On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:22:03 +0100 James Freer jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com allegedly wrote:

I wonder what you'd have written if i said i'd installed Chromium!

<tinfoil beanie hat>

Much the same. Chromium, or any OS which relies primarily on web (or "cloud") based storage and applications, has the same implications for reductions in privacy. Any use model which stores my data (in the broadest possible sense) on someone else's systems, particularly where those systems may be in a country where UK laws on data privacy do not apply, bothers me. When that system is owned by a company which explicitly makes money by aggregation of personal data and whose CEO has the ludicously cavalier attitude towards personal privacy demonstrated by Eric Schmidt (c.f. wonderful remark: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" [1]) I get even more bothered.

Installing Chrome was part of my hunt to find a better browser. I find Firefox 'hangs' after any lengthy browsing... it always seems to have done, i recall switching to Netscape back in about 2004/2005 because it was so bad and hasn't improved much in many ways. Seamonkey seems to have inherited some of that. I started looking for something better and wasn't too impressed by Epiphany which is supposed to be Debian's default browser [i think].

You could try opera. It isn't open source, or truly free in the "freedom" sense, but it is free of cost and it works well under linux. But beware here too of opera's ability to track your usage through its "opera turbo" option. This can be a useful option for speeding web browsing on a slow link, but it does this by pulling the data from opera's own caching proxy service. You pays your money....

It seems google have taken the OS code and made their own - with it perhaps some of their "sinful additions". I thought it was easier to reply by numbering the paragraphs.

1] In my mind is do they really collect data about individuals? One can suspect them of doing such things but why would they do it. They are a business focussed on developing search on the internet. I see no reason to believe they actually do anything with that data other than pursuing that objective. Would they take passwords and look in detail at what individuals access? The security risk is far too high. Someone would have got into the google complex and splashed it across the world by now - google would be dead within a couple of days. I'm sure the google complex security is ten times that of Fort Knox but even so.

Yes they do. In the name of "personalising your experience" they will do all that they can to get as close to you as an individual as is possible. Consider how you are "encouraged" to sign up to google services "for a richer experience". And it matters not at all whether google itself uses that data, the very fact that it has that much data aggregated makes it an attractive target for those of malign intent (or governments armed with warrants).

2] I don't find it ok but... i recognise that for them to provide an excellent service finance has got to come into the picture somehow. The fact that the advertising means that an organisation for a high fee gets pole position on page one of a google search compared with that pays less. BUT if one compares with other search engines it's surprising how much they vary... but then only some of the time. So how are Altavista, Ask.com etc getting funds to pay staff. I haven't done any comparisons for a few years now i admit. I've just used google as i've felt they were more ahead in research than others. Google are very smart i must say... the features they provide for free are excellent - they wouldn't be able to do that without finance somehow. What have i browsed today; Spaceship Galactica, ebay, solid fuel stoves - so what. In summary perhaps it's appropriate to say one should be WARY of google recording visits. But then again one can search 'death camps'... and all these places spring up across a certain country - no one knows why/what purpose they are for [gosh what have i written perhaps i'll get 'neutralised' next week by men in black... google might be studying this email].

Google are not in business for my benefit, they do it to make money. I have no problem with any company making money (it's what makes the western world work (or not, depending upon your perspective) but I do have a problem when their primary mechanism of funding leads them to a position where taking liberties with personal privacy becomes the norm.

I have not found any evidence that google has blocked information or in effect provides contrived searches.>

Ummm proving a negative is difficult. How exactly would you know with any certainty that search results had not been tampered with? And in fact, "tampering" with search results is exactly what google is offering you in the name of "personalised experiences".

(As an aside here, I was intrigued to discover that I cannot now view the onion news article I reference below without "signing in" to youtube. I get the messages:

"The video that you have requested has not had a rating provided by the content owner and may not be appropriate for younger audiences."

and

"To view this video or group, please verify that you are of the appropriate age by signing in or signing up. If you would instead prefer to avoid potentially inappropriate content, consider activating YouTube's Safety Mode."

No google, I will /not/ bloody well sign up just to view a video about you.

See [4] for the image of the page I get. Maybe they are on to me. :-) )

3] You raise an good point here. I had a website that i used to test out some mindmapping. I was chuffed that google had found it... maybe it was from google toolbar - but i also tried a search at school and it found it (no google toolbar used). I merely used google toolbar to stop me deleting my valuable bookmarks when i did a reinstall [but that was a while back and i'm rather better now at backups! I'd remember everything apart from bookmarks]. Google is for finding info and that's what it did - just because there were no links... doesn't necessarily mean that google toolbar was reporting pages - it found them. Since using bookmarks (html stored in home directory) over the last few weeks i must say it's quicker than using google bookmarks via the toolbar so i doubt if i'll be using it again. I should try Chromium... but i've read a load of bugs and yet to see many for Chrome.

With respect, I think you missed a point here. The issue is that google toolbar reports searches to google. Once google has then indexed the pages (if they are not already public) they become available to anyone, regardless of whether that later searcher has the toolbar installed. So your finding the pages from a search at school is not surprising.

No search engine can discover truly "orphaned" web pages unless the engine is pointed to those pages in some way. So google cannot just "find" web pages, they have to have an external link. That is one reason that google toolbar is sneaky.

4] You could well be right. But they want to stop that legislation as it would limit their scope for a search engine. Stuff shouldn't be on the web if it's not to be found and read. I've been surprised at what google's found when i've posted on various forums on topics of gardening, dogs and classic cars.

(Minor correction here. I meant "do not track" not "do not follow", but the issue is the same.)

Implying a motive here is difficult I agree. But consider the track record. I tend to agree with the author of an article in wired [2] when he said "it’s about money that Google stands to lose if users of its browser get an easy way to opt out of its advertising tracking."

Perhaps i'm naive but i think google are very smart and deserve their success. The World watches them but i think they're clean. As for gmail; there are some things that irritate me but AOL and other's nothing like as good. The 'conversations' make list replies very easy, one can set an email client but i find them far too slow for my amount of mail - only one i've found useable is Alpine but for 'conversations' far too slow. Star important emails i don't want to delete and when it comes to 'clearing', search the 'unstarred' and then delete.

Sure, I agree that they are smart. But I don't agree that they are clean.

For an amusing, irreverent, and not entirely unbelievable view of google's attitude to privacy, see the onion news opt out video at [3]

Mick

</tinfoil beanie hat>

Notes

[1] See http://www.osnews.com/story/22603/You_Have_Zero_Privacy_Anyway_--_Get_Over_I...

[2] http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/chrome-do-not-track/2/

[3] Onion News Network on google opt-out http://www.theonion.com/video/google-opt-out-feature-lets-users-protect-priv...

[4] http://rlogin.net/google/google-opt-out.png