News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge. Parent comment

Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by AraceliHarker on Saturday March 18, 2023 @08:37AM (#35208589)
I think you can track pretty well with just the device ID alone, but you combine it with other identities like location information, IP address, cookies, login information and so on. Is that why Windows 11 recently made it impossible to bypass creating an MS account?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by marginalia_nu on Saturday March 18, 2023 @09:06AM (#35208777)
Yeah but they're speaking about switching to a chromebook or a mac. How is your device ID going to help with that?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by lozenge on Saturday March 18, 2023 @09:43AM (#35209082)
They could summarise the User-Agent s visiting LinkedIn or a couple of other websites they run.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by imajoredinecon on Saturday March 18, 2023 @09:45AM (#35209093)
You estimate how many people use computers and how many people use computers you make. When you subtract the two, you get how many people use computers that your competitors make.

Not every “internal metric” is something you can measure directly.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by marginalia_nu on Saturday March 18, 2023 @10:40AM (#35209480)
If that is how sketchy the data they are using to make decisions is, that would explain a lot about their decisions.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by alpaca128 on Saturday March 18, 2023 @10:03AM (#35209211)
Most active Linux PCs were made by Windows PC manufacturers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge by vladvasiliu on Saturday March 18, 2023 @10:49AM (#35209541)
If windows keeps phoning home, at some point they should see a bunch of device ids not checking in anymore.
[ Parent | on HN ]