Finch is mainly used for A/B testing. It doesn't push actual updates, all it does it turn existing features (flags) on and off. It's used for quickly A/B testing or incremental rolling new features and is designed to be more agile.
> not wanting to be tracked
here's a hint: ad impression for unknown user is 0.01$ and for logged in user 2$. guess why Google has a browser now...
if you have a logged-off cookie, and the publisher can associate you with a logged-in user at a near point in time, they can charge you as logged in impression.
It should be entertaining when car makers use the same strategy: "Oh yeah, we have this system where everytime you turn the ignition, your car polls us and updates its assistant, motor, steering and airbag settings. Don't worry though, we mostly just use it for randomized tests and field trials."
Finch only turns certain features on/off. It's used for A/B testing and incremental rollouts.
You can see a list of flags in chrome://flags
Mostly experimental stuff that will become full features soon, but until then they are behind a flag.
The two systems fulfill very different roles.
Also look for base::FieldTrialList in Chromium source. In this case, it seems to be: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/net/+/master/...
interesting, if you're a victim of mitm attacks, i wonder if attackers can abuse that to disable some certificate check features to make spoofing ssl sites easier.
I'm not a Chrome user. But that sounds awful at first. What is the idea behind this service? Is there any documentation about the 'features' these flags can enable/disable?
I understand that I'm paranoid at times AND I really dislike Google, but why would you have an extra channel to influence deployments, other than offering a global update file?