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Chromium browsers have been quietly sending user information to Google (www.techspot.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Firefox sends information to Mozilla too.

Oh fucking christ this again.

No, they send general telemetry by default. Which is one toggle to disable. They don't continue to send information back after that point, and certainly not to the same degree that chrome does AFTER you disable it in chrome. So saying "Mozilla too" in the same context of Chrome is stupidly disingenuous.

[+] [email protected] -11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Simply not true. The only way to stop Firefox from phoning home completely is via about:config or a policy template file:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/

You can do the same with Chrome:

https://chromeenterprise.google/policies/

Firefox certainly phones home less by default, especially when opting out through various settings, but not completely. Chrome/Chromium isn't evil either. Chromium sandboxing has long been praised as a more secure browser, hence why GrapheneOS (praised as the most secure phone distro) uses Chromium as their browser and not Firefox. Not saying Firefox is bad either. I actually prefer Firefox in certain scenarios and there is a reason that Tor and Mullvad use Firefox for their browsers too (easier to prevent JS from leaking system info), but Chromium is open source as well and used in things like Electron for Signal.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Simply not true.

No, it is true.

Making connections to mozilla != collecting boatload of telemetry. Every function in that page is to download FULL lists of information. Not specific tracking items. You don't gain a whole lot of telemetry/metadata on someone who downloads a new blocklist. Rather that say someone who checks a specific domain on a blocklist. further, the vast majority of things (virtually all of it) is configurable in toggles. And many options in here don't even send mozilla anything at all (prefetching for example.)

Automatic connections != sending mozilla all your tracking information.

Chrome/Chromium isn’t evil either.

Hiding plugins that give google your hardware information when you visit any google domain without consent is pretty fucking evil.

[+] [email protected] -16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Again Chromium is open source. Chrome is Google's bundled browser that includes API keys and plugins to share information for signing in to Google and syncing data with your Google account. You do not have to enable these, and they can be disabled using policies & flags.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The hidden plugins I'm talking about are BUILT INTO CHROMIUM.

https://community.brave.com/t/hidden-extensions-in-chromium-source/557645

Chromium based browsers (brave as an example linked above) ALSO had them present. It was only due to the new of this being a thing recently that brave (and probably others) made it disable-able (https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/24583 5 days ago).

Screaming "it's open source" means nothing if nobody ever reviewed the code, and disabled the google spyware shit that they put into chromium to begin with. Remember the Chromium is still a google product.

I'd rather just Mozilla... You know... since they didn't try to fuck me out the gate. I can accept "On by default, but we ask you during setup and you can access the setting at anytime" vs "Fuck you, you turned off all the telemetry but can't reach the hidden add-ons we install without recompiling your own browser". The mentality matters. I can trust the former to not screw me a bit more vs the latter rapist mentality.