[X] My Assistant

both chrome and firefox ....

You may re-evaluate your personal choices of browser after reading the recently posted results of privacy studies on browsers. As expected, even those that claim to not collect personally-identifiable data still collect hardware-identifiable data and serial numbers of connected products. As you can imagine, Big Data can make assumptions on who owns what products by seeing serial numbers of cpu, peripherals, pci cards, hardware drives, software product serials, etc.

Privacy Report on browser privacy
[www.ghacks.net] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/25/study-fin...rivate-browser/

Brave is the only web browser that did not use identifiers that allowed tracking of the IP address over time and did not share details of web pages visited to backend servers. The collection of data for analysis by Big Data is a big deal as sites such as MYLIFE are ominous portents. In the past, people have recommended browsers such as PaleMoon and Waterfox, but as time passes, even those browsers get compromised as companies buy up the software projects. It might even be that some online software projects are created and maintained with the hope that they will be eventually bought out by a company thus giving the principals in that software project a substantial financial windfall. For example, Waterfox browser was bought out by an advertising firm interested in Big Data: [www.ghacks.net] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/14/waterfox-...old-to-system1/

Big Data is used to develop Social Credit Scoring evaluations:
[en.wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data#Crit...nd_surveillance



This post has been edited by Anime Janai: Mar 31 2020, 12:18

You may re-evaluate your personal choices of browser after reading the recently posted results of privacy studies on browsers. As expected, even those that claim to not collect personally-identifiable data still collect hardware-identifiable data and serial numbers of connected products. As you can imagine, Big Data can make assumptions on who owns what products by seeing serial numbers of cpu, peripherals, pci cards, hardware drives, software product serials, etc.

Privacy Report on browser privacy
[www.ghacks.net] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/25/study-fin...rivate-browser/

Brave is the only web browser that did not use identifiers that allowed tracking of the IP address over time and did not share details of web pages visited to backend servers. The collection of data for analysis by Big Data is a big deal as sites such as MYLIFE are ominous portents. In the past, people have recommended browsers such as PaleMoon and Waterfox, but as time passes, even those browsers get compromised as companies buy up the software projects. It might even be that some online software projects are created and maintained with the hope that they will be eventually bought out by a company thus giving the principals in that software project a substantial financial windfall. For example, Waterfox browser was bought out by an advertising firm interested in Big Data: [www.ghacks.net] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/14/waterfox-...old-to-system1/

Big Data is used to develop Social Credit Scoring evaluations:
[en.wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data#Crit...nd_surveillance

That particular article title is highly misleading, and while the vast majority of its statements are technically correct they are presented in a manner which is easily misconstrued and lack many of the qualifiers to give perspective. I highly recommend reading the actual study that article was based on before jumping to conclusions, especially considering the exceptionally limited scope of said study. This is especially pertinent as this study is primarily an assessment of potential risk of backend infrastructure for a browser in its pure default state in the case of misuse disregarding any actual policy and measures in place: [www.scss.tcd.ie] https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf

You may re-evaluate your personal choices of browser after reading the recently posted results of privacy studies on browsers.

Nope. I'm still using Seamonkey. and *choice.

Brave is the only web browser that did not use identifiers that allowed tracking of the IP address over time and did not share details of web pages visited to backend servers.

This post brought to you by Brave™. Any browser that uses npm as its build system is one I'm quite happy to ignore.
I'll read that study though. I do take issue with lots of Mozilla's choices in the last decade or so, so I'm not too surprised there's stuff there. I believe they make telemetry stuff opt-out rather than opt-in if you're getting it from them directly rather than a distro or sources. I disable telemetry at compile-time.

The collection of data for analysis by Big Data is a big deal as sites such as MYLIFE are ominous portents. In the past, people have recommended browsers such as PaleMoon and Waterfox, but as time passes, even those browsers get compromised as companies buy up the software projects.

It's fair to be concerned about that. Seamonkey is still community-run, even moreso now that Mozilla has shown they're no longer welcome under the same roof for hosting and support.

It might even be that some online software projects are created and maintained with the hope that they will be eventually bought out by a company thus giving the principals in that software project a substantial financial windfall. For example, Waterfox browser was bought out by an advertising firm interested in Big Data: [www.ghacks.net] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/14/waterfox-...old-to-system1/

I've not used Waterfox since around 2012, I think. I've never understood why people still give two shits about it in a post-64-bit-windows world. Back then, it only existed as a 64-bit Mozilla browser for Windows machines. Now I understand it also can use XUL addons while modern FF won't.

Big Data is used to develop Social Credit Scoring evaluations.

Yes, it can be and in some cases is. I don't like it either.

Hopefully people stop using Chrome some time soon (ha ha, because that's likely to happen).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 1 2020, 01:25

I do take issue with lots of Mozilla's choices in the last decade or so, so I'm not too surprised there's stuff there. I believe they make telemetry stuff opt-out rather than opt-in if you're getting it from them directly rather than a distro or sources.

Mozilla takes a lot of money from Google, so I assume there are some concessions made somewhere. I'm glad that you and RandomPerson_ take issue with the browser privacy report at that site. While it does provide some alarming insight, articles have their own faults and word limitations such that readers can make unexpected conclusions based upon different levels of understanding of the context.

Privacy can also be reduced by synergy. A large company might have a lot of access to data, but the data is still incomplete or non-conclusive as it couldn't get onto your PC to verify it. But what if that large company does get access to a major tool that does officially access your cookies and registry data? That tool cannot be accused of illegally accessing things it wasn't supposed to look at because it just so happens to be a tool for processing that data (cookies, registry).

For example, you can imagine the powerful synergy that develops if the major cookie manager tool Cookie Cleaner (CCleaner by Piriform) is acquired by Google. That would mean despite all your privacy blocks, Google has access to your cookies and can even see what data is inside those cookies due to the EULA permissions. Because Cookie Cleaner also has a registry cleaner, it could even see some registry values thru the EULA. No matter how much someone blocks, or uses VPN, if someone has access to registry entries and cookie values, that is enough to see where they go and where they have accounts at. Of course, if hackers seized cookie values, they might try to spoof the website into thinking they were a registered user. Oooops, it looks like someone did have that idea to put backdoors into CCleaner.....
[www.reuters.com] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-security...s-idUSKCN1BT0R9
[blog.talosintelligence.com] https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/09/...es-malware.html

However, antivirus vendor AVAST owns Piriform, so at least that data isn't in Google's hands.

Any browser that uses npm as its build system is one I'm quite happy to ignore

They kicked out that shitty CEO of npm - the one from the last two years who was firing people based on their (un)compliance to his whim - three weeks ago. It ain't that bad anymore, hopefully.

Yes, it can be and in some cases is. I don't like it either.

[delete]

I probably gave too much specific detail there. I agree it is a problem.

CCLeaner
Antivirus

Both things I don't use or have because they are unnecessary.
If you use commercial software and/or software with restrictive EULA's you're just asking for it.
(That includes Windows.)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Apr 2 2020, 16:04

Been using firefox since more or less forever Im not too big on chrome. Waterfox was cool for a long while but I feel like it kinda fell off in recent years.

chrome

i didnt use firefox..

Trying Pale Moon now since someone recommended it in their forum SIG.

Hmm, some sites stopped working for me or after loading, the page disappears and all I see is "white screen" for many parts of the page. Or clicking on some controls no longer works. I guess a few sites are written to be compatible only with the major browsers now.

Chrome.But on the phone, I use Edge

Chrome or Firefox

Both are funded by google money anyways. I hope Firefox finds some way
to diversify its source of funding revenue or its staff will shrink a more.
Its share of the browser market is getting pretty small too.

firefox all the way

Chrome!!!!

chrome

I use both. Firefox for most things and Chrome for stuff that doesn't work well on Firefox.

Firefox

Both are funded by google money anyways.

Not really true in a long time, I'd thought. Last I knew, Google pretty much cut off Mozilla's revenue stream years ago, around the time they started heavily focusing on Chrome/Chromium.

it'd certainly explain why Mozilla's consistently making their browser worse with each update if that were true, though. I wonder how much cross-over there is between Mozilla contributors and GNOME contributors.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: May 21 2020, 12:55