Google has agreed to wipe billions of records it collected from over 136 million Americans, users of its Chrome browser, as part of a settlement for a 2020 lawsuit.
Am I the only one who never thought that incognito mode or the equivalent on FF was protecting me from anything other than anyone else who may use the same pc? I don't share my pc with anyone so I only use those modes when I think a website is acting up because of previously stored cookies, credentials or my various script blockers.
Exactly. And you can't be surprised when a company that also runs a search engine and ad network stores that data for other purposes.
I rarely jump in on things like this because of the lack of understanding of how things actually work as well as the inevitable responses like from OP and someone else I just responded to.
To repeat for those who may not get it just yet. Private browsing on FF and incognito mode on chrome are specifically for use when you use a shared pc or someone else's system to check your email or whatever. It's always been designed to protect locally not from the greater web.
I don't remember ever seeing or hearing anything from Google about this mode hiding data from them.
Private mode is for when I want to pull up some weird YouTube video where some guy silently melts copper into bars and not have it clog up my partner’s reccos
I never thought that these modes were protecting me from anything except those who shared the same pc. Apparently I am the only one who understands the way the internet works and that nothing you do or any software you run on your system can stop every website and server you interact with or that passes on your data packets to the next server from logging everything it can about you.
How do people think that sites like reddit cross check and correlate data from users to find those with multiple accounts that are attempting to evade bans? There is so much data that we don't even know we are creating.
I'm all for privacy and anonymity when and where it makes sense but it seems like people here have no idea what the difference between the two are and just how difficult it is and how much extra friction it brings to attempt to be completely anonymous and private via a system designed to connect people.
Please teach your kids that incognito doesn't mean anonymous or private. My 10 year old has been thinking that that was the case until he mentioned it to me the other day and I educated him about it. Ngl, it was so adorable :)
Not those things. Well - yes, it does mean that but it doesn’t mean that hahaha. No, we just called it that but that’s not on us, if you don’t know that, then that's on you for believing in the definition of words. Also this message is private. And secret. When we say “let’s all murder trump” over and over - it is the name of the product, so you can’t blame us for saying it all the time - it doesn’t actually mean that, you see. I mean, obviously. You’d have to be a Grade-A moron to think it was anything but a secret message that was private and didn’t mean what the words usually mean. Pfft.
Ever since I used a browser, both Firefox and Chrome always clearly stated, that Incognito Tabs are not private browsing, and they said so in every Tab in very clear terms. Why is that controversial then?
That is what a lot of people don't understand, incognito mode only delete the local storage of the browser data (cookies, cache, service workers, etc), the Cookie Autodelete or SiteBleacher extensions do exact the same in normal browsing, but don't prevent that the web pages log the activity in their server, they see you in the same way as in the normal mode, your IP, browser you use, OS, fingerprints, etc..if you don't use a VPN.
The issue is that in the case of Chrome your activity data is sended to Google, independent of incognito or normal browsing.
Well it's like this: a thief keeps knocking on people's doors and says that their locks are not theft proof.. and insists that it has always been so as the thief is also the locksmith.
You Guys have to just put up with it and there's nothing you can do about it unless you start protesting , the kind of protest that happens in France. Get politicians to act however its in the politicians best interest that they keep gathering data so that they know when a protest happen whom to prosecute