qutebrowser¹ is fantastic. I just wish it had more ways to block trackers on webpages (other than just completely disabling JavaScript—even being able to whitelist JavaScript on certain hostnames would be a huge start).
An opt-in message is being displayed to some Gmail users. Not sure if this is related, but if you try and open a new google account there is a small section on sharing of information between services, though it doesn't specifically mention chrome.
There is at least some "communication with Google" that could be considered innocuous. For example - accessing their Safe Browsing API (also used by Safari and Firefox).
Check out Vivaldi. It uses Chromes blink engine and packs lots of nice features. My subjective impression is that it's also faster and consumes less memory.
I saw this screen this week. I recently reinstalled Windows and Chrome, that might have been when. It was asking me to opt in, not opt out, before sharing this data.
While I am able to switch to another browser (I already did a long time ago), I don't believe I can avoid visiting sites "that show ads from Google". How much can Google collect from those sites?
> While I am able to switch to another browser (I already did a long time ago), I don't believe I can avoid visiting sites "that show ads from Google".
You can block those ads, and the scripts that serve them and collect data.
Which is default-enabled in Private Browsing, and you can enable it for normal browsing as well by setting "privacy.trackingprotection.enabled" in about:config to true. A GUI-toggle for this should make it into Stable in the next few releases...
Whenever I see these things I wonder, are there any plugins or any automated tools that would help fuzz search results.
So for example, send search requests to google randomly for items like "ducks", "fishing ponds", "banana leaves" etc, totally unrelated nonsense that will skew these tracking giants provided enough people install and run these tools.
That however searches more for things like "how to appear funny", "why are my thumbs uneven", "am i lack toast and tolerant" or also "your youre difference".
Friendly warning to others: Do not blindly click on the link above without first reading what it does. Relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880008 TL;DR It may put some undesirable things in your search history and/or temporarily block you from Google.
Vivaldi feels like the old Opera 12, so great. But it's partly closed software, especially the nice HTML5 based UI. I am waiting until they release everything under open source license.
I'm not convinced it's opt-in. I just visited that page, and everything was switched on. I can't profess to having a perfect memory, but I can say that opting in would have been pretty out of character thing for me to do.
> I'm not convinced it's opt-in. I just visited that page, and everything was switched on. I can't profess to having a perfect memory, but I can say that opting in would have been pretty out of character thing for me to do.
I in fact explicitly remember clicking no to a prompt similar to this one, so I'm very puzzled how I got auto-opted in anyways..
I just got this prompt yesterday and explicitly opted out. It has it opted in currently in the Activity Controls of my account. Clearly this opt out screen does not work.
Activity Controls is whether or not Google logs Web/App activity. The Ads opt-out controls interest-based ads as a whole, including from Web & App Activity if enabled.
what about 'don't be evil'; have they silently changed the corporate motto, or is it now an 'opt-in' clause ? ( opt-in for the customers 'request that no evil be done to you', the customers are otherwise known as 'the product' https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/11/surveillance_... )
True, but nor is the opposite true - that a lot of people caring somehow makes it the wrong thing.
I can choose where to draw the line. I care more about privacy than most of my friends, so I use a browser that helps that while they use Chrome because that's their choice. Google isn't preventing that from happening, so what they're doing isn't unethical, evil or wrong.
so in the beginning Google has declared to have valued such things as customer privacy (the "don't be evil" motto seems to indicate that), my guess is that this was a deliberate strategy in order to gain trust and influence.
Nowadays all that seem to be less of a priority for Google; now what happens with the shareholder value when a large proportion of the customers again start to value their privacy over convenience ?
When I look at this ad settings page, it has a list of topics Google thinks I'm interested in. I've heard of half of them and am interested in none. I would be worried about Google collecting my data only if they were competent enough to misuse it.
Never mind if they are competent enough to misuse it today; giving Google data assumes they won't *become8 competent enough to misuse it in the future.
Collection isn't what you should be worried about. The problem is that the collected data is persistent and combined with other data in the future. Just timestamps from the browser can paint a surprisingly fine-grain picture of your pattern-of-life. I'm sure far more interesting interpretations can be found with the many machine learning techniques and other analysis methods that are currently being invented.
It's explicitly not "opt-in" since the default setting is turned to "on" (tested with multiple accounts) without any prompting. Opt-out is better than nothing, but it's a pretty suspect move to say "oops, you were accidentally opted in to something that would make us money without your permission."
I'd respect them a lot more if they came right out and said "let us sell your data or start paying for our services." That would at least be a fair choice, and I'd be happy(ish) to pay google 10 bucks a month if they promised not to sell my information on the side.
> "let us sell your data or start paying for our services."
Same page:
> What’s still the same?
> Google does not sell your personal information to anyone.
The wording may matter so here are real questions that I can't seem to get definitive answers for because everyone seems to have strong opinions either way but no reference ever:
- Does "aggregated data from multiple users" or "anonymized data form a single user" still counts as personal from Google's PoV?
- Is Google effectively selling data in any way or is it only using data to back a service up? (e.g ads are getting served based on profile but the profile itself never leaves Google)
I'd be thankful if anyone points me to unambiguous text (ToS or other) pertaining to each question, whatever the answer is.
But basically, Google for Work is like normal Google services (Gmail, Google Drive, Hangouts, etc), except without advertisements and more restrictions on what they do with your data:
It's in the ToS, and it's their entire business model, that they do things you might like that makes them money, so you don't have to pay with money, you pay with data derived from the usage of their services.
I think it's not just your data. It's not completely theirs either. Your search history is very important from a privacy standpoint, but it's still just data about how a particular user account, session, IP address or browser GUID used their services. It's not data you have explicitly uploaded (let's say like you do with YouTube or Photos).
The whole problem is the infrastructure they have in place. It's not transparent, and thus we don't know who gets to drink from their firehose of [meta]data.
It's a very good and hard ethical question (problem) to judge this trade-off. (Short term gain for our civilization, since we get awesome services for free - as in the population just uses it and generates the data, so it's endogenous growth, - but in the long term we increase the risk of having to face an efficient totalitarian surveillance system.
There's Chromium Inox[0] which is just a patchset on top of the Chromium build to remove much of the mothership home-calling. Inox seems to be much closer to Chromium than many of the other Chrome-privacy spinoffs. Contrary to popular belief, Chromium still has a lot of Google in it.
I always feel like artificially patching a project that doesn't care about your concerns natively to be plugging holes in a sponge boat, but I realize sometimes you need to use that boat because reasons.
I installed it from the AUR and it seems to work pretty well for the testing I do in it anyway. I don't daily driver it or Chrome.
"a project that doesn't care about your concerns..."
Unless the concerns are always "more features"... forever. Any new features will do, so long as the project keeps growing. The more changes and updates the better.
I could put Microsoft Windows in this category along with hundreds of other projects. Chrome is deceptive because it has some useful features... but ultimately this browser is the tool of advertisers. Because they are the only hand that feeds the Google.
These folks are not aligned with my concerns. They cannot be. It is a conflict if interest. Will Chrome use my DNS server instead of Google's? Why should it? It's not my browser to control.
At one point the Googlers put a resolver into Chromium. I think they removed it but just the idea they considered this was enough to scare me away permanently.
I enjoyed the spongeboat analogy. One can use a patched alternative. One can write extension after extension to modify default behaviour. At some point it becomes a losing battle and a waste of time. The browser is designed and maintained by an advertising company.
Avoiding mothership home-calling is a wonderful way to navigate a world with too many software choices. It makes choosing software much easier. Because not many projects today consider home-calling a legitimate concern.
When you do find a project that fits your values, that you know will not change to suit advertisers, it can be a software you can stick with as things and times change. At least this has been my experience.
It is psychological warfare, conducted by corporations instead of States. But the objective is the same; trick you into changing your behavior to benefit them.
I don't know ... thinking selfishly, I'm employed and paid by a a corporation that uses advertises to increase revenues from their products/services. As are almost everyone else here. Even the "altruistic" non-profits and whatever are largely funded by the very same corporations. Will there ever be a time when economic activity is largely carried out by people and organizations that do not seek profit? If advertising increases said economic activity, isn't it a good?
If corruption increases said economic activity, is it a good? If destruction of the environment increases certain economic activity, is it a good? I'm not saying these things are similar to advertising, but the reasoning is flawed. That in the current setup of our economic system something makes economic sense, does not necessarily make it a good thing.
I am at a loss for alternatives, but I am skeptical about advertising. Not in a completely general sense, but what bothers me is that much of it is manipulative. It uses images, sounds and movies in certain progressions to influence me, sometimes in a covert or unconscious way. Now, certainly a lot of other communication efforts are aimed at persuasion, but then, you often have to consciously go and find them. It is easier to filter (I can choose not to visit the opinion pages of website or its comments section). Advertising on the other hand crawls into your life from all directions (billboards, video ads that suddenly start playing, popups, street vendors) and is sometimes impossible to avoid. Often it's slick but shallow. It's like, you enjoy eating good food but instead, everywhere you go, you are being force-fed hamburgers. I do not want an information diet that fills up my working memory, costs me energy, manipulates my emotions and yet leaves me unfulfilled.
It uses your fears, your neuroses, your addictions and your need to remain involved and up to date against yourself as a way to extract your hard-earned resources and time.
I don't consider this a good rebuttal - Firefox has done stuff like pocket (not monetary but invasive) and search engine deals (monetary). Though it is pretty close.
"And grandpa, what was great uncle vu4374fv18's fight?"
"He snarkily shitposted to the internet whenever someone cared about an issue that wasn't the most pressing societal issue at the time. Even if their profession brought them into closer proximity to one than the other."
The benefits could outweigh the cost (of increasing the likelihood of someone subverting Google into a brutally efficient totalitarian surveillance system).
I tried to find information about it online, but the official documentation [0] is less than helpful to say the least. I'm guessing when they say "stuff", that's a euphemism for blob, but fuck if I know, maybe they are just trying to be hip in their documentation. After all, it's also business time, in case you didn't know.
Currently downloading the Chromium source code, to see if that's more helpful, but I kind of doubt it...
I think the official documentation is what's found in the help center; this page contains a lot more information about using a custom passphrase for your sync data: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/1181035?hl=en (top result when searching for "chrome sync encrypted").
However, I decided to give the benefit of the doubt and did a few file-searches, in case the files were moved at some point and the documentation was just not updated.
But Google has created a perverse incentive here. They give me a ton of choices, so many and so vaguely explained that I couldn't possibly understand what they really mean and I get suspicous of everything they offer me.
So what I do is disable everything without even thinking. Later when something isn't working as expected and it turns out it's because of one of those privacy settings, I start to think about whether or not I really need it.
So effectively, they give me an incentive to summarily reverse their opt-out strategy into an opt-in one. I suppose that's fine with them because most people won't do even that.
However, they should be aware of the fact that this is the second easiest thing to do after leaving everything enabled.
Over time, they may be creating a popular culture of "disable everything" just like they created a culture of ad-blocking (where "they" is the whole advertising industry in this case, not so much Google itself)
Google also has an obnoxious "if we can't keep it, you can't either" approach to user data. For example, I have location history turned off for obvious reasons and tried using the Google Maps app. I wound up having to re-enter my destination several times due to accidentally doing something that cancelled the navigation and caused it to instantly forget the destination. As another example, Google's new Allo messaging app supports end-to-end encryption but it's not on by default and activating it blocks local logging - if they can't get a copy of your chat history and use it to work out stuff about you, they won't let you have one either.
If they did support keeping the history but only using it for you, it would be even harder for them to credibly prove that they are not keeping the history for advertisement purposes ("I have disabled you keeping any location history and still you list the places I have been to? How dare you??").
I can understand your point about allo more, though of course storing the local history unencrypted also means that it's going to be accessible to interested third parties in one way or another. If they don't keep it at all, it means that it won't be.
It does, but it's poorly documented and quite difficult to use. Use the flag --sync-url="" when launching Chrome, and I believe the server is run through chromiumsync.py.
I think that's what I meant. Why is the new system better than the old one? There was a lot of FUD on reddit around it and I stopped following the news. Thanks for update.
You lose the data that's stored on Mozilla's server, but since it's a synchronization service, you should have a complete local (unencrypted) copy which can then just be encrypted with the new key and re-uploaded to their server.
The new system, Firefox Sync, is the one that encrypts your history with a password-derived key, by means of HKDF. Mozilla cannot decrypt and read your data.
Completely false: they can if they want to. All they have to do is serve a new login page to you which transmits your password as well as the derived key. They control the login page, they control the JavaScript which derives the key. They can do it at any time, invisibly.
This is different from trusting them to make a trustworthy browser, because you download the browser once, while you may download the login page and associated JavaScript every time you login. They could target you, or all of their users, just once, or for a limited amount of time; unless you inspect the HTML & JavaScript source every single time you use your Firefox account you cannot be certain that they aren't being evil.
Firefox Sync is unacceptable for password — or any other private data — storage. This is a pity, since the old protocol was very suitable.
That's not true. Modern browsers are set to upgrade automatically in the background, without notifying the user.
If you're paranoid, you can self-host your own Sync server, but then if you don't trust the vendor of your browser, then you've got bigger problems and I hope you're compiling your own binaries.
> You can also use your own auth server if you want
The problem with that is that if the auth server is on a machine you don't have complete control over (e.g. one hosted by a dedicated-system or VPS provider) then you are trusting that provider to never break into your machine; you are also trusting that machine never to be broken into via some remote exploit.
That's far too much trust for a system hosting sensitive data like passwords. The only secure thing is to deploy a system with as little trust as possible.
The great thing about the self-hosted sync server is, the storage and auth components are separated, and the storage one just stores encrypted blobs.
If you want you can trust Mozilla with the authentication part while storing everything where you prefer, but if you're worried about a javascript change set up an auth server locally, create an account in it and copy it on every device you own: since it stores only account details which doesn't change, you don't have to worry about replication.
I didn't realize how much data Google had on me until my search terms I used on my laptop was almost immediately available on my smartphone. I felt shocked and kind of stalked as well.
The data especially on Android can easily be hacked if someone has the expertise. This made me think how easy it would be for stranger to learn everything about me through my data.
IIRC chrome sync data is separate from google data and you can encrypt it by adding a password which Google claims makes it so they don't read your data
Statements like this are very hard to quantify in a meaningful way. Especially on Windows, over a time interval I can notice a definite performance degradation of programs. Often times, completely deleting all program data and reinstalling seems to fix the problem. On GNU + Linux and macOS systems, I've noticed that Firefox is usually snappier to render pages.
But I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that one browser is sluggish -- there are too many environmental variables to have a good discussion on this subject.
I'm on Ubuntu. The installation isn't really fresh any more, but on a fresh installation, Firefox was sluggish. I only have 4gb RAM, but that seems acceptable for chrome.
Could you ELI5 Chromium's license to me? Is the whole thing open source, or just part? Can I build the whole thing myself, or does it rely on Google's magical binaries?
EDIT: also, smooth scrolling. If there's something that ruins my day is going on a browser with smooth scrolling. First world problems.
EDIT2: also, I'm struggling to remove add-ons. I know I have pocket installed because I see its icon on the top right, but it's showing up neither on Extensions nor on Plugins. Proof: http://i.imgur.com/ShUW5CK.png
EDIT3: manage to turn off smooth scrolling. Firefox is now skipping frames. Some times there's no difference (for example in google.com Firefox scrolls as well as Chrome.) Some times there's is a clear difference (for example, http://en.flossmanuals.net/chromium/ch008_installing-chromiu... Chrome is really smooth, while in Firefox there's noticeable jerking). Some times the experience is really REALLY bad (example, imgur)
Hmmm... can't say I've seen that before. I agree that 4gb of RAM should be more than enough for Firefox. Chromium has a history of fetching and installing binary blobs w/o asking for user permission.
I'm curious about the frame skipping is caused by -- I've never seen that problem. I'm wondering if maybe it's video card related? Might be worth asking someone involved in the project about to see if it's a known issue.
> Firefox Sync encrypts your data with a password-derived key so that Mozilla can't even see your browsing history.
Not quite true: the JavaScript (!) that derives the key is served from mozilla.org; at any time they could choose or be compelled to alter it so that all users' passwords, or a single targeted user's password, is sent to Mozilla or anywhere else.
The new Sync protocol is an abomination; the old one was actually secure; the new one is snake oil.
You can still use the old, self-hosted one but it's inconvenient to set up with the latest builds of Firefox. I just install version 28, sync it and then let Firefox update to the latest version. Hopefully they don't kill (the semi-hidden) legacy support for the old protocol.
I don't think this is just Chrome. They will likely also track you through other browsers as long as you are signed into your account. Many sites have your browser reach out to Google through things like adsense advertisements and google-analytics.
I thought Chrome allocated a unique identifier to each browser install anyway meaning that changing this setting still allows them to track you regardless.
Edit: Turns out that the Unique Id is an install-only thing and is gone after the first update [1] (look at "Identifiers in Chrome" section) but it appears they can conduct "Field Trials" without your knowledge (certainly appears to be without your knowledge from what I can see)
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] thread* No google keylogger in the main url bar (but local autocomplete based on previous history, bookmarks etc)
* access to autocomplete in search field next to url bar (I think removing this was one of the simplifications in the original Chrome.)
Ctrl-L: go to url bar
Ctrl-K: go to search field
――――――
¹ — https://qutebrowser.org/
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95656?hl=en
From that page it sounds like it is on by default.
from https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy
There is at least some "communication with Google" that could be considered innocuous. For example - accessing their Safe Browsing API (also used by Safari and Firefox).
Otherwise I agree, Chromium is faster and has less suprises
You can block those ads, and the scripts that serve them and collect data.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
https://github.com/gorhill/umatrix
So for example, send search requests to google randomly for items like "ducks", "fishing ponds", "banana leaves" etc, totally unrelated nonsense that will skew these tracking giants provided enough people install and run these tools.
That however searches more for things like "how to appear funny", "why are my thumbs uneven", "am i lack toast and tolerant" or also "your youre difference".
http://www.zdnet.com/article/1-2bn-opera-takeover-gets-go-ah...
Open Source is just an excuse to be able to fork others work and damage the source project with this.
If you're logged into a Google account and haven't already made a choice on the page you can see it at http://www.google.com/settings/ads.
I in fact explicitly remember clicking no to a prompt similar to this one, so I'm very puzzled how I got auto-opted in anyways..
> Also use Google Account activity and information to personalize ads on these websites and apps and store that data in your Google Account
Should be off if you didn't opt-in though. I just tested it with a new Google account and it was off after I opted out.
"Not opting in" implies you are are opted out by default. Thus everyone's negative reaction.
(note that not recalling doesn't mean I never enabled it, however it would have had to have been fairly inconspicuously for me to "opt-in")
A few Hacker News users being opposed to this doesn't make Google evil. A lot of people don't care, and I've met some who think it's a good idea.
I can choose where to draw the line. I care more about privacy than most of my friends, so I use a browser that helps that while they use Chrome because that's their choice. Google isn't preventing that from happening, so what they're doing isn't unethical, evil or wrong.
Nowadays all that seem to be less of a priority for Google; now what happens with the shareholder value when a large proportion of the customers again start to value their privacy over convenience ?
It's actually the very first line of their code of conduct.
https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
Collection isn't what you should be worried about. The problem is that the collected data is persistent and combined with other data in the future. Just timestamps from the browser can paint a surprisingly fine-grain picture of your pattern-of-life. I'm sure far more interesting interpretations can be found with the many machine learning techniques and other analysis methods that are currently being invented.
I'd respect them a lot more if they came right out and said "let us sell your data or start paying for our services." That would at least be a fair choice, and I'd be happy(ish) to pay google 10 bucks a month if they promised not to sell my information on the side.
Same page:
> What’s still the same?
> Google does not sell your personal information to anyone.
The wording may matter so here are real questions that I can't seem to get definitive answers for because everyone seems to have strong opinions either way but no reference ever:
- Does "aggregated data from multiple users" or "anonymized data form a single user" still counts as personal from Google's PoV?
- Is Google effectively selling data in any way or is it only using data to back a service up? (e.g ads are getting served based on profile but the profile itself never leaves Google)
I'd be thankful if anyone points me to unambiguous text (ToS or other) pertaining to each question, whatever the answer is.
They don't have to do that because Google doesn't sell any data
https://goo.gl/XNykgg (Disclaimer: Referral)
But basically, Google for Work is like normal Google services (Gmail, Google Drive, Hangouts, etc), except without advertisements and more restrictions on what they do with your data:
https://support.google.com/work/answer/6056650?hl=en (Privacy policy for Google for Work)
There are of course other benefits and extra controls/features as well, but it at least covers your main point.
I think it's not just your data. It's not completely theirs either. Your search history is very important from a privacy standpoint, but it's still just data about how a particular user account, session, IP address or browser GUID used their services. It's not data you have explicitly uploaded (let's say like you do with YouTube or Photos).
The whole problem is the infrastructure they have in place. It's not transparent, and thus we don't know who gets to drink from their firehose of [meta]data.
It's a very good and hard ethical question (problem) to judge this trade-off. (Short term gain for our civilization, since we get awesome services for free - as in the population just uses it and generates the data, so it's endogenous growth, - but in the long term we increase the risk of having to face an efficient totalitarian surveillance system.
I always feel like artificially patching a project that doesn't care about your concerns natively to be plugging holes in a sponge boat, but I realize sometimes you need to use that boat because reasons.
I installed it from the AUR and it seems to work pretty well for the testing I do in it anyway. I don't daily driver it or Chrome.
[0] https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset
Unless the concerns are always "more features"... forever. Any new features will do, so long as the project keeps growing. The more changes and updates the better.
I could put Microsoft Windows in this category along with hundreds of other projects. Chrome is deceptive because it has some useful features... but ultimately this browser is the tool of advertisers. Because they are the only hand that feeds the Google.
These folks are not aligned with my concerns. They cannot be. It is a conflict if interest. Will Chrome use my DNS server instead of Google's? Why should it? It's not my browser to control.
At one point the Googlers put a resolver into Chromium. I think they removed it but just the idea they considered this was enough to scare me away permanently.
I enjoyed the spongeboat analogy. One can use a patched alternative. One can write extension after extension to modify default behaviour. At some point it becomes a losing battle and a waste of time. The browser is designed and maintained by an advertising company.
Avoiding mothership home-calling is a wonderful way to navigate a world with too many software choices. It makes choosing software much easier. Because not many projects today consider home-calling a legitimate concern.
When you do find a project that fits your values, that you know will not change to suit advertisers, it can be a software you can stick with as things and times change. At least this has been my experience.
You haven't figured it out yet, but we consider advertising unethical.
Yours, 2066
The depths to which advertisers go to with tracking feels rather unethical at times, however.
It is psychological warfare, conducted by corporations instead of States. But the objective is the same; trick you into changing your behavior to benefit them.
It uses your fears, your neuroses, your addictions and your need to remain involved and up to date against yourself as a way to extract your hard-earned resources and time.
We need a project like the Linux kernel, except for a good browser.
* An organization set up to oversee it that does not need to care about money (pipe dream part here).
* Easy to install.
* Standards compliant.
* Open source.
All in all, Firefox is the closest (imo). What rubs me wrong about chrome is that originally it was to be monetized - at least I don't remember such.
Oh, I was mostly worried about how an advertising company was using my interests to decide whether to show me an ad for batteries or hair cream.
"He snarkily shitposted to the internet whenever someone cared about an issue that wasn't the most pressing societal issue at the time. Even if their profession brought them into closer proximity to one than the other."
Not that it's new, but it appears that the context has now been expanded to include the entire browsing history, just not the session.
[One should really consider using Firefox, and DuckDuckGo for search.]
The benefits could outweigh the cost (of increasing the likelihood of someone subverting Google into a brutally efficient totalitarian surveillance system).
Consider your choices.
I tried to find information about it online, but the official documentation [0] is less than helpful to say the least. I'm guessing when they say "stuff", that's a euphemism for blob, but fuck if I know, maybe they are just trying to be hip in their documentation. After all, it's also business time, in case you didn't know.
Currently downloading the Chromium source code, to see if that's more helpful, but I kind of doubt it...
[0]: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/sync
The official documentation talks about the folders /chrome/browser/sync/engine, /chrome/browser/sync/syncable and /chrome/browser/sync/protocol.
These folders are missing from the source tree, as you can see here: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/master/...
However, I decided to give the benefit of the doubt and did a few file-searches, in case the files were moved at some point and the documentation was just not updated.
And it seems like that's actually the case. The folder /sync contains all three missing folders (engine, syncable, protocol) and more: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/master/...
So what I do is disable everything without even thinking. Later when something isn't working as expected and it turns out it's because of one of those privacy settings, I start to think about whether or not I really need it.
So effectively, they give me an incentive to summarily reverse their opt-out strategy into an opt-in one. I suppose that's fine with them because most people won't do even that.
However, they should be aware of the fact that this is the second easiest thing to do after leaving everything enabled.
Over time, they may be creating a popular culture of "disable everything" just like they created a culture of ad-blocking (where "they" is the whole advertising industry in this case, not so much Google itself)
I can understand your point about allo more, though of course storing the local history unencrypted also means that it's going to be accessible to interested third parties in one way or another. If they don't keep it at all, it means that it won't be.
http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/run-chromium-with...
A successful experiment may be deserving of a blog post.
Didn't they drop it like 9months ago and moved to Firefox Sync?
https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/02/07/a-better-firefo...
The new system is still end-to-end-encrypted, though...
The system is still end-to-end encrypted, if you reset your password it will also reset the storage (by definition).
Does that mean you lose your history when you change your password? Or just that you need to use the new password to access (old and new) data?
Completely false: they can if they want to. All they have to do is serve a new login page to you which transmits your password as well as the derived key. They control the login page, they control the JavaScript which derives the key. They can do it at any time, invisibly.
This is different from trusting them to make a trustworthy browser, because you download the browser once, while you may download the login page and associated JavaScript every time you login. They could target you, or all of their users, just once, or for a limited amount of time; unless you inspect the HTML & JavaScript source every single time you use your Firefox account you cannot be certain that they aren't being evil.
Firefox Sync is unacceptable for password — or any other private data — storage. This is a pity, since the old protocol was very suitable.
It wasn't, because I've managed to lose my history with it. I very much prefer my history to be synchronized to a server I cannot lose.
If your objection is not about cloud storage, then your objection isn't about the protocol, but its implementation (e.g. usage of HTML/Javascript): https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server/wiki/onepw-protoc...
> you download the browser once
That's not true. Modern browsers are set to upgrade automatically in the background, without notifying the user.
If you're paranoid, you can self-host your own Sync server, but then if you don't trust the vendor of your browser, then you've got bigger problems and I hope you're compiling your own binaries.
My browser isn't; I use the Debian Firefox package and update it on my schedule.
> If you're paranoid, you can self-host your own Sync server
Only if you host it locally; if you host it at a VPS/dedicated-system provider then you're trusting that provider never to break into your system.
It's bad social hygiene to develop systems which are breakable.
The problem with that is that if the auth server is on a machine you don't have complete control over (e.g. one hosted by a dedicated-system or VPS provider) then you are trusting that provider to never break into your machine; you are also trusting that machine never to be broken into via some remote exploit.
That's far too much trust for a system hosting sensitive data like passwords. The only secure thing is to deploy a system with as little trust as possible.
The great thing about the self-hosted sync server is, the storage and auth components are separated, and the storage one just stores encrypted blobs.
If you want you can trust Mozilla with the authentication part while storing everything where you prefer, but if you're worried about a javascript change set up an auth server locally, create an account in it and copy it on every device you own: since it stores only account details which doesn't change, you don't have to worry about replication.
https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync-1.5.html
The data especially on Android can easily be hacked if someone has the expertise. This made me think how easy it would be for stranger to learn everything about me through my data.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/1181035?p=settings_...
Whenever i'm doing something with my normal chrome -> I'm part of the system and look / am normal.
Whenever i wanna do something little bit different, i use incognito mode and a different browser.
Isn't that pretty much what's happening with your data at google?
But I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that one browser is sluggish -- there are too many environmental variables to have a good discussion on this subject.
Could you ELI5 Chromium's license to me? Is the whole thing open source, or just part? Can I build the whole thing myself, or does it rely on Google's magical binaries?
EDIT: also, smooth scrolling. If there's something that ruins my day is going on a browser with smooth scrolling. First world problems.
EDIT2: also, I'm struggling to remove add-ons. I know I have pocket installed because I see its icon on the top right, but it's showing up neither on Extensions nor on Plugins. Proof: http://i.imgur.com/ShUW5CK.png
EDIT3: manage to turn off smooth scrolling. Firefox is now skipping frames. Some times there's no difference (for example in google.com Firefox scrolls as well as Chrome.) Some times there's is a clear difference (for example, http://en.flossmanuals.net/chromium/ch008_installing-chromiu... Chrome is really smooth, while in Firefox there's noticeable jerking). Some times the experience is really REALLY bad (example, imgur)
I'm curious about the frame skipping is caused by -- I've never seen that problem. I'm wondering if maybe it's video card related? Might be worth asking someone involved in the project about to see if it's a known issue.
Not quite true: the JavaScript (!) that derives the key is served from mozilla.org; at any time they could choose or be compelled to alter it so that all users' passwords, or a single targeted user's password, is sent to Mozilla or anywhere else.
The new Sync protocol is an abomination; the old one was actually secure; the new one is snake oil.
I do not appreciate this change, however, and I hope that they reconsider it.
Edit: Turns out that the Unique Id is an install-only thing and is gone after the first update [1] (look at "Identifiers in Chrome" section) but it appears they can conduct "Field Trials" without your knowledge (certainly appears to be without your knowledge from what I can see)
Edit 2: removed pointless text
[1] - https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/