Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome

But what if Manifest v3 helps keep one child safe from something naughty, won’t someone think of the children?!
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:p
 
TheSlySyl said:
My main YouTube use is on a Roku, where you can't use extensions. We watch literally dozens of hours of YouTube a week, paying for premium has gotten more use for us than paying for netflix or Hulu would.
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I just hook up old computers to TVs. Roku's and built in smart TV's are worthless for me. My TV updated itself and now when I turn it on it defaults to the SmartTV function and not the computer. Not only that but now it won't establish a connection with the computer when turned off. I had to get an HDMI Pass-Through EDID Emulator just so my HTPC could continue to work. All this from an update that is clearly meant to deter people like me from using their PC instead of their SmartTV function.

Even if size is an issue, you can get one of these cheap used mini PC's. I've done it a number of times and just slapped in a SSD with Linux Mint. Put some shortcuts on the desktop and use this AirMouse and you're golden. I don't even bother with Kodi because it's too much work. SSD go brrr, so just open up a shortcut and you're good to go.
 
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DukenukemX said:
I just hook up old computers to TVs. Roku's and built in smart TV's are worthless for me. My TV updated itself and now when I turn it on it defaults to the SmartTV function and not the computer. Not only that but now it won't establish a connection with the computer when turned off. I had to get an HDMI Pass-Through EDID Emulator just so my HTPC could continue to work. All this from an update that is clearly meant to deter people like me from using their PC instead of their SmartTV function.

Even if size is an issue, you can get one of these cheap used mini PC's. I've done it a number of times and just slapped in a SSD with Linux Mint. Put some shortcuts on the desktop and use this AirMouse and you're golden. I don't even bother with Kodi because it's too much work. SSD go brrr, so just open up a shortcut and you're good to go.
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Worthless to you doesn't mean worthless to me. Roku does exactly what I need my TV to do, and its user friendly for the entire family. Likewise, through plex, it plays all of my crazy high bitrate 4k HDR/DV .265 video files through the network without having to move files or anything, yet again, convenience is the point. etc.
I tried the HTPC thing, was more of a pain than it was useful.
 
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TheSlySyl said:
Worthless to you doesn't mean worthless to me. Roku does exactly what I need my TV to do, and its user friendly for the entire family.
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You're working within your limitations. I have a couple of Roku capable TVs and tried setting them up. Using a remote to setup an account is a pain, and you still gotta deal with ads. How you think my Vizio smart TV got it's update? Because I tried to setup the smart TV function, but it updated itself and made things worse. Nobody uses the Smart TV function because it's harder than using the PC.
Likewise, through plex, it plays all of my crazy high bitrate 4k HDR/DV .265 video files through the network without having to move files or anything, yet again, convenience is the point. etc.
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I use Jellyfin and yes Roku supports it. It's still much slower and less convenient than using a dedicated PC.
I tried the HTPC thing, was more of a pain than it was useful.
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Then you forgot how to use a PC.
 
DukenukemX said:
You're working within your limitations. I have a couple of Roku capable TVs and tried setting them up. Using a remote to setup an account is a pain, and you still gotta deal with ads. How you think my Vizio smart TV got it's update? Because I tried to setup the smart TV function, but it updated itself and made things worse. Nobody uses the Smart TV function because it's harder than using the PC.
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I don't have ads, at all, I have the entire network behind adguard, it blocks Roku Ads, it doesn't block youtube ads well, but yet again, i pay for youtube premium. I'm sorry you've had bad experiences, I have not. I find it easier and more convenient than a secondary device (I also have an Nvidia shield, but the Roku is, frankly, more powerful and stable.)
DukenukemX said:
I use Jellyfin and yes Roku supports it. It's still much slower and less convenient than using a dedicated PC.
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Not on my end. My Roku can get me to playing any one of my 100ish terabytes of media in about 30 seconds using voice search. Absolutely nothing about Plex on my Roku is slow by any means. It's actually faster than the PC interface which is puzzling because my PC is likely hundreds of times faster than the roku processor.
DukenukemX said:
Then you forgot how to use a PC.
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I know damn well how to use a PC and I also know when it's not needed. I don't need a PC when my goal is purely to play HDR video quickly, efficiently and with as few complications as possible. HDR settings on a PC are a fucking pain, and don't even get me started about Dolby Vision support.

This is all moving away from what this thread is about, which is how shitty Chrome is.
 
I admit, I use a Google TV. It works great with streaming services as well as Kodi, one of the only devices that can pass my SACD audio files at full resolution 88/96kHz PCM.

However, I did open the remote and physically desolder the microphone. No wiretap 4 me.
 
1_rick said:
In the process of doing that. FF, stupidly, doesn't have an option to disable JS on a per-site basis.
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Hm? I'm pretty sure it does but I can't remember exactly where. I usually just use UBlock Origin to do that, even on the "basic" mode (as opposed to the "medium" or 'expert') it has a toggle that it will remember that disables JavaScript on a given site. Quite useful to get around news sites that pull up subscription paywalls or signup required JS elements atop the story, for instance.
 
Does anybody know how I can export my "search engines" (really keywords) from Chrome so that I can import them into Firefox?

They are no longer included when you export bookmarks.

(yes, I have that many :))
 
RanceJustice said:
Hm? I'm pretty sure it does but I can't remember exactly where. I usually just use UBlock Origin to do that, even on the "basic" mode (as opposed to the "medium" or 'expert') it has a toggle that it will remember that disables JavaScript on a given site. Quite useful to get around news sites that pull up subscription paywalls or signup required JS elements atop the story, for instance.
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uBlock's an addon. In Chrome-based browsers, the functionality's built into the browser. Maybe there's a browser-native way to do it in FF but when I searched for it, I got directed to a page talking about JS and adblocking extensions.
 
1_rick said:
uBlock's an addon. In Chrome-based browsers, the functionality's built into the browser. Maybe there's a browser-native way to do it in FF but when I searched for it, I got directed to a page talking about JS and adblocking extensions.
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I'm pretty sure there's a browser based way to do it, but its been awhile since I had to do it that way. I know that if you just want to turn of JS entirely there's an about:config (ie advanced preferences) parameter where you simply can turn it on or off there with ease as a boolean variable. There was a way you could integrate it into the "tracking protection" options which handled things per site, but I believe this required an about:config flag or something else as its not one of the default features. Is there a reason that you don't want to use an addon? I'd have to look at the particular native ways that are available besides the ones off the top of my head there, but it may be easier to use an addon for per-site specifications rather than either manually toggling it and/or getting it added into the tracking protection feature?

uOpt said:
Does anybody know how I can export my "search engines" (really keywords) from Chrome so that I can import them into Firefox?

They are no longer included when you export bookmarks.

(yes, I have that many :))
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You're talking about the searches you've made before ON a search engine (ie using Google to search for "dog food" or DuckDuckGo to find "hotels near Kyoto"?), not the search engines themselves (ie adding Startpage or Searx to your browser so you can use those engines in addition to the default included ones to query from either the address bar or a separate search bar)? If so, have you tried exporting history then? I'm not sure how Chrome/ium based browsers work too well but with Firefox a lot of that is included in your History (ie three weeks ago you searched for dog food on Google and then clicked through to Chewy's page for X brand etc). Does that help?
 
uOpt said:
Does anybody know how I can export my "search engines" (really keywords) from Chrome so that I can import them into Firefox?

They are no longer included when you export bookmarks.

(yes, I have that many :))
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Your search history under Google is linked to your Gmail account, just log into your Gmail account under FF.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Your search history under Google is linked to your Gmail account, just log into your Gmail account under FF.
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I don't want to export the search history.

What I want to export are what Google calls the "search engines" which you find it "settings->manage search engines". I call it keyword search.
 
RanceJustice said:
Is there a reason that you don't want to use an addon?
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Sure, pure laziness. :) I have one site I want to disable JS. In Chromium-based browsers, you just go into per-site settings, click "add" on the "javascript" section under "block", and put in the site. Boom, done. No messing around with a global setting, no figuring out the right extension, installing it, and then figuring out how it implements per-site disabling. I'm not saying I refuse to use an extension, I just don't know what to use, and the quick search I made didn't give me any low-hanging fruit. I skimmed a couple like NoScript, Ghostery, and uBlock Origin, which I already use, but I didn't quickly see instructions on what I was looking for (and NoScript's default, IIRC, is a global block anyway, which isn't what I want.)

If you've got a suggestion for a reputable extension that makes it easy I'm all ears.
 
uOpt said:
I don't want to export the search history.

What I want to export are what Google calls the "search engines" which you find it "settings->manage search engines". I call it keyword search.
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I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to. However clicking the hamburger Menu > Settings > Search seems to offer the same settings as under Chrome (4k desktop large pic warning):

Search Engines.png


1_rick said:
If you've got a suggestion for a reputable extension that makes it easy I'm all ears.
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NoScript would work fine.
 
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1_rick said:
Sure, pure laziness. :) I have one site I want to disable JS. In Chromium-based browsers, you just go into per-site settings, click "add" on the "javascript" section under "block", and put in the site. Boom, done. No messing around with a global setting, no figuring out the right extension, installing it, and then figuring out how it implements per-site disabling. I'm not saying I refuse to use an extension, I just don't know what to use, and the quick search I made didn't give me any low-hanging fruit. I skimmed a couple like NoScript, Ghostery, and uBlock Origin, which I already use, but I didn't quickly see instructions on what I was looking for (and NoScript's default, IIRC, is a global block anyway, which isn't what I want.)

If you've got a suggestion for a reputable extension that makes it easy I'm all ears.
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If you already use uBlock Origin, that may be the simplest thing to do. I don't know how yours is configured, but I double checked that even the out of the box has support for turning off javascript per site, with a single click.
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Just click the button indicated here and it will do as you ask. uBlock Origin is great at what it does by default, but it can be configured to do all kinds of other things; many of the more functionality altering or site breakage prone ones are kept behind a "Please read the docs before you enable the this checkbox" setting. Thankfully, the JavaScript toggle is in the default features.

Oh, I also found another built in Firefox way to disable JavaScript on a given page. If you open the built in web developer tools (main menu three line button > more tools > Web Developer Tools . Alternately, F12 I think brings it up by default), it will pop up at the bottom of the screen. Some pretty comprehensive stuff available here. You'll see a number of different tabs: Inspector, Console, Debugger, Style Editor etc. Click on "Debugger". then go to the little gear icon at the top right of that tab. Click it and it will spawn a menu with options, with Disable JavaScript the first present!

1695093740100.png


I believe clicking on it will automatically refresh the page but if not, do so manually and you'll see JavaScript disabled for that site. I mention this for completeness' sake having found this capability and its far easier than having to mess with about:config settings, but if you're already using uBlock Origin its probably less cumbersome to just use uBO's disabling capability. There are also other extensions that pretty much are a stand-alone "Icon on your addon bar area, click it to disable JavaScript on a page or turn it back on" feature, but if you're already using uBO its not only extremely reputable and well made, but that functionality is included so you may as well just stick with that unless there's some other factor. So yeah, uBlock Origin will do it for you I think; hope this helps!
 
RanceJustice said:
If you already use uBlock Origin, that may be the simplest thing to do. I don't know how yours is configured, but I double checked that even the out of the box has support for turning off javascript per site, with a single click.
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That seems to have worked, thanks!
 
Mazzspeed said:
I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to. However clicking the hamburger Menu > Settings > Search seems to offer the same settings as under Chrome (4k desktop large pic warning):

View attachment 599707
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Right. FF and Chrome have the same functionality. My problem is that I have 100+ hand-crafted keyword search engines like that and would like to transport them from Chrome to FF.

That used to be trivial because they were included in a bookmarks im/export, but that is no longer the case.
 
1_rick said:
That seems to have worked, thanks!
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You can also do it with TamperMonkey + NoScript. NoScript has a whitelist feature to allow JavaScript on a per-site basis, otherwise it defaults to blocking everything.
 
1_rick said:
That seems to have worked, thanks!
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Glad to hear that. Welcome to Team Firefox!

One of the nice things about uBlock Origin is that the per-site restrictions in the UI default to temporary. A single click on the lock icon will immediately make the changes permanent, or they can be committed later from the "My Rules" section of the dashboard. uBlock Origin is a great extension and it seems to work for your purpose, so I can't think of any reason to recommend an alternative. I do want to add a couple of comments on some of the other possibilities that have been mentioned:

NoScript's default trust level could be relaxed to effectively run the extension in a "blacklist mode", though I've never tried using it that way. I use NoScript with strict settings in conjunction with uBlock Origin and find them complementary.
The Web Developer Tools have a setting to temporarily disable JavaScript for the current tab, but it only persists while the developer tools are open.
 
Vermillion said:
Not a horrible video, but he's not telling the whole truth either. Your profile resets every 7 days which makes it impossible to build a profile on you because the interests you get ads for will change every 7 days.
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The thing is, they have lied to us outright about privacy issues so many times now (remember it's off, but not really off?) that why should we trust them this time?

The problem is where nay profiling data is collected, it becomes a target for misuse, even if we trust the company collecting it (which I don't).

I'm pretty sure someone will find a way to correlate multiple 7 day profiles from the same user, and start selling it to data brokers.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm pretty sure someone will find a way to correlate multiple 7 day profiles from the same user, and start selling it to data brokers.
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What are the odds any two profiles for a given user are likely to be all that different? "This week I'm not going to go to Amazon or Youtube, so my profile is different, to mess with advertisers!"

The other thing is, now the argument is "oh, 7 days of tracking isn't really all that bad." It's a "just the tip" argument.

Edit: to be clear, my last paragraph is about Google & other advertisers, not Vermillion .
 
Looks like it's baked into the Android OS itself now, too. Just got a notification about it after the most recent update on my phone. I need to push my lazy ass to root this thing.
 
Armenius said:
Looks like it's baked into the Android OS itself now, too. Just got a notification about it after the most recent update on my phone. I need to push my lazy ass to root this thing.
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How would it transmit the info, though, if you use an alternative browser and not Chrome?
 
In one of my google profiles, I turned it all off. I think i was on my pixel fold. Later I opened the same profile on a laptop and it was all back on. Maybe a push/pull issue.
I think deleting everything on basic history WON"T turn it back on, though that will mess up the adchoices consortium stuff if I remember correctly.

I turned it all off twice, somehow.
 
Armenius said:
Looks like it's baked into the Android OS itself now, too. Just got a notification about it after the most recent update on my phone. I need to push my lazy ass to root this thing.
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I really doubt that. Most Google related stuff is closed source, which means no it's not built into Android. Chromium doesn't have any Google code, including the tracking stuff. That would be idiotic for them to include the source code. Also, if you use FireFox on Android then you aren't using Chrome. As long as you don't use Chrome, then you don't have anything to worry about. I have Chrome installed on my LineageOS Android phone, but only because Ring requires it. Doesn't mean I'll use it.
 
DukenukemX said:
I really doubt that. Most Google related stuff is closed source, which means no it's not built into Android. Chromium doesn't have any Google code, including the tracking stuff. That would be idiotic for them to include the source code. Also, if you use FireFox on Android then you aren't using Chrome. As long as you don't use Chrome, then you don't have anything to worry about. I have Chrome installed on my LineageOS Android phone, but only because Ring requires it. Doesn't mean I'll use it.
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"Do No Evil." How 20th Century." Someone needs to come up with an up to date company "slogan," somthing along the lines of We are Greedy Bastards and Damn Proud of It, Suckers!

Glad at my house we use only firefox, and rarely EDGE.
 
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