Guys, if you don’t like these proposals from Google, you need to switch to Firefox now! It’s the only way to defend freedom on the web!
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
553 points (97.8% liked)
Technology
59346 readers
6646 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Over 85% of Mozilla's income comes from their Google search deal. Google is keeping Mozilla alive to prevent antitrust issues. If Mozilla rocks the boat too much, Google will fund a more obedient alternative.
So your answer to "Google is evil use another browser" is... if we all swap to Firefox google will kill it?
Google is keeping Firefox alive because 5% of all web users using Google search by default is pretty useful for them.
If you want to avoid that, simply use firefox and set your search to DuckDuckGo/Bing. If Google drops them, Microsoft have already shown a want to step up into that position.
All good advice, but nevoic makes a good point. Google is too big to be meaningfully threatened by Mozilla, if firefox pulls a critical mass away from google, they will absolutely move to kill it.
Google needs to be broken up, and the US govt isn't going to just volunteer to do that on their own given how valuable google's data is to the intelligence agencies.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
About 5 years too late but appriciated still.
People just don't listen or care. They click on chrome because it's recommended by their daddy Google.
load more comments
(9 replies)
Yeah it's truly awful.
The worst part is how disingenuous it is. It clearly exists because Google:
- Wants to circumvent ad-blockers since ads are its primary business model, and
- Link butts in chairs more closely to web browsers so they can sell better advertisement targeting.
If they just said they were doing it because they're an advertising company and they need better ads targeted to people, at least they would have the benefit of honesty. And in that case you might actually get some big sites on-board; like if a site can explicitly say "I need to recoup hosting fees and the only way for me to do that is targeted advertising and that makes this easier/better" there's actually a value proposition there.
But don't pretend this is for the benefit of consumers or the Internet overall, and definitely don't cloak your meaning behind vague platitudes about identity authenticity.
Wouldn’t it be sick if once your company got up to a net worth of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS you’d just stop trying to shoehorn in new ways to make profit?
It's comically perverted and epicly sad that leaders with power in society don't stop this kind of thing.
I've been questioning whether the current implementation of democracy can work in a modern world, where corporate entities can grow beyond the size of government.
As long as the people is represented by a smaller subset of the people, corporations wont need to please the people. Only the representatives. The same way that in the US, the electoral college means your vote technically doesn't have direct power, there's a disconnect between people voting for not getting screwed, and that sentiment actually becoming law.
Sounds like taxation without representation to me.
Wasn’t there a proposal to let companies vote in Delaware not too long ago? Democracy would truly only apply for the rich at that point
load more comments
(1 replies)
I really think the world needs a few more Elon Musks around. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have a Musk at Google to destroy it from the inside just like he's doing to Twitter?
Google needs to be elonned to hell
You had me at the first half, ngl.
Cory Doctorow talked a bit about this, among other enshittification problems, on his Pluralustic post today.
Thanks, enjoyed reading that
Man that article points out some scary trends. It's just crazy the way they're using digital technology to economically enslave us with subscriptions for product function and maintenance. Then the way they use that technology to monitor us. I saw the end coming with the John Deere business some decades ago. My feeling was I sure hope that practice never comes to normal consumer products, but here it is. It's feudal for sure and a blatant violation of consumer rights. You don't own products anymore and you still get to pay for them like you do.
load more comments
(1 replies)
This is a fantastic overview of the issue with this proposal, in the broader context of enshittification.
I do not trust Google at this stage. I pine for the day when Google seemed like a good company. Gmail was awesome when it came out, for example, and Google search worked well. Now I feel they are harvesting all my data to jam ads down my throat. Google search now sucks ass and just returns websites that have a bunch of AI nonsense or aggregated content that is effectively worthless.
I am migrating away from Google.
Does anyone know a good way to migrate to a good gmail alternative?
Proton Mail is a good alternative. A good thing to watch for a either a lack of or a very limited free account. This means they're not making money off harvesting your data. If it's free, you're the product.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Get yourself your own domain and set up proton mail. It costs a little bit, but you can create email addresses for everything you want.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(24 replies)
Final nail in the coffin of don't be evil. Next they'll require this for accessing gmail
I have always struggled with this corporate motto from Google. If this is something you call out from day one then it feels like someone was thinking about doing evil but needed to be kept in check. It is like those “remove baby from stroller before folding” messages that you know is there because someone thought about it or did it already.
Oh well, it is not that difficult to swith to another email provider.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I hope the EU can get to a quick decision on this. I trust they'll provide a carrot on a stick to maintain the open internet in a way that'll make Google suffer if they decide to not play ball with Brussels' terms.
It's already being pushed to the Chromium repo, or so it seems:
https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b2899412e79a2727355efa9cc8f5bd
Good article. Not clickbait/ragebait, and it explains the specification simply and succinctly, while also demonstrating why it's dangerous for the open web.
I’m really hoping this doesn’t make it into Brave their teams has removed a lot of Google crap in the past. Mullvad’s fork of Firefox can always replace them.
You don't seem to understand. This is not a feature that a browser can simply choose not to implement. The WEBSITES that you are accessing will be checking that you are using a verified browser and that you are a confirmed user.
view more: next ›