Goodbye Chrome. It was great while it lasted.

We need an Internet reset.
- Gemini is having a go at it.
- Really pulling for Solid.

Fire that fox up! Mozilla Firefox
- Try its forks: LibreWolf (desktop) and Iceraven (Android)
  
  Mull is another option for Android.
  
  Nope. I hate saying the name.
  
  Waterfox as well!
- Using Mull right now and Librewolf for PC. Never browsed so good before.

Firefox is for people with big cocks
- And girls too.
  
  And girls with big cocks.
  
  Girls are people too!
- I can say with great confidence that people with small members also use it.

Jokes on you Google, but I dont want to see ANY ads...
- Hey you're in luck! For just $99.99/mo* we'll remove those ads.
  But we'll still collect way more data than you think and in a couple months we'll raise the price for the True Unlimited* plan
  **True Unlimited plan has like, so many ads, because fuck you.
  
  Why does this sound an awful lot like what Microsoft is doing to windows? 🤔🤔
- But how will the already-profitable company make more profit at your expense?

Firefox it is and was for over a decade and more. Add uBlock Origin, uMatrix and some smaller stuff and the web suddenly becomes accessible.
- Can you provide a list of the smaller stuff? Been meaning to switch to Firefox.
  
  Add-Ons I have installed are:
  uBlock Origin
  uMatrix (sadly deprecated)
  Privacy Badger, shows/blocks trackers that made it through uBlock/uMatrix (which are not many if at all)
  Decentraleyes, which caches libraries from CDNs so you don't connect to these central servers again, disclosing your usage pattern
  Cookie AutoDelete, mostly optional but clears cookies while browser is running and not only on close
  DarkReader, so bright pages go dark
  Sidebery, for organizing tabs (I miss true tab groups in Firefox, but only a bit)
  
  Firefox actually has most privacy stuff you need built-in nowadays. There are surprisingly few steps you need to harden it after install (on both desktop and mobile):
  Install the uBlock Origin extension.
  Switch Enhanced Tracking Protection to "strict".
  Turn on HTTPS-only mode in all tabs.
  Optionally:
  Switch your search engine away from Google. I've been using DuckDuckGo with zero problems for years, but there are others.
  Install the multi-containers extension, it can be used to load websites in isolated color-coded tabs so no data "leakage" can occur.
  You do not need any other extension. There is some advanced stuff for fingerprinting protection but they can do more harm than good if you don't know what you're doing. Stick to the above, update Firefox when prompted and that's all.
- uMatrix has been abandoned hasn't it? I thought the dev had incorporated some of uMatrix into uBlock?
  Am I wrong in believing this?
  
  Yes, it's true uMatrix isn't in dev anymore and supposedly stuff has been incorporated to uBlock but I still feel more at home with uMatrix and it's much more convenient to use and much stricter.
- Firefox, and Vivaldi for the occasional site that doesn't work on Gecko. (They're built on the Chromium engine, but absolutely refusing to implement this crap)

Chrome stopped being good 6 to 8 years ago.
- Piggybacking here to let people know that hitting "no thanks" on that dialog only disables 1 out of the 3 new tracking methods added to Chrome. Besides turning off "ad topics" you need to go to preferences and also disable "site-suggested ads" and "ad measurement".
- It was never good. It's performance sucked ass and I can't think of s single feature it had that I got anything out of.
  I want my browser to do 2 things: load the fucking webpage and save bookmarks. That's fucking it.
  
  Chrome actually used to run very well compared to Firefox, much lower general RAM and CPU usage doing the same thing. That was quite a while ago though
  
  If you ignore privacy issues, it was the best browser a long time ago, for some years after it was new. I remember those days, installing AVG every time I reinstalled Windows Vista. My first laptop, my first time with internet, Twilight Princess and Sonic '06 was out, it was great. That was back when we liked Sonic '06, because it was new and we were young and dumb. I was in the USAF doing computer technician work.
  
  It was the first browser to have tabs. That simple feature was cool AF at the time, especially the "Reopen last closed tab" and "Duplicate Tab" features.
  "Duplicate Tab" was awesome, letting you risk going down some sites rabbit holes without losing your starting context in the original tab.
  Awesome innovative features, now natural requirements for any browser.
  But it was all downhill since there.

Ah yes, "hey instead of us tracking you, can you just save us the computation effort and just tell us what you're into? We'll still keep tracking you though." And this is somehow a privacy FEATURE? Even though they clearly say they'll be sharing thisvinfo with websites you visit? Boggles the mind
- Exactly. It's corporate newspeak.

You guys see ads?
- Yeah, sometimes. Archive.org has a nice collection of vintage ones.
- Now I do, thanks to YouTube.
  
  Firefox + ublock origin solves that
  
  FreeTube has been very nice to me.

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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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 is a lot of misinformation being shared in this thread.
A good excerpt from Steve Gibson covering Topics on SecurityNow #935
What I do know, though, is that user profiling via tracking represents the height of privacy intrusion. As far as I know, an immutable record of every website I have ever visited is squirreled away in multiple massive hidden and inaccessible-to-me profiling databases. And I have zero control over that. That's the world we're in today. But if Topics succeeds, and Google would appear to be in the position to singlehandedly deliver its success, it is a far less intrusive profiling technology. And in addition to being a much weaker information gatherer, Google has chosen to provide its users complete control over the Topics their browser presents to the world, including turning it off altogether for full anonymity. I'll explain that further in a minute.
So if only on that basis, Topics at least represents a huge step in the right direction. Yes, by default some interest profiling remains. But the means of obtaining those significantly weakened profiles is no longer tracking. And users have complete visibility into their online profile and are able to curate, edit, and even delete any of it or all of it as they choose. So it's a compromise. But there are many websites begging for our support. My feeling is, if voluntarily letting them know something about who we are allows them to generate, as they claim, significantly more revenue from our visit, is that too high a price to pay? Again, it's an individual decision. But now, in a world with Topics, at least, it's one we're able to make.
...
Okay. So here's how Topics works. The essence of Topics are individual topic tokens - zero, one, or many - which are assigned to individual websites. For example, my GRC.com site might be associated with Computers and Electronics/Network Security, and Computers and Electronics/Programming, and Networking/Internet Security. So when someone visited GRC.com, their own web browser would record their interest in the topics associated with GRC.com, those topics, those three. But their visit to GRC.com itself would never be recorded other than in their regular local browser history as is always done. The only thing retained by the browser to indicate their interest in those topics would be those three numbered parameters.
For example, in Google's current 349-topic list, which they refer to as a "taxonomy," there's "Arts and Entertainment" as a general topic if nothing more specific is available. But then there's "Arts and Entertainment," and then under that "Acting and Theater," and "Comics," "Concerts and Music Festivals," "Dance," "Entertainment Industry," "Humor." And under "Humor" is the subtopic "Live Comedy." And it goes on like that with "Arts and Entertainment" having a total of 56 token entries before we switch to "Autos and Vehicles," which has 29 subcategories, which brings us to "Beauty and Fitness" and so on. You get the idea.
So here's how Google's specification explains this. They said: "The topics are selected from an advertising taxonomy. The initial taxonomy proposed for experimentation will include somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand topics." They said: "Our initial design includes around 350." And I counted them, it's 349. "As a point of reference, the IAB Audience Taxonomy contains around 1,500 individual topics and will attempt to exclude sensitive topics." And they said: "We're planning to engage with external partners to help define this. The eventual goal is for the taxonomy to be sourced from an external party that incorporates feedback and ideas from across the industry."
...
Google explains: "The topics will be inferred by the browser. The browser will leverage a classifier model to map site hostnames to topics. The classifier weights will be public, perhaps built by an external partner, and will improve over time. It may make sense for sites to provide their own topics via meta tags, headers, or JavaScript, but that remains an open discussion for later."
SecurityNow #935 transcript
- It seems unlikely, though, that advertisers will give up on the nuanced tracking they can get by other means, right? Whether to show you the $2 rip off umbrella that works for a single rainy day, or the $52 Proposal Pink (TM) ultra-certified umbrella that keeps the rain off for a single rainy day.
  
  They won't be given the choice. The point is giving them some compromise in order to disable other tracking abilities from the browser. The big question with all of this isn't whether it improves on the user's privacy from the status quo. It's what happens when Google effectively monopolizes most of the access to advertising data. I'm not crying for third party ad companies, I think there might be some unforseen consequences for users down the road.
- Yeah - this is the privacy model that ad targeting should have always taken. People are grabbing pitchforks not really knowing why.
  Moving profiles to the edge and only letting ad servers know what to send rather than connecting the ads to profiles of centrally located browsing data and history would be a huge step forward in privacy for the average user.
  The even better version of this would be the ad server sending "ad options" and the browser selecting what to show based on the internal profile, so even category data isn't sent, just the potential linking of which ad is shown to which user (but not knowing if that correlated to an actual preference or if the other options were just equally poorly targeted).
  
  No they should use context ads like duck duck go
- Steve is the best.
- Max that's a wonderful comment, but could you just tell me what to do, I ain't reading all that.
  
  You should really practice reading more if something that long is difficult for you.
  Reading is a crucial life skill that everyone should practice daily.
  
  TL;DR: If you want to use Chrome then don't be worried about Topics. It's better privacy than third party cookies and other tracking methods.
  
  Stop using Chrome either way. Topics are still tracking, just a different kind.
  
  Right? "Here is a quick excerpt". Then proceeds to post a whole article.
  
  tl;dr There are valid reasons to not use Chrome, and to be suspicious of Google. This, specifically, is not one of them and the fear is mostly overblown by people who have done zero research.

The “No thanks” button should probably say “Fuck this”
- You can say 'Fuck this' and switch to Firefox or LibreWolf (fork of Firefox with privacy improvements and preinstalled uBlock Origin, it also removes all the crap from Firefox like Pocket or Sponsored sites). Mull on Android is another great Fork of Firefox with improved privacy.
  
  I already know this.

I turned it off the first time I was asked. Something on my phone opened in Chrome, rather than Firefox, and this came up again with a different question. I was pretty sure I said no but wasn't convinced that what I had chosen was doing what I asked. Sure enough diving into settings it was enabled.
I've loved Chrome for years but this is bullshit. Firefox isn't perfect but I love that I can use uBlock Origin. Fuck Chrome.

Time to switch and start donating to Mozilla.
I was still using Chrome for some things at work, just because that's our assumed default, but I know enough to switch over there too now. Maybe I'll update the documentation to help other people switch too...
Insert "I'm doing my part" meme
- The CEO needs to be fired and unstead it should be used for Development.
  They deoend on Google to keep it up.
- Just subscribed to recurring donation to Mozilla. Thanks for reminder.

The fact that they want you to do this again every 4 weeks is downright laughable.
- The fact that anyone in /privacy/ uses any google products or services is also quite laughable.
  
  Nice gatekeeping bro, keep it up
- It will be more often than that. The ad topics will be generated in a rolling fashion so expirations will be staggered.
- It says that they're auto deleted, there's no action needed every 4 week by the user.

You’re in the wrong if you still have chrome installed.
Use Firefox now!
- I am! I've been using it for a while now. I just accidentally started Chrome today and this popup came up. I decided to uninstall it for good.
  
  Never stopped.

Was it ever fun?
- Definitely! I remember how awesome and exciting it was when Google was handing out all this great free stuff, before we learnt how we were paying for it.
  
  There's no such thing as a free lunch.
- It was! When Chrome first came out it was blazing fast and could render pages better than any other browser. It wasn't this spyware that sent all your web usage for targeted ads.
- No
- This was the intention of Chrome from the start. A browser made by an advertising company was never a good thing.

- me too! i want to set it to "none, ever, fuck you"
  
  That's what uBlock Origin is for! NextDNS also helps with blocking ads on your entire network! Alternatively you can self-host Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home.

I deleted Chrome a couple of months ago. Haven’t missed it in the slightest.

I love how they position it as a privacy feature, and then fail to explain how it does anything to increase privacy.
- Isn't that false advertising? This literally does nothing for your actual privacy.
  
  Sure it does... It invades your privacy.
  
  The topics become a super valuable fingerprinting metric, as well as continuing a form of cross site tracking now that 3rd party cookies are taken more seriously

Are you really quit posting about a keylogger/distributed compute platform posing as a web browser like 10 years too late?
- Don't shame me.
  
  Kinky

When was the last time Google made something objectively useful and not some ad bs?
- Google used to be an awesome company.
  They have turned into absolute garbage, something I never thought possible.
  I'm locked into Gmail, that's too big of a pain in the ass to switch, but everything else I try to avoid like the plague. From shitty hardware, to abandoned software to adinfested garbage, everything they are making right now is straight dogshit.
  
  Google search has become some real garbage lately too. I can't search for anything without getting a full page of generic useless crap that was either written by AI or an incompetent author.
  
  Create a new email, forward all mails from gmail to this new email, start using the new email?
  
  Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. I feel like we had all these things >10 years ago. It really feels like once they realized google+ wasn't going to win over facebook, they were done.
  
  I’m locked into Gmail, that’s too big of a pain in the ass to switch
  Proton Mail makes it pretty easy to switch from Gmail with its Easy Switch feature
- Street view is cool.
  
  Maps, Earth, Translate, Android, Gmail, and a lot more. Unfortunately, most of these were made years ago.

It was never great.

Advertising is going to blow up like real estate.

How about a setting like "I don't want to be tracked and I don't want to see any ads" that is enabled by default?

- operating systems might eventually be subscription based too.... oh wait
  
  Linux, the superior operating system, will never be subscription based.
  
  Can you even imagine?
  
  Wait what ? we're not there yet are we ?
- Don't give them any ideas.

I haven't used chrome in about 5 or 6 years now. Firefox all the way. I can't support a monopoly on the web.

Looking at the image colours... was the last one red, but someone said that's too aggressive? Looks strange

Why is anyone surprised by this?! Google is an ad company.
- Even though google bought double click I some times wonder if it was just double click wearing a google skin the whole time scobbydoo style

What's sad is that I've always been a huge Google supporter but they keep on moving in a direction that I'm no longer comfortable with.
I'm also a certified Google proctor, which allows me to officially tutor and troubleshoot problems with anything Google.
I just don't see myself ever using that skillet in the future due to the current assault on its users' privacy from Google.
- I know, right??
  I got practically everyone I know into using the whole Google ecosystem. Now I deeply regret it. Their "do no evil" motto was ditched and it's all about profits now.
- The Google Skillet. Another product that nobody's heard of :)

So what happens if you just block every ad topic?
- I guess you just don’t see personalised ads
  
  Oh no!
- Oh even if you have it on it will try Shapiroing you, or slip in some crying Peterson. It really takes some time if you try to tame it. I think I'm in some zone where they just quit on me. But then I've never in my life clicked on anything recommended.

Have to use chrome at work and it's just such a shitty browser experience. Don't understand why anyone would use it unless they actually use Google for work.

Better late than never I guess.

Even shittier when it got silently pushed through an update and was turned on by default without asking for prior permission.

What The Fuck

I haven't seen this on my PC for Google chrome, and I use Unlock origin

- Stop supporting the Google monopoly on browser rendering engines and use Firefox or LibreWolf

With both Chrome and Edge enshittifying themselves, nows a great time for Apple to ship Safari for Windows again.
- What for? Firefox is faster than Chrome these days.
- Oh please no, Safari is... weird. It's the new IE for front-end developers.
  "Hey Safari, here's the response from an API call."
  Safari: Oh, you didn't specify how to cache this. I guess I'll just cache it... forever!

Imagine if Firefox implemented this and we don't have any other browser to use without ads.
- How can I hide these images?
  They are getting very obnoxious.
  
  block everyone who uses them, just takes a second
  
  You'll have to block the user. Unfortunately thats the only way
- How long do you think it would take for a new browser to emerge that doesn't block ad blockers?
  Looking at the modding community, about 24 hours max
- Yea too much work mate and what if you have to unblock a domain out of million domains in the host file. Fk that

I use Opera. Built-in ad/tracker blocker, cookie destroyer, free vpn and much more features. All chrome extensions work with opera.
- In 2016, Opera was acquired by an investment group led by a Chinese consortium. :(
  
  Wut! Damn, can't have anything good anymore these days... Thanks for the info. Now I'm sad.
- The old Opera versions using the Presto engine were truly amazing. Now they're just a Chromium skin, just like Vivaldi, Brave and others, adding more and more crap like crypto wallets and other shady stuff.
  Back then they were important to keep the web's standards high and corporations in check and compatible to each other. Big props to the original Opera.
  
  Vivaldi is a chromium browser from the OG opera guys I believe.

Opera comes with a pre-installed adblock ;)
- And free spyware
  
  privacy on the internet? never heard of her
  if you actually want privacy use Tor, not any popular browser

Calling it rn, if it doesn’t have this shit Microsoft Edge will become super popular amongst the general public once they learn that Edge is like Chrome but without this ad stuff
- No, the whole operating system spies on you instead.
- The general public don't really care about this ad stuff
  
  The general public uses Edge already.

Wow, this comment section is a giant echo chamber. Really, guys?
Yes, Google and Chrome are dumpster fires for privacy. But this is at least inching in the right direction, however small. Now the next time you shop for a present for your girlfriend on Valentine's Day, you can prevent yourself from getting underwear ads for the next month.
Also, if this is your last straw... you've had your head in the sand for over a decade. Google has been watching every single thing you do, categorizing it, and selling ad placement for that topic to the highest bidder ever since ads became their primary business model. Chrome just made it easier to do that.
I ditched Chrome a short while ago due to its poor memory management and its inexplicable inability to handle certain sites that Edge can somehow handle fine for a third of the RAM hit. This wouldn't have been my deal breaker.
- This isn’t any better.
  What? Before, for many, many years, they didn't even ask how you would like your toppings on your shit sandwich and you happily gobbled it up. They're giving you the option to opt out of some topics, and NOW you're pissed? It may not be a privacy slam-dunk (why are you using Chrome, anyway?), but it's better than the nothing that existed before.
  Of course Google doesn't care. They're not going to give you an opt-out option. They're an ad company, and their whole business is knowing your interests to get you to buy from advertisers. The search engine is just to get you in the door. The moment you press enter, they're selling you something.
- I have 4 different browsers installed, I use Chrome for work activities, as it supports the Outlook and Teams PWA's and I'm not browsing ad-ridden sites. I use qutebrowser for personal stuff/bookmarks, and Firefox for uh, video browsing.
  
  I'd recommend using Edge for work. The Office integrations are impressive and make work that much more streamlined.
- This is one of those situations where people are mad at the right person for the wrong reasons and I never know how to respond. I hate misinformation, so I lean towards wanting to try and point out what's wrong, but long-form nuanced explanations don't fit well with the situation and will change zero minds so why bother? At least there's some people switching to Firefox as a result, I guess.