[HN Gopher] No Google Topics in Vivaldi
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No Google Topics in Vivaldi
Author : CynicusRex
Score : 96 points
Date : 2023-09-09 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vivaldi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (vivaldi.com)
| opera-throw wrote:
| I worked at Opera for a long time before it went Chinese, most of
| the time with Jon as CEO.
|
| Best as I can tell: Jon von Tetzchner always had one primary goal
| - to become an industry titan, primarily like Bill Gates.
|
| He founded Vivaldi after he was was thrown out by Opera's board
| in 2010.
|
| I don't have any insight into why that happened, but I do know
| that at that time he was a terrible leader who simply wasn't able
| to prioritize and scope at all. Exactly anything that was "good"
| had the highest priority.
|
| For the sake of his employees at Vivaldi, I really do hope that
| he has gone through some personal developments since then.
|
| He did have a bunch of positive traits too. Can't tell in detail
| without exposing myself though.
| [deleted]
| tedunangst wrote:
| Seems like a weird choice to build your entire product on such a
| hostile underlying.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Also another reason to run a network wide ad blocker like AdGuard
| or pihole. Even if this tracking works it's way through the ads
| will be useless if they don't make it inside your network.
| j0ba wrote:
| Have been using Vivaldi for a couple years now, and am mostly
| happy with it. It performs well with many tabs open, and is
| insanely configurable. It feels a little bit like the old Mozilla
| browser before Firefox, cuz it's got the kitchen sink, but the
| configurability allows you to pare it down. Great to see they
| take privacy seriously also.
| baxuz wrote:
| There's a simple option to disable this in Chrome:
|
| chrome://settings/adPrivacy/interests
| JadeNB wrote:
| > There's a simple option to disable this in Chrome:
|
| > chrome://settings/adPrivacy/interests
|
| And eventually there'll be another setting in another location,
| and then it'll start accidentally forgetting your settings
| between versions, and then it'll start prompting you on start-
| up to make sure you really want a degraded browsing experience
| .... We know where this leads.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Defaults matter. I don't want to babysit the preference
| settings of my browser just to have my privacy preserved. I
| have other things to think of.
|
| That is why on my personal computers I do not use Google Chrome
| and for many years I haven't.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Sure, for now.
|
| Who knows what a future update brings; either enabling it
| silently, changing the disabling flow, or even removing the
| option to disable altogether.
| bugfix wrote:
| How long until big websites start implementing feature detection
| to block browsers without this API?
| someNameIG wrote:
| I doubt websites would want to block all Safari users, there's
| too many given iOS.
| LispSporks22 wrote:
| If only these web sites could get some kind guarantee from the
| user's browser that the browser will show ads and the user's
| eye balls will see them... some kind of "web integrity" if you
| will...
| 123yawaworht456 wrote:
| people who care about this kind of thing will simply cease to
| use those websites.
|
| I have never clicked on facebook/instagram links because of
| their login walls, I have ceased to click on twitter links
| since they've implemented theirs, I will do the same even with
| youtube when it inevitably follows the same path.
|
| ultimately, I understand why we don't matter to them, so I
| don't really mind.
| ithkuil wrote:
| What stops a browser implementing the API but feeding made up
| information through it?
| Groxx wrote:
| Nothing.
|
| Until Web Environment Integrity lands too.
|
| (afaik there's no FloC attestation, but I'm not 100%
| confident about that)
| janc_ wrote:
| unfortunately, both blocking the API, or faking it, will be
| abused to track users, unless a significant number of users
| do it in the same way...
| ithkuil wrote:
| Because a tracker could detect that your topic of interest
| are fake? How would they know?
| janc_ wrote:
| Depends, but either the topics never changing, or them
| changing too randomly, could all be detected when
| combined with other tracking, and become part of your
| identity as such...
| majormajor wrote:
| If they're relatively unique they can just track you
| across sites and use your browsing history instead.
| sltkr wrote:
| Simple. If the Topics API is disabled, then you are a
| nerd who spends too much time on sites like Hacker News,
| and they can show you ads accordingly.
| peddling-brink wrote:
| I imagine a browser extension could do that.
| denverllc wrote:
| Luckily many websites won't need to, since I'm sure Cloudflare
| will offer disabling Google topics as a sign you're a bot. (I
| say this after getting stuck on a Cloudflare "are you a bot?"
| loop that I couldn't get out of and that prevented me from
| getting to my site.)
|
| Of course, the actual bots will just enable topics and fill it
| with random data, and only the privacy conscious will be
| negatively affected.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| How many projects do browser detection and block everything
| that isn't Chrome? A tiny fraction of websites do that.
|
| It's absolutely a concern, just as sites relying on WEI is a
| concern. But it seems unlikely that sites will intentionally
| choose to exclude a non-trivial portion of their visitors.
|
| If you want to make it even _less_ likely, though, this is a
| great time to switch to Firefox (for its independence, as a
| browser not based on the Chrome engine at all).
| afavour wrote:
| Eh. You can already detect ad blockers and the vast majority of
| sites don't bother to do so. I'd be surprised if this was much
| different.
| snailmailman wrote:
| More and more sites _are_ detecting and blocking adblockers.
| I've encountered so many articles on my phone recently that
| are completely unreadable. I click a link from mastodon or
| reddit or wherever and all I get is a full page unskipable
| "disable your Adblock to continue" message. And then I click
| back, and scroll past. Never getting to read past the
| headline
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| I'm surprised how many sites now have "you seem to be using
| an ad blocker" popups. Many of them still let you see the
| content after clicking away a nag, but it's only a step away
| from fully disabling. (uBlock Origin does a good job hiding
| these so I mostly don't notice it; but with NextDNS as an ad
| blocker it's a big problem.)
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| I'm disappointed by the tech community's acceptance of privacy
| invasions, and it's denial of the long-term corrosive societal
| effects of the surveillance economy. I'm not surprised however.
| Quoting Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to
| understand something, when his salary depends on his not
| understanding it."
| skybrian wrote:
| I'm disappointed (though not surprised) by people condemning
| things without trying them. You can turn this feature on, wait
| a week, and see what Ad Topics it finds. I've done that and in
| my case it's entirely harmless: * Arts &
| entertainment * Computers & electronics *
| Internet & telecom * News * Online communities
|
| It seems better than whatever nonsense third-party cookies are
| doing? Maybe it's different for someone else, but I'll get
| concerned when someone actually reports a problem.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| 3rd party tracking cookies are highly limited in the access
| they have. And they can easily be blocked using readily
| available 3rd party extensions or by clearing your browser of
| cookies.
|
| This is tracking that's baked right into the browser. There
| is very little limit to what data it can use to generate
| whatever information it does, and it follows you across the
| internet for perpetuity. It's also a first party
| implementation so you're completely beholden to Google's
| decision to do what they want with it, and considering the IE
| like chokehold Chromium has on internet browsing, most people
| will be subject to whatever Google decides to do.
|
| Finally, your steps only tell me what Google is telling
| others. It tells me nothing about what data the browser
| itself might be collecting and passing onto Google.
|
| There is a substantial qualitative difference between a 3rd
| party tool that can easily be blocked by the first party
| vendor (the browser) and or modifications to it using
| extensions, and a first party tool doing the tracking itself.
| jsnell wrote:
| Topics is going to be far easier to block with an
| extension, or to have an extension provide fake data for,
| than 3rd party cookies ever were.
|
| Blocking 3rd party cookies always had a big risk of
| breaking stuff, since they could be used for legitimate
| purposes too, not just ad tracking and have built up a
| couple of decades worth of those legacy use cases. Topics
| is a tightly constrained single-purpose feature. Nothing
| will break when it's turned off or blocked.
|
| But also, it's not like there's much reason to use an
| extension to block Topics, given it's an opt-in feature
| (unlike 3p cookies which were opt-out) and can be turned
| off at any time from the settings faster than installing an
| extension would be.
|
| > Finally, your steps only tell me what Google is telling
| others. It tells me nothing about what data the browser
| itself might be collecting and passing onto Google.
|
| That's totally independent of Topics though.
| gaganyaan wrote:
| a) coarse grained tracking is still tracking, and you're
| revealing more bits than you might think, here's a good
| example with current tracking:
| https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
|
| b) this is just the tip of the camel's nose. Expect the tent
| to be crowded soon if the topics api gets pushed through
|
| c) third party cookies are dying on their own, thankfully.
| It's not a binary choice, we can reject both the old bad
| technology and the new bad technology
| klabb3 wrote:
| > b) this is just the tip of the camel's nose. Expect the
| tent to be crowded soon if the topics api gets pushed
| through
|
| This. Obviously Google know it's controversial and rolls it
| out in the most innocent way possible. This is always the
| playbook for unpopular changes. The short term goal is
| clearly to get the infrastructure to be accepted. That's
| how I'd do it, after thinking about for 10 seconds.
| Spivak wrote:
| I guess but it's entirely client side, if it ever becomes
| too much or you just don't want it to start with you just
| seed it with static topics and call it a day. It's so so
| so much better than FLoC.
| skybrian wrote:
| Most of the time I don't mind revealing a few bits. I'm
| _logging in_ to many sites anyway (including Hacker News),
| and revealing a lot more bits in things like my profile and
| all the comments I posted here over the years.
|
| Opsec isn't an issue because I'm not on some sort of
| mission. When I want to browse privately I'll do it a
| different way.
|
| We don't know what the future will bring, but if it starts
| to look iffy, I can turn it off or switch to a different
| browser later.
| ianai wrote:
| Not everybody is you and you don't get to speak for
| everybody.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Who wants to be manipulated into buying things they don't
| need? Why would I trust an advertisement to show me what is
| the best product vs doing my own research?
|
| How do we curtail global warming and consumption while still
| allowing advertising to steal our attention?
| skybrian wrote:
| I understand my buying habits and it's not a problem.
| Getting a slightly different variety of ads isn't going to
| trick me into buying something I didn't choose to buy.
|
| (Ads may be a problem for the easily manipulated, but I
| think TV and direct mail are a lot worse for the elderly.)
| II2II wrote:
| An advertiser who leaves the consumer feeling as though
| they are ceding their autonomy is unlikely to be
| successful. If I were you, I would be very concerned by
| suggesting that this is only a problem for the easily
| manipulated.
| [deleted]
| gabeio wrote:
| > It seems better than whatever nonsense third-party cookies
| are doing?
|
| Better than? As in replacing? I honestly highly doubt that
| will ever happen, this is just additional. Advertisement &
| tracking have become the single most dangerous device to
| target specific users with malware, and this just adds more
| layers of assurance that you've found your target.
| conradev wrote:
| "Google is still aiming to ... turn off third-party cookies
| for 1 percent of Chrome users sometime in Q1 2024. The
| company has set a goal to completely turn off third-party
| cookies by Q3 2024."
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/20/23801435/google-chrome-
| pr...
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Even disregarding everything else that's wrong about this...
| it's a completely false dichotomy. We can ban third-party
| cookies without allowing a replacement.
| afavour wrote:
| It is better than third party cookies but other browsers are
| simply removing third party cookies. This approach is clearly
| less preferable for anyone that cares about privacy.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| I consider functionality like this finding any "topic" at all
| to be a violation of my privacy.
|
| I don't need to actually try something like this to know that
| I don't want my privacy to be violated by it.
| xmonkee wrote:
| What a strange take. Why does it matter what it found? Why
| are you okay with any tracking whatsoever as a user?
| Astronaut3315 wrote:
| I'd only opt in to sharing that data if I can manually set it
| to be completely incorrect.
| jiofj wrote:
| What tech community's acceptance of privacy invasions? I have
| yet to hear someone say something positive about floc, lol
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| vivaldi android is currently my preferred browser.
|
| firefox on the linux desktop.
|
| These guys simply rock.
| mabbo wrote:
| What's going to be interesting is the day that websites start to
| block users _not_ providing data from this Topics API.
|
| "We need to make money to operate this service and we can't
| support users who won't help us do that", or something to that
| effect.
|
| I give it six months.
| malermeister wrote:
| And that's where the GDPR comes in to save the day.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean it's all client side so just pick some generic topic you
| would find entertaining to see ads from and have an extension
| only ever serve that.
| malermeister wrote:
| That's effectively the same as their spyware telling them
| what you would find entertaining. The point is not needing to
| tell.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Not at all. You're disabling the tracking and data
| aggregation elements in lieu of a static option which may
| or may not be accurate.
| bastard_op wrote:
| Chrome is the new Internet Explorer, hell even Microsoft threw in
| behind it, they like spyware-ish telemetry, so why not. What is
| sad is more and more common websites simply don't work in Firefox
| anymore (chase.com), so it's literally back to the days of
| running in IE6 or nothing, but Chrome is now that pestilence.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Chase will give you a scare dialogue if you try logging in with
| Firefox.
|
| But all they're doing is user-agent parsing.
|
| Just lie about your user agent (using an extension) and chase
| will let you login, their site works fine with Firefox.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| IIRC you can use the general.useragent.override flag to do
| the same thing without an extension.
| andersrs wrote:
| It seems to me Safari is the new IE6. It has so many bugs
| compared to every other browser.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I recently was asked to evaluate a 3rd party package for
| possible use. With Firefox my default browser (I don't even
| have Chrome installed), I tried running their demo of the
| software but immediately received an alert like notification
| that it will not work at all with Firefox. And that's the end
| of evaluating that package. Next?
|
| Spoke directly to the devs, and they are aware of the one
| specific method which nullifies Firefox's use. They are working
| to eliminate the use of that one method, so at least they are
| not complacent with just accepting Chrome or bust.
| andwomggazzz662 wrote:
| How much you wanna bet "that one specific method" winds up
| being one of Chromes adware tools.
|
| Unless this is a very low level package, I find it hard to
| believe it just doesn't work with Firefox in 2023, at least
| if we are referring to the basic browser APIs for rendering,
| interpreting, sandboxing, etc.
|
| In other words, if they aren't doing something systems level
| that exposes significant differences in the underlying
| browser APIs, then what's the cause of the issue?
|
| Most application level differences (with the exception of the
| adware) are very very minor. That didn't used to be the case,
| but it certainly is today. I.e. you would have to put some
| effort in/intentionality is usually required to break
| something in Chrome but not Firefox and vice versa as a
| standard user program. Its not recommended, but I rarely see
| front end folks doing the same kind of browser tests that
| used to be industry standard these days, because it simply
| isn't an issue and if it is, it's because you are knowingly
| using a non-standard feature (which is usually adware
| related). The fact that they figured out the cause so quickly
| implies it's something like that. Systems level issues would
| require significant time to investigate and probably the
| involvement of experts in modern browser implementations.
|
| Just my two cents as an ex front end guy.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > What is sad is more and more common websites simply don't
| work in Firefox anymore (chase.com), so it's literally back to
| the days of running in IE6 or nothing, but Chrome is now that
| pestilence.
|
| I am used to accessing my Chase bank account through Firefox. I
| just checked, and I am still able to log in fine, including
| with a variety of privacy-enhancing extensions that break many
| other sites. What problems do you encounter?
| Astronaut3315 wrote:
| I also have no issues with Chase, and exclusively use their
| website in Firefox.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Their ultimate rewards side was broken for a bit last year,
| only in Firefox. But I also have had no other issues
| recently.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| Same here. It stops working if I turn off referer, which is
| understandable, but works if I turn it back on.
| kernal wrote:
| I find it comical that people keep recommending Firefox around
| here. This is the same company that has the following turned on
| by default:
|
| Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla
|
| Allow Firefox to make personalized extension recommendations
|
| Allow Firefox to install and run studies
|
| Allow Firefox to send backlogged crash reports on your behalf
|
| But, let's give them a pass because they're not based on
| Chromium.
| Humboldtsnee wrote:
| [dead]
| stareatgoats wrote:
| So there, another reason I'm liking Vivaldi more and more.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| It wasn't on my radar until this post. Just downloaded it.
| jraph wrote:
| How convenient. Vivaldi relies on Google building Chrome using
| some of the money they make thanks to their dark patterns. They
| can just take Chrome when it's built and disable the dark
| patterns.
|
| But by further spreading Blink, they are part of the issue.
|
| Disabling Topics is nice for their users. In the short term at
| least. And they should, of course. They have nothing to gain from
| leaving this misfeature enabled.
|
| But Vivaldi: we don't need you to help Google in their browser
| dominance. This browser dominance is exactly why Google can pull
| such a feature out from their ass in the first place.
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(page generated 2023-09-09 23:00 UTC)