Google Chrome has become surveillance software

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#2263249 24-Jun-2019 10:47

dt: I've been using Brave on all of my devices for a few months now and cannot fault it It's written in Chromium and is founded by the co founder of Mozilla with the goal of natively protecting your online privacy. check it out https://brave.com/

But is better, more private, than say Firefox or Vivaldi ?

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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#2263254 24-Jun-2019 10:58

rb99:

But is better, more private, than say Firefox or Vivaldi ?

if you can share a way to benchmark it i'll happily take the time out to post up some results

Before I fully switched I performance benchmarked it using https://browserbench.org/JetStream/ and it came out on top against chrome, firefox, edge and the new edge dev build

Higher is better

Brave: 90.031

Chrome: 89.014

Edge dev (chromium build): 87.534

Firefox: 60.978

Edge: DNF

edit: add bench results

tested from a laptop with a i7 6700k and 16gb ram

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#2263303 24-Jun-2019 12:03

Wouldn't know how to benchmark a browser. Assuming thats talking about speed, was looking more into privacy. Saw something about Brave serving up its own ads, which put me off a bit. Firefox seems to quite well in that regard from what I've seen, possibly Brave, Iridium browser. Probably depends what article you happen to read.

If I could find one that kills all autostart videos that would go 90% of the way for me.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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#2263318 24-Jun-2019 12:25

rb99:

If I could find one that kills all autostart videos that would go 90% of the way for me.

Good news. Firefox apparently has such a feature introduced in April "Block Autoplay" see https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/block-autoplay/.

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#2263323 24-Jun-2019 12:31

rb99:
Wouldn't know how to benchmark a browser. Assuming thats talking about speed, was looking more into privacy. Saw something about Brave serving up its own ads, which put me off a bit. Firefox seems to quite well in that regard from what I've seen, possibly Brave, Iridium browser. Probably depends what article you happen to read.

If I could find one that kills all autostart videos that would go 90% of the way for me.

I was referring to if you knew of a privacy benchmarking tool as I already ran performance bench marks before switching

Brave blocks auto play by default with the ability to white list with a couple of clicks

Brave ads are user opt in and they pay the users a 70% cut of the revenue via their blockchain.

I haven't opted in with mine but from what I last read it is only being trialed in parts of Europe and the North America's

Rikkitic

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#2263330 24-Jun-2019 12:50

rb99:

If I could find one that kills all autostart videos that would go 90% of the way for me.

I use the Chrome extension HTML Content Blocker. There are others with similar names so make sure you get the right one. It blocks different kinds of content and remembers settings for each. It is the only one I have found that stops the extremely annoying CNN videos dead in their tracks.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#2263391 24-Jun-2019 13:30

dt:
rb99:

Wouldn't know how to benchmark a browser. Assuming thats talking about speed, was looking more into privacy. Saw something about Brave serving up its own ads, which put me off a bit. Firefox seems to quite well in that regard from what I've seen, possibly Brave, Iridium browser. Probably depends what article you happen to read.

If I could find one that kills all autostart videos that would go 90% of the way for me.

I was referring to if you knew of a privacy benchmarking tool as I already ran performance bench marks before switching Brave blocks auto play by default with the ability to white list with a couple of clicks Brave ads are user opt in and they pay the users a 70% cut of the revenue via their blockchain. I haven't opted in with mine but from what I last read it is only being trialed in parts of Europe and the North America's

Unfortunately don't know of any benchmarks that measure privacy.

Interesting to see the ads are opt in. that sounds much better. Might give it a go now.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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#2263394 24-Jun-2019 13:32

Thanks for the general thoughts on blocking videos. I'll check them out but I generally find with other methods I've tried they might cut them down but the success rate is quite a way from 100%.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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#2263415 24-Jun-2019 14:03

surfisup1000: Chrome now runs permanently in the background regardless of whether you have the browser open or not.

Isn't this just the auto updater module?

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#2263419 24-Jun-2019 14:09

Someone could probably explain the how in this. I searched for a particular camera on my phone using Firefox with Duck duck go. Not longer after I had adverts pop up in the Google news feed. I may have to build a tinfoil case for my phone until I drop Android🤪

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#2263423 24-Jun-2019 14:14

Google Chrome has become surveillance software

Imo it's more like normal web mechanisms like cookies became surveillance software and Chrome did not react.

Firefox has taken the lead on privacy protection. Google has belatedly reacted to Firefox and implemented similar protections for release:

Techcrunch: At Google’s annual developer conference Tuesday, Google revealed two new privacy-focused additions: better cookie controls that limit advertisers from tracking your activities across websites, and a new anti-fingerprint feature.

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#2263432 24-Jun-2019 14:34

gzt:
surfisup1000: Chrome now runs permanently in the background regardless of whether you have the browser open or not.

Isn't this just the auto updater module?

Chrome isn't just a browser, it can run apps in the background too.

ANglEAUT

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#2263662 24-Jun-2019 22:57

rb99:

dt: I was referring to if you knew of a privacy benchmarking tool ...

Unfortunately don't know of any benchmarks that measure privacy. ...

Check out Panopticlick from the EFF.org. Or have a look at https://alternativeto.net/software/panopticlick/

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#2263663 24-Jun-2019 23:07

question: but is there a browser that has a proper dark mode! that's the browser I'd use! (converts all sites to dark mode)

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#2264361 25-Jun-2019 18:42

Batman: question: but is there a browser that has a proper dark mode! ... (converts all sites to dark mode)

Until you find one, there is the DIY option:

Stylish - Custom themes for any website

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