
Why I’m done with Chrome - user982
https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/09/23/why-im-leaving-chrome/
======
partiallypro
Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years
ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google
advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then.

Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for
no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they
are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting off their blacklist, is
literally impossible.

Then came Chrome and Android, which grew to collect so much information on
people that it was genuinely baffling.

Then my agency work and work with previous Google employees telling me about
Google sales tactics to SMBs in Adwords. Intentionally not focusing on ROI
because they knew the companies had such high burn out rates. They would, and
continue, to milk them for whatever they are worth. They know the company is
statistically going to go out of business in a year, so just take them for
whatever they are worth! Luckily agencies act as a middle man, if not for
that, the abuse would be so much more widespread. But if you deal directly
with Google ad sales (and this is something I never knew existed tbh) they
will intentionally screw you if you are under a certain spend.

Now they have growing and creeping monopolies in advertising, and their only
real competitors are Amazon and Facebook... which to me are both on or near
the level of sleaze that Google has crept to.

Now things are accelerating, with Chrome's increasing intrusion, Android's
increasing intrusion, deals with Chinese governments to stifle freedom of
expression and speech. Google AMP being a closed system that's only goal is to
push Google into controlling more of the web.

Add to that, let me preface that I am not a Trump voter and never will be and
probably lean more towards the politics of Google leadership, but the video
that leaked out (it sucks it leaked to nutty Brietbart and not a real new
organization, maybe it would have been taken a lot more seriously) of the
Google town hall also baffled me. I think Facebook might even take their moral
obligation of objectivity more seriously than Google...and that's a serious
problem. Algorithms can determine electoral outcomes, and Google is one of the
top tech lobbyists in Washington. Doesn't that bother anyone?

This is no longer a company I can advocate anyone using. Unfortunately because
of their monopoly status in advertising I have to deal with them.

~~~
clarkmoody
Search for "gun rights" in Google, and the Wikipedia feature box on the top-
right of the results page is the Gun Control article.

I've noticed the straight search results making a marked decline in quality
over the past few months. If one of the keywords within your search is
anything remotely profitable, it will drown out all other terms. Then the
search results ended after ~4 pages.

Definitely changed from the Google I "grew up on."

~~~
ehnto
I'm not sure I could define it as intentional and nefarious but I definitely
find Google search results to be markedly worse over the last few years. It
used to be really competent at finding specialist/technical results but lately
it's gotten more generic and less useful. It's possible that's actually the
nature of content creation these days, with everyone hyper optimising to
please the Google search algorithm. But it's resulting in a less useful web
for me. Certainly a less interesting one.

Same thing with Youtube, the algorithms seem to optimize for the lowest common
denominator and all the interesting niche stuff is lost in thr noise.

Some of the solution is to do a better job of actively searching for good
content instead of waiting for the algorithms to recommend it. But that itself
has gotten harder too. Finding good content curators is hard.

~~~
garyclarke27
Agreed - Particularly infuriating, is Google’s habit of returning search
results with many missing terms, implying that they know whats best for me-
ignoring a large part of my precisly crafted search input. I know there is
Verbatim option, but this is another slow step and does not work in
combination with valuable time filter. Wish there was an option to always use
Verbatim and more default time filters such as 3 months, 6 months.

~~~
ehnto
Absolutely. That is one of my biggest pet peeves. There must be a threshold
where it would rather give you well ranked but worse matching results over
low-ranked but well matching results. That threshold seems to be too low hence
the generic garbage results for really specific terms.

------
brian-armstrong
Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now. I've been using it again for about 2
years and haven't regretted it at all. There have been a couple of weird
feature hiccups but generally Mozilla seems to get things right.

~~~
hellofunk
I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I
tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems,
quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs
from Macs to find the reasons).

~~~
jwr
If you are on MacOS, why don't you use Safari?

I'm puzzled as to why people seem to dismiss the "built-in" browser. It's the
fastest, smoothest, best integrated, and least power-hungry browser on the
platform. I regularly use all three major browsers (for testing, I write web
applications) and I consistently switch back to Safari for all my non-special
browsing.

~~~
wyclif
This past weekend I tried Safari again when I saw it updated to version 12. I
was surprised to see that Apple deactivated my uBlock Origin plugin, saying it
would slow the browser down. So now Safari is unusable and filled with ads,
and there's nothing Apple provides to replace uBlock Origin. This is a total
show-stopper for me.

~~~
metafunctor
It’s really just a suggestion to turn off some extensions. Haven’t bothered to
figure out what triggers Safari to do that, but you can still run uBlock
Origin on Safari 12 and it seems to work fine.

~~~
saagarjha
> Haven’t bothered to figure out what triggers Safari to do that

Safari has a new extensions model and will be deprecating the legacy one in a
year. Hence the push to migrate to newer extensions.

~~~
sweetp
the new extensions model is ridiculously useless... You need to build your
extension in Xcode now, and for anything other than content blocking, the APIs
are non existent... for instance, you can't even close tabs!

I made an extremely simple extension using the new model around 2months -
before I try migrating an older "actually useful" extension. But theres just
no way its possible to migrate.

Apple doesn't care about browser extensions now, it seems they want everyone
to move to the new model, so they can collect revenue on sales on ad blockers.

:(

~~~
akvadrako
This is wrong - you can inject arbitrary scripts and styles:

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/saf...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/safari_app_extensions)

~~~
wild_preference
You didn’t reply to or contradict anything they said. You need Xcode to build
extensions and Safari has a super limited API. Executing JS and CSS don’t
address either.

~~~
akvadrako
He didn’t say limited, he said nonexistent.

More specifically, if you can inject scripts I don’t see why you couldn’t call
window.close()

------
amanzi
Google today is like the Microsoft of 10-15 years ago. Grossly dominant,
arrogant, user-hostile, and thinking they're above the law. Microsoft got
knocked off their perch and are a much better company today than they were 15
years ago. Google's turn to fall is rapidly approaching.

~~~
liftbigweights
> Microsoft got knocked off their perch and are a much better company today
> than they were 15 years ago.

Microsoft didn't get knocked off their perch. They won the antitrust fight. Do
you remember microsoft being broken apart? I don't.

And they aren't a much better company today. They are arguably an even bigger
privacy threat since they are leveraging their ubiquitous OS to gather data
and to sell ads.

> Google's turn to fall is rapidly approaching.

Microsoft never fell. They are ahead of google in the race to be the next
trillion dollar company. I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that google is
going to fall. Especially if you think microsoft "fell".

~~~
thrower123
Google is much less adept at avoiding the ire of antitrust agencies,
particularly under the current administration. Google is considerably more
evil in the popular imagination at this point.

~~~
slededit
Were you around back then? It’s realy hard to describe how much MS was hated.
There’s nowhere near that animosity towards Google today.

~~~
thrower123
I was, and it seemed absurd at the time. Bundling IE with windows is no
different than the current status quo, where Apple defaults to Safari, or
Android defaults to a Chrome version.

Google's incredible monopoly in search looks like a large target.

~~~
SystemOut
There are other search engines and one can easily just type bing.com into
their browser and set it as the default. Even on Chrome.

I'm not sure why you remember MS the way you do. There was a much much larger
barrier for consumers to move to a different OS. If you owned a PC you pretty
much had to run Windows. And MS made it extremely difficult to use a non-IE
browser in the OS.

That doesn't mean I think they're innocent in all things but I don't see how
their search market share is a monopoly target.

~~~
thrower123
I have never used IE as my primary browser... I'm sort of amazed at anyone
that does use the OS-native browser as their default, because it has almost
always been an inferior choice.

~~~
vishnugupta
For the vast majority of the target audience (i.e., not tech savvy mostly)
Internet _is_ the OS-native browser. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't
know what a "browser" is in the first place.

As an analogy, during my childhood days when photocopiers came out in India
they were mostly Xerox machines. So Xerox became a verb and has stayed a verb
to this day. So much so that you will find "Xerox shops"[1] in all Indian
cities and people won't understand what a photocopier shop is :-)

[1]: [https://goo.gl/maps/M2TSWXLfqc22](https://goo.gl/maps/M2TSWXLfqc22)

------
kwijibob
A minority view: I do care about privacy but this behaviour is what I expect
from Chrome.

We have a number of profiles on our shared family PC and people expect logging
into chrome or gmail will also log into the other.

For me it's the price of entry for using the google ecosystem. I was already
using gmail/gdocs/chrome sync daily, so it just makes life easier.

If I really need privacy I go to incognito or another browser.

~~~
lucio
shouldn't you use different OS users?

~~~
kwijibob
That would slow things down, also we share the same files/dropbox.

~~~
yakubin
Files can be shared in a directory everyone has access to. On Unix-like system
it doesn’t pose any problems (create a special group and assign permissions to
it). I would suspect that on Windows you can do something similar (setting up
a “D:” “drive”?).

Slowing things down... Logging in and out today is negligible in times of time
spent. I’m not sure what other factors can come into play here for you in
terms of a slow-down.

Having different OS users for different users seems to be a straightforward
thing to do.

------
0x0
This + the screwup of hiding ".m." and ".www." substrings in URLs + the public
threat of getting rid of URLs entirely = patience wearing very thin. Also,
enabling webUSB and webMIDI by default earlier, both of which apparently
unneccesarily exposed vulnerabilities makes me wonder who's in charge,
marketing or security engineering?

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Well google is an ad company so you don’t need to wonder who’s in charge of
their core products

------
newscracker
Time and again [1] we've seen that a company's need to make money from user
profiling and user data trumps broader privacy protections and wellness of its
user base. Whenever these two seem to be in conflict and the company seems to
be avoiding privacy intrusions out of benevolence, the truth is that the
convergence is yet to happen. This is just a matter of _when,_ and not _if._

The broader public either doesn't understand this well or the companies take
these decisions to cause fatigue and resignation among the public. The end
result is that _effectively nobody will care about these unless people who
care (like the ones here, as one among many groups on the web) take some time
to dissuade others from using these applications /platforms_ (be it Chrome or
WhatsApp or Facebook or anything else).

An ungoogled Chromium _is not_ the solution for this because maintaining a
fork that stays true to other advancements takes a lot of effort and time, and
in this case cannot be relied on either (unless, as someone pointed on another
post here about ungoogled Chromium, you take the trouble of building it
yourself every time spending hours).

For now, evangelize Mozilla Firefox and push anyone you know who uses Chrome
to move out. Even if Google makes changes to this tracking feature because of
backlash, it will only be a temporary holdout.

[1]: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/what-facebook-and-
what...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/what-facebook-and-whatsapps-
data-sharing-plans-really-mean-user-privacy-0)

------
aphextron
So I wanted to drop Chrome a while ago, and looked at Chromium. Apparently
using the "no sync" version you can no longer even log into Gmail (or any
other Google service) on the web. That was definitely the last straw for me
losing trust in Google, but there's just no good alternative.

I'm not sure where to go from here because it seems pointless to even use
Chromium if I can't remove Google from it and still be able to login to Gmail.

~~~
inferiorhuman
Maybe you should ditch Gmail instead?

~~~
reaperducer
_Maybe you should ditch Gmail instead?_

I'm thinking about doing that.

The single reason I started with GMail was because at the time, it had the
best spam filter in the industry.

But that was years ago. Has everyone else caught up? Is there another option
with equally good spam filtering?

~~~
inferiorhuman
I used to self-host because I could run really strict spam filtering.
Unfortunately Sonic dropped their plans to offer static IPs and reverse DNS
with their fiber products so I'm stuck with using their servers as a smarthost
at least. Can't say I enjoy it (especially with their all-day outage this
week), but it does give me a chance to at least easily run aggressive
spamassasin filters.

~~~
zmw
I have a self-hosted domain too, with docker-mailserver, but only for less
important email. For important communications I really worry about ending up
on a spam list somewhere and landing directly in people's spam box, plus there
are potential downtime concerns, so I stick to GSuite for that.

~~~
inferiorhuman
I've had a couple occasions where things have disappeared into the void. This
was, of course, after moving away from a static IP (thanks Sonic). On the
inbound side, I've had repeated delivery problems with Sonic blackholing mail
from some financial institutions.

Otherwise I've had pretty good luck.

------
skndr
For those who've switched over to Firefox recently and find Youtube
inexplicably slow, it's "because YouTube's Polymer redesign relies on the
deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome." [0]

The YouTube Classic extension will speed things up:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-
class...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-classic/)

[0]
[https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021626510296285185](https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021626510296285185)

~~~
boyter
Seems that the days of "Best viewed in browser X" have come back sadly.

~~~
Brakenshire
When you give a browser a 70% market share it will always start abusing its
position. Same as last time.

~~~
SquareWheel
Microsoft left IE6 stagnant. They didn't "abuse their position" other than
through inactivity.

Google is actively involved in the standardization process, and moved Youtube
over to a new API too prematurely (v0 of a spec). Now that v1 has been
standardized, they're updating to that instead.

These are opposite problems. Microsoft got complacent whereas Google moved too
fast.

------
zbrozek
I engaged with the folks pushing this feature internally when my own browser
started enforcing omnidirectional login. One of my specific complaints was
that it was an end-run around the user-provided sync passphrase, which
nominally prevents Google from hoovering up my logged-out history.

They didn't grok my privacy issue. Maybe they were deliberately
misunderstanding me. Doesn't matter either way. Now I use Firefox.

~~~
heartbreak
This feature doesn’t enable sync. That’s something that members of the Chrome
team have been patiently trying to explain to Matthew Green on Twitter for
several days now.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1043505744144826369?s=21](https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1043505744144826369?s=21)

~~~
Twirrim
It doesn't for _now_. Which is no small part of his point. The next step is to
automatically turn on sync etc, which is an easier step now people will start
to be used to the idea they're automatically signed in to stuff in Chrome.

The main thrust though, is that this doesn't actually solve anything for end
users that the Google Chrome team says it does. There appears to be absolutely
no benefit in turning this on.

~~~
reaperducer
_The main thrust though, is that this doesn 't actually solve anything for end
users that the Google Chrome team says it does. There appears to be absolutely
no benefit in turning this on._

Over the last year or so, it feels more and more like Google, as a company, is
getting desperate. Like it feels the external tide of popular opinion turning
against it. But rather than mend its ways, a decision has been made somewhere
to slurp up as much information as possible as quickly and quietly as
possible, before it all comes tumbling down around it.

I wonder if GDPR was the turning point. Even my boss, who on a computer
literacy scale of Linda Lovelace to Ada Lovelace ranks near the bottom of the
scale, asked me to explain GDPR to her.

~~~
mtgx
I think it was also more advertisers switching to facebook and new ones giving
fb ads a try first and not even considering Google ads (btw the rebranding
from Google adworfs is another sign that Google is losing new advertisers to
FB and yet another thing pointing to that desperation).

This ultimately affects Google's future growth and it's why you'll see Google
do more such "desperate" moves like trying to become a military contractor,
building its own iPhone-like phones, tracking users more aggressively, and I
imagine android users will soon see os-wide ads, too.

~~~
fencepost
_I imagine android users will soon see os-wide ads, too._

Except they won't be OS-wide, they'll be Play Services wide and mandatory if
you're an vendor including Play Services.

If you don't want Google's ads, you can go do your own thing on AOSP like
Amazon and other largely-flopped attempts.

------
oedmarap
I switched to Firefox some years ago but still dabbled with Chrome, up until
FF introduced multi-account containers that is.

Performance results always seem to be subjective, but in my opinion Quantum
made FF an absolute beast, even when running the usual lot of security add-ons
like NoScript, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc.

However, Firefox Containers I would argue is the number one feature from a
usability standpoint. Being able to wall off cookies/supercookies, trackers,
and work with multiple identities simultaneously in tabs (especially when
using Google services) changes the entire relationship one has with the
browser account, website accounts, bookmarks, and productivity.

Containers is one of many Firefox test pilot projects that are really
thoughtful (FF Send is another). Pair that with great cross-device
compatibility, Firefox Focus for mobile and the general granularity of
about:config and you have yourself a browser you can both trust and call your
own.

It also doesn't hurt that Mozilla isn't evil; all things considered.

~~~
chupasaurus
FF Focus is based on Chromium.

~~~
oedmarap
Yes that's true. I referenced Focus more as a nod to their development of a
lightweight privacy-focused mobile browser without bells and whistles, and
marketing it next to their regular mobile browser with equal attention.

Notably though, Focus is on track to move away from it's Chromium roots:

 _" The switch from Chrome WebView to Gecko doesn’t seem to be performance
related. Instead, the reason has to do with the core goal of FireFox Focus in
the first place: privacy. Mozilla has found a reason to believe that the
Chrome WebView engine can leak someone’s data. So in the spirit of maintaining
data privacy, the team behind Firefox Focus has decided to switch to the Gecko
engine."_ [0,1]

[0] [https://www.xda-developers.com/firefox-focus-switching-
chrom...](https://www.xda-developers.com/firefox-focus-switching-chrome-
webview-gecko/)

[1] [https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-
android/wiki/Release...](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-
android/wiki/Release-tracks)

------
mikedilger
I switched to firefox (linux) several years ago for my main browser and I
couldn't be happer. I also run chromium when some webpage isn't working in
firefox (rare) or when I need to use my companies LastPass account (I avoid
LastPass in firefox because that plugin sucks balls), but I never use chromium
for google services. I run all google services in a "google" multi-account
container in firefox.

~~~
the_duke
Were you taking about the old plugin pre webextensions?

Because I haven't noticed any difference between Chrome and FF extensions now.

~~~
mikedilger
No, I mean that I don't want the plugin operating unless I need it to be
operating. And maybe the plugin is better now, but it used to agressively
autofill my passwords into forms that were not password forms, and agressively
ask me questions I did not want to be bothered answering.

------
kris-s
Google is incentivized to do this, they make good money off of it. It’s boring
and true. They’ll keep doing stuff like this until it reaches some publicly
unacceptable limit.

Until then use browsers like Firefox or Safari where the incentive to be
creepy is far smaller.

~~~
aphextron
> They’ll keep doing stuff like this until it reaches some publicly
> unacceptable limit

Which as we know from things like Facebook, that limit will never be reached.
These things are far too opaque for the general public to understand or care
about. Even we software engineers barely understand the scope of what Google
is capable of. It's going to take a principled stance from within the industry
to push back against the encroachment of these corporations on personal
privacy.

~~~
lbriner
I'm not sure that's true. Facebook numbers have been falling for a while and
I'm sure part of that is backlash over privacy abuses.
[https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-
use...](https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-
decline-instagram-snap-emarketer)

~~~
adjkant
And yet it's rising significantly when it comes to Instagram where they are
employing the exact same business model.

------
pimlottc
Another wrinkle with this: if your account is with a private G Suite instance,
logging into the browser can have a profound effect since it will apply any
management policies. This will probably be sold as a security enhancement -
you can’t access your organizations data without active management (at least,
if you’re using Chrome), but for users with access to multiple G Suite
domains, this will become a real nuisance.

~~~
teddyfrozevelt
When I last had to do it, adding a managed G Suite account to Chrome warns the
user that it will allow the browser to be controlled by the organization. It
would make sense that this same warning would show up in this scenario.

------
konschubert
I understand why people are angry here, but

the argument of consistency between logged-in account and browser account
makes total sense from a UX point of view. Even for power users it's sometimes
confusing why you have to log in twice.

And yes, of course if you're not logged in this chrome then this problem
doesn't apply but most people are actually logged in and the article just
skims over that.

------
cnst
To be frank, I think the ship has already sailed.

* Where were all these cryptography engineering folk when Google decided that it didn't have to ask any permissions to install autoupdates to Chrome?

* Subsequently, instructions were published on how to disable the autoupdate — published by Google itself, mind you — yet somehow after some time has passed, the same versions of Chrome that were supposed to have stopped looking for updates were somehow able to magically automatically update themselves in the end after a number of releases anyways — so much for the browser being secure against remote execution attacks by a powerful-enough party!

BTW, if you think Brave is any better, they refused to disable the autoupdate.
[https://github.com/brave/browser-
laptop/issues/1877](https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/1877) TBH,
between the lines, I got the impression that it's part of the business plan,
where an outdated browser is basically worthless to them as an investment
anyways, so, spending any engineering resources on such causes is
fundamentally not worth it. Who cares about the good-will of the user if there
are so few alternatives anyways?! So, I basically stopped using Brave at that
point, as I didn't feel like being the product.

Mozilla may have gone away with asking for your permission to download and
install the update as well, but at least there's still a clear setting in the
interface which lets you be the boss, and, compared to the quirks that Brave
may offer, at least once configured, you do know they won't go behind your
back to do the dirty work anyways.

------
mehrdadn
For now at least, there's this escape hatch: chrome://flags/#account-
consistency

Edit: Some are saying this doesn't work on Chrome 69. :(

~~~
stefano
When you're looking for escape hatches, you know the software is working
against you. At that point, it's better to move to an alternative browser,
it's not worth it to fight it with hacks. If too many people use the escape
hatch, they'll remove it.

~~~
SiVal
It seems as though the needed escape hatch is a browser that simply CAN'T send
info about you back to home base. Firefox might qualify, but I don't know for
sure, and I don't want that to be our only option. There's a lot of great
engineering that goes into Chrome.

So I'm wondering: Is enough code open sourced to make it possible for an
organization such as Apache, GNU, or whatever, to create a sanitized fork of
each new version of Chrome? This would be a version of Chrome with _no
privileged party other than its user_. Every other party would be limited to
the same set of features (cookies, local storage, etc.) that apply to all 2nd
parties.

~~~
rst
You might want to look into the Brave browser
([https://brave.com](https://brave.com)), which is a commercial browser based
on the Chromium code, funded by a micropayments idea, which tries to generally
be more privacy-sensitive than the Google version.

As for a fully open-source version: here's a fairly recent summary (2017) of
what's in Chrome and not in Chromium (the open-sourced subset):

[https://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-
differen...](https://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-
between-chromium-and-chrome/)

There are other omissions that could get in the way of general usability;
chromium also omits some proprietary licensed codecs, including the mp3
support.

However, Google synch support, etc, is left in -- and if you desire to keep
that out, maintaining the patch set that does it without cooperation from
upstream could be a hassle. Whenever they refactor of update the integration
between synch and the rest of the browser, you need to make corresponding
changes in the patch set that cuts all that out -- and at a fairly rapid pace,
too, lest you find yourself unable to ship an urgent security update.

So, it's doable -- but at a price in usability, and doing it right requires
some kind of continual effort. Which is what Brave is, in effect, trying to
arrange with their payments-based funding scheme. And even a very capable
person trying to do the project solo, on a volunteer basis, would be putting
themselves at risk of burnout.

~~~
StudentStuff
Does one really want to associate themselves with Brendan Eich though? Brave
is what he has been building after being ejected from Mozilla.

While Brendan has built some interesting and useful things including
Javascript, he is apparently poisonous enough to cause three of Mozilla's
board members to resign, including a founding executive of Yahoo, the former
CEO of AVG, and the former CEO of Mozilla Corp (from 2008 to 2010).

His wiki page is a good reference:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich)

~~~
contem
The disagreements were about strategy and mobile experience, so not enough to
call someone poisonous. Place Yahoo, AVG, and Moz Corp against Brendan's co-
founder status and JavaScript.

The other toxic drama was about a 1000$ political donation. Very sad to see an
unpopular view used to paint someone as a monster. If democratic political
views are enough to kill someones career, it is more a sign of the toxicity of
today's social media and activism than a character judgment.

> Does one really want to associate themselves with Brendan Eich though?

No, not really. Not a good political idea to align yourself with the black
sheep. With all the tars and feathers he just looks weird.

Though it also works in his favor: Brave is popular amongst the alt-right and
technical-minded early adopters. They see it more as character assassination
and SJW corporate culture taking desperate vengeance for Trump's win.

~~~
thrower123
The fact that Eich was pilloried after the fact for what was at the time a
mainstream political opinion is absurd.

Brave is fantastic on android though.

~~~
Dylan16807
> at the time

It was ten years ago. When people fussed about it it was six years old.

How many years back do political actions count as relevant?

------
hyperpape
I agree with Matthew that the supposed problem this is solving doesn't seem to
be an issue for the case where no one is logged in to Chrome. In addition it
seems to me as if it has a non-invasive solution:

If A is signed in to Chrome, and the user then signs into gmail as B, sign A
out of Chrome, perhaps with a notification telling them what to do.

~~~
codethief
Exactly! I'm really surprised they didn't think of this…

------
eudora
Is it just me who wishes all the organisations supporting user rights banded
together and hit the market as a viable 3rd ecosystem of products?

All the Linux vendors, all the distributed social media (PeerTube, mastodon,
hubzilla), all the private search engines like duckduckgo, all the open source
hardware like Purism...

Imagine them doing an EU and pooling all their resources to produce a coherent
yet distributed, open and free ecosystem with a browser by Firefox, search by
DDG, OS by Linux, phone by Purism, etc...

They could cross-support each other's efforts, promote eacother etc.

I'd live there instead of Google/Microsoft/Facebook world.

~~~
billylindeman
The missing piece IMO is funding, but that may be something that the crypto-
currency world could fill.

Not sure what the road to that world looks like, but we definitely need a
contender because all of the major tech companies have become disturbingly
anti-consumer.

~~~
eudora
Ubuntu's (failed) Kickstarter raised 12.8 million to build a phone which seems
like a lot

Purism raised something like 2.5 and are using it to develop their first
phone, and it seems to be going great, on track for April release.

Ubuntu etc are making money and doing good work.

While that's great, I think you're right. That for example, GNOME releases
don't have nearly as much goodies as say Mac OS, because they're working with
drastically less money and employees.

Take Firefox OS or Ubuntu touch. The amount of money being pumped into iOS and
Android must be absolutely incredible. How do these open source vendors
compete with the billions of platform investment from these giants?

They just end up with an interior product, so they end up with no market
share.

Some bright lights are Ubuntu and duckduckgo, they're profitable and have
their niches.

I think I'm suggesting they band together because that can only increase
adoption amongst them all - if for example Firefox had duckduckgo as default,
and Linux had Firefox as default, that would help those services quite a bit.

I guess though, that if Firefox is targeting mass adoption, they'll have more
luck with Google as default. Which is sad.

------
ChicagoDave
Firefox here I come. Google’s update, to automatically take an action on my
computer that I specifically don’t want, is an egregious misuse of technology.
This is what Microsoft might have done in the early 2000’s for which they were
rightfully vilified.

What happened to “do no evil”?

~~~
JoshMnem
> What happened to “do no evil”?

It was considered "stupid" so they dropped it:

[https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326424/eric-schmidt-
once...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326424/eric-schmidt-once-thought-
dont-be-evil-was-stupidest-rule-ever)

I thought that even if "evil" can't be well-defined, its general meaning
probably encouraged a culture that tried to focus on ethics. When your leader
says that trying not to be evil is "stupid", it has a different effect on the
culture.

~~~
teddyfrozevelt
[https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-
conduct.html](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html)

Don't be evil is in the last line of Google's Code of Conduct.

~~~
JoshMnem
It was dropped, but they must have added it back after the publicity.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/ne...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/google-dont-be-evil-code-conduct-removed-alphabet-a8361276.html)

~~~
contem
It was never fully dropped, just de-emphasized.

Silly: Thinking that Google wants to go do evil, but needs to drop a value
statement first (to do otherwise, goes against the Code of Evildoers)

~~~
JoshMnem
Having the CEO call the idea "stupid" and removing it from the code are a bit
more than de-emphasis.

~~~
contem
It was never removed from the code. You seem to think it was, and that the
media attention made them add it back.

Try to find a snapshot of the code that does not include it (I can only find
snapshots with it, so that won't suffice as proof).

About Eric Schmidt (who I won't defend) the full quote and context ("a casual
jokey interview"):

> "The idea was that we don't quite know what evil is, but if we have a rule
> that says don't be evil, then employees can say, I think that's evil,"
> Schmidt said. "Now, when I showed up, I thought this was the stupidest rule
> ever, because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible
> or something." In the end, though, he believes it has worked, by giving
> employees a way to point out things they find unethical.

Subtle but it is there: The former CEO does not think that doing no evil is
stupid, he thinks using a rule like that, without properly defining evil was
stupid. Then he changed his mind.

Compare with the JSLint license that states: "the Software shall be used for
Good, not Evil." You can find that rule stupid and vague, while acting like
Mother Theresa.

> "As Google (and some others) interpret it, this additional requirement
> constitutes a vague use restriction and thus makes the license non-free.
> Chris [DiBona] explained that if I were to remove that line from the license
> and 'return to a proper open source license that we support,' then jsmin-php
> could stay on Google Code.

------
beezischillin
I use Google Chrome very casually, mostly for development exactly for the very
same privacy concerns as people have so I stopped using the Google Account
integration for a long time explicitly because of these worries. I was
extremely surprised to randomly see the browser logged into the account I use
for YouTube.

As a user this is greatly worrying to me. I want my browser to not do anything
like this without my explicit consent -- especially since I knowingly avoided
doing it... I moved out as much of my digital identity from the Google Cloud
as I could. I obviously can't escape needing to use YouTube, but everything
can't be perfect.

I gotta be honest, I have some worries regarding Firefox, too. Too often they
have pulled shady things and got into bad with terrible people. (the unwanted
advertising stuff being auto-downloaded for Mr. Robot, the "fake news
detector" thing, etc. etc.)

I find it extremely important to have good, independent open source
alternatives to commercial web browsers and each step like this is a step
towards one interest trying to take over the core of our internet experience.
Pretty scary.

------
S_A_P
I’ve recently launched an experiment to get off of google. I can’t say I had
any real reason other than curiosity. I have some privacy concerns but can’t
say that was the main driver here. I think I just looked at my laptop, phone,
etc and thought about how prevalent google code was in my life. It was my
navigator, my file store, my calebdar, my email, my search engine and my
browser. It knows everything about me.

That said I have started migrating from the ecosystem. I’m using safari for
the web. Duck duck go for search, and Apple for maps. So far results are a
mixed bag but I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I’m hoping to get
completely off of google in the next 3-6 months as long as viable alternatives
that respect privacy exist.

~~~
wincy
I’m reading all this and was commenting to my wife we should stop using
Chrome, then felt really foolish because I remembered we have Google Fiber.
I’m not sure what to do about that. I’m also not sure if it’s something I
should worry about or not, are there different rules on what Google can do as
my ISP vs as my web browser?

~~~
romanovcode
I bet as your ISP they can do hell of a lot more.

------
jiggunjer
What bothered me with Chrome is that when you log in the sync functionality is
checked for all boxes by default. Let's say you're in an internet cafe using
their PC, you have to move very quickly if you want to prevent Chrome from
pulling your synced passwords onto their local drive. Isn't it obvious design
to disable those boxes by default?!

------
orbifold
At least on iOS and macOS I see no reason not to use Safari, Edge on Windows
is pretty good too. Power users will stop recommending Chrome to the average
user after these changes and over time market share will hopefully decline.

~~~
Chazprime
It’s tough to use Safari if you’re a web developer; Chrome tends to be better
at rendering pages and in overall performance, as well as adopting features
quicker than Apple.

~~~
simplify
Performance may have been an issue years ago, but nowadays safari is just as
fast and consistent at rendering. I use safari as my default now, including
for web dev, and have chrome ready in the rare case I need it.

------
rad_gruchalski
These changes are really shocking. I’ve stopped using chrome a week ago for
entirely different reasons and happy to hear one has managed to avoid sll this
mess. I’m using 3 different gapos accounts, that would be some serious mess.
Even if this change is reverted, I’m not going to switch back. By chrome, it
was nice for a pretty long time.

------
0xmohit

        Yesterday, news broke that Google has been stealth
        downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs
        Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google. Effectively,
        this means that Google had taken itself the right to listen
        to every conversation in every room that runs Chrome
        somewhere, without any kind of consent from the people
        eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off
        the practice with what amounts to “we can do that”.
    

Source: Google Chrome Listening In To Your Room Shows The Importance Of
Privacy Defense In Depth

[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google-
ch...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google-chrome-
listening-in-to-your-room-shows-the-importance-of-privacy-defense-in-depth/)

~~~
allenz
"Listening in" is inaccurate. "Ok Google" was opt-in only, and did not record
users without consent. Chromium downloaded but didn't run the binary blob.

Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9724409)

including Google's perspective:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9735795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9735795)

~~~
bordercases
Why download it in the first place?

~~~
CydeWeys
A mistaken include in a build file, most likely.

I've removed all sorts of dumb stuff slowing down the build that was included
by accident or unnecessarily on my project at work. Never attribute to malice
...

~~~
craftyguy
> A mistaken include in a build file, most likely.

Yea, "whoops we accidentally downloaded a surveillance device on your
system!"... If that sort of negligence can happen, what else is the browser
currently doing, or capable of doing in the future, "accidentally"?

~~~
horsawlarway
Not to make light of the point you're making, but by far and large customers
actively want this.

There's a large market opportunity right now for voice controlled systems.
Controlling those systems with your voice means they have to be able to listen
to you. Full stop.

While I think it's going to take a long time before we truly understand the
repercussions of those systems (and I want to be clear, I say that not as an
omen of fear and doom, but as a literal statement: We don't understand exactly
what level of monitoring we're ok with or is appropriate as a society) I think
complaining that google is acting in a solely nefarious way by attempting to
incorporate voice control into the browser is disingenuous.

Windows (the literal glass ones) also allow people to see into your home. They
let any random stranger on the street walk right up and view the things you
own, as well as yourself and your family. But by far and large we've decided
we like windows enough that the privacy loss is worth it.

~~~
bordercases
You can shutter windows when you like

------
pg_bot
I want to switch to Firefox, but the developer tools simply do not work at
all. Every time I try to use the console on the site that I'm working on, the
tab freezes and everything just stops working. (This immediately happens, not
after a period of working and then bugging out) If any representative from
Mozilla wants to reach out, I would be glad to help you fix your software
because we need better competition in this space. (email is in my profile)

Current Firefox version: 63.0b8 OS: mac OS High Sierra (10.13.6 17G65)

~~~
rando444
You don't need developers to reach out to you, just file a bug report like a
normal person.

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/)

~~~
pg_bot
Have reported there before and have gotten no attention to any issues
previously posted. In my experience bugzilla has been a black hole and
reaching out via public channels is more effective at influencing change in an
organization. I understand that you may think this is uncouth but letting
other people know publicly why their product isn't being used is effective.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Try vacuuming the sqlite files, or make a fresh new profile.

------
arthurrichards
I use firefox and have an addon to specifically erase my google cookies when I
close the browser. I don't see a problem with this new chrome feature. Ive
seen users logging into eachothers browser gmail, maybe google is
democratizing the info they collect so everyone can access it? :) Ill point to
this again
[https://youbroketheinternet.org/trackedanyway](https://youbroketheinternet.org/trackedanyway)

~~~
b3n
Instead of erasing cookies, why not enable Firefox's first-party isolation?

~~~
arthurrichards
Great idea thank you

------
octosphere
Why are people so loyal to one browser? Where is it written that one has to be
married to a specific browser and shun all others? A common thread I hear is
that certain browsers are slow and don't _feel_ fast (which is something you
can partially fix by adding additional RAM to your machine and running the
browser on an SSD). OP shuns Chrome but forgets there is more competition than
previous years where the main three contenders were IE, Firefox and Chrome.
Now we have Brave, Vivaldi, Qups, Iridium browser, Ungoogled-chromium[1], Tor
Browser Bundle, Waterfox, Palemoon, Comodo Dragon, and a few other flavors of
Chrome exist out there but are very buggy and unsecure and not updated often.
Personally I run several browsers and isolate my sessions with them - so one
for Facebook, one for Twitter, another for shopping, etc (Just to make sure
there is no cross-talk between the various services I use).

[1] [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

------
magicalist
> _For all we know, the new approach has privacy implications even if sync is
> off. The Chrome developers claim that with “sync” off, a Chrome has no
> privacy implications. This might be true. But when pressed on the actual
> details, nobody seems quite sure._

This seems more like, I'm being told the thing I'm worried about isn't
happening, but I don't believe it.

Which is fine, but not sure what's changed with what's being done, rather than
a change making clearer what's _possible_ (when signed into google, chrome has
your google cookie).

> _For example, if I have my browser logged out, then I log in and turn on
> “sync”, does all my past (logged-out) data get pushed to Google? What
> happens if I’m forced to be logged in, and then subsequently turn on “sync”?
> Nobody can quite tell me if the data uploaded in these conditions is the
> same. These differences could really matter._

Again, how is that possibility any different than before this change?

It seems this is mostly a well intentioned (for a subset of chrome users) but
poorly thought out UI change (giant blue button).

------
r2dof
Some of you here might be thinking, "well you can always use a passphrase
while using chrome sync" to mitigate all privacy issues. I generally advocate
use of a passphrase to people I know. BUT digging a bit into it I found that
chrome's encryption is NOT STRONG AT ALL. Here[1] the author describes that
brute force is possible within 4 days if the sync passphrase has 40 bits of
entropy, with $1000 hardware. So with more expensive hardware, this can be
done within minutes.

TBF even firefox is not excellent in this regard(based on the article), but it
is much better.

[1]:[https://palant.de/2018/03/13/can-chrome-sync-or-firefox-
sync...](https://palant.de/2018/03/13/can-chrome-sync-or-firefox-sync-be-
trusted-with-sensitive-data) and associate chrome bug :
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=820976](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=820976)

~~~
palant
Yes, Firefox could do better, but at least Sync there was designed with
privacy in mind - Chrome Sync wasn't, and even if you set a passphrase it will
only encrypt passwords and none of the other data such as your browsing
history.

Either way, Chrome exists to give Google's web services an advantage, that's
the only reason. I wrote about that seven years ago:
[https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-
installed...](https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-installed-
web-apps)

~~~
r2dof
>even if you set a passphrase it will only encrypt passwords and none of the
other data such as your browsing history.

This[1] seems to imply otherwise.

[1]:[https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/165139#passphrase](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/165139#passphrase)

~~~
palant
Yes, it does. I just tried this, when I set a passphrase everything shows up
as encrypted in the Google Dashboard. So maybe things changed since I wrote
this, or maybe I misunderstood it initially. Either way, the default is not
having a passphrase, and the passphrase setting is buried pretty deep, so most
people won't set it. What's worse, you cannot really avoid an initial
unencrypted sync before you can set up a passphrase. The point still stands,
this isn't a system designed for privacy.

------
vladletter
I just did the same because of this login shit. Long live Firefox.

------
JoshMnem
> Even if the browser never produced a scrap of revenue for Google...

I think that Google Chrome was always about ads. The browser has an auto-
completion algorithm that sends users to Google Search to click on well-
disguised ads on the way to their destinations rather than sending users
directly to URLs.

(Until recently, Firefox would send people directly to URLs instead of search.
You have to enable the two separate boxes in Firefox to make that work now --
ctrl-l for URLs and ctrl-k for search.)

Chrome has a few serious dark patterns if you look closely. Also watch out for
Google's current attempts to get rid of URLs, because it's probably motivated
by getting people to become more dependent on search to click on ads (as well
as hiding from people that they are visiting AMP "caches" instead of people's
real (HTML) websites).

------
woranl
Forcing users to sign in to their browser is simply bad taste. Ever since
Sundar Pichai became CEO, Google changed for the worst. It’s very unfortunate.

------
eudora
I'd strongly suggest people create separate users in the browser, one for
daily, one for Google, one for Facebook. This way in my regular browsing
there's no Facebook or Google cookies reporting on what websites I visit.

And with this new change, presumably in your daily profile, your browser
remains signed out also.

It's really easy and doesn't impact at all on workflow, if you want your Gmail
you just click the user button, and click Google. You could even set that
user's homepage to Gmail.

That said, you could also just switch to Firefox or Brave.

(Copy pastaing myself. With an addendum: I don't know if this will actually
result in less of your private data compromised, but it seems plausible)

~~~
crc32
Firefox has a feature called "Containers", which is kind of this concept but
with perhaps a better UX.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/kb/containers](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers)

~~~
eudora
I've tried containers, and I really want to switch to Firefox because I
support their aims, but I found containers really clunky.

It might have been the fact that they were tabs in the same window, and it
made it harder for me to control/organise/understand what was in what
container.

Especially when opening new tabs.

I can't remember the details but I remember finding it fiddly. Maybe I'll give
it another go.

------
DoctorOetker
>The extreme version holds that I ought to be using lynx+Tor and DJB’s custom
search engine, and if I’m not I pretty much deserve what’s coming to me.

What is this "DJB’s custom search engine" ? I fail to find it with both
DuckDuckGo or google..

~~~
JCC1
Man, a "DJB custom search engine" would probably be amazeballs. You would
submit queries via an environment variable with additional data on FD6 and get
data back 1024 chars at a time, prefixed in TAI64N, and IPv6 sites would be
completely banned.

I'd use the F- out of that.

------
strictnein
Still shocked that all of this junk ended up being a version of Chrome that
some of the Chrome leads were hyping on Twitter as something they were super
excited to be releasing.

Nothing in it has been an improvement.

------
craftoman
Chrome was __always __spying and collecting data from users since the very
first day, every developer knew it that 's why most of hackers and devs
switched to Chromium. The open source edition which you can patch and modify
to completely disable any communication with Google servers. Last I checked on
GitHub there were tons of patches. Just switch to Chromium and problem is
solved. Chrome is garbage.

~~~
pnenp
Or switch to another browser such as FF where you have to worry less about the
problem in the first place and are guaranteed to get updates.

~~~
craftoman
Indeed

------
tokyodude
I know this will be downvoted into oblivion but this isn't evil. 99% of users
want this feature. They want their passwords synced and they don't want to
have to log in multiple times. With a data point of one I want this feature.
I'm sure if I poller my non tech friends they'd almost universally want this
feature.

An option to opt out might be good but most people are helped not hindered by
this.

------
mdekkers
I have been using Google for pretty much as long as they have been around. I
was one of the first gmail users, one of the first Android users, one of the
first gsuite users.

And I'm done.

I really don't like the whole Apple experience for many reasons, and not for
lack of trying. The Apple IOS system just doesn't do it for me and the whole
walled garden approach just isn't my thing. Having said that, I am fed up with
Google waging this relentless war on their own users, and I'm done with them.
I am ordering the new iPhone Xs Max, and given that I am just as tired with
the impossibility of dealing with disabling all the crapware in Windows 10,
and the very ominous messages from MS that "windows is a service" (no it
isn't, you greedy fuckers, it is an OS) am eyeing up the options replacing my
surface pro (new model) with a mac.

Again, I am no fan of the Apple experience, but they appear to be a lot more
committed to privacy and security. Google, you used to be awesome. Not anymore
though, so bye.

------
exodust
Google already forces the "Account Chooser" for web sign out on everyone with
no option to disable. This is all related.

There was previously a link to an opt-out switch that set a cookie to disable
account chooser, but Google have now removed that. They don't like to give
people choice, not even advanced users.

Account chooser basically re-invents the concept of signing out. Google keeps
your name and email displayed on the page after sign out. It takes multiple
annoying clicks to "remove account" from the account chooser.

Their suggestion to use private browsing mode to sign in, is not always
convenient. Often you just want to sign out properly with one click, as per
the way the rest of the world does it, and have no record of your credentials
lurking around. Google says no to that, and forces their account chooser on
everyone for their own agenda, and nothing to do with user preference.

Sometimes I think the law should step in, as it does with privacy. "Sign out"
should mean exactly that, nothing less.

------
sbr464
I actually took a few moments today and thought about what it would take to
launch a new browser. Obviously it’s a lot, but since the browser is becoming
so important, almost like an OS itself, it is only going to become more
important that privacy and neutrality are core designs.

I know it’s been clear for a long while, but I’m just really realizing that an
Ad company completely manages this new type of “OS”. By only this test alone,
Microsoft would be a much more trusting/reliable company, since their core
business model wasn’t in Ads, not so much when considering other test points.

I honestly don’t think the Linux approach is going to work either, since
design/ux is so important in the browser, and those are fundamentally ignored
more than not in that ecosystem. (To make a point, I love Linux).

I personally would pay for a browser, at least a premium version, as long as a
free version with the basics was avail.

I’ve never had to think about any of these things before the last major Chrome
update, it’s kind of scary.

------
jijji
I think the leaked video of Sergy Brin and his army of senior executives
crying at the loss of Hillary Clinton on election night didn't serve the
public well. Their hope for lower wages for new hires via unbridled
immigration was a big defeat. If anything, it shows what they really care
about. The fact that you have senior people, owners even, in a publicly traded
company outwardly pandering to a left-leaning ideology and being partisan in
nature, this isn't going to sit well with anyone from the outside looking in.
They really are this way -- from the owners, all the way down. I woulnd't be
surpised if they lose common carrier status, safe harbor status, and being
regulated as such. It's a real shame too because they had a good thing going
for a while. Hopefully duckduckgo and similar search engines dont follow the
same path.

------
samch
At little off-topic, but in a similar vein I had been waiting and hoping for
Google Fiber to show up in our neighborhood. I was mostly of the mindset that
Google, of all ISPs, would be the most Net Neutrality-friendly provider.

Meanwhile, AT&T showed up first with their gigabit fiber offering, and I
signed up for it. Google still hasn’t come through despite earlier promises,
and I’m increasingly glad they haven’t. I’m not suggesting that AT&T is
perfect. They’ve had some significant shortcomings in the privacy area
themselves. I’m simply saying that I no longer view Google in the simplistic
terms I once did. They are a complicated organization with seemingly
conflicting priorities.

For the same reason, I’ve also switched away from using their 8.8.8.8 DNS. My
wife is on Duck Duck Go, but I haven’t been able to make that leap myself
(yet).

------
jondubois
There is a huge problem with the way our economy and legal system views
technology.

Software is made up of code, it's bits of information; in its simplest forms,
code can be like math formulae; an elegant algorithm or architecture is more
like something you know than something you have. Many algorithms are in the
public domain but the majority of the world's most important code is not in
the public domain.

Unfortunately the law doesn't regard computer code as knowledge, it regards it
as an asset that can be protected as private property - That's why today we
have insane monopolies that are seemingly impossible to take down. The world's
most important code should be in the public domain and belong to anyone who
cares to learn it.

~~~
code_duck
The ‘code’ to Facebook and google, if one can say there is such a thing, is
not particularly important. Their control of their networks and IP is
important. Reading various code to Facebook would not enable me to create a
competitor to Facebook in any way.

------
nwellnhof
Another surprising dark pattern related to Google logins is that in recent
versions, it's basically impossible to log out from the Youtube Android app.
It seems that Google is hell-bent on having everyone logged in to their
services at all times.

------
qwerty456127
I try leaving Chrome every now and then but every time it turns out Firefox is
just too slow to tolerate and this was the initial reason why I've moved to
Chrome some years ago (yes, my PC is old and I make heavy use of extensions).

------
ChuckMcM
As I have mentioned this is consistent with a trend of trying to squeeze money
out of things that didn't need to generate cash back when search advertising
paid for everything. Now, not so much and not getting better.

That said, I appreciate the discussion with even my "non-tech" type friends
who are starting to understand the cost of 'free' stuff. That folks are
learning I find refreshing, it makes the opportunity for products that
explicitly protect privacy or disavow surveillance-as-a-service type
businesses that much more competitive.

------
mrhappyunhappy
I checked out brave a few times but every time stopped using it due to the
bulky feeling of their interface and the forced remembered sites you visited
that show as an icon when you open a new tab. I take as much offense at
browsers showing me every single site I went to without an easy “turn off this
feature “ toggle as I do with chrome forcing itself into my browsing
experience. When will a browser come around that is light and does what it’s
supposed to do - let you browse.

------
jiveturkey
hmm, well yes and no.

> If you’re in basic browsing mode, your data is still stored locally. The
> problem is that you no longer get to decide which mode you’re in.

But yes you do! Don't use gmail and you will remain in basic mode.

I get the author's point, but he seems to want to have his cake and eat it
too. If you're using gmail, Google already owns a very very significant part
of your personal data, enough that you should be worried about it. If you
don't trust Google to treat your cookies and other web-data with proper
controls, then you shouldn't trust Google to manage your email either.

So from a principled perspective, yeah it's a step backwards for sure. But
from a practical perspective, it isn't nearly as substantial.

I for one did find this new misfeature useful -- because Chrome signin and
sync are buggy as hell. I get logged out all the time for no apparent reason.
Loading gmail (usually without a new signin) re-signs me into Chrome now.

I am not going to switch browsers based on this slide in user privacy from
Google. They already suck wrt user privacy and this isn't that significant for
me (as a gmail user). Chrome is still much better than FF for me. And come on,
FF has had its own privacy flubs as well. didn't they force pocket on
everyone? If you switch browsers everytime one of the vendors makes a misstep,
there are going to be no more browsers to choose from, save elinks.

Still, here's hoping someone writes an extension or figures out how to block
sign-in at a network level.

------
Myrmornis
Can't these issues be solved by using the "People" feature and using a
different identity for gmail vs your browsing when you want not to be signed
in?

I use the different identities extensively (work gmail, personal gmail, and
other identities) and the quick switcher in the top right is for me the
biggest reason why I've been unable to move to Firefox. (FF containers are not
the answer, I know that much. I think FF identities are but they lack easy
switching.)

------
jcims
I’m a partially savvy user and was surprised when I went to view my recent
tabs on (the new) Chrome for iOS and it has my recent desktop tabs on as well.

Unsettling.

------
tjpnz
And yet Google still doesn't get held up to the same level of scrutiny as
Facebook. I would argue that Google are far more dangerous.

------
tinus_hn
They are pulling the same tricks with the iOS apps, if you use Google Maps not
logged in and you login to one of the Google Docs apps your Maps activity is
now associated with your account once again. It’s sleazy and it’s a shame
Apple doesn’t allow you to block it (this developer is not allowed to share
information between apps and websites)

~~~
adestefan
I also noticed this weekend that the iOS Youtube app now asks if links should
be opened in Safari or Chrome. If Chrome isn't installed on the device the
button says "Install" instead of "Open." I don't know how new this is, but
it's pretty sleezy.

------
partiallypro
Has anyone else been getting a lot of Chrome ads lately from Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter? It's gotten to be a bit much.

------
vturner
Suspected something strong arming us was in the works when Google silently
disabled the setting for complete always private browsing. I have this set on
both Firefox and Chrome, no history, data, nothing remembered on my work
computer. One day I noticed history in Chrome and surprise the settings for no
history were gone.

------
ncfausti
Brave (with default search engine Qwant) has been a nice replacement. Of
course, there is always Firefox/DuckDuckGo

------
rwc
The timing couldn’t be better with a new, even more privacy focused, version
of Safari shipping in tomorrow’s new macOS.

------
Tade0
I switched to Firefox for two reasons:

-Google tried to block Ad Nauseam(its debatable effectiveness and value is a different matter - the fact alone was what irked me).

-Firefox is being slowly, bit-by-bit re-written in Rust. What kind of _Rustacean_ I would be not to use the product that's been the _raison d 'être_ of this language?

------
masswerk
Something, I missed in the article, is Chrome's background in WebKit. (Rather,
it seems to convey the impression that this was an original project by
Google.)

Anyway, this may also directing us towards a viable alternative: A new,
independent and cross-platform repackaging of WebKit2 / WebCore.

~~~
dannyw
Any problems with Safari?

~~~
masswerk
Webkit and Safari were meant synonymous, Webkit referring to the framework,
Safari to the specific application packaging.

On a practical level, it's been quite some time since Safari isn't cross-
platform anymore. Also, it's fixed to a specific version of the operating
system, which also applies to the open source Webkit release. I'd love to see
an implementation with less external dependencies.

------
ausjke
Just watched youtube on the newest chrome it immediately brought my PC to a
near-freeze status with 2GB swapped to disk, unusable. Opened firefox and it
worked smoothly.

This started to occur recently, combining with the fact that each chrome tab
needs about 120MB memory along, yes it is about time to be back to firefox

~~~
abecedarius
Related: the morning Chrome updated itself to 69, it went into spinny-beach-
ball hell (I had a zillion tabs open, which hadn't been too many before). This
mattered because I had a plane to catch, and info on my trip to review and
save. It wasn't immediately obvious why it was suddenly unusable, the first
workarounds I tried didn't help, and every step of trying things took a long
time. (E.g. bookmark all tabs, close the window, and restart: now you're just
back seeing the same zillion tabs, where in previous versions with my setup
this would come back with an empty window.)

OK, things change and we're kind of stuck going along for the sake of security
updates, but going near-unusable at an important moment without obvious
warning is a problem. (I'm looking at Firefox and Brave now too.)

------
pmorici
On mine I see the new icon but when I click on the menu that pops up has a
"sign in to Chrome" button that you can click. I wonder if it hasn't signed me
in yet because my Gmail cookie hasn't expired and so I haven't retyped my user
name and password since it upgraded.

------
jrockway
I think it's interesting that this is the straw that broke the camel's back.
Chrome already handled cookies for every website that you viewed, but now that
it says "and I'm going to use them to log into Google outside of a tab"
everyone freaks out.

------
CitizenTekk
I think google has been starting to help people in getting investment and
money in returns rather than helping people gain important information just
like before. It's become monopolized in a way people will think of having
money rather than gaining knowledge.

------
rdednl
I read an interesting thread on Twitter by an engineer at Chrome.
[https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1044109217903198210?s=21](https://twitter.com/__apf__/status/1044109217903198210?s=21)

~~~
hobofan
This was already mentioned in the blog post:

> (However, and this is important: Google developers claim this will not
> actually start synchronizing your data to Google — yet. See further below.)

------
whyagaindavid
Remember all of GAFA is building tools for the next billion. (i.e)
China/India/Indonesia/{Africa}. There you have this very issue - people
sharing one computer with one another. Same with AMP. HN is prominently
Europe/US is missing this.

------
mustaflex
After they dropped inbox, I'm actively trying to leave google products but it
is definitely hard. The band-aid is fused with the skin. It also made me
realize that tying oneself to a single product/company is definitely to avoid.

------
alistproducer2
I've successfully transitioned away from all google products with the
exception of Android. It seemed impossible at first but all it took was a
rpi3, dd-wrt router, free ddns from freedns.afraid.org, letsencrypt cert and
nextcloud.

------
remote_phone
I log into my personal gmail and Facebook on Firefox and everything else on
Chrome. I’ve been doing this for years now and I’m perfectly comfortable. For
the most part I’ve forgotten about any differences between the two browsers.

~~~
rando444
If this is your strategy, you're going to also need to avoid google documents
and signing into youtube.. and there's also the fact that at some point you
need to ask yourself if Chrome is really great enough to warrant using
multiple browsers when Firefox containers take care of everything privacy
related for you.

~~~
magicbuzz
Using Brave for a bit will give you some perspective on what sort of things
(e.g. location) are being requested whenever you hit a Google-related page.

------
fogetti
I am also planning to leave for partly similar reasons. Other reasons would be
that their shipped product is a heap of sh#t. Removed loading indicator, blank
pdf pages, removed html5 video control buttons, broken network traffic
inspector in dev tools, frozen and crashing html pages, broken password
manager. Not to mention that they also allowed to make the browser a managed
instance by your company's administrator when you are logged in with your
company's gsuit address which turns the browser into an absolutely miserable
experience (and for this reason the new signin process is really vile). I am
not saying that all of this started with the latest release, but all of these
are present in the latest release. It's a s###ty product just like IE6 was
back in it's heyday.

------
maz1b
Gave the new FF a serious try, and I definitely like it. Will be switching
over soon.

Did not like how Google forces your google account to be active at all times,
and the new UI of Chrome is a regressive step in terms of design.

------
ogfomk
With the Chrome Incognito mode you can do all of your stuff on a cookie to
cookie basis. Just do something, log out, close incognito, then open again. Of
course this involves trust that incognito is real.

------
bunsenhoneydew
My default is now Brave, great for privacy. I like the features in Vivaldi so
sometimes use that too.

Firefox just grinds to a halt for me on my Mac.

I only use chrome on the very rare occasions I still need to do a little front
end work.

------
anm89
Just imported my bookmarks and writing this message from firefox. I was
hesitant to move for a long time because I liked chrome dev tools a lot but it
looks like firefox has caught up.

------
baud147258
Personnaly I don't care about the login thingy, but I dislike their latest
redesign, so I switched to Firefox at work and I'll see how to switch for
personal use.

------
ihateeveryone
Are you done with the free product you have used for free for 10+ years? Oh,
you are still going to use Gmail and other free services for free? Quit your
wining then.

------
bdz
[https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

------
Teckla
I have a question for those people that don't like this change in behavior:

Doesn't this change in behavior make things far less confusing for non-
technical users?

~~~
prolikewh0a
If the power users can't figure it out, is it less confusing for non-technical
users?

------
dwighttk
I only use chrome for the built in flash, and it looks like they are moving
away from that, so I may be done with Chrome myself soon.

------
raffael-vogler
Is it possible to get Netflix to run on Firefox or Chromium on Linux? Last
time I checked I could only watch it in Chrome (Ubuntu).

~~~
hmaarrfk
Yes.

------
dbg31415
Google Forms now requires you to sign in with a Google Account before you can
use a public form. Total pain in the ass.

------
Havoc
Between this and their shady browser in China I'm starting to think Google
just starting to become straight up evil.

------
drakonka
I just downloaded Brave and am trying it out. If all goes well I'll be
uninstalling Chrome by the end of the day.

------
cryptozeus
Anyone using brave as alternative browser? I have been using it as 2nd browser
for few weeks now and really digging it

~~~
kadfak
I switched to Brave on iOS after the Chrome redesign that ruined the UX for
me. Pretty happy with it so far. It has some pretty neat features as well -- a
visible tab strip that you can swipe and select/close tabs, for example.

------
teekert
Chrome: Here, log in, so we always know it's you!

FireFox: Here, create cookie containers so nobody knows it's you!

------
Imburr
Anyone who thinks Google doesn't already have all of that mined data on you,
wether you are signed into sync or not, is kidding themselves.Google search,
Google plus, chrome, play, Android, analytics, wifi, isp services- that
already know where you go on the internet. By not syncing your fooling
yourself into believe that your internet usage is yours.

~~~
azdle
This thought is addressed in the submission: Google wouldn't be doing it if
they didn't think they'd be getting value out of it.

------
commandlinefan
Although I agree with and respect the author’s opinion here - I’ve all but
given up on not being tracked across the internet. At this point, dozens if
not hundreds of faceless corporations can easily put together who I am and
what I’ve looked at and posted on the internet for at least the past 15 years,
and there’s nothing I can do about it any more.

------
znpy
This is the kind of thing that the European Union should take a look at.

Hopefully with a(nother) big fat fine...

------
Klonoar
While everyone's on the subject of Firefox... can someone explain why the hell
this is still an open bug on macOS?

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124108](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124108)

This is a core thing for the system, and it contributes heavily to Firefox not
feeling native.

------
ourcat
Ironically, I arrived at this blog site pre-logged in to my Wordpress account.

------
ExtremePopcorn
> DJB’s custom search engine

I can't find anything on this, does anyone have more info?

~~~
tcmb
Probably refers to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Bernstein#Secure_sof...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Bernstein#Secure_software).
Almost an inside joke for cryptologists.

------
baalimago
What about making some sort of "auto logout" addon for chrome?

~~~
mscasts
That still doesn't solve the problem that it will probably be enough time for
Google to send your browser data to them if they change that to be the case,
which honestly they probably will.

------
rumblestrut
I switched to Firefox after the recent Chrome update. It's awful.

------
Legogris
The clear break for me came in version 39. I am staying on Chromium 38 for the
few sites and extensions where I still depend on Chrome and using Firefox for
everything else. Once version 38 becomes obsolete I will stop using Chromium
alltogether.

~~~
romanovcode
You are not doing any favours to yourself by staying on older version of
Chrome. There have been many vulnerabilities and your data might be
compromised because of this.

Why not just use a different modern browser instead, I don't get it.

~~~
Legogris
You are right, of course. I still use Firefox for everything except the few
extensions I haven't replaced yet. I expect this interim period to last up to
a month.

------
profalseidol
Not totally unrelated: What do you think about the state of Ethereum and it's
progress and Brave + BAT?

Also just in case you you've checked other blockchain-like projects, are they
legit?

------
sreejithr
Firefox - The free man's browser!

------
modzu
there's also opera. almost worth it just for the speed dial :)

------
akayoshi1
Why I'm leaving [Insert name of disliked social media network or web browser
here]

------
stojano
just complain about the www... the rest you must accept.

oh wait... fsf.org

------
KING_ZEUS
does anyone know if this affects Vivaldi?

------
whyagaindavid
Not that I am supporting Chromium (never used Chrome) or google but you could
create a

    
    
      /etc/chromium-browser/policies/managed/test_policy.json

with contents

    
    
      {
           "DownloadDirectory": "/tmp",
           "DefaultNotificationsSetting": 2,
           "DefaultGeolocationSetting": 2,
           "AutoplayAllowed": false,
           "SigninAllowed": false,
           "RestrictSigninToPattern": "^$",
           "SyncDisabled": true,
           "CloudPrintProxyEnabled": false,
           "CloudPrintSubmitEnabled": false,
           "SpellCheckServiceEnabled": false,
           "TranslateEnabled": false,
           "SearchSuggestEnabled": false,
           "NetworkPredictionOptions": 2,
           "BrowserNetworkTimeQueriesEnabled": false,
           "MetricsReportingEnabled": false,
           "SafeBrowsingEnabled": false,
           "SafeBrowsingExtendedReportingOptInAllowed": false,
           "DefaultBrowserSettingEnabled": false,
           "SavingBrowserHistoryDisabled": true,
           "DefaultSearchProviderEnabled": true,
           "DefaultSearchProviderName": "DuckDuckGo",
           "DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL": "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}&kp=-1&kd=1&kl=uk-en",
           "DefaultSearchProviderIconURL": "https://duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico",
           "URLBlacklist": ["facebook.com", "https://www.facebook.com"],
           "CookiesAllowedForUrls": ["[*.]whatever.com", "[*.]whatevercdn.com", "[*.]whatever.io"],
           "CookiesBlockedForUrls": [
                   "[*.]doubleclick.net",
                   "[*.]wideopenpets.com"
           ],
           "BackgroundModeEnabled": false,
           "WPADQuickCheckEnabled": false,
           "VideoCaptureAllowed": false,
           "AudioCaptureAllowed": false,
           "EnableMediaRouter": false,
           "NativeMessagingUserLevelHosts": false,
           "DefaultWebBluetoothGuardSetting": 2,
           "ExtensionInstallForcelist": ["geddoclleiomckbhadiaipdggiiccfje;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx","cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx","kljjfejkagofbgklifblndjelgabcmig;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx"]
       }

For more flags: use chrome://policy
[https://www.chromium.org/administrators/linux-quick-
start](https://www.chromium.org/administrators/linux-quick-start)

P.S: I do understand your concern. But I see that increasingly google is
building for its billions outside of EU/US where people share devices and look
at security in a totally different way.

------
noypi
i switched to firefox after quantum. didn't like memory hogs.

------
TigerHimself
The solution is Safari

------
sjwright
Oh come on, that's just an absurd example. Gun rights and an article about gun
control are literally the same thing. The article surfaced by Google's
algorithm is the more relevant and comprehensive one when it comes to gun
rights.

I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the
subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control".

~~~
jsega
>I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the
subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control".

How open-minded of you.

There is no better way to partake in a discussion in good faith then to use
the old: If you disagree with me [insert negative suggestion here].

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I'm an owner of firearms and in favor of the second amendment and I still
agree with parent, Gun Control being highlighted as a relevant article makes
complete sense, since Gun Control is fundamentally about rights related to
firearm ownership.

~~~
dhimes
It's not absurd, but there is a page that fits the search term better in the
same domain. _That 's_ what makes it "suspicious."

~~~
rovr138
The title and domain is not the only thing that matter for Google’s ranking.

~~~
jMyles
Right - of course. So the question is: are the other "things that matter"
designed to:

1) Inform the user and help the user quickly find facts, narratives, and
meaningful content related to the search phrase? 2) Sell things? 3) Promote
modes of political control by narrowing the scope of acceptable thought and
connection between search phrase and content?

We all hope for #1. We all accept #2. But I think that most of us, at least
until recently, had thought that #3 wasn't happening to any significant
degree.

I agree that results like this one are befuddling - a search for "Politically
controversial and anti-state concept <foo>" brings as the first result,
"Related but saccharine pro-state concept <bar>" when both foo and bar appear
in approximately equal stature in the domain in question.

Yeah, I think that's odd. And I don't see a way to easily explain it in the
context of numbers 1 and 2 above.

~~~
potta_coffee
Try Googling the term "white couple" as an image search - you will be provided
with a page of interracial couples, not white couples. Not that I have a
problem with interracial couples, my own family is interracial. But it's
obvious how Google is attempting to influence the perspectives of it's users.

~~~
intended
How.

For me or anyone to believe this, is a huge ask.

Any attempt to algorithmically shape perspectives is crude with today’s state
of the art.

How precisely would such an algorithm work, while not creating obvious
artifacts and errors throughout the search results for all people using the
service.

And how would it work for people only in the us and not elsewhere?

~~~
jMyles
> For me or anyone to believe this, is a huge ask.

Agreed.

> Any attempt to algorithmically shape perspectives is crude with today’s
> state of the art.

I suspect that the truth of this statement is very difficult to ascertain at
the moment. Reasonable people might dispute both which technologies represent
the "state of the art" and also which outcomes represent successfully shaped
perspectives.

Although I don't have the data to back up this assertion (and again, I'm not
sure such data is cognizable in the current environment), I think that for
some reasonable definitions of the above that indeed perspectives can
successfully be algorithmically shaped today, though as I said above, I think
that this "white couple" nonsense is not a meaningful example.

> How precisely would such an algorithm work, while not creating obvious
> artifacts and errors throughout the search results for all people using the
> service.

Again, it may not be clear to _anyone_ , including the authors, precisely how
such an algorithm works. That's why A/B (and other) testing is needed.

And I think people in this thread are saying that indeed obvious artifacts are
starting to creep up (although again I think that the "white couple" thing is
a total misfire and not at all an example - the "gun rights" thing appears to
my eyes to be much closer).

> And how would it work for people only in the us and not elsewhere?

Isn't this already at a point of triviality? Doesn't Google already do this
all the time? I mean, if you travel outside North America, indeed the Google
experience is palpably different from the one in the US.

------
francasso
TLDR?

------
aaaaaaaaaab
Tangentially related: the iOS YouTube app is constantly trying to get Chrome
installed on my phone by showing a “browser selection” dialog when e.g.
tapping on a link in a video description.

It says “Download Chrome, or open in Safari”, and even though there’s a switch
which says “Always ask which browser to use”, unchecking it (it’s _checked_ by
default, of course) only gets rid of this popup for a few days, then they show
it again!

------
rustcharm
I don't like to be "forced" to do anything, but I happen to like browsers that
sync! This way I can save a file to my "reading list" or add a bookmark at
work and I'll see it at home. Very handy.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
I feel opposite of this. I want my bookmarks to be separated on desktop and
laptop. Sometimes my wife will use my laptop and I’ve had occasions where I’d
bookmark something as a surprise for her (a gift I wanted to purchase) or I’d
research some activity- only to have her find out just because google decided
it was okay to sync my stuff. If there is an option to disable that I’d like
to know. Ah hell, the latest UI update to chrome makes me want to dump it
entirely. Worst part, it didn’t even ask me if I wanted to update.

------
M_Bakhtiari
> Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing your data
> to Google — yet. See further below

The Julius Malema of tech. "We are not calling for the syncing of user data to
our servers. At least not yet".

------
Go0the0gophers
Brave browser is LGTM

~~~
baal80spam
What does LGTM stand for?

~~~
grzm
Looks good to me.

------
swingline-747
It seems anti-competitive in historical Microsoft monopoly-regulated way with
Google using GMail to give Chrome data.

------
swingline-747
Yeap. I left Firefox because it was slow. Now, Google wants everything. Plus,
Chrome hogs all of CPU on relaunch now.

With Quantum's Servo, I'm going to give FF another bite at the proverbial
apple.

------
sarcasmOrTears
Thank God we have the GDPR protecting us from evil corporations, oh my god I
love the EU

~~~
kryptiskt
The EU at least have slapped Google with some modest fines. Hopefully their
Chrome nonsense will get them one as well.

------
Chazprime
.

~~~
unstuckdev
It started at Stanford University and got its early funding from various tech
people. Where did you hear otherwise?

~~~
colordrops
They and Facebook were also funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture fund.

------
suyash
I left Chrome years ago, now my main browser is Safari. Firefox is the most
unsafe browser in my opinion.

~~~
adtac
Care to explain why Firefox is the most unsafe? I've been using it for a while
now and the built-in privacy protections are great (would be better if they
were on by default, but hey, we have this at least).

------
nautilus12
I stopped using chrome a long time ago because its user experience was
horrible and it ate up all my computers memory. This would push me over the
edge if I hadn't already gone there.

------
jiggunjer
The author gives 3 arguments for not wanting to sign in at all. I find them
all rather weak. The first two are actually a single argument.

The first argument: He likes to give consent. He fails to mention _why_ he
feels the need to consent to signing in, but the second argument implies it,
making this just a prelude to that argument. This need seems irrational as
there is no difference in the browsing experience between being signed in (and
unsynced) vs being not signed in. The only difference is a minor UX change:
you can now accidentally sync (which is his second, and most significant,
argument).

His second argument, making it dangerously easy to sync, is actually a good
thing for the average user. It is also not that simple to do by accident if
you have a separate password set-up for syncing. I think it is safe to say on
the whole that people who never sync will still not sync.

His third argument can be written off as paranoia: _" For all we know, the new
approach has privacy implications even if sync is off. "_. Sure, maybe by
simply being signed in you are being data-mined in secret, but if you trust
Google that little why are you using their services? And what would be
preventing them from mining you while not signed in?

Lastly, I think the author is slightly conflating "sync" with "data mining"?
For all we know synced data is end-to-end encrypted and Google can't even read
your bookmarks? The terms of service "signed-in mode" just states that data
gets saved to the cloud, not that Google uses it?

