
Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch - rahuldottech
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-to-switch/
======
eitland
Isn't this just a copy from Washington Post or something?

Not that bashing Chrome or Googme bothers me, I made my own attempt at that
recently, but no need to discuss the same article twice?

~~~
cheschire
Yep. Was posted yesterday[0] which was marked a dupe from the original washpo
article[1] also posted a day ago.

0:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20247077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20247077)

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20243473](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20243473)

~~~
pyman
Article behind paywall. Please stop doing this.

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rendall
When Chrome blocks ad-blockers as Google intends to do soon, I will entirely
drop Chrome. And likely all of their services, as well: in for a penny, in for
a pound.

~~~
newsbinator
I still can't find an alternative to Chrome's Dev console, especially for
responsive design testing.

Firefox's version is alright at the moment, but not nearly as polished.

~~~
iamben
Which part of 'responsive design testing' in particular do you mean? I use
devtools pretty religiously to check elements, but put responsivetester.net
together a few years back for rapidly testing across multiple breakpoints.
Then I'll use lambdatest.com (because it's wonderfully cheap) to actually
device test prior to launch...

~~~
SahAssar
Well, as responsivetester.net uses iframes it will not work if the site is
properly protected from click-jacking using the X-Frame-Options or CSP
headers, and it will also not emulate touch scrolling/events. The devtools
basically bring you a little bit closer to the real thing, although you still
need to test with real devices in the end either way. As for how to use it see
here: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Responsive_De...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Responsive_Design_Mode)

------
seanlinmt
And if you don't want to switch, there are things like privacy badger[1] and
ghostery[2]? Although, strangely Privacy Badger does not seem to mention their
chrome extension[3].

[1] [https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

[2] [https://www.ghostery.com/](https://www.ghostery.com/)

[3] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-
badger/pke...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-
badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp)

~~~
feanaro
These aren't really a replacement when the browser itself is compromised and
the corporation behind it is leveraging it to try to take control of the web
standards.

------
vjcbe
>Our latest privacy experiment found Chrome ushered more than 11,000 tracker
cookies into our browser — in a single week.

Firefox doesn't support cookies or what?

>Firefox isn’t perfect – it still defaults searches to Google and permits some
other tracking. But it doesn’t share browsing data with Mozilla, which isn’t
in the data-collection business.

Much worse, it shares browsing data, including full URL history, with third
parties. [https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-
cliqz-i...](https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-
firefox/)

~~~
tomger
> Support for Cliqz integrated functions in Firefox is ending.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/cliqz-
recommendations-f...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/cliqz-
recommendations-firefox)

------
retrac98
The irony of being prevented from reading this article because the site “sees
you’re using an ad blocker”....

~~~
gear54rus
Good to see them squirm I guess, that's how you know adblocking is sound tool
for fighting back

------
user764743
Of course a browser made by the biggest tracking company in the world is
surveillance software, what else would it be?

------
bla3
It sounds like the author doesn't quite know how cookies work. It's great that
Firefox does cookie blocking by default, but it's not like not doing that is
chrome-only -- and it's not chrome that's setting all these cookies, it's the
internet advertising business.

It'd be more honest to write an article about Firefox breaking bad internet
standards in the interest of the user, and another one about internet tracking
being out of control.

Chrome has issues, and it'd be good if it blocked more cookies by default, but
the headline here is way overblown.

The headline might even be apt with a different article! But it seems we all
want to be believe the headline so much that we didn't read past it.

Edit: the article this was duped into has a much better headline.

------
evolve2k
Dear Firefox implement tab to search already. Yes you can do ‘similar’ things
with ! but it’s really not the same. So many Chrome users staying for this
feature. Solve it already.

~~~
Bakary
Doesn't Firefox show you relevant open tabs when you type in keywords in the
address bar?

~~~
butteroverflow
They're probably talking about the other feature: choose/write the domain name
in the search bar, press Tab, and if you have previously visited the site, and
it implements the OpenSearch "standard", the search bar sends your input to
the chosen site instead of the default search engine (Google or whatever).

------
jasonvorhe
Isn't this trope getting a bit redundant? It's like Gmail ca 2012 all over
again.

Chrome is free software, you're not being forced to use it, there are
alternatives, the most relevant ones are even using the same engine.

It's like everyone is trying to capture some unique visitors because they know
it works: $service is spying on you.

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
> Chrome is free software,

Chrome might be provided without cost but it is certainly not free software.
It is proprietary.

~~~
ZuLuuuuuu
The word "free" has two meanings, he/she obviously meant it free as in free
beer.

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
"Free software" has a very distinct meaning.

------
chobeat
This weekend I started my degoogling. Gmail and Chrome are gone. Let's see if
I can survive for a week.

~~~
nsomaru
What's your gmail migration strategy? My primary email is hosted @gmail.com --
and I need a reliable way to transition this to my own domain on a trusted
(and 3rd world priced) provider.

~~~
amelius
Forward your emails, while sending an automatic reply that your email address
has changed.

~~~
dillonmckay
I don’t recommend the automated reply, that lets anyone who happens to come
across your gmail address, find your new address, friend or foe.

If you are forwarding it, you will know who to reply to and let them know to
update their address book.

------
SE_Student
I wonder if the same applies to "Brave" ? (the browser built on top of
chrome).

I stopped using chrome for a while and have been using Brave.

~~~
mcbits
Brave is built upon Electron, which is built upon Chromium (not Chrome).
Electron and Chromium are both open source, unlike Chrome, although
development is still concentrated in Google and GitHub/Microsoft. So I imagine
it's fine unless something egregious happens with those projects and there
isn't a strong enough community to maintain a clean fork.

~~~
krn
> Brave is built upon Electron, which is built upon Chromium (not Chrome).

Brave has been built directly upon Chromium since December 2018[1].

[1] [https://www.computerworld.com/article/3328781/brave-
browser-...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3328781/brave-browser-goes-
full-chromium-by-adopting-google-ui.html)

~~~
mcbits
Oops! I actually thought about double-checking that before writing it, but I
vaguely remember reading some list of reasons why they had initially gone with
Electron instead of Chromium, so I assumed it was still true.

------
dtroode
Wrote a little note on the same day about switching to Firefox
[https://dev.to/dtroode/why-you-need-to-give-firefox-a-
chance...](https://dev.to/dtroode/why-you-need-to-give-firefox-a-chance-5g5a)
Hmm

------
karmakaze
I saw one of the other posts go by and briefly scanned it.

On this occasion:

* I immediately closed Chrome I was using to read the post,

* unpinned Chrome from the dock leaving only Firefox, and reopened my page in FF.

For some reason, the third time something clicked.

------
suyash
Best of the lot is Safari if you are on an Apple device.

~~~
retrac98
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted.

It’s slow to adopt new standards and a pain to develop for, but as a bit of
consumer software it’s the best browser out there IMO.

~~~
dwb
And by far and away the most energy efficient, which is pretty relevant for
most Apple devices. It's currently my main browser and has been for a while.

~~~
The_rationalist
Source? That would be highly surprising.

~~~
dwb
Source: me. It's not a small difference, it's literally hours of battery life
– or at least was last time I compared. Why would you be surprised? Note,
though, that my browsing habits are very messy – I habitually have a number of
windows open, some with many tabs. So if you're a neater sort you may not
notice the difference as much. Also I haven't tried the most recent versions
of Chrome, but I assume I would have heard something if they'd gotten that
much better.

~~~
The_rationalist
You're an interesting data point then. It's surprising because chromium has an
order of magnitude more developers dedicated to optimizations. Webkit ~= 200K
commits Blink ~= 800K commits

~~~
dwb
I wrote my original comment imprecisely and without caveat because I was under
the strong impression that it was well-known and uncontroversial. I'm
definitely not the only person that has observed this. This is the first
result for me for "safari chrome battery life":
[https://www.howtogeek.com/273606/the-best-web-browsers-
for-s...](https://www.howtogeek.com/273606/the-best-web-browsers-for-speed-
battery-life-and-customization/)

I don't see why number of commits would be anything but an extremely weak
proxy for estimating power consumption, certainly not anything to cause
surprise. A very strange thing to say by a self-described "rationalist".
"Optimizations" is a very wide term you've used. Unless you are specifically
targeting power consumption, it's quite possible to optimize for speed and
markedly increase power consumption.

------
NeoBeum
I stopped using chrome when it started to mess with RAM

------
euoia
Is there an alternative to Chrome’s profiles?

~~~
xyzal
I am quite satisfied with Firefox's Multi-Account containers. As an added
bonus, tabs associated with different containers can share the same Firefox
window.

~~~
firecall
It's not exactly the same though... I have clients where we access a Google
account, which has access to Google services... it's like synching a whole
Google eco system. Everything is staked on the Chrome login - Gmail,
Analytics, Tag manager, password synch...

It could be undone, but those frackers at Google make it so easy. And so much
is built off of Gmail as the mail service.

------
amelius
Are Google Chrome's practices allowed by EU/GDPR?

