WashPost: "Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch."

"Our latest privacy experiment found Chrome ushered more than 11,000 tracker cookies into our browser — in a single week. Here’s why Firefox is better...

It turns out, having the world’s biggest advertising company make the most popular Web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...tware-its-time-switch/?utm_term=.d02c096c7919

 

FF

 

Have you tried using an ad-blocker maybe?

Chrome is closed-source, you can't possibly know the code inside. That said, I've read the privacy policy and there's many privacy-unfriendly things there, but the above quoted claim by itself is baseless

Again, did you try using an ad-blocker?

That literally takes like 5 clicks to turn off from settings

What that does, is block 3rd party cookies, which can also be done by chrome in settings

That said, I still don't recommend people to use google chrome, personally for non-work related stuff I use robrich's chromium compiled builds from https://chromium.woolyss.com/ . Block 3rd party cookies by default, change your start page to something like duckduckgo, startpage.com etc. Turn off chromium sign-in, everything from "sync and google services", "preload pages", "allow sites to check if you have payment method saved", turn off autofill and saving (I use lastpass for that), on site settings block cam, mic, location, motion sensors, notifications, flash, pop-ups and redirects, ads and protected content, if you use a site that uses anything from those you can manually allow it for that site, on a per-site basis. Protected content stores unique session identifiers locally, also try not to use payment handlers if possible. Use a password manager, that can also store stuff like payment information, addresses etc. An ad-blocker like ublock origin with the default lists is sufficient to block the important-to-block stuff. If you REALLY wanna be as anonymous as possible, use Tor Browser. Firefox is like a jack of all trades, a bit from this and a bit from that but not enough of anything really

 

I completely agree, Chrome can not be trusted. Do you really think that Google cares about your privacy? This only shows how dumb the whole world has become. Hopefully people will wake up and start to dump Chrome for other browsers like Firefox and Vivaldi.

 

+1
I wholeheartedly agree.

 

Good comparison
Too bad that this monopoly allows them to set up whatever "internet standard" they want.

 

Chromium. Maybe Vivaldi.

 

If you use Chrome and have enabled cookies globally but block third party cookies, do not add anything to the Clear On Exit list that you don't want tracking you.

 

Actually it's the opposite, if you have cookies enabled, that means by default all first-party cookies will be retained. So if you add them to clear on exit, they will only be retained for the current browser session, instead of indefinitely until cleared. You probably mean third-party cookies tho, in which case yeah, you shouldn't allow (or clear on exit) any third party cookies. The only ones that might be required for functionality are google.com 3rd party cookies for captchas, and a few others but that's about it

 

Generally the Web is tracking you. Browser just implement its functionalities and may include countermeasures.

 

Unfortunately it is becoming annoying with next updates that may bring new features you want to disable and when somebody runs multiple profiles of browser.

 

What features, give a few examples? Maybe consider different user accounts if multiple people are using the same computer, or idk whats ur use case for that

 

With it set up like this for years:

"Allow sites to save and read cookie date"--->yes
"Keep local data only until you quit your browser"--->no
"Block third party cookies"--->yes
"Clear on exit"--->added [*.]google.com

...I noticed on 2 different computers, that google.com was being allowed to set 3rd party cookies even when they were being denied in the "block third party cookies" option! This happened over time and I don't know how to make it happen on the spot. But I will stand by my original post that if you have cookie behavior set as above you should keep a very close eye on what 3rd party cookies are actually being set compared to what you want being set. Click on the cookie button in the address bar and check for sure. I haven't reported it as a bug and I'm still using Chrome 73 on both computers so maybe it's been fixed Chrome 74/75 but it sure woke me up when I saw this for myself. I first noticed it yesterday when I went to https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...veillance-software-its-time-to-switch.418023/ and clicked on the mercurynews.com link in the OP. Sure enough, when I followed the link to mercurynews.com and checked the cookie button in the address bar, cookies were being set by both mercurynews.com and google.com. I confirmed this happening on some other sites too. When I removed google.com from "clear on exit" the problem stopped, on both computers.

 

Actually I'm not 100% sure whether you need google.com cookies or not, I have them anyway cuz I use youtube and gmail and a few other things, but I do remember you had to unblock google.com as 3rd party in ublock origin if you want captchas to work, I'm not 100% sure if you actually need the 3rd party cookies. Frankly, allowing cookies from, say facebook.com as 1st party, will also allow the same cookies from 3rd party facebook.com. However, you can block third party facebook.com with ublock origin, so that isn't really an issue. I block all 3rd party scripts and frames by default in ublock origin. Even tho the popular ones are blocked by filter lists so you don't really need to block em dynamically cuz they'll already be blocked statically, but obviously filter lists can only cover so much. You do however have to unblock particular ones if you want sites to work, since many sites use 3rd party stuff for different functionalities. Once you spend some time making a whitelist however, you won't have that issue anymore. You gray em out so that they are no longer blocked by dynamic filtering like red but still blocked by static filtering, which they won't be if they are green. However sometimes some sites have features which you don't even know are there and are being blocked until you unblock everything and see "wait, this site had THAT?". They are quite rare tho.

 

Only I use my computer. I use multiple profiles (including inside VMs etc), because I have dedicated profiles for websites such as Spotify, Youtube. I don't want activity in one service to leak information to other ad networks.

 

That's why you use an ad blocker, if you're that paranoid might as well plug the cable off

 

And we know what Google are doing with Chrome's adblocking capabilities ...

 

I use Ad blockers inside some of the profiles. Anyway they are blacklist-based, so they always at least one step behind.

 

Idk man I rarely if ever use a VM and I've never had those problems that u describe with tracking and stuff Like going to the toilet seeing I'm out of paper and getting a notification on my phone "You need more paper bro? Order this paper now with ultra fast delivery!" (ofc I don't take my phone to the toilet cuz I **** fast so there's no time for phone cuz I eat a lot and my metabolism is just like "what phone bro? u gotta get this out FAST, RIGHT NOW")

 

So now, a week later, after probably scaring half his readers into uninstalling Chrome, the writer of the article in the OP gives his readers this:

"How to fight the spies in your Chrome browser..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...s-your-chrome-browser/?utm_term=.cc5ea928b1ee

 

There is some good advice there for sure but man some parts just HURT to read, it's like someone is stabbing me in the heart and whispering "Other good choices include Disconnect as well as Ghosteryyyyyyyyy" *spooky voice*

 

I do wonder if Microsoft's up and coming Chromium based Edge will present similar privacy challenges.

 

And those bashing Google keep using Windows... Ludicrously hilarious

 

Linux? Apple? How "ludicrously hilarious" is it really given such a limited number of choices for operating systems??

 

Linux is made for privacy and security, so the choice is obvious for those who are concerned. I have one machine with Linux MX, took me 2 days to get accustomed to it.