Google Chrome now targets ads based on your browser history, here's how to turn that off - eviltoast

Google is gradually introducing a new method for delivering targeted ads in Chrome that aims to bypass the controversy surrounding cookies by using browsing history instead. This…

      • Engywuck@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        Bad advice. Donations to Mozilla go to the Foundation to fulfill it’s ‘mission’, whatever it is, whereas FF development is done by Mozilla Corp. which can’t legally take donations. Don’t waste your money.

          • Engywuck@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            13
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I’m not overthinking. It is what it is. You can’t donate directly to impulse FF development. But you may buy subscriptions to Pocket/Relay or Mozilla VPN.

            That said, I frankly don’t know what Mozilla is up these days, nor I am interested in their survival. As far as I am concerned, they could disappear today and my life wouldn’t change a single bit. I’d prefer to donate money to really useful ORGs on the likes of archive, wikipedia, OSM, Arch Linux, EFF and so on. Today’s Mozilla is just a cash-grab mismanaged scam.

            https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla

            • mattreb@feddit.it
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              7
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I get it about the corporation issues but do you even dislike firefox? Do you think it would be positive to have one less alternative to chrome? What browser do you use?

              • Engywuck@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                14
                ·
                1 year ago
                1. Yes, I dislike it.
                2. I have been using FF for almost 20 years. Left it in 2021. The crappy redesign has been the last straw for me, after few years of seriuos UX/UI decline. And no, I’m not going to waste my time unfucking it using about:config or CSS.
                3. I use Brave and pretty like it. I don’t care what people may think of it or its CEO. It’s a fine browser and the community is way less toxic than Mozilla’s one. I’ll keep using it.
                4. I don’t care (anymore) if Firefox lives or die (it’s doomed anyway, thanks to Mozilla).
                • clubb@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  8
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  You, sir have no idea how lazy you are. You are helping Google. Firefox is the only mainstream alternative that isn’t just chromium.

    • mattreb@feddit.it
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      On desktop, I’m really wondering why people use it. I mean it’s not pre-installed for windows, what makes people choose Chrome in 2023?

      • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        1 year ago

        To people who don’t know any better it’s become synonymous with “the internet”, much like Internet Explorer in its heyday.

        Also, websites saying that they only work with Chrome is a pretty big deal.

        • odium@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          1 year ago

          My apartment’s website landing page shows a message that you can only access the website from chrome and safari. However, if you go to any sub url, like mainurl.com/login, it works perfectly fine on Firefox.

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            25
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Same. I get an “access this site on Chrome instead” pop up every time I clock into work. I can just click through it and Firefox works just fine. But the site is hard coded to give that pop up to anyone not using chrome, even though Firefox works just fine.

            I eventually got tired of it, and just used uBlock Origin’s picker tool to delete it.

          • octobob@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            1 year ago

            I am lol’ing at all the messages freaking out about my browser on most websites when I use Internet Explorer on the shop computer that still runs windows 7 and is slow as shit. It’s one of those garbo “all-in-one” desktop screen things which is basically just laptop parts from like 2008 crammed in a monitor

      • Godort@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        I use chrome for all my work-related web apps simply because it’s more reliable(the app devs fault for not testing anything else)

        However I’m also not super worried. My chrome browsing is entirely related to the work I do and all my personal web stuff is done in Firefox.

      • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        There are some web apps that only support chrome on windows (or chrome and edge). An app from my doctor’s office refused to run on FF for a while. Thankfully it now has a “try running on unsupported browser “ link so I’m not blocked. (Let’s not get into why I’m running windows)

        • aeternum@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          chances are high that it will work perfectly fine on firefox. If you come across that again, try changing your user agent string to chrome.

        • doubletandard@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          you can use agent switcher from firefox add-on and change your agent to chrome browser or whatever you like.

      • AnonTwo@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Google search engine

        “Hey! Install Chrome!”

        Even with Edge, google is synonymous with web searching for most people.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s not what I wanted. It’s microsoft did a chromium because of course they felt the need to. It adds nothing positive, and they built bad associations by doing a massive ad campaign on it even in windows and by having me associate it with me attempting to search my computer for something only to accidentally wind up in a web search in a browser that isn’t my default firefox.

            So is it really that bad? I don’t know but I can’t imagine it’s better than chrome and while I may hate google lately, they still have more of my goodwill than Microsoft does. Chrome at least feels like it has a reason to exist

          • athaki@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            I use it for most of my work browsing since it integrates with SSO with windows azure AD which is nice. It’s not particularly great, and microsoft has added a lot of features that I don’t find add any value, but it gets the job done.

          • fox2263@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Better than Chrome, faster and uses less resources. Has a couple of extra features that are annoying and can be turned off. Mostly fine, I prefer Arc on macOS though.

        • brsrklf@jlai.lu
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Edge has its annoying quirks, but it’s a world better than anything IE and it’s mostly OK. I wouldn’t use it on anything that’s mine, but for work where it’s set as default browser it does the job (until I have to check something on Firefox).

          Bing is still utter shite though. Bing for enterprise has that AI result crap taking a full screen and a half before the real search results start, and if you misclick anywhere it’ll get right back to the AI results at the top, most of them being not even close to your query.

      • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        My job uses Google for everything - their office suite and Classroom. I’ve got Chrome on my computer just for work.

  • s20@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    102
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Here’s how to turn that off:

    1. Uninstall Google Chrome
    2. Install Firefox, Ungoogled Chromium, or, heck, Vivaldi
    3. Stop trusting Google

    There we go, problem solved.

    • lustrum@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Remember when websites were tracking us across websites like the Facebook pixel.

      Now Google just like we ain’t need that.

  • LetterboxPancake@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    here’s how to turn that off

    … use Firefox? How are we still talking about chrome here?

    Edit: yes I know many still use Chrome. That’s exactly the problem. Google does shady shit, people shrug it off because insert whatever reason. Google likes that and plans the next shady shit. Rinse, repeat.

      • Pofski@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Is there any good way to get Firefox on my nvidia shield? Current version has a huge banner at the top that doesn’t go away.

  • Koffiato@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    1 year ago

    Best solution: Stop using Chrome.

    It’s not the fastest nor the most feature rich anymore, not even the simplest.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    To all the “use Firefox” people, my work website requires Chrome, so I appreciate this OP.

    • RandomVideos@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      If it blocks you from opening the page if you use firefox, there is a firefox extension(agent switcher) to trick the website into thinking you are using a different OS or browser

      If it doesnt work, you can use ungoogled chromium or chromium

      Edit: if neither work, you can try to use the user agent switcher extension on chromium

      • Vardøgor@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        nope. thought so too until i had to install chrome in the middle of a meeting.

        Also it’s not a website then.

        ?

        • kono_throwaway_da@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          A website should be universal and not dependent on what browser you are using. I say that but we are all suffering from Chromeitis just like Internet Exploreritis in the 2000s…

          Web devs never learn.

        • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Because what would be the practical difference between this “website” and Android app if Android base was available on others systems?

          Both are dependent on specific runtime, both are API based, with special way to do persistant storage (usually not for user to view), both have restrictive permission system, both isolate apps from each other… The only difference is Chrome does not have centralized app store and still has compatibility with regular websites.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        12
        ·
        1 year ago

        You can call it whatever you want, I need it for work. Also, Safari is Chromium and the site doesn’t work in Safari either. Whatever the Indian coders they contracted to make it did it in some way that only Chrome works.

        But if you don’t want me to thank OP, fine. I withdraw my thanks.

        • tb_@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          1 year ago

          Safari uses Apple’s own WebKit. Firefox uses Gecko. Besically every other browser uses Chromium.

        • Cyberflunk@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Chromium is a fork of webkit Edge is now a fork of chromium Gecko/quantum do their own thing.

          Aside from some edge cases in Linux land, those are the engines.

  • phorq@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t remember chrome ever looking like that with that button on the top left, did they really use a picture of Firefox with a custom theme for their article about Chrome?

  • Dem-Bo Sain@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    It sounds like Google could have done a much better job announcing and explaining how the new system works. This is a definite improvement in privacy over the “cookie” standard in advertising. I don’t know if turning this off just keeps you locked-in to using cookies, but it doesn’t turn off identification like a lot of you seem to imply.

    To those of you out there not using an adblocker: this new system eliminates the use of advertiser-based cookies. All your identification is based on a minimal number of categories based on your browsing history. It doesn’t send your actual history to an advertiser, just some (5, I think?) topics that have held your interest within the last few weeks. I’m sure there’s a list of these keywords sent to the ad-server so it can decide what to send. I don’t really care what they are, because I’m in the next group.

    To those of you out there using Firefox and/or an adblocker: carry on, nothing to see here. Keep promoting your favorite non-Chrome based browser and adblocker.