| ▲ | lucb1e 5 days ago |
| Does nobody find this intrusive when it appears on sites like pornhub? Of all places where I'd sign in with a Google account... holy heck, I was very surprised they chose to let Google do that nearly-fullscreen popup on their site upon every visit (since you visit in private tab, it's a fresh session every time) Even on reddit it annoys the heck out of me and I was very surprised they let this third party ruin the experience (when they don't even do it as first party). What if they all start doing it, facebook and github and the lot, you need to click away four banners? But maybe not enough people have privacy extensions installed and reddit can just track them forever and thus store a one-time dismissal. Anyone here in the know whether this doesn't show a measurable drop in returning users? |
|
| ▲ | motorest 5 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Does nobody find this intrusive when it appears on sites like pornhub? It's extremely intrusive, regardless of which site it shows up. It's a reminder that the likes of Google are collecting all the personal information they can get from you, and building up a personal profile that covers all aspects of your life, not only your online presence. |
|
| ▲ | StrandedKitty 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There's a big upside to Google One Tap. It makes users sign up for your product like crazy. I recently added it to a SaaS web app I'm working on, and the number of new sign ups went up 8x overnight. You don't necessarily have to create an account to use the minimal functionalty of our app, but after signing up you do get some perks, and we get a way to communicate with the user through email. So I think it can be beneficial for both parties. |
| |
| ▲ | Sophira 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You're assuming that the user actually wants to sign up. In reality, it's likely that they're just clicking "Continue" in order to get rid of the dialog and couldn't care less about a signup. | | |
| ▲ | IshKebab 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Users want to use the site and don't care whether or not they are signed up. They do care about going through tedious registration forms and email verification codes. That's why sign-ups go up so much - users know they won't have to deal with the registration tedium. | | |
| ▲ | al_borland 4 days ago | parent [-] | | They trade that for the tedium of dealing with being automatically added to email lists for sites they don’t even remember signing up for and only used one time. All the spam email is why I’m very picky where I choose to register. | | |
| ▲ | scarface_74 4 days ago | parent [-] | | That’s why I register to sites with Apple using Hide my Email and I can just disable forwarding for the one burner email that spam is coming from. | | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I've encountered more than a few places that block temp emails like 10minutemail etc. It's so infuriating. | | |
| ▲ | no_wizard 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | They have yet to block the Apple email relay. Granted, I haven't used it or tested it on every site. That said, Apple has one advantage other filters don't have, which is people who own Apple devices tend to be desirable to very desirable customers, which means adding friction to this would drive away higher average spenders. I also use the fastmail.com masked email address for things, and that has not yet been an issue either. | | |
| ▲ | scarface_74 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | And if you have an app in the AppStore and you allow third party sign ups through Google, Facebook, etc. You must allow “sign in with Apple”. There is absolutely no app or service that I would use thst forces me to sign in with Google and doesn’t give me a choice to Sign in with Apple and let me Hide My Email. | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >fastmail.com masked email I've encountered one site that didn't accept a Fastmail address. I don't know what they expect me to do - I'm not making a Google or Microsoft account just to register on your dumbass website. |
| |
| ▲ | imagetic 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Same. Pretty sure Meta was the first to get mad at me for it. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | CalRobert 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In fairness, they never said they thought the user signups were intentional.. | | |
| ▲ | rvnx 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Behind it, add one-click Stripe “free trial” and you boosted your revenues at zero cost. Maybe even call this button “Accept all”, like these cookie banners |
| |
| ▲ | tonyhart7 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | it still ads up in metric yooo, who tf didnt like when the metric numbers goes up???? also you must understand, most people are dumb as shit
if you not showing it to the face, then prolly would not notice that's why big tech not listening to HN user base because they know that its hard to fool nerd | |
| ▲ | bayindirh 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | But the number goes up, the line goes up. VCs like that, it's growth!!! P.S.: This is obvious irony, I don't support this DataGrab(TM), fyi. |
| |
| ▲ | BLKNSLVR 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Big upside to the provider, not necessarily the consumer. Perplexity has a "sign in with Google" pop up that loads late, often when I've already started typing in my query, and thus blocks the rest of my typing, negatively affecting the UX of the service. So I looked up how to get the fuck rid of it and added that method to uBlock Origin, and now I'm a happy (freeloading) chappy. | | |
| ▲ | ehnto 5 days ago | parent [-] | | The delayed focus capture is the most annoying part. I'll be in the middle of typing or scrolling with the keyboard when it steals focus. I type pretty fast, so sometimes I've punched in a bunch of text before realising it all vanished into the popups frame. Since shifting to firefox it's not a big deal as I have more control, vimium can stop focus being stolen and ublock can block the in web versions of the popups. Which if Googlers are reading, I made the swap after a decade of Chrome use because of your continued anti-user, anti-privacy stewardship of the product. Your trajectory is obvious. I hope the products leadership gets the message some day, but I suspect it's financially working out just fine. |
| |
| ▲ | skydhash 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Do they pay for anything? I'm all for reducing login friction. But that popup is like people that accost you in the street trying to enlist you into their cult. | |
| ▲ | sneak 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | …until the user loses access to their Google account with no recourse and you have no secondary way to authenticate them. | | |
| ▲ | skybrian 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Also true if I use my gmail address. I'll confess that for many websites I don't care that much. Depending on a password manager would be better, though. Semi-related anecdote: I lost my Reddit account to a cryptocurrency spammer due to a weak password and had to create another, so I lost my preferred username. Annoying but not a huge deal. (Reddit did freeze the old account but wouldn't give it back.) | | |
| ▲ | bravesoul2 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No. You just cant password reset if you lose access to email. You can still log in. | | |
| ▲ | JambalayaJimbo 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The email is ultimately the second factor that lets you make important changes to the account in many cases. For example, changing your password. It's more important than the password in nearly every security critical account I have. | |
| ▲ | joecool1029 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is not always the case. Reddit sometimes locks the account until you verify it or reset the password by email. Happened with my email pointed at a .tk domain and I had to call freenom a bunch to get the domain back. | | |
| ▲ | reddalo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | >Reddit sometimes locks the account until you verify it or reset the password by email. I still remember when you could create Reddit accounts without an email... | | |
|
| |
| ▲ | layer8 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That’s why you shouldn’t be using a Gmail address, and instead have your own domain for email. |
| |
| ▲ | tomschwiha 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I personally have my personal email as Google account email, so even when I lose my access to google I am still in control of my domain (and email). | | |
| ▲ | edoceo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | And still couldn't sign-in-with-google. On an email linked that way, so no password recovery. Would likely be a new account - with bonus "that address is already in use" problem. | | |
| ▲ | tomschwiha 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree, there may be an additional step necessary if the page doesn't handle this case already, but this way you can still prove (more easily) ownership to the support. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | forkerenok 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > the number of new sign ups went up 8x overnight. What's the number if you adjust for quality of signups? E.g. how many people convert and how many people stay on and convert later. | |
| ▲ | buzzerbetrayed 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Beneficial to both parties Ah yes, because who doesn’t want more emails from a sites they’ve visited one time | |
| ▲ | immibis 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're both right. If an account on your service is completely meaningless, I'd rather press one button than type my email, choose a password and go through a stupid email confirmation workflow. Also, it's very annoying that you need an account at all. | |
| ▲ | tsoukase 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Last month I subscribed to DAZN TV through Google in order to watch a FIFA world football semifinal match. I deleted the third party allowance a week later. The final was free globally. | |
| ▲ | qwertox 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > So I think it can be beneficial for both parties. No. Because those who don't want to sign up do get bothered by that popup which also reminds them of the fact that Google just tracked that visit and wants you to use Google to sign up on that page. The chuzpe it takes to do that, from part of the website owner and Google... | |
| ▲ | meindnoch 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >and we get a way to communicate with the user through email. Don't call your spam "communication". | |
| ▲ | 38 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
|
|
| ▲ | socalgal2 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I would never visit a site like pornhub in a profile that I was logged in to anything other than similar sites. note: I'm not excusing the feature but come on! Have some common sense before visiting a site like that? The place I hate the popup the most is mobile. It comes up moments (0.5 to 2 seconds) after the site loads (say tripadvisor) which means it's possible accept it by accident as it appears under your finger. Your info is immediately shared so there is no way to recover. You're effed. I means sure, I hate it on desktop too, but on mobile it's directly on top of the content and so more likely to be accepted by accident. IIRC you can turn this off in your Google account (or maybe only Google Workspace?) Note that I hate it for other reasons too. There's no reason Apple/Firefox/Microsoft/Meta and any other major id providers couldn't offer this too. But if they did, then you'd see 5 of these show up [Sign in with Google], [Sign in with Apple], [Sign in with Facebook], [Sign in with Microsoft], [Sign in with Firefox]. So in other words, this seems like a tragedy of the commons in progress. To steelman the feature though, easily sign up and easy login would be super convenient if that's what I wanted. It might be nice for a Web API that made this more privacy focused (or maybe that already exists). But yes, I'd like to see Google's specific popup disappear - be banned. |
| |
| ▲ | jorams 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > I would never visit a site like pornhub in a profile that I was logged in to anything other than similar sites. But that's not relevant. The popup appears whether you're logged into a google account or not. It's just an extremely annoying popup that appears all over the web. | | |
| ▲ | socalgal2 4 days ago | parent [-] | | It does not for me and I only use chrome. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | | |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Chrome has it built into the browser. If you fake the Chrome user agent string from Firefox, it'll also not show up (but you shoot yourself in the foot in other ways so I'm not advising that). Or so I heard on Mastodon a few days ago iirc This also means that Google made it unblockable in Chrome. User scripts and extensions cannot block a browser UI feature... I guess thankfully you haven't logged in on the browser and it's clever enough not to spam it then |
|
| |
| ▲ | shostack 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I would be shocked if that timing was not intentional and thoroughly tested for maximizing sign ups. | | |
| ▲ | biohacker85 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Completely agree. It’s like a game from their point of view— watching how many inadvertent logins they can capture. |
| |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > note: I'm not excusing the feature but come on! Have some common sense before visiting a site like that? I first read this as directed at the person you're replying to (me) but then saw a second possible reading: the site should know better as to expect you are logged into google with like one click Idk which it is so I'll answer both: people are logged into their OS these days, call it Chrome (the browser, but it's close enough to an OS nowadays) or Android but either way it's a big trackfest and nobody besides a few nerds like us here bats an eye. And I indeed don't visit those sites with cookie states of other sites ^^ | |
| ▲ | bravesoul2 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I wouldn't visit it without tails at this point. But I go for the better option than tails. Just dont visit it! | |
| ▲ | afavour 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I'm not excusing the feature but come on! Have some common sense before visiting a site like that? For sure… but there’s a self-fulfilling element there. If no one with common sense would ever use the feature… why add the feature? | | |
| ▲ | socalgal2 5 days ago | parent [-] | | As I said above, the feature is super useful to people who want to "login with Google" so plenty of people with common sense would "use the feature". The common sense part is it's common sense, at least to the HN crowd, to not visit a site like pornhub using your main profile, or so I would have expected. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | meindnoch 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >Does nobody find this intrusive when it appears on sites like pornhub? Porn sites are a testament that no amount of popups, ads, clickjacking, etc. can deter users from your site if your product is compelling enough. |
| |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | There's a reason pornhub and reddit won over other sites where there was more shit in your face (not meant to be read literally) |
|
|
| ▲ | w4rh4wk5 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Of course! That's why I even added this to my uBlock filter list on mobile: accounts.google.com/gsi/client |
| |
| ▲ | lucumo 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I did too, until uBO got blocked. So I had to reevaluate. Chrome now has a site setting that blocks this crap. For the browser-based popup at least. That's the one that pops up in the top-right and is not part of the DOM of the page. You can go directly to chrome://settings/content/federatedIdentityApi to set "Block sign-in prompts from identity services" as the default behaviour for sites. You can also set exceptions for some sites if you want that. If you need to go there manually, it is: 1. Settings
2. Privacy and security (in the menu on the left)
3. Site settings (at the bottom)
4. Expand Additional content settings (under Content)
5. Third-party sign-in | | |
| ▲ | reddalo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > until uBO got blocked If you're on Android, give Firefox a try. It works well and it has full support for uBlock Origin. | | |
| ▲ | lucumo 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I tried for a few months, but sync kept failing. And with uBO Lite I got nearly everything I used uBO for. | |
| ▲ | bornfreddy 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Also Reader Mode is awesome. And translating pages locally is great. |
|
| |
| ▲ | hammock 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How do you get ublock to work in chrome after the update? I tried a fix I found here but it resets every time I restart the browser | | |
| ▲ | motorest 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > How do you get ublock to work in chrome after the update? Why does anyone keep using Chrome if they care the slightest about privacy? You're using a browser owned by a company that sells online ads. What do you expect? | | |
| ▲ | hammock 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The last thing I remember about Firefox was that it was a memory hog. Maybe this has changed in recent years | | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Firefox is still terrible, but it's now the least worst browser. | | |
| ▲ | motorest 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > Firefox is still terrible (...) Explain in your own words why did you believe Firefox is terrible. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | nosianu 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is the "Lite" version by the same author written for the current Chrome. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/... Works fine for me. It has a lot less options, truly "Lite", but most people will be fine. Whatever Google might do that will make this extension worthless, we will se, for now, it seems to be working. (It's funny that the Chrome Web Store lists this extension as "Featured".) By the way, on Android, I replaced Firefox with Microsoft's Edge. It supports uBlock Origin (no "Lite" in the name, not sure what that means, I did not check the details of how much it supports since it just works as it is). It is significantly faster than Firefox (again, Android). It plays all videos, while Firefox just showed an "unsupported" placeholder for videos on some niche sex video site I happened to accidentally visit. | | |
| ▲ | inversetelecine 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Supposedly, filter lists only get updated when the extension is updated with uBO-lite. Google could just start delaying approval for these adblockers and their filter lists would become out of date fairly quick. |
| |
| ▲ | w4rh4wk5 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't. I use Firefox, on desktop and mobile. (Sorry, I should have mentioned this since OP is Chrome related.) | |
| ▲ | _nickwhite 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Use ungoogled-chromium (or Firefox). | | |
| ▲ | godelski 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > or Firefox
Or just use Firefox because even using chromium is empowering Google to keep playing these games. Maybe you have a problem with Firefox (most people won't notice the difference) but is that problem worse that the problem you have with Google? | | |
| ▲ | motorest 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Or just use Firefox because even using chromium is empowering Google to keep playing these games. This. People like to complain about problems, but I wonder why they don't invest half that energy in actually fixing the problems. > Maybe you have a problem with Firefox (...) I've started to notice there is a very vocal opposition of Firefox whose common trait is that they actually do not or cannot present any tangible argument against Firefox. They just shit talk about Firefox, and hand-wave their criticism with inane comments like "they lost the boat". Sometimes I wonder where that absurdity comes from. | | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I have plenty of arguments against Firefox, but engaging in browser holy wars is so tiresome. I used Firefox since before it was called Firefox up until v89 (I think) when I finally had enough. That's when they for the millionth time messed up the UI in new fanciful ways, and removed more features I relied upon daily. It's a pattern going back decades, and the usual tired old argument is, just install this addon to restore the functionality, or add/remove this to userchrome.css, or install whatever from some random Github link. The problem is I first have to spend time and energy finding these things, and then the authors have to keep supporting them in perpetuity. And often it's tiny stupid things like removing "show image" from the context menu, I now have to install an addon for, but it's a feature I use all the time, but their precious telemetry says only 10% (or whatever) of people use it, so it gets axed in the name of minimalism. Inevitably those 10% of users will whine about it on Bugzilla, and inevitably it will be WONTFIXed and comments disabled. I've seen this scenario play out SO MANY TIMES. I like the idea of Firefox. Not the execution. After ditching Firefox, I installed Vivaldi, and while it certainly isn't flawless, I can set up every aspect of it how I want, and in the four or so years I've used it - with a few minor exceptions I could revert with in-browser settings - it looks and works exactly how I set it up in 2021. So in summary, for me it was very much a paper-cuts thing, rather than any single major Mozilla catastrophe. | | |
| ▲ | motorest 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > I have plenty of arguments against Firefox, but engaging in browser holy wars is so tiresome. I think you're trying to make up irrational excuses. If you feel the need to criticise something and be vocal about it, the very least that's expected from you is that you present your basis that sparked your vocal criticism of something. If you are very vocal to shit talk about something but cannot present any basis supporting your personal opinion or put together a coherent argument, that tells everything to know about what credit should be given to what you feel compelled to say. > I used Firefox since before it was called Firefox up until v89 (I think) when I finally had enough. That's when they for the millionth time messed up the UI in new fanciful ways, and removed more features I relied upon daily. Firefox's UI barely changed in over a decade. The biggest change they rolled out in the last decade was introducing and removing Pocket, and the sidebar and vertical tab support introduced last year. > It's a pattern going back decades, Point out exactly what you single out as what you feel represents the best example. So far you wrote a wall of text and mentioned absolutely nothing that supported such a visceral opinion. > So in summary, for me it was very much a paper-cuts thing (...) You mentioned no paper cut. You just wrote a wall of text about nothing. No wonder you shielded yourself behind "browser holy wars" nonsense. | | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent [-] | | >mentioned absolutely nothing Yes I did, you didn't read a word of my post. >Firefox's UI barely changed in over a decade. Blatantly false. Many such cases. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/fresh-new-look-for-firef... >irrational excuses You seem irrationally hostile because I offended your favorite browser. >best example The best example is probably their design philosophy which seems to mirror that of Gnome which is, we know what's best for you and you will use our software how we envision because we know better. I didn't keep a list of every Firefox annoyance in preparation of having another pointless internet argument one day, but I mentioned the straw that broke the camels back, and I pointed out how Vivaldi gets UI right. | | |
| ▲ | godelski 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > Many such cases. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/fresh-new-look-for-firef...
Wait, you mean when they just hid the home button by default? Idk, didn't they round some corners at that time too? Matching the style everyone else was doing. The video they reference is here[0]. Even on that page you link it looks more like over selling the redesign... I remember that change and how it really didn't feel different. It looks a lot like my browser currently is except I enabled vertical tabs and groups, which, to be clear, both are optional. Oh, I noticed the download icon currently has little edges like ⎵ instead of _ and the back and forward arrows don't have circles around them. I'm really having a hard time finding the differences tbh.Also, you can, and always have been able to right click the toolbar and click "customize toolbar" if you really want the home button back. They do keep your settings and it will sync across browser accounts. I mean you can have preferences and that's all cool, but these don't really seem to be reasons to have such passionate dislike. They're fine for indifference and a different preference, but hate? But I do envy you. I wish I had such a life that the difference between viewing an image in the same tab and a new tab was the biggest problem I had to worry about. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/new-firefox-coming-june-... | | |
|
| |
| ▲ | godelski 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > And often it's tiny stupid things like removing "show image" from the context menu
Are you talking about how they changed "View Image" to "Open Image in New Tab"?I mean... come on... that is... petty. There's two easy workarounds if you are really adamant about not having that new tab. 1) copy the link and just paste it in. Ctrl (or cmd)+L to the browser bar and then just paste. Pretty quick thing. I do something similar when pages prevent the opening image and I just pull it from the inspector instead. 2) You can just drag the image onto the tab. I mean.. I get it. I'm a vim user so who wants to lift your hand and reach for the mouse. But I'm not sure that kind of thing is even a paper cut. Paper cuts draw blood. Making you view an image in a new tab instead of the current one is more like they don't have your favorite color toy. Annoying, but it's not like anything meaningful changed. | | |
| ▲ | encom 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Wait until they remove the feature YOU rely on hundreds of times a day. I dunno why you are so eager to invalidate my opinion. It's not impossible to work around, I'm not retarded, but it's tedious as fuck. | | |
| ▲ | motorest 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > Wait until they remove the feature YOU rely on hundreds of times a day. So they renamed a menu entry to "Open image in new tab" from "View image". Is this what you qualify as a problem that... Forces you to switch to an entirely different application? And that is your best example. | | |
| ▲ | godelski 3 days ago | parent [-] | | In their defense, it wasn't a rename. "View image" viewed the image in the same tab. But yeah, I agree that it is a pretty petty thing to be passionately upset about. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | figmert 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > they actually do not or cannot present any tangible argument against Firefox. They just shit talk about Firefox, and hand-wave their criticism with inane comments like "they lost the boat". Have you seen that Mozilla has basically become an ad agency? | | |
| ▲ | motorest 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Have you seen that Mozilla has basically become an ad agency? Even taking these comments at face value, this blend of arguments is pretty stupid given that you're making this sort of claims about Firefox when discussing not using Chrome. | | |
| ▲ | figmert a day ago | parent [-] | | To be clear, I do use Firefox and haven't even installed Chrome/Chromium for a long time. But given that Mozilla is inching closer and closer towards ad agency, it's only a matter of time that Firefox will open up the same issues that Chrome has. The argument of Firefox vs Chrome is not siloed and inherently includes the argument of what their respective developers do and don't do. If we didn't need to include them in the face of such an argument, there would be little reason to switch away Chrome. |
| |
| ▲ | darkwater 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So, like Google, the makers of Chrome? | |
| ▲ | sswezey 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Google _is_ an ad agency | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
|
| |
| ▲ | dwedge 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | What if my problem is that it's funded by Google to the tune of a billion a year and spent a large part of the last two years trying to reposition itself as an ad company? | | |
| ▲ | godelski 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So when options are 1) Google, an ad company
2) Firefox, a company who Google gives money to
Your choice is #1, because #2 is funded by #1?I'm honestly having a difficult time following this logic | | |
| ▲ | dwedge 4 days ago | parent [-] | | 2. Should be "Firefox, an ad company sponsored by Google to keep anti-monopoly at bay" My choice at that point comes down to which is the better browser rather than some moral support for one company over the other. It also rubs me the wrong way that Mozilla is pretending to be the good guy underdog. In an ideal world, and hopefully soon, there would be a real third choice but for now they're the same picture. | | |
| ▲ | godelski 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Firefox is an ad company? Okay, let's go with that premise, I'll rephrase. So when options are 1) Google, a $2.3T ad company
2) Firefox, an ad company that Google pays $300m/yr for Google to be the default search engine
3) Safari, a $3T ad company that Google pays $20bn/yr for Google to be the default search engine
4) Opera, an ad company that Google pays ??/yr for Google to be the default search engine AND is Chromium based
5) <other> browser, an ad company that Google pays ??/yr for Google to be the default search engine (and is likely Chromium based)
Your choice is #1, because #2 is funded by #1?I am still failing to see the logic here. If anything, I'm more confused. What do you use? Ladybird? What about before that? Seriously, I'm so fucking lost here. |
|
| |
| ▲ | bornfreddy 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure, but let's keep things in perspective... "it's funded by Google" is still a lesser evil than "it is Google". | | |
| ▲ | dwedge 4 days ago | parent [-] | | That's true, but pretending to be the good guy underdog while really being Google's voice rubs me the wrong way |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | smsm42 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I use Brave and never seen those popups. Only read about them. I didn't configure anything special, as far as I remember. |
| |
| ▲ | eadmund 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Firefox exists, and it’s pretty awesome. I’m typing this in Firefox now. I use Firefox on my phone. Mozilla is from all appearances a pretty terrible organisation, but their browser is good. | |
| ▲ | 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | eviks 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Have you tried https://github.com/r58Playz/uBlock-mv3 | |
| ▲ | matznerd 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | go to chrome://flags , follow these instructions
https://youtu.be/q7dnkGdndNo?t=220 then load extension in developer mode | | |
| |
| ▲ | venusenvy47 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've never added a custom filter. Do they sync to all my Firefox browsers that have uBO installed? | | |
|
|
| ▲ | patrickscoleman 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| their "private" is not private. about a month ago, i searched for some health-related stuff in a chrome incognito window and then immediately afterwards got related sponsored product ads on amazon in a logged in normal window. |
| |
| ▲ | naniwaduni 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | "Private" and "incognito" mode are fundamentally misnamed. They provide almost no real privacy wrt counterparties over the network, just to other people using the same computer after you. Amnesiac mode, if you will. | | |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I remember upon introduction, tech news would jokingly refer to it as the porn button if they were immature enough (and let's face it, back then most of us and the web news sites were quite literally immature). Sounds like that would be more accurate, but it fell out of style and now we have this name :( |
| |
| ▲ | samtheprogram 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is not true of any web browser because of fingerprinting. That’s the point of fingerprinting for ad networks. You can try using a different device but even then, I occasionally get recommending things that are definitely influenced by my roommates (i.e. on the same WiFi) Using something that prevents fingerprinting helps, but only if you don’t use that browser all the time — otherwise it’s just another fingerprint — and still on the same network. | | |
| ▲ | kennywinker 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > This is not true of any web browser because of fingerprinting. Some browsers, like the one you should be using, have anti-fingerprinting tech in them. | | |
| ▲ | jeroenhd 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Anti fingerprinting is nice but if you get served ads based on your IP address you're going to need more than just a browser to escape tracking based advertising. Adblockers aren't good enough when websites you visit use first-party servers to forward data back to ad networks. | | |
| ▲ | jazzypants 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Serving ads based on IP seems foolish when very, very few people have a static IP. I'm sure that a healthy minority of folks on HN do, but we're hardly representative of the general population. | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Your IP is a lot more static than you give it credit for. It's not like the dialup era where you get a new IP each time. For example I have a dynamic IP on my cable modem, but it might as well be static as it only changes after there is a long term power outage. Also, it's likely if you're on a home connection most often, then you only have a limited pool of 32k or so IPs, which dramatically lowers the bits of information needed to identify you. | | |
| ▲ | immibis 4 days ago | parent [-] | | European ISPs (at least some) change your IP every day, including IPv6, unless you opt out from the router's configuration page, as a privacy feature. Apparently tracking data of Europeans has a much higher market price. |
|
| |
| ▲ | akimbostrawman 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Mullvad Browser comes with the fingerprint protection of the tor browser and a VPN addon but you do need to pay for there vpn. |
| |
| ▲ | samtheprogram 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You didn’t finish my comment. Read the last sentence. Anti-fingerprinting tech just produces a different fingerprint. Google knows e.g. when things are scrambled but certain other things stay the same. | | |
| ▲ | tojumpship 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Untrue, you can modify it enough to avoid giving it more entropy. Possible approaches include:
- Spoofing browsers down to the TCP stack
- Plausibily random values
- Every possible bit scrambled on each request You can see a similar thought-process behind Tor bridges so it is tried-and-tested. Noted that it is a much more difficult feat to accomplish in a full blown browser rather than network layer. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | al_borland 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Try Mullvad’s browser. It does a lot more to avoid user fingerprinting, even locking the resolution of the rendered content to various sizes. There are some things that make it less practical as a daily driver, but it seems good as a secondary browser for private mode. | |
| ▲ | adzm 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | One of my fav party tricks when I get on someone's Wi-Fi is to search for an obscure disease with an expensive treatment. Everyone in the geographical area seems to start getting ads for it for a while afterwards! | | | |
| ▲ | EbNar 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "Incognito", on ANY browser, is not meant for that. Is meant to not leave traces on your PC, so your son/daughter/wife/husband can't see you've been watching porn (for instance). You're still tracked by the sites you visit, unless you use some kind of blocker (and, even then, you may still be tracked server-side). | |
| ▲ | Nathanba 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The firefox private window seems to work better than the chrome incognito mode. Maybe brave would be even better because I tested brave against fingerprinting libraries once and it was the best at avoiding any detection. | | |
| ▲ | blahlabs 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Brave confuses me. On one hand it seems to have quite good privacy tech, but then on the other hand there are instances of what seem to be quite shady actions. Both impressions come from comments and anecdotes, I have not looked into it myself. | | |
| ▲ | happymellon 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Brave is the preppers/tea party/Jan 6th browser. Deeply paranoid people can have occasional good arguments mixed in with their sociopathic traits. The fact that Brave didn't fork Firefox, or build their own like Ladybird implies to me that they are not really trying to improve the system. It's like Windows users extolling the virtues of the LTSC version. | | |
| ▲ | blahlabs 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, also in hindsight of my comment, there is nothing inherently conflicting about those two sides of brave. I think my impression was that because they valued privacy, it follows they should be more 'on the level', or something. Which is clearly absurd. | |
| ▲ | akimbostrawman 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The only one reading tea leafs here to criticize a browser is you. This website is not reddit but about technical discussions. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | skydhash 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I was trying Chrome on a work computer (because why not, I'm only doing work stuff on it). That incognito (but not really) mode made me download Firefox in an hurry. | | |
| ▲ | saintfire 5 days ago | parent [-] | | How does Firefox improve on icognito? I haven't used chrome in a long time but as far as I was aware they do the same thing: wipe session data on close. | | |
| ▲ | skydhash 4 days ago | parent [-] | | If you add your Google account into chrome, it will bring it into Incognito mode. | | |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | RamblingCTO 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That's why I blocked it everywhere. Pornhub was the last straw for me as well: https://andinfinity.eu/post/2025-07-14-blocking-google-sso-p... works quite well. Using Orion and ublock origin. |
|
| ▲ | justsomehnguy 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It sells. But yes, I chuckled the first two time but it quickly got boring. And BTW this clearly indicates what the people who are responsible for this behaviour not only don't bother with this 'use case' but also never use the 'porn mode' themselves. |
|
| ▲ | varenc 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It does disrupt the user experience and clobber a site's own home page, but associating a persistent identity to a user is VERY valuable to sites, and normal sign up flows have a lot of friction. They probably figured it's worth the cost if it gets more users to login/create accounts. Its presence despite the drawbacks indicates a lot of people use this feature. |
| |
| ▲ | citizenpaul 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > associating a persistent identity to a user is VERY valuable My fear is that this is the real "AI" endgame. Flood the world with bots then become the defacto authority of "real" users. | | |
| ▲ | immibis 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Wasn't this literally Reddit's game plan? | | |
| ▲ | citizenpaul 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't think so. Far as I can remember Reddit decided to lock down their site and start monetizing user data. They don't and never have had any sort of widely used authentication like googles SSO and Email combo. Far as I can see Meta and Google are the main "Real users" players at least in the wider internet ad markets. Actual Identity companies have almost no presence outside of banking/finance/gov from what I see. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | godelski 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > nearly-fullscreen popup on their site upon every visit
I did a bunch of trial and error awhile back instead of reading the docs but you can add a rule to ublock that will look something like this. Hopefully someone comments a better filter than this mess lol ||accounts.google.com/gsi/iframe/select?client_id=*
Fuck all these banners...Fuck all these cookie popups... I just want to browse Seriously, how the fuck do people raw dog the web? It's unbearable. When are people going to move away from Chrome(ium)? |
| |
| ▲ | dijit 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > Seriously, how the fuck do people raw dog the web? It's unbearable. I agree, I got it to “work for me” by only using the sites I like, but there are times where I stray from my beaten path because I’m searching for something and it’s awful. I don’t think I would have fallen in love with computers if I was raised with the web being what it currently is. I wonder if this is a driver of ChatGPT as a search engine, everything else is so bafflingly bad and all people really want is information. |
|
|
| ▲ | eastbound 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’m super happy Google’s login with my name, appears on PornHub, especially since I’m using a separate browser, Firefox mobile, for this only, never used it for anything else, never logged in. Luckily Firefox mobile gives websites access to something on my phone about my identity. But I’m happy it does this. Because it exposes how much websites know about us. It’s like Facebook showing face recognition in 2015. It’s creepy but it reminds you constantly how creepy it is. |
| |
| ▲ | BobbyTables2 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Just imagine how many sites collect all this info and DONT personalize what’s shown to you… Of course, one day AI will probably automatically do realtime editing of porn videos so they will be customized for your name/location/job/background/interests. | | |
| ▲ | slumberlust 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Are you telling me there are single ladies in my area who want to play backpack battles!? |
|
|
|
| ▲ | cm2187 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And google’s “do as I say, not as I do”. Doesn’t their search engine penalise websites with popups/overlays as it is meant to be user hostile? |
| |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I might consider switching back to Google Search if there were a "put any good results without tracking wall up top" setting |
|
|
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I lived alone for years and don't even bother with incognito. But if I cared, I on Firefox can make a separate container for that stuff and login that way. I get a burner account and Google (at least from PH) can't see anything other than other adult sites I put in that container. |
|
| ▲ | dawnerd 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They also recently must have changed the container, I noticed my adblock wasn't catching it anymore. What I find annoying though is its often slow to load and conveniently the sign in button is right where you'd click |
|
| ▲ | chrismcb 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Do I find it intrusive? Yes, it doesn't matter what site it is on. |
| |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Agree it's intrusive on all sites, but that is like the last place where I want to make mental space for "hey btw big brother is tracking you here too ;)" reminder popups |
|
|
| ▲ | fHr 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I do and that is why I remain neutral/buy on their stock, Meta and Google are bad bad bad actors with to much power in the web. |
|
| ▲ | al_borland 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I find it intrusive on every single site it’s on. Every time I look at how to get rid of it, I’m pointed to a setting in my Google account to stop it, and it does absolutely nothing. As far as I can tell, I’m more sensitive to this stuff than normal people, but I’m less likely to return to a site that annoys me like this. I’m also less likely to use Google as a result of them being behind this. While it’s not the only reason I use Kagi, it’s certainly an item in the pro/con list. The same goes for all of Google’s pop-ups and nudges to switch to Chrome. It’s infuriating. Everyone not using Chrome knows Chrome exists and are choosing not to use it. They really need to stop with the heavy handed push and respect user defaults. |
|
| ▲ | hammock 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I find it like to pop up in an incognito Google search. Not all the time. Just when one searches the more questionable things |
|
| ▲ | TechDebtDevin 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Try visiting pornhub from Texas :) |
| |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not that interested in visiting the USA right now gotta be honest |
|
|
| ▲ | sans_souse 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| that's the 300-million dollar button and it's not going anywhere |
|
| ▲ | melagonster 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Sometimes reddit will automatically log-in for you :( |
|
| ▲ | abustamam 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Reminds me of a tweet I saw a long time ago that went something like "PornHub lets you share videos on Google+. That's disgusting! I don't want people to know I use Google+!" That said, it is quite invasive. |
| |
| ▲ | lucb1e 2 days ago | parent [-] | | (I laughed out loud.) Hey! I liked Google+ >:( Met some cool people on that site and I guess my thought was that anything is better than a facebook monopoly on social media and this has an actual chance |
|
|
| ▲ | tpoacher 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| "I have no idea what you're talking about and I have never experienced this myself and I don't even know this website you speak of." (obligatory comment just in case the wife is watching ...) |
