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Chrome now ships with a user-tracking ad platform baked in (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Google's browser not only got new chrome, it now also uses keeps track of all websites you visit to generate a topic list for ads that is shared with websites directly. Nobody asked for that.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

Hope chrome becomes an adware and fucks its users. Let's goooooo

[+] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

At least in the case of Windows I can understand it, since its stranglehold on the OS market makes it so it's legitimately very, very difficult for people to switch since they'll often rely on Windows-only software that might also work poorly in Wine on Linux, if it works at all. My mom uses many such pieces of software for her job. Chrome though, it feels like there really is no real reason to keep using it other than plainly being stubborn and/or afraid of change. Chrome doesn't even barely have any real killer features other than Google having intentionally made using some of their services slightly worse to use on Firefox, which I would hardly call a "feature" either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@ngoomie @yote_zip the major reason i have sympathy for is job lock-in -- i've certainly used machines at my work (where you get no dedicated personal machine and can't install new software without begging ITS) that have Chrome Only. if there are tools that only work in Chrome browsers, i'm not surprised, but i haven't heard of them yet... (I could 100% switch to Linux if i could only get Adobe software functional on it, which i sometimes need for work)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly, even as someone who's big on only ever using Linux and never having to use Windows as my actual operating system ever again, I've spun up VMs running Windows so I can run Photoshop or something, because the Linux alternatives like GIMP really pale in comparison. Like, I actually hate using GIMP for some stuff at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

@ngoomie it's a real bummer! i'm optimistic that something like Affinity's editing software will be a bit easier to get up and running via wine or even proton but i've had no luck so far. i don't love VMs or even draconian winetricks setups but it's the only way to use linux as much as i like

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Nobody asked for that

Well, technically, Google shareholders asked for that, because this makes Google’s ad revenue, and thus profits, go up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They think this makes Google's ad revenue and profits go up. That remains to be proven.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I mean, it will, because unfortunately there's still a ton of people who have that whole "So? Everyone does it, and they already have my info anyway. And there's nothing we can do about that so why bother." mindset.

Still, this is going to cause a massive privacy lawsuit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I remember using Chrome for the very first time after ditching IE. It was an amazing and glorious experience compared to how shitty IE was. Then I learned about how invasive it was. Like millions of other people, I just ignored it for years. I hoped that readjusting my 'privacy' settings would be enough. The writing on the wall for me was MV3 and FLoC.

A few years ago I switched to Firefox and never looked back. In the back of my mind, I had hoped chrome would tame it's insatiable hunger for user data, but this news has proved to me that it will only continue to get worse...

The most depressing thing this article says is the last line "and people will probably still not switch to Firefox". I am just sad now, not angry.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Tbh, the thing that got me to ditch Chrome was some of the headaches induced with it's performance. To this day, every time I've tried cold and warm booting browsers as a comparison, Chrome is always the slowest (never tested against IE because why bother). Firefox having privacy as a focus is honestly just a bonus.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Was it ever any surprise that Google will do what it wants with Chromium?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Is this being baked into Chromium itself or just Chrome? If it's Chromium itself I guarantee you a lot of the various third-party Chromium browsers are going to jump ship, or remove that from their builds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

2024

"That Chrome on your desktop? Colors look different"

Ungoogled, un-user-ad-platformed Chromium