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Chrome Firefox Google Privacy

Chrome 'Has Become Surveillance Software. It's Time to Switch' (inquirer.com) 190

Posted by EditorDavid from the in-Soviet-Union-web-watches-you dept.
"You open your browser to look at the Web. Do you know who is looking back at you?" warns Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler: Over a recent week of Web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad and data companies ride shotgun while I clicked around the Web. This was made possible by the Web's biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software...

My tests of Chrome vs. Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of Web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker "cookies" that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality... And that's not the half of it. Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. See a picture or a name in the circle? If so, you're logged in to the browser, and Google might be tapping into your Web activity to target ads. Don't recall signing in? I didn't, either. Chrome recently started doing that automatically when you use Gmail.

Chrome is even sneakier on your phone. If you use Android, Chrome sends Google your location every time you conduct a search. (If you turn off location sharing it still sends your coordinates out, just with less accuracy.)
The columnist concludes that "having the world's biggest advertising company make the most popular Web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop," and argues that through its Doubleclick and other ad businesses, Google "is the No. 1 cookie maker -- the Mrs. Fields of the web."

He also reports that Firefox is now working on ways to block browser "fingerprinting".
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Chrome 'Has Become Surveillance Software. It's Time to Switch' More

Chrome 'Has Become Surveillance Software. It's Time to Switch'

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  • Obvious conclusion follows obviously (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    having the world's biggest advertising company make the most popular Web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop

    Well, at least we all get to learn this obvious lesson the hard way, like we obviously wanted.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      This isn't the hard way, yet. It's just a warning shot. Take heed, or don't...and take the consequences.

  • is going to let its approved ads in.
    Make more work to try and block ads.
    Find a better browser than gives the user back control over the www.

  • When the news are 11 years old (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    FYI, Chrome was released almost 11 years ago, and it has _always_ been sucking information off of your machine and collecting your browsing data.

  • First off, it's Google. Very few people are unaware that Google does lots of tracking - the overwhelming majority of people, however, don't give a damn.

    Next, Firefox's default settings are a bit better with anti-tracking mechanisms, but that's at least somewhat-recent. Go back to the version 20 or version 30 releases, and you'll see its defaults allow tracking cookies without an issue.

    Both browsers still allow plenty of tracking elements to be loaded and used by default. Canvas fingerprinting happens all th

    • Re:I'll take "non-story" for $800, Alex (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22, 2019 @10:04AM (#58804314)

      So, in summary, author is shocked - SHOCKED - that a company well known to track its users around the web and has become one of the most valuable companies to ever exist uses their browser/platform to advance that goal.

      That doesn't mean it's a bad idea to inform people and keep it in their awareness. Chrome is very bad for the health of the web, and the more people stay aware of this fact, the better. Firefox would also be bad for the web if it was a monoculture.

      We need people to get in the habit of thinking about the consequences of their technology choices. Writing a few articles so "everybody knows" and then never mentioning it again does not serve that purpose.

      It is worthwhile to continue to drive the point home that Facebook and Google are bad for the health of the internet.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Baleet ( 4705757 )
        Unclutch your pearls, ma'am, you'll give yourself the vapors! Google and Chrome make it possible for me to do all kinds of stuff more quickly than I could without their "snooping". It's a pretty good ecosystem that lets me connect real life appointments to emails, shopping on the web, a calendar I can reach from any computer.... And that's bad for the web? Going to have to disagree.

    • Re:I'll take "non-story" for $800, Alex (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @10:32AM (#58804420) Homepage Journal

      More interesting is how secure you can make Chrome and Firefox with appropriate settings and plugins.

      Chrome has slightly worse built in protections, and a few things can't be fully brought up to Firefox levels like really solid autoplay blocking. Firefox actually has slightly worse per-site cookie permissions because although there is a UI, it lacks an API for add-ons.

      Overall I'd say Firefox has a slight edge on privacy, but it's not huge. And either way, you still need extensive add-ons to properly block all the bullshit. uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete, and a canvas figerprint blocker.

      • Re: I'll take "non-story" for $800, Alex (Score:5, Insightful)

        by HumanEmulator ( 1062440 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:16AM (#58804604)
        This might be a non-story to the Slashdot crowd, but the Slashdot crowd is a tech-savvy group that's already the group most likely to have dumped Chrome, switched to DuckDuckGo and quit sites like Facebook. To the Washington Post's audience, this is news. Just the fact that more knowledgable people have already taken actions based on this info means it's probably news worth sharing with the less-tech inclined.
      • You can run any protection you want in Chrome, it's not going to block Google from getting the data as it's baked into the browser.

        There might be an argument if you start with Chromium, the open source foundation of Google Chrome, but there is no way in hell if you start with Google Chrome or anything based on it such as as Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, and even Brave. You can hide the ads, you may even stop 3rd party snooping but there is no way you're going to stop Google from snooping so long as you run Goog

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          What is this data that is "baked into the browser"?

          Chrome sends one bit of information, a unique installation ID, to Google when checking for updates. By default it uses Google for search, but if you change that nothing else is sent to Google.

          If you believe otherwise show us some evidence.

      • Chrome has slightly worse built in protections, and a few things can't be fully brought up to Firefox levels like really solid autoplay blocking.

        Now I'm curious. How would you go about bringing autoplay blocking even in Firefox up to a level where it blocks most of the methods in this test suite [pineight.com], especially the JPEG filmstrip method [pineight.com]?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          You can't, but fortunately most sites aren't bothering with the methods that get through because they just piss away bandwidth on a silent movie that the user clearly doesn't want to see anyway.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            most sites aren't bothering with the methods that get through because they just piss away bandwidth on a silent movie that the user clearly doesn't want to see anyway.

            Except for ad-supported sites, where advertisers routinely pay the ad network used by the site's publisher to "piss away bandwidth on a silent movie that the user clearly doesn't want to see anyway." If videos are blocked, the site falls back to GIF. If videos and GIF are blocked, the site falls back to script. If videos, GIF, and script are blocked, the site falls back to a JPEG filmstrip or other harder-to-block methods.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Most of the ad networks are blocked by an ad blocker at least, but okay, you are right, there are videos that Firefox can't block either.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by tepples ( 727027 )

                An ad blocker is likely to trigger one of two behaviors that a website can detect:

                Anti-noscript
                The page itself contains an abstract, and a script normally loads the portion of the article past the abstract. If a website's scripts fail to load, such as if the user is using a hard no-script policy on that domain, then the following prompt on the page won't get replaced: "Log in or subscribe to read this article with NoScript"
                Anti-adblock
                If a website's scripts run and detect that an ad blocker is interfering w

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  If they web site is that crappy I just close it.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by tepples ( 727027 )

                    Closing the tab and moving on to the next search result won't help if the next search result also has a paywall or anti-adblock.

                    If they web site is that crappy I just close it.

                    How do you keep web search practical when the majority of relevant-looking web sites in a particular results page are that crappy?

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      I must be searching for different stuff because I don't run in to sites like that very often. Seriously, I'm not being flippant, it's really not an issue for me.

      • More interesting is how secure you can make Chrome and Firefox with appropriate settings and plugins.

        Chrome has slightly worse built in protections, and a few things can't be fully brought up to Firefox levels like really solid autoplay blocking. Firefox actually has slightly worse per-site cookie permissions because although there is a UI, it lacks an API for add-ons.

        Overall I'd say Firefox has a slight edge on privacy, but it's not huge. And either way, you still need extensive add-ons to properly block all the bullshit. uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete, and a canvas figerprint blocker.

        The two are not at all equivalent.

        Google chrome is malware that calls home to Google in a way that is deliberately hard to block by using same domain used for searches as exfil path. This behavior cannot be disabled with configuration.

    • "Very few people are unaware"

      For everything you know, there was a time you first became aware of it. As long as people are still being born, informing them of things will still be needed.

    • First off, it's Google. Very few people are unaware that Google does lots of tracking - the overwhelming majority of people, however, don't give a damn.

      How would the overwhelming majority of people even know what is going on?

      Both browsers still allow plenty of tracking elements to be loaded and used by default. Canvas fingerprinting happens all the time, but both browsers require plugins to cycle the values. Both browsers happily tell websites which fonts you have on your system; unless you've got bone stock system defaults and have never installed a program that adds fonts to your system, your font list is pretty damn unique - and again, both browsers allow this without plugins.

      Firefox has measures to prevent both of these issues.

      privacy.resistFingerprinting
      font.system.whitelist

      So, in summary, author is shocked - SHOCKED - that a company well known to track its users around the web and has become one of the most valuable companies to ever exist uses their browser/platform to advance that goal. I cannot facepalm hard enough.

      Who said the author was shocked?

    • "Very few people are unaware that Google does lots of tracking - the overwhelming majority of people, however, are powerless to do anything about it."

      FTFY

  • Why are so many of you letting them spy on you 24/7?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      Not all of us do.
      Do I have Chrome? Yes. A few websites don't like the Firefox+noscript+a few other privacy plugins I run as my main browser.
      Is Chrome my main browser? No. Never trusted Google enough to switch.

  • "Has become"? (Score:4, Informative)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @09:47AM (#58804224)
    It always was. Lately, however, it has become egregious in its surveillance duty.

    • It always was. Lately, however, it has become egregious in its surveillance duty.

      Can you be more specific?

      I think it's more accurate to say that Chrome has stayed the same re: surveillance, it's just that Firefox has gotten more cautious. Chrome doesn't do anything unusual to enable tracking... it just implements the W3C standards around cookies, etc. Unless you install extensions to make it stop following the standards in particular ways. Firefox has started doing some of those things by default, but that's Firefox getting better (w.r.t. surveillance), not Chrome getting worse.

      • Re:"Has become"? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @06:41PM (#58806460) Journal

        Maybe those plonkers at Mozilla have finally realised that trying to turn the browser into a Chrome clone wasn't such a great idea because people could simply use Chrome which is 100% like Chrome. So they're introducing a couple of privacy tweaks to look good. But they haven't dealt with font or canvas finger-printing so the tracking can continue.

  • Chrome is Google (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @09:50AM (#58804242) Homepage

    And Google is evil. Even more evil than 1990's Microsoft.

    They are an ad machine.

  • No kidding (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @09:53AM (#58804256)

    At what point was Chrome *not* a tracking device? Of course it's doing surveillance on you, that's what it is for. Was someone unaware of that?

  • Chrome. Hexavalent edition. A cancer on your privacy.

  • Firefox is not better (Score:3, Informative)

    by ugen ( 93902 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @09:55AM (#58804272)

    I've been trying to go back to Firefox, but noticed it is missing a crucial API.

    Chrome provides extensions with an API to set website local storage permissions (cookies and data) - the usual allow/allow for session/block. I wrote (for my own use, although it is available on the Chrome extension store) an extension to quickly change these settings for the current website.

    Firefox, on the other hand, does not provide any API to control these settings. The only way to modify per-site cookie permissions is to go into the arcane dialog 3 pages deep in settings. That dialog has been made a lot less useful than in the past (it does not include search by url, for example, so all you can do is scroll the entire list).

    Firefox includes a somewhat misleading "site permissions" option in the location bar. However, that option only supports "allow" or "deny" (not "allow for session") and also does not appear to save these permissions in the same way the dialog in preferences does (normally these permissions end up in an sqlite database "permissions.sqlite".

    Until Firefox restores/provides an API that gives user direct and easy control of cookies and local storage **permissions** (not actual cookies **after** they've been set - the horse is out of the barn then), I don't see how it is any better. Tracking is what advertisers want, and Firefox provides that.

    • FUD [wikipedia.org]?
    • This post seems pure FUD, to me

    • Re:Firefox is not better (Score:5, Insightful)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:02AM (#58804546)

      >"Until Firefox restores/provides an API that gives user direct and easy control of cookies and local storage **permissions** (not actual cookies **after** they've been set - the horse is out of the barn then), I don't see how it is any better. Tracking is what advertisers want, and Firefox provides that."

      Your complaint is about the lack of a Firefox API for you to develop your own extension (one that Chrome also doesn't come with) to fine tune your own experience. That is not applicable to 99.99% of potential users. Saying that it isn't right for your particular use case is OK, but saying it isn't right in general isn't. Firefox has more protections built-in by default and Mozilla also says they are adding more to content blocking with every release (and they have been).

      https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org]

      And your subject of "Firefox is not better" is very misleading, since it actually is better in many metrics.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ugen ( 93902 )

        The point is not in that I can't build an extension for myself. It is, rather, that Firefox makes it very difficult for *any* extension to individually control cookie settings. Thus, user has to rely primarily on Firefox's own tracker and cookie protection. They are *decent* but not good, precisely because a select group of internet companies gets to pass through those (at least using default settings), which is how Firefox makes some of the money.

        • >"The point is not in that I can't build an extension for myself. It is, rather, that Firefox makes it very difficult for *any* extension to individually control cookie settings."

          Oh, I concede your point on that true statement. Since the change to Quantum, the amount of API exposure is much smaller than before. One reason is it just it takes time to make more available. But also, they are being very conservative about it all because too much access through the API is in direct conflict with security.

    • Run Firefox in Sandboxie. It's free if you want it to be. I create sandboxes for the pages I stay logged in on, but if I'm going outside of those, I swap to a different sandbox, which gets deleted and recreated more often.

      Heck, even Firefox is offering containers now.

      After a decade, I have swapped from Linux on my desktop to Windows 10. Running Sandboxie makes me feel almost as good as I did with Firefox on Linux. Almost.

  • Alright, alright, I'm going to buy a Switch next week, I swear!

    They're supposed to release a new Metroid game in the future, so I was going to buy one anyway.

  • I don't worry about Google seeing my on-line behavior. It's not anything special or illegal. In fact, if they do spy on me, I look like an innocent citizen, and they'll ignore me.

    • Re:Why care ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fazig ( 2909523 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @10:25AM (#58804396)
      Because abuse happened numerous times before in recent human history. That's why you should care.
      It happened and still happens mostly in self proclaimed communist nations where that information tends to be abused against its citizens. But it's also happening in other states recently under the guise of fighting terrorism. Take a look at the developments in Turkey where a tweet or post on facebook can get you into serious trouble. Now imagine if they had access to all the data google collects on people. There'd probably enough to keep them locked up for a long time.

      Of course in our more western nations, we aren't quite there yet.
      But can we rely on things to never stay the same?
      In the end we must be fully aware this all depends on who is in charge and what their personal values are.
      What is nothing special or illegal today, might be something very bad tomorrow. And when it becomes something bad they may become aware of you and will have tons and tons of dirt on you for blackmail, civil or even criminal legal charges in their logs.

      Maybe having lived under a communist regime that spied extensively on its citizens and abused that information against its citizens I might be a bit biased here. But I am also perfectly aware of what direction such ubiquitous surveillance can take when the "wrong" people get their hands on that information.

      • And when it becomes something bad they may become aware of you and will have tons and tons of dirt on you for blackmail, civil or even criminal legal charges in their logs.

        And what will happen to people who have no logs because they've spent all this time using a secure browser ? If I were an evil overlord, I'd shoot them first.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          They spy on you regardless.

          But you're deflecting from the point. These paranoid regimes would not use that information to exonerate you, only to incriminate you if they don't happen to like you. There's no reason to welcome this kind spying believing that it'll actually serve to protect you.

          That is one of the big lies that they tell us, that they do all these new things that erode our liberties for our protection.

    • I don't worry to much either,
      but it does not make any tracker right.

      It should be bluntly forbidden and cause the CEOs jail time if they break the law.

    • I don't worry about Google seeing my on-line behavior. It's not anything special or illegal. In fact, if they do spy on me, I look like an innocent citizen, and they'll ignore me.

      I think your post is probably sarcastic, but in case it's not, the mistake you're making is "they'll ignore me." It's not a question of someone caring about you specifically (of course they don't), it's that the internet will become an echo chamber of things that support what want to hear, that ad companies (and worse) will manip

    • First they came for the Communists, and I didnâ(TM)t speak up, because I wasnâ(TM)t a Communist.
      Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didnâ(TM)t speak up, because I wasnâ(TM)t a Trade Unionist.
      Then they came for the Jews, and I didnâ(TM)t speak up, because I wasnâ(TM)t a Jew,
      Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

      • Good fucking grief, Slashdot - still no support for extended characters.

        Good fucking grief, random website whence I copypasta'd that poem - why must you use curly quotes?

  • In this case newspapers.
    sensible of him to check, but perhaps the Post might have considered ways to mitigate the problem and report on those.

  • Ecosystem and monoculture (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @10:26AM (#58804398)

    >"Chrome 'Has Become Surveillance Software. It's Time to Switch' "

    Has been for quite a while. https://getfirefox.com/ [getfirefox.com]

    It should be no shock to anyone that Google is leveraging their position to gather as much info as possible on its users. But the truly scary part is just starting- Google's control over the web, over the "standards" being used. We lived through this already back in the IE-only days and Mozilla was responsible for ending that nightmare of Microsoft control and "de-facto" standards. Mozilla got kinda fat and happy and Firefox's performance languished. Then along came Chrome/Chromium and kicked Firefox in the pants with major performance improvements. With great pains, Mozilla released the new Quantum engine last year that allowed Firefox to be on-par with the real-world, overall performance of any other browser. They are committed to security, privacy, performance, cross-platform support, open-source, open-governance, user-control, and open-standards. Competition is good. Open standards are good.

    However, we have now reached a point where almost every multi-platform browser other than Firefox is controlled by Google. MS folded and is now essentially pushing Chromium/Blink based Edge. Opera? Chromium/Blink. Yandex? Chromium/Blink. Vivaldi? Chromium/Blink. Most others folded or are obsolete. That leaves Firefox/Quantum, Safari/Webkit, and Chrome/Chromium/Blink. Of those, Safari is proprietary and runs only on AppleOS. Chrome is proprietary/binary. Only Firefox/Quantum runs on all platforms, is open source, is open-standards based, and is community-driven.

    We are already entering a very dangerous monoculture- and one driven by a very, very, very large company that is motivated by spying on users. We are just now seeing how Google is using that position to push standards that were not developed by the community at large, nor standards bodies. Chromium might be open source, but its governance is strictly under Google's control. Any browser based on it is, thus, beholden to Google. And web developers are just starting to ignore anything not Blink/Webkit- if the trend continues, we will be right back to XXXX-only websites. "Best viewed in Chrome" "Please download Chrome" "Your web browser is not supported." I hated that world back in the day, and I would hate to see it come back. I am betting you would too. Because you might wake up one day and HATE what Google is doing and suddenly it is too late- your choice is now gone.

    Unless you have some valid/specific reason to use a Chromium-based browser, I strongly recommend throwing your support behind Mozilla/Firefox. Use it on your machines, recommend it to others, and complain loudly to any website that doesn't support it and open standards. I wouldn't want to see Chrome/Chromium disappear, because I do want competition.... but I don't think there is any fear of Chrome/Chromium disappearing. And if the only competition left is Mozilla/Firefox and that is dwindling in use, how likely can there be any other entry into this space?

    • Of those, Safari is proprietary and runs only on AppleOS.
      Safari also runs on Windows ... but I doubt that matters much.

    • Firefox is the standard? Trust me as someone that has to use Firefox for corporate work, it very much ends up not being the standard and does things that are not necessarily good for the browser ecosystem.

  • My sig makes it obvious I agree with the sentiment, but regardless - monocultures are inherently bad. One can argue people should try using other browsers simply for that reason.

  • So? (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @10:38AM (#58804432)

    Google's data hording is massive and automated. The article asks the question of who is looking back, the answer: maths, an algorithm prodding a database. The data isn't sold, it is aggregated, analysed, and then passage for advertisement is passed on. A true best case scenario in the world of data management is where a company relies on owning that data in order to make a profit, they don't hand it directly to third parties and as such people generally accept it.

    Google can have my data, but fuck Facebook and ISPs who have no respect for the actual data they collect.

    • >"The data isn't sold, it is aggregated, analysed, and then passage for advertisement is passed on."

      Really? So you know this? How? How do you know exactly what a binary blob browser is doing all the time? How do you really know what Google is doing or not doing with collected data in the past, now, or years from now?

      >"Google can have my data"

      Sure, you might just trust that Google does only what they say with collected data (and that, alone, might be scary enough)... but even then, that data can le

      • Really? So you know this? How?

        Data is literally not a product their provide. The Advertising industry is not some underground drug market. Does CocaCola sell you a recipe or a product? You are Google's Coke recipe, and it makes not sense to sell your data when you can profit off it directly by providing access to you.

        The companies actively selling data are those that lack the infrastructure to provide access. Remember, Google is first and foremost an advertising company and not a data broker.

        How do you know exactly what a binary blob browser is doing all the time?

        The fact you are asking this question means y

      • How do you know exactly what a binary blob browser is doing all the time?

        It probably has something to do with Google neglecting to scrub most of the data collection "features" from the Chromium source code.

  • Hmmmm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AxisOfPleasure ( 5902864 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @11:13AM (#58804582)

    Wasn't it fairly obvious? Despite what the wording says, nothing from Google has ever been "free" there's always been some sort of price to pay. I've used Chrome in the past but I stopped using it about a year ago as the searches were getting just a little too creepy, especially when I landed on certain sites they had hints about what I'd been searching for in the last day or two, so obvious you've been spied on. Not saying you can completely escape but there are other browser choices out there that are less creepy and spy on you less.

    Although to be honest the thing that bothers me most is that I don't want related suggestions, that's so boring! I want surprises! Life should be full of surprises! When I was a kid I would listen to the radio and I'd hear all sorts of random music I'd never even considered, my musical taste is diverse from Debussey to Decapitated, Alice Cooper to Howling Wolf, Waylon Jennings to Zimmers Hole. The problem is that when I start looking at things on the web all I get is suggestions for related types of music to what I might be looking up, that's utter BS! I like to suddenly find something out of nowhere, a complete surprise and see if I like it. I'm sure I'm not the only one. So gather all you like about my taste in music and films, I'll continue to completely ignore your suggestions oh strange little algorithms, in favour of just randomly trying something out to see if I like it.

  • Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)

    by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @12:43PM (#58805014) Homepage

    OK, so you ditched Chrome for Firefox. Now what? Your ISP is still 'watching' you. Your cell carrier is still watching you. The government is still watching you. The websites you visit are also watching you. And if you go anywhere near Google, they are also still watching you. If you're using Windows, Microsoft is also watching you.

    What have you achieved?

    So you added a VPN to your setup! But what good does that do? All those entities are still watching you. They can still tell it's you, by your hardware signature and browser.

    What have you achieved?

    My point is, they're watching you. You can try to hide, but if you're using a computer, you're doing it wrong. There is no hiding if you use any electronics connected to the web. Not being paranoid, but they are ALL watching all of us. They are all taking notes about what we're doing.

  • Can anyone comment on the various other browsers we have out there? Last I checked, it is not exactly a Coke/Pepsi world, we got choices. Feedback on the above and any others I have not mentioned would be valued.

  • No matter where you go on the Web, somebody is tracking you. Even if you block tracking cookies, site owners are very creative about finding ways to track you even if the easiest methods are blocked. They don't even have to think very hard to do it. All they have to do is copy and paste some javascript like the one from Facebook [facebook.com]. They all want that "Like Us On Facebook" icon on their site, so they are going to include the code. Facebook's engineers (and other companies with similar "pixels") work long and h

  • Oh, the irony.

    What's the best way to stop cookies? Use private browsing (incognito) mode.

    What happens when you try to view Fowler's article on the Washington Post website in private browsing mode, in either Firefox or Chrome? Or even if you just block cookies from washingtonpost.com?

    "We noticed you’re browsing in private mode. Private browsing is permitted exclusively for our subscribers. Turn off private browsing to keep reading this story, or subscribe to use this feature."

    So, you can only

  • People of the modern age want autonomy. A lot of today's consumers want features like doors, whether they be of car or home, recognize who's an intruder and who's not. They want smart homes that have their favorite flavour of coffee made in the morning or their preferred climate set in the home in advance to their arrival. Features like these would not be possible without "privacy concerns" such as facial recognition and data tracking taking place. Some fail to see the bigger picture. Yes, companies like G

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