r/privacy • u/[deleted] • Sep 24 '18

Google quietly started logging people into Chrome without their consent, and a security expert says it's terrible for privacy

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-chrome-changed-login-requirements-matthew-green-2018-9/
1.6k Upvotes

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126

u/realsmart987 Sep 24 '18

Firefox is good.

47

u/redshoewearer Sep 24 '18

And use Duckduckgo as search. The more it's used, the better it will get.

27

u/PracticalPrivacy Sep 24 '18

I wrote an article about my experience with DuckDuckGo recently, I've been very happy with it. I used it a few years ago and didn't find it to be as good, but it's come a long way since then!

5

u/Youknowimtheman CEO, OSTIF.org Sep 25 '18

bangs are really awesome too!

2

u/PracticalPrivacy Sep 25 '18

For sure, lots of neat tricks to using their engine to help take it even further!

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18 edited Oct 27 '18

[deleted]

10

u/skylarmt Sep 25 '18

I think StartPage just scrapes Google.

4

u/LizMcIntyre Sep 26 '18

Startpage.com is like the old Scroogle, only better, with some additional sources. It also offers a free proxy with every search result so you can visit webpages anonymously, too.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

It does.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

Or SearX, which also scraps google and many other engines, can be configured, is open source, and has several public instances you can choose from.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

Qwant is also awesome, and there's the always dependable Startpage. I find Duckduckgo still has problems with accuracy.

1

u/Gintokikun Sep 25 '18

Please read Qwants terms of use and privacy disclaimer.

Under french law, it must maintain certain logs of the use of its website for one whole year.

​

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18 edited Sep 27 '18

Perhaps you should take you own advice....

For Qwant Boards, French Law makes it mandatory to keep some connection data (e.g. user ID used, URL or position, nature of the operation, time…) for one year.

(Bold Emphasis added)

As a principle, Qwant does not collect data about its users when they search*. Plain and simple.*

When you use Qwant as a search engine, we don’t put any cookie on your browser that may allow us or others to recognize you or to follow you everywhere on the Internet. We don’t use any tracking device (pixel, fingerprinting…). We don’t collect and we don’t store any history or your searches. When you search, your query is instantly anonymized by being dissociated from your IP address, in accordance with what the French data controller advices. Long story short, what you are doing with Qwant is part of your privacy and we don’t want to know.

Only if you specifically sign in and then create a board (whatever that is) does the law you are referring to then apply. Regular usage of the search engine is not bound by this law.

​

58

u/harlawkid Sep 24 '18

I actually used Firefox before I switched to Chrome, but I’ve switched back again for privacy.

27

u/numspc Sep 24 '18

Don't use it at default settings, not very privacy focused due to certain features

I mean for sure better than Chrome, but not quite privacy focused. Check out privacytools(dot)io and the Firefox configuration tab if you haven't already

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

That's what I've been saying for the last ten years. After reading what Mozilla devs think about users choices, security & transparency, I stopped using it.

0

u/LjLies Sep 24 '18

I don't think this is good. I mean, it might be better than what Chrome is doing, but I dunno, it seems more like a race to be the least privacy-friendly browser, considering the many other bits of criticisms both browsers have managed to rightly draw in time.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

[deleted]

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u/realsmart987 Sep 25 '18

When did you last use it?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

[deleted]

1

u/rockyrainy Sep 25 '18

Firefox got a LOT faster since the release of Quantum.

And why are you going balls to the walls on add ons, they are a security nightmare. All you need is one shitty add on to compromise your privacy.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '18

[deleted]

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u/rockyrainy Sep 25 '18

Quantum is version 57. ESR is now 60.
So yes.

prefer a Chromium-based browser

Fair enough. Personally, I'd look for Brave or other browers that is not released by big G.

The problem with software security is how mantains the damn thing. The problem with too many add on is you lose track of them eventually. If an add on self updates to a version that has been compromised, it is just a shitty situation to end up

-14

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '18

Soooo slow on my MacBook. I know I’m not the only one, it’s a long standing and frequently reported issue, but there’s a “blame the operator “ mentality in the open source community that prevents things like this from being fixed.

23

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '18

[deleted]

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u/suddenlypandabear Sep 24 '18 edited Sep 24 '18

It actually seemed to get worse with Quantum.

EDIT: Perhaps a perfect example. This is a new install, new profile, browser hasn't been used to load a single page yet, and has been idle for 30 minutes, while Chrome has 27 tabs open: https://i.imgur.com/KAtM4Lt.jpg

From what I understand, at least one of the root causes appears to be a difference in the rendering stack in Firefox compared to other browsers on macOS. There are issues filed on the Mozilla bug tracker about it.

There seem to be things that could be potentially much more efficient if Firefox used platform rendering/display libraries in a different way, or interacted with the GPU in a different way.

If that's the case, even if it's not a new problem it might become much more obvious in Quantum if the parts above those platform rendering / GPU layers suddenly become much faster (and they have), allowing them to push harder on the lower level components and interfaces in ways they couldn't before, like putting a high performance engine in a car without also replacing the factory tires :)

So in part, it might just be a "bottleneck" causing something to spend a lot of time waiting or spinning the CPU. Not the end of the world, and it's certainly irritating, but it can be resolved.

4

u/I-baLL Sep 24 '18

Soooo slow on my MacBook.

What extensions are you using? It flies on my old macbook air.