Just got this blocking modal. In mine, the title says “Turn on an ad privacy feature”. That is misleading to say the least. This is a privacy-invading feature, leaking summaries of my browsing history to anyone who wants to have a look. What’s worse, the modal completely blocks the UI, so you can’t even search for it to understand more.
Why am I even using this browser anymore?
EDIT: Note this section about privacy goals, from the draft proposal by two Googlers: “Users should be able to understand the API, recognize what is being communicated about them, and have clear controls. This is largely a UX responsibility but it does require that the API be designed in a way such that the UX is feasible.” [1]
I guess it’s just a little oopsie that made the people responsible for the UX present it to the user through misleading copy.
Yeah, stop putting up with all these anti-features! Firefox, Brave etc are not perfect but at least they're not THAT. No matter how many hoops you jump through, still using Chrome means it is being endorsed. Wish more people would reconsider it like you and jump ship!
I have been using Firefox since version 2.x and I never understood what downsides people find with it. I've used chrome and the only difference i saw was annoying pushes from google to log in so that i could be tracked all the time. Otherwise, it shows web pages, what more do you want?
Im sorry but if you are using Chrome as a “pro” nowadays, its your own fault. There are countless alternatives available, starting from Firefox, to Brave, to some exotic browsers, and if you must use Chrome, then there is a de-Googled one called Chromium.
Its clear that Google is milking every single one of its users using their browser, since they have access to your computers.
Probably this is the “vector” they use to gather the most info about users, apart from Android maybe.
There's Chromium and there's Ungoogled Chromium[1]. If you're looking for (some) independence from Google, you want the latter. Or just avoid it altogether and use other browsers.
I wouldn't recommend Blink-based browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc.) You're still indirectly giving Google power over the web by using their engine.
Just want to pour one out to my fellow corporate drones on locked down work laptops, who can usually choose between a pre-installed and managed installation of Chrome (a rock) and/or Edge (a hard place).
The popup is absolutely disgusting. I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.
> I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.
I am gonna make a generalization but HN readers is not the demographic pushing for Firefox usage and when they do it's usually for the wrong reason: "performance".
At some point you would have to set a weekly (daily?) reminder to turn off all new sell-out "features" that get added. Also, at some point those "features" stop being an option you can opt-out.
If you're interested in utilizing your history information for something in your intentional interests, consider saving an archive of pages you browse to make a search engine you can query back through later.
You can save the full content for indexing with full text search, and you can even export archives as tarballs by zipping up the directory. Many people find this a useful way to "mine" their own browser history to create a curated search engine aligned with your interests. Or simply to save the pages they browse for review offline--either to save bandwidth, or just because they're actually "offline"--at a remote site, or on an airplane.
Everything is saved in a fully interactive way. Personally tho, I find search the most useful feature. Also, we're open source so if you want to get involved, please do so!
In the long run I want a browser that has a solid community or base behind it, with a mostly-good record (no point chasing perfection here) of privacy and security. The Mozilla Foundation has done a good but not stellar job (remember 1.1.1.1?). I also don't want to change browsers because someday Vivaldi - hypothetically - gets acquired by Evil Corp, or has some vulnerability that remains unpatched. I just want to get my work done.
Why use chromium based browsers at all? Google largely has control of the project and they seem determined to keep adding anti-privacy/anti-user features.
Yeah, I like Vivaldi too. It's been a string of largely pleasant surprises since I started using it a few months back, along the lines of "I had no idea I needed this until now". The only downside has been the occasional crash, perhaps because I've gone overboard with workspaces relative to the specs of my old PC.
Just use brave. I only use chrome to watch videos when I need Nvidia Video Super Resolution for low res videos because brave has a performance bug supporting this feature
Its 2023, how have we come so far with this nonsense. I would have thought Firefox would be king of the browsers by now. But nope, people love their data being sucked up and used by the big G.
It doesn't really matter what Mozilla did. They never had the budget to compete with Google on browser advertising anyway.
If you look at the market share progression of the old opera and mozilla vs. internet explorer, and you compare it to the stellar rise of Chrome when it came out, it's really obvious that Chrome's success is due mostly to advertising.
Firefox is just less usable. It's slower and a lot of config options are missing. Stuff that is common in enterprises and has buttons in Chrome (e.g. "add the intranet search to your browser!") is hard in Firefox (you have to write and serve a specific XML file somewhere).
Also it has a big incredible redesign every 2 weeks, as far as I can tell from HN, while Chrome's UI is mostly boring and stable.
Yeah. For me, the main feature that has me use chrome instead is that it can remember my credit card details. I don't understand how it can be that firefox doesn't do this, it's so annoying.
There is an end in sight: Firefox's. Mozilla has billion dollars and is cutting back on Firefox software development to focus on paying executives and pushing agendas.
You're either out of touch, or pushing an agenda yourself.
Firefox is a great browser, a sensible choice without any flaws that exists RIGHT NOW, that does not add a weekly "feature" that encroaches the user's interests.
I have a similar issue with hardware accelerated videos in general that drops all my USB connections randomly when stopping or skipping in a video. I think it's a power state change issue with my GPU because it never happens if I have a video game running.
I can see the point here. Ad companies will track your browsing history. Google doesn't want to rely on cookies and fingerprints and probably wants to nuke tracking capabilities as well, but doing so in their browser while they still sell ads would be regulatory suicide.
Providing an open API for advertisers that doesn't require endless digital stalking is the only way Google will ever be able to enforce stricter anti tracking features. Their announcement that they were working on ending third party cookie tracking was met with threats of lawsuits and antitrust.
A locally classified list of topics that can be spoofed by the user agent is an excellent privacy measure. Nobody wants ads, but I'd rather have Chrome enable site isolation than the current status quo.
Honestly, I don't see the problem here. Your browsing history isn't submitted to Google according to the spec. There are aboit 8 bits of entropy for fingerprinting, but who cares when WebGPU and the canvas APIs provide ten times that already.
The privacy invasion argument seems to be "but it's based on my browsing history" which is exactly how all major advertisers have been doing it for the last ten years.
If this gets cancelled, Google isn't going to implement any anti tracking features in Chrome. They legally can't because of advertisers as scummy as them. They can choose between dropping their main source of income (lol), leaving Microsoft in charge of Chromium and killing Chrome (lol), do nothing against the current atate of the web amd tracking, or work with advertisers in a way that doesn't get them sued to hell over antitrust.
1. The argument that "it's been happening for the last ten years" is not a valid justification for the continuation of a practice that infringes on user privacy. Progress in digital privacy rights should aim at enhancing user control over their data, not maintaining status quo.
2. The suggestion that Google has only a limited choice between maintaining its main source of income or facing antitrust lawsuits is an oversimplification. Google, as one of the most influential tech companies, has the power and resources to innovate and find alternative models that respect user privacy while also providing value to their advertisers.
3. The idea that an API to track browsing history is a "privacy measure" because it can be "spoofed" by the user is flawed because it assumes all users have the technical knowledge and time to do so. This should not be a user's responsibility; privacy should be a default setting, not an option for the tech-savvy.
4. Lastly, just because the browsing history isn't directly submitted to Google does not mean it cannot be misused. Even if Google uses this data responsibly, the potential for abuse still exists with third parties
You know, they could ask people to select some of their interests to serve ads against. Would totally remove the privacy issue and the ads might finally be targeted towards something good.
No offense, but you are questioning google just now? Like... 2012 was the year to question Google about shady practices. Like bundling Chrome with other software and installing it without user agreements. But it's just an example among many.
Many of them think they’re supporting the free and open internet. I can promise you that many ad engineers take privacy very seriously, and from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech.
I seriously doubt the people in this thread will agree with any of that, but I thought I’d answer the question. Of course, the money helps too - Google just recently laid off thousands of workers in an attempt to scare the rest into compliance
> from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech
That would require levels of cognitive dissonance rarely seen outside fraudulent politicians. But that's phrasing it sarcastically, something best avoided in conversations. Bluntly put: indeed, I don't believe you. You cannot work for Google/Alphabet, where 80% of revenue ($183 billion in 2020!) comes from ads, and believe you're doing privacy a favor.
It's pretty clear that this privacy invasive behavior from Chrome and Edge browsers by mega corps fueled by ad seeking revenue are only going to worse over time.
For macOS my choice of using the faster and more energy efficient Safari is fairly easy. Windows also has a lot of good options, I prefer Vivaldi as a Chrome alternative since it sports a Blink engine, has a focus on privacy and is actively developed that sees frequent features and improvements in each release [1].
Have installed firefox with uBlock Origin on all of my family members android phone + laptops. Always bug my friends to switch over to firefox. I am doing my part. Just make sure that you export all the bookmarks/history/passwords over to FF to make it easier for them to switch.
The comments I am reading here seem to imply that this is more privacy invasive than tracking cookies. Steve Gibson did an analysis on Topics and his conclusion was that this is an approach to provide targeted ads (which websites need to make money) without being invasive.
Although if you believe that being online you should be 100% anonymous and share 0% of personal data then of course Topics is not good (but then no other ad targeting solution will be either).
There's a pop up that will be clicked through and soon forgotten and then there will still be ads. The ads might be slightly less targetted as they may now be showing for general browsing categories rather than individual websites visited but its not a big change.
The sad thing is people who should know better will still find excuses to keep using Chrome. And people with ulterior motives will help amplify their excuses.
Stop using Chrome and other Google products - They are hostile towards the open web.
Use Firefox instead of Chrome, DDG or Kagi for search, Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, and a privacy respecting e-mail provider.
They will only stop this bullshit once they go bankrupt - the Google we all loved died a long time, only through branding do they still appear nice.
Yeah, these kinds of "features" are horribly invasive and anti-consumer, but so, so, so many people just could not give less of a shit as long as they can hit up Facebook or YouTube or whatever work requires them to visit.
It's not like the early 00s when Firefox rose to dominance because IE sucked so badly in comparison.
Chrome is not only the best and "most-compliant" web browser (isn't it awesome to be compliant with standards you created?), but it is also what most of the web tests against by default and, consequently, works the best with. Not that this even matters, really; most web traffic is shifting to the apps, which have free-reign to track everything you do.
Theoretically, app privacy scorecards should dampen this, but it's all too easy to tap "OK" to the "can I use your contacts, your mic, your camera and every sensor and contact I can get away with?"
I was not expecting to become a curmudgeon at 35, but between this, WEI, Cloudflare becoming the Internet's global firewall, and the Great Enshittification of Reddit, Twitter, and others, all of this bums me out. Anyone got a positive counterpoint?
Is this is a privacy win for anyone using a non-Chrome/ium browser? Given the majority of the population use Chrome, will most websites stop relying on cookies and instead use the Topics API?
Though I suppose cookies will always be a fallback option if the website detects that the browser doesn't support the Topics API...
You can feed websites fake topics to mislead them, or even allow the user to pick their interests if they do want ads. That's a lot easier than sending your browser through random websites to shake off trackers and analysers.
Cookies are hard because other browsers do isolation based on top-level domains. Fingerprinting is the only way to track non-Chrome browsers.
Google wants to do cookie isolation as well, but ad companies threatened to sue them over it, so they can't for now, not until there's a viable alternative.
I think it is a privacy win. Every now and then, probably once every few months, I come across a website on Firefox where I have to disable enhanced tracking protection. If Chrome stops allowing 3rd party cookies then sites will have to be built better and should see fewer problems with the enhanced tracking protection.
How about a Do-Not-Track alternative where I can specify what kind of ads I'd be OK to show up alongside my browsing? It could be a header with a hash of an entry in a public list of lists of interest. Cars, travel, fashion, whatever; any order or preference you might come up with. I could flip a switch or install a plugin in the browser to help learn from my browsing history locally, and populate that list accordingly.
Adsense needs to respect that header, is all. I'd ditch ad-block if that happened.
Provided ads are alongside my content and don't replace it's space and time.
I'd use that.
EDIT: apparently, the basic idea is there; but also cookies will now only come from the website being viewed, not tracking you across the whole Web.
Does Firefox support web apps via PWA APIs yet? That was one of the biggest issues I had with it on desktop - it removes the need for Electron and Mozilla just dropped the plans.
Electron is for lazy developers that cannot master Web widgets available for 30 years on mainstream OSes.
Or step out of their comfort zone into pure native applications, or background services making use of default browser for UI.
If people like myself have been able to master multiple native since decades, and also use such approaches during the dotcom boom, it is hardly an excuse for younger devs lacking such skills, other than laziness.
And yes, even MS, VSCode isn't as bad, as it relies on several external processes, renders into WebGL, and has the excuse they use it to sell services into Azure and Github, back at X-Windows/one UNIX development server.
I'm going to get roasted, but it looks like they're abstracting your history into topics and not wantonly sharing it. Dropping 3rd party cookies is a cool thing. They could maybe take that a step further and just ask you what you'd like to see ads for.
That said, even though I "know better" I actively choose to use Safari as a daily driver to avoid things like this. I'm a lot less worried about Apple's intentions, especially since Safari is backed up by all the profits they rake in from iPhone sales.
Writing good luck wishe from Safari to all you all chrome users out there! :-P
The Google Chrome history deletion feature has always been dog slow.
I did read an explanation that it does some complex operations, but you have to wonder if it is deliberately made complex to make people avoid deleting their history, as it takes so long.
This is absolutely fantastic!
It releases me from my region beta paradox and finally gives me enough activation energy to break my laziness of using chrome mobile (only left-over).
Would like to head for Firefox, if they would only add some usability features I'm so used to (like tab groups). So Brave it will be, i guess...
Still the sad thing is, that both Brave (technically) and Firefox (financially) are heavily dependent on Google.
Just got this blocking modal. In mine, the title says “Turn on an ad privacy feature”. That is misleading to say the least. This is a privacy-invading feature, leaking summaries of my browsing history to anyone who wants to have a look. What’s worse, the modal completely blocks the UI, so you can’t even search for it to understand more.
Why am I even using this browser anymore?
EDIT: Note this section about privacy goals, from the draft proposal by two Googlers: “Users should be able to understand the API, recognize what is being communicated about them, and have clear controls. This is largely a UX responsibility but it does require that the API be designed in a way such that the UX is feasible.” [1]
I guess it’s just a little oopsie that made the people responsible for the UX present it to the user through misleading copy.
1: https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/topics
> Why am I even using this browser anymore?
Yeah, stop putting up with all these anti-features! Firefox, Brave etc are not perfect but at least they're not THAT. No matter how many hoops you jump through, still using Chrome means it is being endorsed. Wish more people would reconsider it like you and jump ship!
I have been using Firefox since version 2.x and I never understood what downsides people find with it. I've used chrome and the only difference i saw was annoying pushes from google to log in so that i could be tracked all the time. Otherwise, it shows web pages, what more do you want?
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Firefox seems ok to a layman so far. Time to throw Chrome of the Windows part of my daily now.
I've been back to Firefox for 3-4 years and it has been rock solid on MacOS and Android. I have only very minor gripes not worth mentioning.
Im sorry but if you are using Chrome as a “pro” nowadays, its your own fault. There are countless alternatives available, starting from Firefox, to Brave, to some exotic browsers, and if you must use Chrome, then there is a de-Googled one called Chromium.
Its clear that Google is milking every single one of its users using their browser, since they have access to your computers.
Probably this is the “vector” they use to gather the most info about users, apart from Android maybe.
> there is a de-Googled one called Chromium
There's Chromium and there's Ungoogled Chromium[1]. If you're looking for (some) independence from Google, you want the latter. Or just avoid it altogether and use other browsers.
I wouldn't recommend Blink-based browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc.) You're still indirectly giving Google power over the web by using their engine.
[1] https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium
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Just want to pour one out to my fellow corporate drones on locked down work laptops, who can usually choose between a pre-installed and managed installation of Chrome (a rock) and/or Edge (a hard place).
The popup is absolutely disgusting. I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.
> I would love to think this would backfire and push more people towards Firefox but their target is obviously not HN readers, they know what they are doing.
I am gonna make a generalization but HN readers is not the demographic pushing for Firefox usage and when they do it's usually for the wrong reason: "performance".
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I was wondering why I didn't see this popup and realized that I've been using Firefox for almost a year now. Haven't looked back.
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Related tweet from Paul Graham: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392517
At some point you would have to set a weekly (daily?) reminder to turn off all new sell-out "features" that get added. Also, at some point those "features" stop being an option you can opt-out.
The real solution is switching to Firefox.
When human beings act like this they get labelled as predators. This industry has a terrifying understanding of what consent means.
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The Windows model.
If you're interested in utilizing your history information for something in your intentional interests, consider saving an archive of pages you browse to make a search engine you can query back through later.
You can save the full content for indexing with full text search, and you can even export archives as tarballs by zipping up the directory. Many people find this a useful way to "mine" their own browser history to create a curated search engine aligned with your interests. Or simply to save the pages they browse for review offline--either to save bandwidth, or just because they're actually "offline"--at a remote site, or on an airplane.
Everything is saved in a fully interactive way. Personally tho, I find search the most useful feature. Also, we're open source so if you want to get involved, please do so!
https://github.com/dosyago/DiskerNet
https://pinboard.in is my go-to for this sort of thing.
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Or you could... use any other chromium based browser that doesn't do this.
Might I suggest Vivaldi? It's nice, lots of built in features that you probably are running extensions for currently.
Or, stick to Firefox.
In the long run I want a browser that has a solid community or base behind it, with a mostly-good record (no point chasing perfection here) of privacy and security. The Mozilla Foundation has done a good but not stellar job (remember 1.1.1.1?). I also don't want to change browsers because someday Vivaldi - hypothetically - gets acquired by Evil Corp, or has some vulnerability that remains unpatched. I just want to get my work done.
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Please, do not use Vivaldi or any other closed source, secret codebase browser.
Can you imagine signing into your bank with a closed source browser.
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Why use chromium based browsers at all? Google largely has control of the project and they seem determined to keep adding anti-privacy/anti-user features.
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Yeah, I like Vivaldi too. It's been a string of largely pleasant surprises since I started using it a few months back, along the lines of "I had no idea I needed this until now". The only downside has been the occasional crash, perhaps because I've gone overboard with workspaces relative to the specs of my old PC.
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if anyone likes and needs to use something based on Chromium, use Falkon. if not, stick to Firefox
I use Brave.
All the same Chrome extensions and other functionality work.
But I'd wager someone on here could find a problem with them too :(
Just use brave. I only use chrome to watch videos when I need Nvidia Video Super Resolution for low res videos because brave has a performance bug supporting this feature
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> You can block sites that you don't want. Chrome also auto-deletes sites that are older than 30 days from the list.
> You can block topics that you don’t want to be shared with sites. Chrome also auto-deletes your topics that are older than four weeks.
Wow, they really went all out here in regards to actively user hostile patterns!
Thanks, I was looking for exactly this!
Its 2023, how have we come so far with this nonsense. I would have thought Firefox would be king of the browsers by now. But nope, people love their data being sucked up and used by the big G.
Mozilla focused on the wrong things for a few years
It doesn't really matter what Mozilla did. They never had the budget to compete with Google on browser advertising anyway.
If you look at the market share progression of the old opera and mozilla vs. internet explorer, and you compare it to the stellar rise of Chrome when it came out, it's really obvious that Chrome's success is due mostly to advertising.
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Mozilla dug their own grave, to be fair.
Firefox is just less usable. It's slower and a lot of config options are missing. Stuff that is common in enterprises and has buttons in Chrome (e.g. "add the intranet search to your browser!") is hard in Firefox (you have to write and serve a specific XML file somewhere).
Also it has a big incredible redesign every 2 weeks, as far as I can tell from HN, while Chrome's UI is mostly boring and stable.
Multiple solutions without any xml: https://superuser.com/questions/7327/how-to-add-a-custom-sea...
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Yeah. For me, the main feature that has me use chrome instead is that it can remember my credit card details. I don't understand how it can be that firefox doesn't do this, it's so annoying.
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And there is no end in sight. For the love of God, please switch to Firefox.
There is an end in sight: Firefox's. Mozilla has billion dollars and is cutting back on Firefox software development to focus on paying executives and pushing agendas.
You're either out of touch, or pushing an agenda yourself.
Firefox is a great browser, a sensible choice without any flaws that exists RIGHT NOW, that does not add a weekly "feature" that encroaches the user's interests.
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I have this weird issue with Firefox: any time when is fast forward in a YouTube video it drops my USB-C connections!
I have a similar issue with hardware accelerated videos in general that drops all my USB connections randomly when stopping or skipping in a video. I think it's a power state change issue with my GPU because it never happens if I have a video game running.
Perhaps your usb c and audio devices are on the same hardware bus and Firefox is doing something there. I had that problem with discord once.
Interesting. Is hardware acceleration enabled?
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It's getting to the point were I am really questioning the characters of people that still work at Google.
I mean some of the people implementing and designing this shit must be right here. Is it really just the money?
I can see the point here. Ad companies will track your browsing history. Google doesn't want to rely on cookies and fingerprints and probably wants to nuke tracking capabilities as well, but doing so in their browser while they still sell ads would be regulatory suicide.
Providing an open API for advertisers that doesn't require endless digital stalking is the only way Google will ever be able to enforce stricter anti tracking features. Their announcement that they were working on ending third party cookie tracking was met with threats of lawsuits and antitrust.
A locally classified list of topics that can be spoofed by the user agent is an excellent privacy measure. Nobody wants ads, but I'd rather have Chrome enable site isolation than the current status quo.
Honestly, I don't see the problem here. Your browsing history isn't submitted to Google according to the spec. There are aboit 8 bits of entropy for fingerprinting, but who cares when WebGPU and the canvas APIs provide ten times that already.
The privacy invasion argument seems to be "but it's based on my browsing history" which is exactly how all major advertisers have been doing it for the last ten years.
If this gets cancelled, Google isn't going to implement any anti tracking features in Chrome. They legally can't because of advertisers as scummy as them. They can choose between dropping their main source of income (lol), leaving Microsoft in charge of Chromium and killing Chrome (lol), do nothing against the current atate of the web amd tracking, or work with advertisers in a way that doesn't get them sued to hell over antitrust.
1. The argument that "it's been happening for the last ten years" is not a valid justification for the continuation of a practice that infringes on user privacy. Progress in digital privacy rights should aim at enhancing user control over their data, not maintaining status quo.
2. The suggestion that Google has only a limited choice between maintaining its main source of income or facing antitrust lawsuits is an oversimplification. Google, as one of the most influential tech companies, has the power and resources to innovate and find alternative models that respect user privacy while also providing value to their advertisers.
3. The idea that an API to track browsing history is a "privacy measure" because it can be "spoofed" by the user is flawed because it assumes all users have the technical knowledge and time to do so. This should not be a user's responsibility; privacy should be a default setting, not an option for the tech-savvy.
4. Lastly, just because the browsing history isn't directly submitted to Google does not mean it cannot be misused. Even if Google uses this data responsibly, the potential for abuse still exists with third parties
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You know, they could ask people to select some of their interests to serve ads against. Would totally remove the privacy issue and the ads might finally be targeted towards something good.
Could even have a "suggest automatically" button.
> Is it really just the money?
I hope so. I can at least understand that. People have principles but they also have prices.
It would be a completely different matter if they actually believed what they're doing is moral though.
No offense, but you are questioning google just now? Like... 2012 was the year to question Google about shady practices. Like bundling Chrome with other software and installing it without user agreements. But it's just an example among many.
Many of them think they’re supporting the free and open internet. I can promise you that many ad engineers take privacy very seriously, and from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech.
I seriously doubt the people in this thread will agree with any of that, but I thought I’d answer the question. Of course, the money helps too - Google just recently laid off thousands of workers in an attempt to scare the rest into compliance
> from their perspective, google is leading the charge on less invasive Display ad tech
That would require levels of cognitive dissonance rarely seen outside fraudulent politicians. But that's phrasing it sarcastically, something best avoided in conversations. Bluntly put: indeed, I don't believe you. You cannot work for Google/Alphabet, where 80% of revenue ($183 billion in 2020!) comes from ads, and believe you're doing privacy a favor.
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On another spectrum, RuZZians invading Ukraine right now are really thinking they are "liberating" it.
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So google has their campuses in Bizarro World, got it.
>Is it really just the money?
They all promote to manager position when there's opportunity, because it pays more.
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It's pretty clear that this privacy invasive behavior from Chrome and Edge browsers by mega corps fueled by ad seeking revenue are only going to worse over time.
For macOS my choice of using the faster and more energy efficient Safari is fairly easy. Windows also has a lot of good options, I prefer Vivaldi as a Chrome alternative since it sports a Blink engine, has a focus on privacy and is actively developed that sees frequent features and improvements in each release [1].
[1] https://vivaldi.com/blog/releases/
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Ad Targeting Is Privacy.
I think the premise is that this will be replacement for 3p cookies, and privacy will improve.
We value your privacy. The valuation is about $20 and we've already sold it to the highest bidder. Thanks for choosing us to auction it off.
We'll keep the money as per T&C (we're looking forward to the firstborn too!). As a token of good will, here's an ankle bracelet.
They're giving this away for free. There is no charge for a website to call document.browsingTopics()
Have installed firefox with uBlock Origin on all of my family members android phone + laptops. Always bug my friends to switch over to firefox. I am doing my part. Just make sure that you export all the bookmarks/history/passwords over to FF to make it easier for them to switch.
The comments I am reading here seem to imply that this is more privacy invasive than tracking cookies. Steve Gibson did an analysis on Topics and his conclusion was that this is an approach to provide targeted ads (which websites need to make money) without being invasive.
Here is a link to his podcast where he explains the specification: https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/935?autostart=fa...
Although if you believe that being online you should be 100% anonymous and share 0% of personal data then of course Topics is not good (but then no other ad targeting solution will be either).
You got to wonder how much more it will take for people to start switching to another browser. Hopefully not too late
Sadly, as long as Chrome remains the default in Android, the vast majority of people (read non-technical folks) will continue to use Chrome.
How does this change anything for an end user?
There's a pop up that will be clicked through and soon forgotten and then there will still be ads. The ads might be slightly less targetted as they may now be showing for general browsing categories rather than individual websites visited but its not a big change.
said the frog, while getting cooked
The sad thing is people who should know better will still find excuses to keep using Chrome. And people with ulterior motives will help amplify their excuses.
And just to prove my point this is now on page 3.
Stop using Chrome and other Google products - They are hostile towards the open web. Use Firefox instead of Chrome, DDG or Kagi for search, Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, and a privacy respecting e-mail provider.
They will only stop this bullshit once they go bankrupt - the Google we all loved died a long time, only through branding do they still appear nice.
I think this might be a new low for Google.
What happened Google? You were this promising young boy 25 years ago. Now you're the filthy pervert on the corner.
They took investment, that needs to provide maximum returns.
Made a Chrome extension (hardy har har) to disable these.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/no-privacy-sandbox...
Source: https://github.com/kevin51jiang/no-privacy-sandbox
What's the point.
Yeah, these kinds of "features" are horribly invasive and anti-consumer, but so, so, so many people just could not give less of a shit as long as they can hit up Facebook or YouTube or whatever work requires them to visit.
It's not like the early 00s when Firefox rose to dominance because IE sucked so badly in comparison.
Chrome is not only the best and "most-compliant" web browser (isn't it awesome to be compliant with standards you created?), but it is also what most of the web tests against by default and, consequently, works the best with. Not that this even matters, really; most web traffic is shifting to the apps, which have free-reign to track everything you do.
Theoretically, app privacy scorecards should dampen this, but it's all too easy to tap "OK" to the "can I use your contacts, your mic, your camera and every sensor and contact I can get away with?"
I was not expecting to become a curmudgeon at 35, but between this, WEI, Cloudflare becoming the Internet's global firewall, and the Great Enshittification of Reddit, Twitter, and others, all of this bums me out. Anyone got a positive counterpoint?
Parks are excellent places to enjoy life.
We need a way to fund Firefox development in particular https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-donate-money...
God. They just can't help themselves anymore, can they. They used to at least lie to us that they weren't evil.
Is this is a privacy win for anyone using a non-Chrome/ium browser? Given the majority of the population use Chrome, will most websites stop relying on cookies and instead use the Topics API?
Though I suppose cookies will always be a fallback option if the website detects that the browser doesn't support the Topics API...
You can feed websites fake topics to mislead them, or even allow the user to pick their interests if they do want ads. That's a lot easier than sending your browser through random websites to shake off trackers and analysers.
Cookies are hard because other browsers do isolation based on top-level domains. Fingerprinting is the only way to track non-Chrome browsers.
Google wants to do cookie isolation as well, but ad companies threatened to sue them over it, so they can't for now, not until there's a viable alternative.
I think it is a privacy win. Every now and then, probably once every few months, I come across a website on Firefox where I have to disable enhanced tracking protection. If Chrome stops allowing 3rd party cookies then sites will have to be built better and should see fewer problems with the enhanced tracking protection.
How about a Do-Not-Track alternative where I can specify what kind of ads I'd be OK to show up alongside my browsing? It could be a header with a hash of an entry in a public list of lists of interest. Cars, travel, fashion, whatever; any order or preference you might come up with. I could flip a switch or install a plugin in the browser to help learn from my browsing history locally, and populate that list accordingly.
Adsense needs to respect that header, is all. I'd ditch ad-block if that happened.
Provided ads are alongside my content and don't replace it's space and time.
I'd use that.
EDIT: apparently, the basic idea is there; but also cookies will now only come from the website being viewed, not tracking you across the whole Web.
Ah the good old fake pattern of having to switch this on every single installation despite being able to switch it on account level technically.
Some needs to sue Meta for this too, “presence” across all their apps behaves the same. And resets on every major update.
And people insist spreading Chrome via Electron.
Is there an Electron based on FF tech?
Mozilla used to work on it: https://github.com/mozilla/positron
Currently I'm guessing https://tauri.app/ would be the easiest way to get away from electron.
Best alternative is not using any at all.
Web, Web widgets (available on most OS for 30 years), or native.
Does Firefox support web apps via PWA APIs yet? That was one of the biggest issues I had with it on desktop - it removes the need for Electron and Mozilla just dropped the plans.
No and it doesn't matter.
Electron is for lazy developers that cannot master Web widgets available for 30 years on mainstream OSes.
Or step out of their comfort zone into pure native applications, or background services making use of default browser for UI.
If people like myself have been able to master multiple native since decades, and also use such approaches during the dotcom boom, it is hardly an excuse for younger devs lacking such skills, other than laziness.
And yes, even MS, VSCode isn't as bad, as it relies on several external processes, renders into WebGL, and has the excuse they use it to sell services into Azure and Github, back at X-Windows/one UNIX development server.
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I'm going to get roasted, but it looks like they're abstracting your history into topics and not wantonly sharing it. Dropping 3rd party cookies is a cool thing. They could maybe take that a step further and just ask you what you'd like to see ads for.
That said, even though I "know better" I actively choose to use Safari as a daily driver to avoid things like this. I'm a lot less worried about Apple's intentions, especially since Safari is backed up by all the profits they rake in from iPhone sales.
Writing good luck wishe from Safari to all you all chrome users out there! :-P
Is any other major browser vendor planning to remove 3rd party cookies as well?
I believe Firefox blocks them by default. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-cookies-fir...
They're blocked in Safari
The Google Chrome history deletion feature has always been dog slow.
I did read an explanation that it does some complex operations, but you have to wonder if it is deliberately made complex to make people avoid deleting their history, as it takes so long.
Well, it's always been slow in Firefox as well.
Honestly, I'm just waiting for the adtech bubble to burst now.
I really miss the days of the original Opera. Back when the browser was lean, and they were innovating with their own engine and UI.
This is absolutely fantastic! It releases me from my region beta paradox and finally gives me enough activation energy to break my laziness of using chrome mobile (only left-over).
Would like to head for Firefox, if they would only add some usability features I'm so used to (like tab groups). So Brave it will be, i guess...
Still the sad thing is, that both Brave (technically) and Firefox (financially) are heavily dependent on Google.
You might want to investigate tree style tabs addons like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta... It's not exactly tab groups but it makes tabs management so efficient that I'm not using tab groups anymore
Ministry of Privacy
If you're still using Chrome, then this is the shit you deserve, period.
Like Brave browser?
care to elaborate?
https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026361072-Bra...
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