Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by hellofunk on Thursday October 05, 2017 @07:03AM (#15408190)

Is anyone concerned about privacy using a Google laptop? I noticed recently that for years I've relied on Chrome's private browsing feature only to learn that it does not disable geolocation (unlike Safari) and websites always know where I am located even when browsing privately. And turning this off can change depending on the version of Chrome (in fact I cannot figure out how to turn it off in my current version). I wonder how much intrusion these chromebook's make into your privacy? User data is a core of Google's business model, so that is a big problem for me.

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by atheiste on Thursday October 05, 2017 @08:55AM (#15408723)

My company uses Chromebooks as primary computers with our own fork of ChromiumOS. Our build excludes Google keys thus hypothetically offers reinforced privacy.

Our fork is called NayuOS ( https://nayuos.nexedi.com ) and is a true system for hackers. It erases user folders on every restart and no extensions are allowed. It is very hard to track and since the Chromebooks are very cheap it is easy to exchange devices often.

It has to be run in Developer Mode thus you have writable /usr/. Chrome Brew is fully functional thanks to that but it is a security hazard.

My company moved everything to cloud so we access everything via browser. It was hard to get used to it but in the end it is a huge time saver. Google went the same direction.

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by whyagaindavid on Thursday October 05, 2017 @03:36PM (#15411976)

Thanks for your wonderful info. I will bring this in our next meeting to our CTO. BTW, link is not working: https://nayuos.nexedi.com/build-your-own-image

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by dx034 on Thursday October 05, 2017 @07:43AM (#15408330)

At least for desktop chrome you can set location access. Most websites geolocate using ip addresses if location is disabled. Works quite well, unless you use a VPN.

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by hellofunk on Thursday October 05, 2017 @08:01AM (#15408415)

I cannot find any option to disable geolocation in my current Chrome version on Mac, and when I use a VPN and connect via a different country, sites I visit in Safari are in that country's language, but sites I visit in Chrome, even when private browsing, know the language to use based on my actual country location.

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by shawabawa3 on Thursday October 05, 2017 @11:56AM (#15410176)

That could just be because chrome is sending language headers based on your installation language.

afaik, chrome asks whenever a site requests location information

(if you go to chrome://settings you can change language preferences)

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by keenerd on Thursday October 05, 2017 @08:15AM (#15408489)

Of course that is a big problem. One of many reasons to replace ChromeOS with a full desktop Linux.

Chromebook hardware is great for the money. Replace the OS and you have the best of both worlds.

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your prim... by hellofunk on Thursday October 05, 2017 @08:42AM (#15408639)

> Chromebook hardware is great for the money.

Do you have a particular model that you recommend?

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