Maybe the joke just isn't funny any more.

Maybe it's not a joke?

It was their way of warning us.

Great The Smiths song!

Probably because government surveillance is completely expected now.

"Cookies are delicious delicacies"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213186

So this is why Never-Ending Language Learner thought that computer files were baked goods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never-Ending_Language_Learning...

I for one welcome this change, on stylistic grounds. Browsers are used by many people around the world from all ages, all of what they tell to their users must be carefully edited to avoid misunderstandings and anything not necessary needs to be removed. A joke or half joke like that was prone to misunderstandings and unnecessary.

I bet the folks over at https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!forum/chrom... must get a good chuckle out the hysteria swarming over this

If only this was a canary clause.

Out of sight, out of mind

it also won't protect you from bullying from people named incognito

Here, have some Streisand effect, Google!

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