Technology @lemmy.world Lee Duna @lemmy.nz 1 yr. ago

Edge 118: updated on-page search may send data to Microsoft

www.ghacks.net /2023/10/14/edge-118-updated-on-page-search-may-send-data-to-microsoft/

36 comments

Firefox: Found a way to translate webpages locally on the device, so you don't need to send any data

Edge: Made it so you can't CTRL-F without sending data to Microsoft

How does this work for sensitive information like banking sites? I know some healthcare software runs in the browser, surely this is a violation of those rules too.
- surely this is a violation of those rules too.
  
  Cost of business. The occasional two digit million fine opposing billions of revenue.
- I think telemetry is disabled / very limited for enterprises.
  
  If you sign in to your bank account through edge in your personal device then you agreed to whatever they say when you installed their os.
- But edge only disables the feature if you toggle it off...
Microsoft Edge submits the following data to Microsoft cloud services using a HTTPS connection:

The text of the webpage.

Interesting , this has implications for pages that are not on public internet. Viewing confidential/secret company documents in edge?
- You left out the important bit before that:
  
  When users enable "include related matches in Find on page", Microsoft Edge submits the following data to Microsoft cloud services using a HTTPS connection:
  
  Seems like nothing gets sent if you do a normal exact search.
  
  Yeah but isn't that what the whole article is about? And is it enabled by default or opt in?
  
  For now.
  
  Future edge patch note:
  
  Fixed bug where sometimes edge would send pages to MS cloud despite local search only being enabled
  
  Haha j/k, there won't be a patch note, and the fix will probably be a heuristic to determine if the user isn't a security expert analyzing their traffic to determine if it's sending more than it should be, with it defaulting to off until that heuristic reports a hit.
At this stage, I'm surprised that the keyboard drivers don't just send everything to Microsoft.

Although they probably already do.
- T E L E M E T R Y
- Ever hear of SwiftKey?
Use Firefox

While you're at it, switch to Linux and be done with the Microsoft and spyware bullshit
Who tf uses edge if they have a choice.
- It has a very good integration with the rest of Microsoft 365, which we have to use at our company
  
  You've meant to say that they just make it a legit pain in the ass to use anything else.
  
  There is no reason for that otherwise.
- All the stupid people.
  
  People with different skills than you are not stupid. It takes a lot of time, energy, and effort to learn this kind of thing if you’re not interested in it.
  
  We should be kind to others, and not assume superiority because we have skills or knowledge in one area they do not.
  
  Edge is honestly a decent browser now. It's easily on par with chrome based on features, UX, and privacy issues. It's just a question of who you want to abuse your data: Google or Microsoft.
  
  Firefox is the answer, of course, and it's all I'll use. But when it comes to compatability with websites and zero-issue usability by non-technical users in a work setting, it's hard to beat chromium based browsers.
I didn't think edge could spy on their users more, shows what I know...
How much of that is a workaround to feed client rendered webpages into LLMs and bypass robots.txt etc
- I mean, if you want to go around what the site wants you to do, you can just ignore robots.txt. Or use it to find the juicy stuff the site would rather you didn't.
Sounds like malware to me.
- There has never been a malware as sophisticated as Windows.
"May"?
- It’s schroeder’s telemetry.
  
  Your data will be in a superposition.
  
  Edit: I mean Schrödinger's telemetry.
  
  Schroeder? The piano playing kid from The Peanuts?
Will block it all even if the product was free.

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