Many web commentators continually sound the alarm on Google's increasing leverage and control over a variety of "components" or "intrastructure" essential to the www.

But controlling the browser is, I think, the ultimate control over the web as users know it. Browsers seem to fall outside the purview of www standards. Are there RFCs that tell people what browsers must or should do? More likely, there are standards that focus on servers and seek to accomodate whatever browsers are doing at the time.

The browser can override anything. It can easily modify user intent in subtle, "hidden" ways. It can rewrite "default behaviour" overnight.

To give an example, users probably think little of something like the feature known as "Omnibox", if they even know what that is, but this sort of browser "feature" is of enormous value to a company trying to gather information on what users are looking for.

Imagine the number of DNS queries this bypasses, redirecting what is typed by the user to a default search engine, conveniently preset to point to a Google server.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...

IE was stagnating, slow, and extremely vulnerable to malicious behaviors. The net result was that the web became a very hostile place, while Microsoft was pitching various "post web" strategies like WPF. Google had been a big financial supporter of Firefox but not to a degree where they could direct the project or push their own agenda. At the time many viewed Firefox as slow and bloated.

So Google made their own thing, and it worked admirably and we might be in a very different world if they didn't. They dramatically improved the state of the art for JavaScript, added intrinsic hostile activity and site blocking, started dramatically accelerating the adoption of technology improvements (by implementing very early proposals, often to much consternation), etc.

The web was less dangerous. Google's cash cow was protected because there was less of a draw to go to alternative platforms.

That, I think, was their primary intention and it was aligned interests with users. Everyone is happy with the web.

And honestly I do think this ad blocking thing is a bit of "fake news" (e.g. it is being grossly misreported). Google is proposing a solution that offers more privacy from the extension, and it seems very similar to what Safari has done (and which is very widely viewed as a great design).

It would only provide more privacy if ad block extensions go solely with static lists of uris. If they want to retain features like right-click block, or allowing users to customize the list, static blocks don't work.

These changes do nothing to inhibit the ability to log/store/etc requests anywhere you want as an extension author. They are only removing the ability to cancel in flight requests.

What's your source that the Safari ad blocking approach is viewed as a great design? Everything I look at shows it was a regression in effectiveness. Certainly the various adblock authors weren't thrilled. How well, for example, does it work with YouTube ads?

Chrome was originally based on WebKit and many other open source libraries, and some parts still are. The only major initial investment was V8.

And that was 6 years ago.

Yea, I know... so they really have something to hide, right? So why not to start caring about the privacy and start thinking?

Not one of them, but I hope you realize that this 'example' is completely off mark.

I have nothing to hide if we are talking about that new hifi system I was looking on Amazon, I don't care if google knows what did I have for breakfast, I might even be ok with you knowing my address, but this is fundamentally different from you haveing keys from my apartment or my bank account.

Their argument is that the reason why people say house keys, or bank act # is different is because they are protecting something of value. His argument is what you do on a daily basis is just as valuable you just don't know it yet.

The other argument against is "yes my privacy/ daily activity may have 'value', but unlike my bank account or house keys people can't take something from me from knowing it. " That's more up to opinion, but the argument is knowing you so well, someone can take your independence. A bit dystopian, but imagine n years from now, ML is good enough to predict your responses and behaviors to 80+% of things. Companies now use it to effectively get you to make decisions they want. Combinations of timing, placement, location, repetition, persuasion, counter-argument all to produce a desired result, but unlike present day extremely effective and possibly without your awareness. If there is a way to get our wet ware to do it, ML will figure it out.

Advertising/Marketing/Sales become a game of Go, where you're the Go board. Best ML wins.

We like to think we're fully in control of our decision making facilities, but study after study shows that's mostly an illusion. Our sub-conscience mostly decides for us, and then our brains rationalize this away after the fact.

The fear is that by giving away your emotions, your responses, your ocean 5 factor model, your preferences, your habits, and a playground to test all of this in you are potentially giving up your independence at a future time.

It's all dystopian, it's not guaranteed, but it pans out as all likely directions and very probable tech.

If the AI knows me so well, it's probably something I would buy/want anyway. If my house starts cooking bacon and eggs in the morning based on it's analysis of me, and there's a 90% chance that's what I want, awesome.

A lot of people already do it with driving. On my commute to work every day, I go the way google maps tells me to. Google is effectively controlling traffic patterns, but it's made driving to work faster.

I realize it could possibly be used for evil, but by the time we get there, most if not all, of the people reading this will be dead by that point, so we'll never know.

To some degree, this has already been happening for decades, since psychologists began formalising advertising into a science. Look at the increasing percentage of lower class families and how diminished their average value is. This isn't caused by time localized events, like a 5 year recession or a housing market bubble. This is the result of extremely fine-tuned and effective advertising, that has caused cultural shifts towards greater and more irrational consumerism.

ML allows the advertisers to be much much more effective; they no longer even have to manually understand their market to manipulate it. Again, look at the growing disparity between the richest 1% and the rest of the schmucks. That 1% is soaking up the profits of extremely effective advertising, which the rest of us are paying for.

To give an example, imagine if Google Maps took you on an alternative route, not because you'd arrive faster, but because on that route there are ads you need to watch, or because GMaps wants to free the road for some high profile travelers and you're just getting in the way.

Waze is already serving commercials while you're driving. And given the weird routes it has taken me on, I now have no idea if Waze's algorithm chooses certain routes because it would be faster, or because it wants me to watch ads, or because it wants to take me off the main road to clear it for others.

Companies are already doing evil shit with real consequences. Facebook for example did experiments on manipulating people's feelings. Target figured out a girl is pregnant before her father. Plenty of other examples. It's just that people aren't paying attention.

There are comparable issues with Google and Facebook. Let economic instruments fix the problems. Tax advertisement. Heavily if necessary.

If I want to drink a Whisky there is a lot of tax (to 'help with my thinking'..;). The same needs to be done with advertisement, imho.

Huh?

I feel a lot less concerned about this than who knows what google is doing.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-whi...

"Cliqz does not build browsing profiles for individual users and discards the user's IP address once the data is collected," the firm added."

[...]

"Consequently, aggregation of user's data in the server-side (on Cliqz premises) is not technically feasible, as we have no means to know who is the original owner of the data," Cliqz says. "This is a strong departure from the industry standard of data collection."

And here's Mozillas info about it: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/archive/firefox-cliqz/...

Why should I be concerned? Given this information, why would I choose Chrome over Firefox for my privacy?

How can you be so sure about that?

Even if it doesn't sell your data, it can use your data to make their ads more efficient for you and people similar to you. While that's their business model, they are borderline abusing you in the process. This not something I'm comfortable with.

Correct. They sell it for money. How exactly is that better at keeping your private data private? Google's power doesn't reside in the fact that it keeps your data private but in the fact that they have a constant flow of up to date data. When you hand over data to a company whose revenue (also) officially comes from monetizing it your privacy is forfeited.

Common sense would lead anyone to assume they don't collect it just to flip bits on a storage device. Just when you thought you knew the devil. Knowing this guess you'll drop Chrome now, right?

[0]-[over 9000]

So tell me about this devil you know and how exactly knowing all that still pushes you to believe it's the better option?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042802

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942252

[3] https://mashable.com/article/google-chrome-69-forced-login/?...

[4] https://gizmodo.com/google-stores-location-data-even-with-lo...

[5] https://mashable.com/article/google-android-data-collection-...

[6] i can go on but I'm pretty sure a modicum of good will from your side would be enough to get the point.

Ok... I'd read it for you but that's not how it works. So here it is in nuggets:

> "Both Android and Chrome send data to Google even in the absence of any user interaction," the study finds. "Our experiments show that a dormant, stationary Android phone (with Chrome active in the background) communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period, or at an average of 14 data communications per hour."

> So yes, fuck Mozilla, they can burn.

Ah, ok, I was waiting for you to change the narrative from "Mozilla bad, Google good" to "I have no argument, I just don't like Mozilla".

And don't get me wrong, you have every right to like whatever you want. Just don't pretend you have valid objective arguments.

I have 0 interest in telling you what you should like or use, or pretending that Mozilla always plays fair. I just felt compelled to point out that the justification you presented here is horse manure. You use Chrome because you want to. Don't try to sell it as an objective conclusion even if it's written in the same sentence as a related objective argument. One is not based on the other.

Objectively both Mozilla and Google resort to trickery, only the scale is vastly different for the company that lives on monetizing your privacy. And mind you, I use Chrome 90% of the time. But I'm not fooling myself with explanations like "Google will protect my privacy" and "the devil I know must be good".

Here's a short list of other horse manure conclusions that can be extraneously drawn from accurate and objective arguments:

-I drive a VW car because GM was once caught cheating on emission tests

-I use an Intel CPUs because AMD CPUs once had a bug

-I use Windows because Linux had a vulnerability once

-I use Chrome because Mozilla once gave/sold my private data to some 3rd party

https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-whi...

ugh.. why mozilla, why??

I don’t think that means what you think it means.

Which browser are you using?

I think some people who care about privacy have just been worn down to the point where they've given up and don't necessarily believe they gain much from the inconvenience of avoiding things that work for them. I'm not sure that's totally irrational.

Once upon a time, you could tweak your HOSTS file and/or install some basic software, and adopt a few behaviors to get reasonably strong privacy.

Now, between all of the data breaches, tracking at the device/ISP/carrier level, nefarious privacy policies (including IRL), business models that depend on collecting, selling, and protecting data, app glut, sophisticated malware and fraud, etc. ad nauseum: it's like a multi-front war to keep your PII. Truth be told, most of us have shockingly less knowledge than we think WRT how much of our data is "out there" and who has access to it.

Through this lens, it's understandable that some might care but think it doesn't make a tremendous difference whether they use Chrome or some other thing.

Not to say it's hopeless, but at some point certain "precautions" inconvenience us more than they provide any marked improvement in our overall privacy. I'm not even sure which browser to trust more than Chrome anymore. So, I use Chrome for its features, active maintenance, and standards compatibility.

EDIT: I'd be curious to know what others are using.

Profiles went from optional, to on-by-default but could be disabled via chrome://flags, to on-by-default but could be disabled via command line arg, to cannot be disabled, to logged in by default but not syncing. Where this progression is going and what it's trying to promote is not rocket science.