this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Technology

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Topics essentially works like this: rather than using cookies to track people around the web and figure out their interests from the sites they visit and the apps they use, websites can ask Chrome directly, via its Topics JavaScript API, what sort of things the user is interested in, and then display ads based on that. Chrome picks these topics of interest from studying the user's browser history.

Isn't this completely immoral? They are literally stealing the users private browsing history and uses it to boost their own profits.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (4 children)

So what has to happen for the general population to move away from chrome/chromium?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Vivaldi had stripped out this crap, it's good that Chromium is FOSS, anybody can gut it to their like. Apart the Vivaldi History Page is way different from al other Chromium (Calendar view customizable in several formats, stadistics with graphs, not a simple list) since its first versions..

Vivaldi doesn’t collect your history data. All of this information is strictly private and local to your computer. What you get to see is the kind of data that could be tracked by third parties. Instead of trying to monetize it, we are giving you this data – for your eyes only. With the ability to analyze this information, you can decide if you want to adjust your online behavior or remove certain items from the list.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

...and when browser integrity becomes a thing?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Wich browser integrity? Because of Chromium? Google already tried this years ago to try to control Chromiums with infinite APIs added to the Chromium code, even with discriminatory browsersniffings, which practically all other Chromium Browsers eliminated just as quickly, Vivaldi the first. Windows on Edge anyway (naturally putting its own Spy APIs in place of these). No trackings or logging by Google in Vivaldi (as long as you do not naturally use Google as a search engine). This is why Google is now trying to gain control through its web services and pages that use them with this WEI DRM, which forces all browsers, no matter what engine, be it Chromium, Firefox Gecko or Safari WebKit, to include a "security" Google Token in your script to access these pages or services. This is naturally a huge bummer if not avoided, since then it depends only on Google which browser deserves this Token, which could be the end of all minority browsers, leaving in the end only Chrome itself with full internet access. THAT is the problem, not the browser integrity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

The apocalypse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They won't. Best we can hope for is for them to move to Edge, but I'm not sure if that's any better.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Edge is a chromium browser, too. It has been for some time now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Edge is Chromium but it has been substantially altered. Brave and Vivaldi are much closer to Chromium than Edge is, and that's not a compliment to Edge.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Edge is chromium though?