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I'm fucking done with Chrome. Fuck this.
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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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privacy
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Firefox has always been my main browser but I don't get OP's point.
Isn't this a good feature because it allows personalized ads without tracking?
Can someone explain to me?
"To stop everyone else from stealing your data, let us steal it for them!"
It's like trying to stop a fire by committing arson.
I get the point you’re trying to make, but we regularly actually start fires to prevent fires.
That's true. Maybe I should've picked my analogy better lol.
Big reason why analogies are fallacies: they're never a 1:1 representation of the subject and hand and usually serve to derail the conversation by making people debate the merits of the analogy.
A forest fire can’t burn the leaves you already burned a few months ago.
🤣🤣🤣 beat me to it, like almost literally verbatim what I was going to say.
Bonus points for doing that as the single largest advertisement company in the world.
According to this popup, Chrome is essentially sending my entire browsing history god knows where in order to build a user profile that is then used by advertising companies to display targeted ads on the websites I visit. But it allows me to control which topics get shown or hidden and somehow that is a "privacy" feature.
I just don't want my browsing history to be used for anything except finding what pages I visited in the past and that's it. I'm sick of being tracked and having my whole god damn digital life being shared to fucking greedy corporations who want to send me ads to buy crap I don't need.
According to Steve Gibson's podcast, the analysis of your browsing history that converts it into topics is done in your browser, so presumably on your computer, not by sending the browsing history to a server. Only the resulting topics are shared with Google's servers.
Ok. Still. Why is my browser using memory and spending cpu cycles on this shit?
the user profile is stored locally, websites get a random list of three topics
SPOTTED THE CHROME DEVELOPER
There's still tracking. They're just streamlining the process and making it sound "extra private".
Personally, I find the entire concept of personalized ads offensive. Tell me that advertising pays for content and I'll punch a kitten.
LOL that is just what they want you to think.
My understanding is that it uses your browser history to profile you, then when you visit a website with ads it sends your profile to Google Ads service so they can decide what kind of ads it shows you.
So your browser history supposedly doesn't leave your browser, but also it doesn't need to because they get the information they want regardless. They're just changing where the processing happens.
Most of what Google is mentioning here is not new. They're still tracking you, and still learning about you and what you do on the Internet. They don't sell your browsing history or identity to advertisers, and as far as I'm aware, they never have; that's their golden goose. What they sell is access to a certain type of users based on what they've learned about you from your browsing history. For many, many years, users didn't have a choice. They'd be served ads for things that might be wildly irrelevant based on one errant search, or when shopping for a niche gift for a friend.
The difference now is that they're opening up topics to users. It's win-win-win: Users don't see irrelevant ads, Google doesn't serve up ads that users won't click (thus driving down the value), and advertisers pay less for useless impressions and are more likely to reach users interested in their products.
Make no mistake... Google isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. It only makes their ad-based business model more efficient and valuable.
If the word "ads" makes you turn red as your blood boils like most of Lemmy, I can't help you. But if it weren't for ads, we'd still be paying for Netscape.
There are actually such things as relevant ads. One of the paper magazines I used to subscribe to was "Small Craft Advisor". In addition to the articles and editorial content, there were articles written by vendors about their products and traditional ads. Literally everything in that magazine was aimed at small boat owners and builders. No BMWs, no Rolexes, no shaving products, just very specific content and ads for those passionate about small boats.
When they switched to online only, enough subscribers reached out to them regarding the loss of vendor articles and ads that they now occasionally put out something to address that loss.
I don't know where else I could learn about a new epoxy product or a new boat design so easily.
We used to get at least some of them before the advertisers conned themselves (with the help of Google et al) into thinking that they had to know who we are instead of what our active interests are.
Hmm. You only buy things you don't need because of ads? You only lose money and get nothing in return, every time? That's a shame.
Eh. Perhaps you're right. I just know that on a personal level, I have purchased goods and services learned about through ads over time that have enhanced my life and allowed me to have meaningful experiences and create memories with the people I care about I wouldn't have otherwise had. Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems awfully silly and shortsighted looking back to have missed out in exchange for a knee-jerk angry reaction to anyone trying to sell me something.