There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

kworpy ,

idk what to tell you if you’re still using chrome

GoogleSellsAds ,
@GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works avatar

Or anything Google for that matter. I see a lot of praise on Lemmy for their Pixel phones, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they eventually find there was a backdoor in their firmware all this time. Yes of course, I can not prove that right now, but this news about Google Chrome isn’t news for no reason. Don’t trust anything Google if you care about privacy, it is literally their business model (selling targeted ads).

joel_feila ,
@joel_feila@lemmy.world avatar

Wrll you have to use a pixel phone to use graphene os

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

Yeah, I’m not super happy about that part, but don’t really know what to do

Emerald ,

Use a Pixel phone. No more sketchy then any other popular phone manufacturer

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

It’s what I do. With degoogled os. But the proprietary blobs aren’t filling me with confidence.

Emerald ,

Does your laptop run free software boot firmware? If not, it has the same issues as a phone, if not more. No smartphone runs fully free firmware.

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

I know all this and that’s not filling me with confidence, either. It’s why Framework is in my sights.

Emerald ,

Framework doesn’t have free boot firmware either and it contains the Intel ME (the backdoor in Intel CPU’s). The point I am trying to make is that you won’t find a perfect solution anywhere.

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

You’re right, but I never said perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist. I’m looking for reasonable and sustainable. Projects like framework and libreboot are making this possible for the first time in history. But, like you eluded to, they, too, won’t be perfect.

GoogleSellsAds ,
@GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works avatar

Eat the ads then.

irreticent ,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

Relevant username.

GoogleSellsAds ,
@GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works avatar

People don’t hate Google as much as they should. It’s cringeworthy how much they promote this ad company on this platform. They don’t even realze themselves they got comprised.

Emerald ,

Well pretty much all computers have a backdoor to the CPU. That hasn’t been proven for Pixel phones though.

GoogleSellsAds ,
@GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works avatar

No, only Google has backdoors that are coming to light tome after time. Stop defending them Google ad fan boi.

Emerald ,

Is this trolling or are you for real?

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I fucking hate Google and wouldn’t use any of their (proprietary) software, but Pixel phones are amazing. Hear me out, Google is the only phone manufacturer right now, that puts extensive hardware security features like MTE, a secure element, as well as a bunch of others in their phones. The Google Titan M2 is based on an open-source project called OpenTitan, and Google has even contributed their own changes upstream. It’s based on the open RISC-V architecture, and it’s the most complete and secure implementation of a secure element that you can find in an Android phone. The only thing that comes even close is the “Secure Enclave” in Apple ARM chips, that are used in modern iPhones, iPads and Macs. I understand the concern about a potential backdoor in the firmware, but that’s a valid concern with basically every CPU on the market right now. x86 are ARM are completely proprietary, so you can’t really trust any CPU based on one of these architectures. The old Google Titan M1 was based on ARM, Apple’s Secure Enclave is also based on ARM, as well as Snapdragon’s SPU (which is incomplete and insecure anyway). The Titan M2, being based on open hardware architecture and firmware, is the most trustworthy secure element, despite being made by Google. It includes features like Insider Attack Resistance, support for the Weaver API, Android StrongBox hardware keystore implementation and is used for a secure implementation of Android Verified Boot. GrapheneOS is free, open-source, and doesn’t use any proprietary Google apps/services by default. Although I hate Google, a Pixel with GrapheneOS is currently the best option for a secure smartphone.

GoogleSellsAds ,
@GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works avatar

Google fan boy. Good luck promoting that shitty ad company.

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Ah yes, definitely promoting Google

I fucking hate Google and wouldn’t use any of their (proprietary) software

I hope you realize how dumb your comment is

ours ,

I do: DON’T

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yet another reason to switch to Firefox, or even better, a hardened fork like LibreWolf !librewolf

sigmaklimgrindset ,

What functionality would I lose/gain if I switch from Firefox to Librewolf? I’m admittedly an amateur in the privacy space, and I’ve been pretty content with Firefox + Ublock and container tabs for different profiles, but I consistently get the issue that my browser fingerprint is pretty unique, and I have no idea how to or even if I can anonymize that anymore.

calamitycastle ,

Yes, why to do this?

Imgonnatrythis ,

Librewolf is not associated with Mozilla and does not receive their primary source of funding from Google like Mozilla does. I really like having the same browser and browser synchronization between my phone and desktop/laptop, so librewolf is out for me. They have no interest or resources to build an Android version. Waterfox does at least have desktop / android option and takes things at least one small step further away from Google.

sigmaklimgrindset ,

Thanks for the answer! I run Windows, iOS and Linux across multiple devices, and sync is definitely needed for me as well. I’ll look into Waterfox!

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

The previous answer is misleading and partially just wrong. Firefox Sync works just fine in LibreWolf, you just need to enable it in the settings. I currently sync my LibreWolf browser on my Linux desktop to Firefox on iOS and Mull on Android, no issues whatsoever. The only Mozilla services that LibreWolf intentionally removes are their telemetry and Pocket.

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee avatar

U can sync regular mobile ff and librewolf. Thats what i currently have.

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It is the same browser. LibreWolf doesn’t change much of the Firefox code, mostly just the configuration. They enable various privacy/security settings by default and remove Mozilla telemetry. You can go to the LibreWolf settings and enable Firefox Sync, and it will work just fine with your Mozilla account and other Firefox browsers.

For Android, I like to use Mull, it’s a hardened build of Firefox, similar to LibreWolf.

pathief ,
@pathief@lemmy.world avatar

You can enable Firefox sync in Librewolf, it works fine.

Danitos ,

Tangent note: I think browser fingerprinting is only a source of concern if you use VPN. Otherwise, your IP is already a good enough identifier, and quite likely doesn’t rotate often enough. Please someone correct me if I’m wrong.

kava ,

Yeah I’d only worry about it if I were trying to buy drugs on the dark net or something. I guess if torrenting became illegal I would also worry.

skybox ,

Became? 🤔

mondoman712 ,

Different places have different laws

Mongostein ,

Torrenting itself is not illegal. The distribution of copyrighted material that you don’t own is the illegal part of

kava ,

It’s sort of legally gray but generally speaking in the US downloading is a civil offense but not a criminal one. You can get sued by the copyright holder for example but you won’t end up in jail over it.

People usually never get sued for it because it’s not worth it for Comcast to pay for lawyers to try and extract any money out of regular people. Not only will they almost certainly be unable to even recoup the lawyer fees, they risk getting a lot of bad PR for no gain.

What’s usually considered an arrestable offense is uploading aka distribution. Once you start hosting seedboxes then you enter the area where you’re liable to go to prison.

Danitos ,

No. If you don’t want to be tracked and you are using a VPN, fingerprinting is a problem as well. Privacy is not concern just for drug dealers.

brbposting ,

I worry about price discrimination

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/2db970eb-783e-4aaf-8c26-31a708932d5e.jpeg

kava ,

I appreciate the list. I’m not saying there aren’t valid concerns, just that in my day to day life it’s one of those items where the steps needed to avoid browser fingerprinting is usually more work than the value I personally get from my perspective.

I’ve looked into this, and I’m not clueless. I’ve developed websites, I’ve done a lot of stuff with Selenium / Puppeteer, and have toyed with Firefox browser extensions.

I understand the tools they use and it’s just very tricky to fully eliminate this type of thing. For example they can even use the browser window size. Are you going to randomly change window size to some novel dimension when you open up a tab?

What about the JS engine you use. For example using Firefox already narrows down your anonymity by like 95% or something because only a small amount of users use the browser. Etc etc

It’s hard to do this correctly, and I feel like VPN + private window usually takes care of the price fixing thing on the list, for example. When I’m searching for flights I usually do this.

I also use JS blockers in order to try and mess up the scripts that Facebook & Google have hidden over the internet to track you. But ironically, doing that again reduces your anonymity. They know that if their scripts don’t work on you, you get narrowed down again to a very small % of users.

It only takes a few of those pieces of data to be reasonably sure that it’s you. Browser fingerprinting is tricky to really avoid. It’s not impossible, of course. Just saying to really do it right it might be more effort than it’s worth.

brbposting ,

The depth of fingerprinting really bothers me and I have accepted that the best at it will succeed.

It is tempting to find the world’s most popular default configuration and use that :) But that’s prob be something gross like Windows 10 & Chrome! In fact, that’d be second after Android & Chrome. Wonder how detectable VMing/emulating those configurations would be.

Agree with you and appreciate the detailed response!

Mkengine ,

Switching from Firefox to Librewolf has some pros and cons. Librewolf is a fork of Firefox focused on privacy and security, with telemetry stripped out and privacy settings maxed out by default. You’ll gain better out-of-the-box privacy protections, meaning less tracking and data collection without having to tweak settings yourself.

However, you might lose some convenience. Librewolf might not support certain Firefox features like Sync, since it relies on Mozilla’s servers (not sure about that point, maybe it does work). It can also break some websites due to the stricter privacy settings. Another thing to consider is that you won’t get updates as quickly as Firefox.

Regarding browser fingerprinting, it’s a tricky beast. Librewolf can help somewhat by making your fingerprint less unique, but it’s not a silver bullet. Tools like uBlock Origin and container tabs are great, but adding something like the CanvasBlocker extension can also help reduce fingerprinting. Ultimately, no setup is perfect, but Librewolf is a solid step towards better privacy.

JackbyDev ,

I don’t really care too too much about privacy. If they get rid of the Pocket button then I’d be happy enough.

masterofn001 ,

About:config

Extensions.pocket.enabled false

JackbyDev ,

https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/5a4aa72e-5294-495f-9fdf-051e8e2ced3c.webp

octopus_ink ,

May I please steal this for future use?

JackbyDev ,

I stole it too lol

pathief ,
@pathief@lemmy.world avatar

Firefox sync is disabled by default but you can enable it in the settings.

PetroGuy ,

if it’s fingerprinting you care about, i’d give mullvad browser a try. it’s a firefox fork tailored to increase privacy and blend you into the crowd (as long as you don’t change any setting/install addons). it’s very very neat.

TheGrandNagus ,

Mostly it’s just FF but with more private defaults (that you can change in the settings trivially anyway), although there are one or two extras.

There is a potential issue, though. Librewolf runs behind, so security vulnerabilities, particularly for zero-day exploits, take longer to be patched.

fin ,

“Don’t be evil”

atrielienz ,

Not anymore.

NutWrench ,
@NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

I already ditched Windows for Linux a month ago because of spyware. Everything Google-related is next. My phone is going to be the hardest thing to de-infest.

moonburster ,

I kinda want to, but I’m also a sucker for ease of use

Tywele ,

For ease of use Apple might be the most convenient alternative to Google. At least for smartphones.

moonburster ,

Ease of use and apple are not near each other in my dictionary.

I think a lot of things are designed very unlogical

Tywele ,

That might be because you are just not used to it. Comparable to the switch from Windows to Linux.

moonburster ,

I’m using Linux and tried different distros. I also used chrome os and windows Phone. I tried ios, hence my feelings towards it

Tywele ,

And many people tried Linux and were having difficulties adapting to it at first and most probably gave up. Just like you did with iOS.

moonburster ,

Pff, sure buddy. Used it for 4 months due to my phone being dead. Go shill someone else. If the adoption of a new os goes against what I want of said os, then it’s not an os for me. Simple as that

Tywele ,

I don’t care what you use. I was just arguing in support of OSes that people dismiss because they are unfamiliar with it. Calm down.

flop_leash_973 ,

In my experience you either have to trade one devil for the other with Apple or accept buying hardware from the ad company so you can use GrapheneOS.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

There are more options than GrapheneOS with broader device support, such as Calyx or LineageOS.

But if you use Android already, you can start by using F-Droid (or others) to install apps to find FOSS replacements for apps you use.

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot ,

Searching for “Calyx” got me a lot of results that had nothing to do with the Android ROM, so for the convenience of anyone else reading this thread their URL is calyxos.org

SidewaysHighways ,

Thank you

Trainguyrom ,

You could always go the used/refurbished route to not directly give the chocolate factory money

asdfasdfasdf ,

I’m also doing this. Proton is amazing, for the most part. Ente Photos is also incredible for ditching Google Photos, although I’ll probably switch to Proton Photos when that comes out since Ente is pricey.

pathief ,
@pathief@lemmy.world avatar

Isn’t proton photos built into their Proton Drive already? It’s implementation is… barebones… On Android but it works.

asdfasdfasdf ,

It is, but I’d barely consider it a launch of anything. It displays photos, but that’s it. I could already upload and view photos on Proton Drive before they “launched” this.

Tywele ,

Or if you have the skills you can selfhost Immich which is an excellent replacement for Google Photos.

enleeten ,

Kagi is a great replacement for Google search. It does cost money though.

Emerald ,

Or you can take a Duck. Then get one more Duck. Then you can Go.

duckduckgo.com

CheeseNoodle ,

Honestly I just keep my phone as my designated privacy nightmare so I can get free phone calls on wifi and keep in touch with family members who are still on facebook.

nossaquesapao ,

Welcome to the world of freedom. The first months may be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s a journey worth taking. Be welcome!

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I already ditched Windows for Linux a month ago because of spyware.

Great!

Everything Google-related is next.

Even better.

My phone is going to be the hardest thing to de-infest.

If you plan on getting a new phone soon, I recommend a Google Pixel, on which you can install GrapheneOS. Yes, ironically Google devices are the best for installing alternative operating systems and removing all the Google BS. GrapheneOS is completely free and open source, and based on the Android Open Source Project. It incorporates many privacy and security enhancements, and gives you total freedom and control over your device. In my opinion, it’s the best option for degoogling a phone.

Emerald ,

There is also Lineage OS. It’s not as secure but it is compatible with the most amount of devices.

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Unfortunately LineageOS is highly insecure because there’s no ability to lock the bootloader, and Android Verified Boot is completely missing. These are just the biggest and most obvious flaws in Lineage, but there are more: madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html#lin…

Emerald ,

Android is a very secure system, but that comes with some compromises such as customizability and development features. Both of which are important to the Lineage OS project. Also running Lineage OS is not any more insecure then running a Linux or Windows desktop without secure boot, which many people do without issue

trolololol ,

This that and the article are very light on details, but I couldn’t find an article deeper in details

My laptop, that I own and runs Linux that I installed, has chrome in it. I’m order to log into Gmail for work, it installs an extension that is capable of telling Gmail if my disk is encrypted. I know because you get an error message until my disk was actually encrypted. It was a big surprise to me, and I wonder if this is done by the same piece of code.

Btw would there be a way to do virtualization through perhaps docker or flat pack or chroot that can isolate chrome in a sandbox and prevent it from a) reading and writing files anywhere on any disk and b) get other data such as CPU, disk encryption etc?

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

My laptop, that I own and runs Linux that I installed, has chrome in it. I’m order to log into Gmail for work, it installs an extension that is capable of telling Gmail if my disk is encrypted. I know because you get an error message until my disk was actually encrypted. It was a big surprise to me, and I wonder if this is done by the same piece of code.

That’s strange, I’ve never heard of that before

Btw would there be a way to do virtualization through perhaps docker or flat pack or chroot that can isolate chrome in a sandbox and prevent it from a) reading and writing files anywhere on any disk and b) get other data such as CPU, disk encryption etc?

There are some isolation mechanisms on Linux like Firejail or Bubblewrap. The latter is used by Flatpak to sandbox applications. These are rather weak though, and Flatpak weakens the security of bwrap further. By default, Flatpak application permissions are also set in a Manifest file, which is created by the maintainer of the package. To get more control over your Flatpak sandbox, you need to use an application like Flatseal.

Docker (or containers in general) aren’t meant for isolation/sandboxing, but this approach would also work. I would create a container using Distrobox or toolbx, and install Chrome inside the container.

This will not prevent Chrome from getting your CPU information though. To protect against that, you would have to use a virtual machine (and spoof the your CPU model if you want to hide that from Chrome).

beeb ,

Sounds easier to switch to another browser at that point

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

OP apparently needs Chrome to log into an enterprise GSuite account, which has specific requirements, that are enforced by Chrome’s enterprise policy system. I don’t think this works in Chromium.

beeb ,

Oh I didn’t catch that my bad. I hope they get a work computer where this kind of stuff doesn’t interfere with private life!

ComeHereOrIHookYou ,

This is hilarious! It even works on Edge, Vivaldi and even Brave 🤣. Good thing I use Firefox in almost everything or general day to day use

Katana314 ,

I’ll admit, in several places I used Edge as an effort to have at least some layer of distrust between myself and Google. I’ll have to quit that though.

dejected_warp_core ,

I like your style. I went looking and found “switchbar” which kinda/sorta eases this bouncing between browsers idea:

…google.com/…/klgpknafjlhnpkppfbihchgfebbdcomd

It’s not elegant, but it supports the workflow you suggest. I kind of like the idea of using Edge for google.com and Chrome for microsoft.com. I’m not optimizing my experience (it may in fact be very sub-optimal), but I’m also using competition to neutralize potential shenanigans.

Emerald ,

I kind of like the idea of using Edge for google.com and Chrome for microsoft.com.

Dang, just use Firefox. It’s so much easier then this

madis ,

Vivaldi and Brave have the option to disable the Hangouts extension in settings, which should disable this.

As linked in the article, it is indeed used for “Hangouts” (Meet) troubleshooting.

ComeHereOrIHookYou ,

This is good news since Vivaldi is my goto chromium browser (when I need to really use it)

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Firefox 🔛 🔝

xavier666 ,

🦊🦊

solrize ,

jwz.org/…/mozilla-is-an-advertising-company-now/

ComeHereOrIHookYou ,

Welp, might as well just use w3m 🤣

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

such a sensationalist article there. mozilla isnt an advertising company, they bought a company that specialises in privacy focused ad campaigns so they can provide an alternative to google for companies.

which is what they should be doing.

Scotty_Trees ,
@Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world avatar

If you’re still using Google Chrome in 2024, you might be a moron.

raspberriesareyummy ,

I am “slightly” worried that there’s only a single option left. That’s only 1 organization’s corruption removed from total loss of control over browsing privacy :/

Scrollone ,

And Mozilla main source of income is… Google.

This is bad, very bad.

n3m37h ,

Google pays them to be the default search. FF is like Steve Irwin, you could have been the biggest poacher, if you gave him money he would use it to buy land to help protect animals. FF is pulling the same thing but for the intetnet

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

so donate and change that

ILikeBoobies ,

There’s safari and pale moon

VelvetStorm ,

Can someone explain this to me like I’m 5. I understand it’s not good but I don’t know why and I would like to understand it.

JustARegularNerd ,

Effectively Google has a browser extension (just like the ones you’d install from the Chrome Web Store like uBlock Origin) that comes with the browser that’s hidden.

This extension allows Google to see additional information about your computer that extensions and websites don’t normally have access to, such as checking how much load your PC has or directly handing over hardware information like the make and model of your professor.

The big concern in the comments is that this could be used for fingerprinting your browser, even in Incognito mode.

What this essentially means is that even though the browser may not have any cookies saved or any other usual tracking methods, your browser can still be recognised by how it behaves on your machine in particular, and this hidden extension allows Google to retrieve additional information to further narrow down your browser and therefore who you are (as they can link this behaviour and data to when you’ve used Google with that browser signed in), even in Incognito mode.

VelvetStorm ,

Thank you for this info. If this is just an extension, can we just uninstall it or turn it off?

daq ,

This is not a typical extension and it cannot be removed. It doesn’t even show up in the list of installed extensions.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Maybe recompiling? But I suspect that Chrome as it is, is closed source?

ABasilPlant ,

github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

…github.io/ungoogled-chromium-binaries/

Katana314 ,

Seems like a great option. Can anyone more familiar with the code confirm this removes the aforementioned CPU-fingerprinting plugin?

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It does. You can even try it out yourself. Install Ungoogled Chromium, go to google.com and paste the following code in the Developer console (which you can bring up by pressing F12 and clicking on ‘Console’ at the top of the DevTools interface):


<span style="color:#323232;">    chrome.runtime.sendMessage(
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      "nkeimhogjdpnpccoofpliimaahmaaome",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      { method: "cpu.getInfo" },
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      (response) => {
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        console.log(JSON.stringify(response, null, 2));
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      },
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    );
</span>

If it returns nothing or an error, you’re good. If it returns something like this:


<span style="color:#323232;">{
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  "value": {
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    "archName": "arm64",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    "features": [],
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    "modelName": "Apple M2 Max",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    "numOfProcessors": 12,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    "processors": [
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      {
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        "usage": {
</span><span style="color:#323232;">          "idle": 26890137,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">          "kernel": 5271531,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">          "total": 42525857,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">          "user": 10364189
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        }
</span><span style="color:#323232;">      }, ...
</span>

it means that the hidden extension is present, and *.google.com sites have special access in your browser.

JackbyDev ,

Chromium is open source. Google Chrome is not open source.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

even in Incognito mode.

I thought extensions don’t run in incognito mode?

I know Firefox doesn’t run them by default - you can specify which extensions you’d like to run in incognito mode.

Gestrid ,

I thought extensions don’t run in incognito mode?

They don’t. Unless you check the box that allows them to. And I’m sure Google has already checked that box by default.

griD ,

I tested it with a stock install of chrome/windows 11. Works.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

information like the make and model of your professor

Oh no, not my professor :( (/s)

JustARegularNerd ,

Oh that’s a good typo, I’m leaving that! I look forward to the LLMs in 2030 telling you to watch the temps on your professor and make sure it doesn’t get exposed by Chrome.

Misk ,

So since they only just seem to have discovered this, does that mean this invisible extension also likely to be present on Chromium based browsers such as Brave and Thorium etc…?

JackbyDev ,

Yes, though they could remove it. If they’re open source then you could check easily.

WindyRebel , (edited )

Fingerprinting.

Bingo! Google wants to go cookieless and fingerprinting has been one of the solves I’ve always read about in the SEO world.

jinarched ,
@jinarched@lemm.ee avatar

Just use Firefox

shrug

nutsack , (edited )

there’s a portion of the internet that just doesn’t work in Firefox because the company pays only $2 million a year for developers and they can’t do it

I mean web developers not the Firefox developers stop down voting me

I use Firefox and Linux and I don’t drive a car how about that

please give me $40

Omgpwnies ,

I’ve yet to find more than a handful of pages that have had issues, and most were fairly poorly coded to begin with

lightnsfw ,

I found one the other day but I don’t even recall what it was. I almost never have any problems.

JaddedFauceet ,

As part of our company’s security policy, our IT admin disallows firefox to be installed in dev machine.

our engineers cannot test their work in firefox.

LOL

PlantJam ,

This nonsense is part of why I prefer to work for smaller companies.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

That’s wack.

I think our company does something similar (Chrome by default, need to ask IT for anything else), but our department just said, “we need Macs to do our work, you have no power here…” I hate macOS, but I hate stupid IT policies more.

nutsack ,

there’s no quality control with a test suite of browsers and versions running in virtual machines?

JaddedFauceet ,

Due to security policy, we cannot run vm. Oh, btw, we do android development too. I guess they didn’t know android studio runs a vm. So that is ok

xavier666 ,

Whenever I face an issue in our company portal and I ask the IT team, their response is “Can you please try on Google Chrome?”

🤦🏽🤦🏽

Katana314 ,

My biggest issue is video streaming on older computers. I have an old laptop I use casually for video playing in the background, and Webkit browsers like Edge definitely load YouTube with far less stuttering. I’m still trying to find good alternatives - lately even changing the user agent doesn’t seem to make it faster.

TheGrandNagus ,

This to me sounds like an issue with hardware video decoding not working right and it falling back to software decoding on the CPU.

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Or LibreWolf !librewolf

CriticalMiss ,

Not a legal mastermind by a long shot but it seems like a DMA violation. Someone needs to get the EU on their ass.

victorz ,

EU: [RELEASES THE HOUNDS]

bhamlin ,

Just make sure it isn’t the Pomeranians this time

Killing_Spark ,

Make sure it isn’t just the Pomeranians. Some Pomeranians are definitely going to be in the mix.

bhamlin ,

Ok, I’m good with that.

victorz ,

I had to look up what the Pomeranian dog breed is, because I’m not good with dog breeds. Soon as the page of images loaded I burst out laughing. 😆 Thank you. Good start to my day.

bhamlin ,

Glad to help. 😁 Get out there with that little dog energy.

victorz ,

lmao is been good so far. Have to make a long trip with the kids today, so it helped. ❤️

T156 ,

Does this also affect Chromium, or is it just Google Chrome?

The article mentions it being affecting Google Chrome through Chromium, but it’s not clear if it also affects Chromium on its own, or other Chromium-based browsers.

Krzd ,
@Krzd@lemmy.world avatar

It allegedly also affects Edge and Vivaldi, so it seems to be chromium not chrome

sqibkw ,

Just now tested in Vivaldi and it works, so yeah seems like Chromium 🥲

redditReallySucks ,
@redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Doesn’t seem to work on cromite desktop (good)

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Chromium is also affected.

JTheFox ,
@JTheFox@lemmy.world avatar

Chromium alone depends on if it’s the Google version or the Un-Googled version. For the Google version of Chromium, it still has that hangouts extension. However, the Un-Googled Chromium has that extension removed via the build flags, the one to note is enable_hangout_services_extension=false.

As others have said though, it can also depend on what other Chromium-based is being used. Some browsers like Brave and including Vivaldi can have this turned off in the settings. Others like Edge and Opera are affected as well. However it doesn’t affect every Chromium-based browser.

Suavevillain ,
@Suavevillain@lemmy.world avatar

I will stick with using Firefox.

Andromxda OP ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

That’s the way to go

ZILtoid1991 ,

How long until it will be used as a backdoor to hack womeone’s PC?

rottingleaf ,

Negative number.

ILikeBoobies ,

Seems google has already done that

gencha ,

Chrome is the backdoor and you already installed it

4am ,

Remember when Google pushed for use of open standard in the browser to force Microsoft IE out of the market? Oh yeah I ‘member

paridoxical ,

They have become the evil they once sought to combat.

hendrik ,

LibreWolf, Mull, Chromium, ...

wanderingmagus ,

It’s apparently built into chromium

hendrik , (edited )

executing that command from the post returns the following on my Chromium:

VM68:1 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'sendMessage')
    at [HTML_REMOVED]:1:16
(anonymous) @ VM68:1
wanderingmagus ,

It turns out Google Chrome (via Chromium) includes a default extension which makes extra services available to code running on the *.google.com domains - tweeted about today by Luca Casonato, but the code has been there in the public repo since October 2013 as far as I can tell.

It looks like it’s a way to let Google Hangouts (or presumably its modern predecessors) get additional information from the browser, including the current load on the user’s CPU. Update: On Hacker News a Googler confirms that the Google Meet “troubleshooting” feature uses this to review CPU utilization

The code doesn’t do anything on non-Google domains.

Maybe it’s because you tried it on a non Google site? Idk.

hendrik ,

Hehe, I read that sentence, tried it on google.com

But forget what I said. I have the ungoogled variant of Chromium installed. No wonder that's not in there...

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