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Comment by cremno | Hacker News Reader

I think using a blocker extension like uBlock Origin restores (at least partially) this functionality without involving Google.

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Right, but then you're just changing who you leak data to, you're not stopping the leak.

EDIT: wow, downvotes? Getting a list from EasyList is just as much a leak as getting a list from Google. Someone has your IP either way.

Yeah. I personally don't care if something is from Google but other people do. I'm quite surprised this stupid list that doesn't even explain what each setting actually does is on page 1.

(Edit: Oh, it seems it was updated in the meantime.)

> Getting a list from EasyList is just as much a leak as getting a list from Google. Someone has your IP either way.

The problem with SafeBrowsing isn't downloading the list, it's that it sends data back to Google if it finds a match. Malware lists with AdBlock plugins don't do this.

My understanding was that Google's malware list is a two prong approach:

  1: An all-in-one lump download of blacklists
  2: Optionally, "Enhanced" also sends hashed URLs to Google in case specific sub-pages aren't on the list, etc

Easylist, of course, only offers #1. Firefox, by default, uses both, which is less private, but seemingly still configurable to use only #1.

Citations:

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/safebrowsing/faq.html

https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/firefox3_privacy...

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=124878.0

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