There's a saying about drinking that I've known all my life, and it goes something like this: "How do you get rid of your hangover?" “Drinking more”, or avoiding stopping drinking. He came to mind when reading a new about the last attempt Google for continuing to spy on us. Right now cookies are used, but work is being done to eliminate them. Without them, how do they show us personalized advertising? And without that advertising, how do companies like the aforementioned Google, Facebook or Amazon make money?
Let no one doubt it. When they try to fix something like this cookie thing, the result will not be better for users. It may be less annoying, but we will lose. Google has had several ideas to replace the current cookies, two of them being FLoC and Topics. After criticism, the company backs down and tries another way. What he proposes now is nothing more and nothing less than snoop on our browsing history. There is nothing.
Google intends to look at our browsing history
The company Sundar Pichai runs says Chrome 115 includes improved privacy, and I'll say that in English because it sounds softer, "my ass." This version of the browser has come with a function that It's called "Enhanced Ad Privacy", which translates into Spanish as "enhanced ad privacy", but in reality it is the opposite.
If active, a website such as Amazon can snoop on our browsing history, see what interests us and show us items we might end up buying. The detail here is that you have access to our history. That we have searched for something on a topic that worries us that it could be a disease? He will know that we (probably) are sick and from what. What, I don't know, are we looking for dating services/apps? You will know that we are alone. What are we looking for small clothes? He will know that we are going or considering being parents. These are examples that have come to mind to make one thing clear: they will know everything about us from what we have visited.
Apple and Mozilla are against
Apple and Mozilla have already said they will not implement anything like this, Vivaldi has flatly refused to use Google Topics and Brave three quarters of the same. Right now it only seems to be available in Chrome, and in my humble opinion, if other browsers don't join, it will be something that will end up being forgotten as well.
I have installed Chrome in a virtual machine to see if it appeared, but I have not seen it. In theory it's on the menu Settings/Privacy and Security/Ad Privacy. Once there we can activate/deactivate Ad Topics, which are relevant topics for us; Ads suggested by sites, which is what allows websites to see our browsing habits (they can store them for 30 days); and Ad Measurement: which are statistics for websites.
And worst of all is that is enabled by default. Since most users are not up to date with the latest news, Google and any other service would have an open bar.
It's still funny that They sell us as privacy something that is actually the opposite. That is why I have put in the header a screenshot from the movie “Mars Attack”, when the aliens are destroying everything and everyone and one of them uses the translator to say “Don't run away, we are your friends” (video on ViewTube).
Better Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi… or any other
For a long time, when I talk to someone I know about browsers, I recommend them don't use chrome. I also don't recommend Vivaldi because it's for advanced users, but if you want something similar to Chrome that isn't from Google, I do tell them to move to Brave. It's almost the same, but removing all the bad. a bit like him ungoogled-chromium, but with better support and that allows you to synchronize with a Brave account, among other things.
It remains to be seen whether the idea catches on and goes ahead or not. Cookies' days are numbered, although I think we will end up missing them.
The day I see ads in Chrome has yet to come, as I use ad blockers. I don't care what they do with Chrome, I will continue using it because it is by far the best of all and it is precisely because of its exhaustive spying. I am delighted that Google is spying on me in exchange for the great products it offers me. I use Google maps every day, for many years, to work and that is by far the best thing there is, as well as all the rest of their products, which are truly wonderful and always work like a precision watch and all that. free, noooo, wait..., what is it, I am the product, oh my god. People like to get paid at the end of the month, right? Well, the mega staff that Google has, it turns out, too, look where you are and for that they have to spy on you up to your eyeballs and make money from you and thanks to that they People get paid, what things right? Worse is Apple, which does exactly the same as Google, except that you pay a fortune for its products. Google, all its espionage is indicated in the conditions, another thing is that no one reads it and then they talk without knowing and by the way your beloved Vivaldi and Brave, if it weren't for Google, they wouldn't even exist, so...
Vivaldi is not for advanced users, anyone installs it and navigates with it, just like that, I don't see what's so advanced about that.
The only thing that differentiates Vivaldi from the others is that Vivaldi brings many configuration options, but that does not require any advance, you just want to waste time looking at its super extensive configuration options, that's it, just that. It is exactly a Kde, as is, do you have to be an advanced user to use Kde? Maybe not. Like Vivaldi, it has super extensive configuration sections, if you want you can use them and if you don't want you can't, but you can use the desktop without problems, just like Vivaldi. All of this does not require being an advanced user at all.