That syncing feeling when you realise you may be telling Google more than you thought Google's Chrome lost more of its shine over the weekend – after the normally calm and reasoned world of Twitter erupted when folks realized the search giant was automatically signing them into its browser. The change appeared in Chrome 69, which rolled out at the beginning of September and initially occupied users with the …
The problem isn't the "google slurp" alone. If you log into Google and those cookies are available, then ANY web site that has a 'tracker bug' on it can load the cookies. You know, "3rd party cookies", or maybe just some iframe that collects the data ON THEIR BEHALF (and then 'phones home' or allows direct access at a later time). So WHO is to say you're "not being tracked", when you can EASILY be tracked, just because YOU are "identified" by your GOOGLE LOGIN!
I've had the SAME complaint about the 'Micro-shaft CLOUDY Logon'. ABusing this would be TRIVIALLY EASY, and most likely very easy to TRACK IT BACK TO YOU, perhaps your e-mail address, cell phone number, physical address, and ANY OTHER information that can be purchased from Google based on your "unique identity" in their system.
So maybe Google doesn't track you SPECIFICALLY. But the sites you visit... I bet _THEY_ do!
[and once your IP address for a given block of time can be correlated to your google e-mail address and other such info, I _GUARANTEE_ this information will become available 'as a service' to those who don't deal directly with Google; they'll just be able to plug in YOUR IP and the date/time of access and get YOU and correlate it and track behind the scenes, etc. etc. etc.]
Yeah, this would be EASY to set up. Really. And with all of the IT pros who visit EL Reg, it should be obvious to most of YOU, too.
@bombastic bob
I'm sure I'm going to regret telling you this, but you have a silver badge, so you can use html tags (such as em, and strong) in your posts, so you DON'T need TO capitalise random WORDS any more, ok?
At least we can all be thankful elReg doesn't implement the <blink> tag.
A bit off topic I suppose but your mention of a silver badge hit a nerve.
I used to have one but it disappeared a while ago.
As you can see I still have the html privileges but I want my badge back!
Alternatively it could be a post-badge syndrome a bit like when an MD becomes a surgeon and reverts to "Mister".
I work for a printer and ink company with a two letter name that used to be named after its founders.
Had a customer call in with a bulk case the other day named Yo Guy. No joke. I'm just glad quality didn't pull that call, they'd have nailed me to the floorboards for not saying her name, or for saying it. Either way there I'd have lost.
Its still better than a sales trainer at my last job who was named Dang Lo. I'd have probably never believed it had I not met the man.
Apart from the internet's greatest forte—that of increasing the entropy of spelling and grammar faster than any other mechanism known to humankind—I'm getting to the age where I just cannot fathom how we've gotten to the point where we've let these arrogant, usurping, corporate carpetbaggers who peddle privacy-leaking crapware overrun and commandeer our internet without a struggle. It simply defies me.
Are we so addicted to the electronic heroin these corporations peddle that we've actually lost true sense of reality; or is it that we've become so busy with the circus of modern-day life—or both—that we've simply become incapable of complaining any longer?
Given the actual damage and harm these bastards have done to us in recent years, we ought to be rioting in the streets.
It's reached the point that I think humanity would have been better off with no Internet, and certainly no mobile phones. And that's coming from someone who dreamed of building such technology (and actually did, though the results were far more brick-like and limited in true homebrew form) in his younger years.
Certainly not the future we were all sold, is it?
Same here.
The other things I find irritating are those lazy twits that insist on using "ur" instead of "you're", typing everything lower case and leaving out apostrophes.
Arghh...
A tech support twit at a former employer used to send out tech notes using the "tricks" I mentioned above. Just for fun I would correct all his typos, insert appropriate notes and do a reply-all.
Frankly, I accepted a long time ago that using Chrome meant that Google could see whatever I was doing. When I'm watching something on Youtube in the evening and decide to go to bed, finishing watching whatever it is on my laptop without having to keep track of where I was is handy.
Buying stuff and online banking is done in Firefox.
In my experience, Chrome is a superior browser - RAM hogs aren't an issue if you've got stacks of RAM. The UI doesn't do backflips every other week that requires extensive effort to get back to the way you had set it up, and it's more stable. Before you get your pitchforks and torches out, this is my experience. YMMV.
Frankly, if there's one company I trust to not lose my data or spaff it all over the interwebs, it's Google - I know exactly what Google are doing with my data - trying to make money from me. If I view everything Google serves with the level of black cynicism that everything on the internet requires, then they're not doing a good enough job.
Google is not trying to make money, they're actually making insane amount of money irrespective of your posture. But you're using a superior browser which I for myself don't. I've been a FF user since the age when is was named Phoenix (this is pre-Y2k for young people here) and I've yet to experience those UI back-flips or memory issues you're talking about.
Kind of funny, I've been using it since Phoenix myself, and have been alpha and beta testing since Firebird 0.6. Its my daily driver and I don't really see myself using anything else if I can at all avoid it.
As much as I love Fx, you're displaying a remarkable selective memory if you don't recall the memory leak issues which existed from 3.7a4 (the first WebM release) until about Firefox 10. Google spreading FUD about that and Mozilla doing nothing about it to counter it, because Google was paying our bills at the time, is what drove Chrome's adoption really.
Now the UI backflips, I have no idea what they mean by that. Aside from hiding the title bar and making it look like Chrome, which can be disabled in three clicks, it hasn't changed much since Firebird, warts like nested tabs in the preferences menu and all. Plus, you could always change it if you didn't like something or use a theme. I used Nautopolis until Quantum came out and dropped compatability for it.
I've been a FF user since the age when is was named Phoenix (this is pre-Y2k for young people here)
Oh! Oh! We're playing old-person games! Let me play! I've been using Netscape since I had to buy Netscape Navigator on floppy disk. Came in a big mostly white box. Green icon with a lighthouse. It was pretty!
And before that, NCSA Mosaic. Came in a nothing, because 9600 baud modem and... ZMODEM transfers? My memory is cloudy around that time.
Yup, started on Mosaic 1.0 (and gopher before that) back in the days when NCSA maintained a "new websites of the month" page. And presciently one of the earliest entries was the CS dept of a Dutch University which advertised the fact that it held the largest collection of online pron in Europe!
Reason to use Chrome? Well, most websites are configured to run it, and I wouldn't use Edge if they paid me.
OTOH I've got Firefox configured with adblock, noscript and anti-tracking devices along with almost every other type of plug-in disabled, with the result that some websites simply refuse to run. Others are recursive - enable one lot of blocked sites on a webpage to run scripts and they load another lot that want to run their scripts too.
Mostly I just ditch the sites, but occasionally I need the content. So I fire up Chrome (which I regard as insecure by definition) read the contents and close it down again.
That was true for IE also years ago, but it didn't stop people to loathe it and look for alternatives.
But it is true that also many web developers are clueless people who are giving Google a great help doing exactly what they hated about Microsoft - showing an utterly lack of understanding - you don't "hate" a company because its name, you should "hate" it because the way it acts, and Goggle is simply the new Microsoft - in some ways even worse since you're the product, not the customer.
Frankly, if there's one company I trust to not lose my data or spaff it all over the interwebs, it's Google - I know exactly what Google are doing with my data - trying to make money from me.
This makes absolutely no sense at all.
Maybe there is a Freudian undercurrent in this hogwash, but I can't find it.
It's creeping compulsion. Google exists to monetise people's private data. Auto-login simply makes it easier to profile 'customers'. At least they're making a teeny effort to let users know. Problem is a lot of users won't necessarily know the implications. Like you logged in to the services, therefore consented to the privacy policy. That page you clicked 'Agree' on to make it go away.
If users stopped and read those, especially if they were written in plain language, fewer users might consent. But that's a wider problem. I've just remembered to fill in my UK electoral register form. That's always been a bit of fun given it's traditionally been used by the junk mail industry to help fill our recycling bins. On the 'Declaration' section where it tells you failing to complete the form could result in a £1,000 fine, it asks for your phone & email.. Which aren't needed, but are valuable.
This is just part of the Google environment and the public seem to accept it as such. Think of all those "apps" that they have to have* but which then grant themselves permission to view your contacts, camera,search history,phone logs,email account and browsing history. And the public neither know nor care.
Even when not one of these is relevant to the function.
*I wouldn't give many of them space on my phone. Pretty much all of then are devious money grabbing piles of shit. But when the Windows phone failed to attract them, think of all the fuss and criticism because of it.
Be sure to tick the box that says that you “opt out of the open register” (Or, in these GDPR times, is it now “tick if you want to opt in”? I didn’t particularly notice this year, because I only had to go to the webform (operated by a third party, annoyingly) to note that none of the details at my address had changed since last year).
But, yes, don’t give them an email address or phone number unless for some reason you really want to (although I don’t think those data get copied onto the open (spammers’) register, only home addresses?).
I have killed my gmail accounts. All of them. (I had four.) I have killed my Google Play Store account. (just one, attached to one of the gmail accounts.) I have deleted all things Google from my system. This includes Maps and Waze on my iOS devices. This includes DNS, on all systems where I can easily change DNS.
I have, of course, deleted Chrome and all of the crap installed with it.
Good-bye, Google. I won't say that it's been fun, because it hasn't.
> I have killed my Google Play Store account.
Music or videos?
If the former, have a look at Subsonic. I got pissed off with Play Music a few years ago, so spun up an instance of Subsonic on a VM and haven't really looked back. The only thing is, the free app for Android is was a bit shit, so I paid £3 for an app called Dsub instead - there's probably some iOS alternative if the subsonic app for that misbehaves
And you think that matters at all to Google? It doesn't. I deleted my Facebook account three years ago and I still see echoes of it all over the place. Considering that Google is more pervasive than Facebook, I'd imagine that you'll be seeing reflections of your old account til the day you die.
Plus, they have enough data on you and get more on you constantly through third parties that even if you never use another Google service in your life they can still monetize you. And they certainly will.
I will say its cute that you think that somehow makes a difference and that somehow you're important in the grand scheme of things.
So your recommendation is that he does nothing and continues to feed data directly into their system?
It may not make a different to Google, and doesn't stop them using the data they've already gleaned (and the bits of data they will still manage to glean), but being an arse and criticising someone for deciding to stop wilfully handing over data does no one any favours, least of all you.
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