• iAmTheTot@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    379
    arrow-down
    17
    ·
    1 year ago

    Nah. If you want to be outraged at Google, at least be correct.

    This has to do with Google “collections”, not synced bookmarks. Afaik, collections are a thing you only access on mobile through the google app, this doesn’t even have anything to do with Chrome.

    If you run chrome on mobile, for example, you don’t have access to the collections. It’s only through the google app.

    Almost certain they monitor collections because they can be shared with public.

    • kattenluik@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      83
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      They shouldn’t be monitored either way in my opinion as it’s just a bunch of links, but especially not while still private.

      Ultimately I don’t think it quite matters if it technically is bookmarks or “collections”, they seem clearly used in the same manner in this case.

      • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        100
        arrow-down
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t care if you’re mad about it like I said. I just care about accuracy. The person in the screenshot and this thread’s title are both inaccurate.

        • kattenluik@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          I didn’t ever indicate I was mad, I simply stated my opinion. We already know it is inaccurate as you shared this in your original comment.

      • blendertom@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        36
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        They aren’t. They are made from links that appear in Google search results. Google is notifying the person that the link you’ve saved is being removed. Therefore it will be removed from your collection as well.

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        32
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Eh… the ultimate question, what if it’s a collection of CSAM links?

        Some moderation is fine, especially when it can be shared pretty easily. This isn’t private bookmarks, it’s “private” bookmark collections.

        Edit: For those downvoting, this is the same concept as a private Reddit/facebook community. Just because it’s “invite only” doesn’t mean it’s free from following the rules of the whole site.

        • Ret2libsanity
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          60
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          CSAM is never an excuse to violate everyone’s privacy.

          I hate seeing people implying that it is. It’s no better then Patriot Act B.s that took away privacy in the name of catching terrorists.

          • Dojan@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            16
            ·
            1 year ago

            This once more reminds me of the guy in Sweden who got assaulted by police, in his bed, because an American institution searched through his Yahoo mail and found pictures and videos of him and his 30 year old boyfriend and incorrectly flagged it as CSAM, and then forwarded it to Swedish authorities.

            There was no justice after that. No repercussions for either the Swedish police or the American government, and no damages paid to the guy.

            Could this sort of surveillance stop abuse of minors? Yeah absolutely, but at what cost?

              • Dojan@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Yeah, absolutely. That’s literally what I said. In fact CSAM should come bundled on every single electronic device. Then it won’t be a problem anymore.

                Of course not. My comment was in response to the discussion about companies going through private emails and the like (which I recognise the original post isn’t about, but that’s what this conversation turned into) and how I take issue with that. You might argue that we have no right to privacy when we use products like gmail and whatnot, which would be a fair argument if they didn’t already dominate the market.

          • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            8
            ·
            1 year ago

            When those links are hosted on Google servers, publicly available to anyone handed the link to them?… how is that a private space?

            This isn’t reaching into your phone and checking the information you store on it, this is checking links you added and shared with others using their service. They absolutely have the right to check them.

              • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Except that’s not how it works.

                If I go into a public park, put up a tent, then start breaking the parks rules, I’m not “in the clear” just because I’m in a tent and didn’t invite anyone else in.

          • Piecemakers@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            8
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            The fact that you think “privacy” existed even then is telling. The only thing that changed in that regard with the so-called Patriot BS is whether the gov’t could do it without the guile that otherwise had been SoP for decades. 🤦🏼‍♂️

            • Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              I call them human parrots, they like to repeat words or phrases that they do not understand or lack full understanding to get the approval of their caretakers and receive treats.

        • ddnomad
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Words used to have meaning, you know. Like, for example, the word “private”.

          • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Private has various meanings in various contexts. If I take you to the private booth at a club, does it mean I’m allowed to slap around the waiter? No, of course not because rules still apply in private places hosted by a third party.

            If you want privacy in the context you explicitly mean, you shouldn’t be using anyone else’s hardware to begin with. If you expect any third party company to be fine with posting anything on them, you’re gonna have a bad time.

            For example, how many lemmy instances are fine with you direct linking to piracy torrents?

            • ddnomad
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              9
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I’d not expect the private booth to have the club’s employee sitting there and waiting for me to do something that is against the rules preemptively.

              We mostly argue about semantics, but in this instance you are trying to excuse some very questionable behaviour by companies by saying something along the lines of “well you better go and live in a forest then”. And I don’t think that’s a good take.

              For example, how many Lemmy instances are fine with you direct linking to piracy torrents?

              Irrelevant, as all content on Lemmy is public in a proper sense of this word.

              • intensely_human@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Yup. As an analogy, we rent apartments but that doesn’t revoke our right to privacy. We’ve decided people deserve privacy even if they’re only renting and not owning. Same should be true when one is renting space online to store things.

              • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                5
                ·
                1 year ago

                Irrelevant, as all content on Lemmy is public in a proper sense of this word.

                /sigh

                How many file hosting services let you share pirated data, publicly?

                Before you start in on “it’s not the same” it absolutely is. It’s private data, which is being shared through a link publicly. Just like bookmark collections.

                And once that file has been identified as piracy, it is very often fingerprinted and blacklisted from not only that instance, but all instances past, present and future.

                That’s essentially what is going on here.

                • ddnomad
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  10
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Scary illigal content here

                  I guess we test and see whether I get banned.

                  Also, it’s not the same. A link to a website is not “pirated content”. A link to a website in a “collection” not shared with anybody is not publicly available pirated content.

                  Why would Google preemptively ban a set of characters that does not constitute a slur and is perfectly legal to exist?

    • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      52
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m getting really sick at the amount of misinformation that gets spread here. There’s plenty of stuff to hate Google without making shit up, and resorting to misleading titles.

      • Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Beats me, I only use chrome if firefox cannot display the site correctly. And it’s a case to case basis at that, it has to be that I really really need to access that site.

        Also i rarely use the Google apps that came with my phone. The most probably used one is Maps.

        Edit : so yeah, I forgot. I’m on Android. There’s that, no escaping from them on my part. I can’t be bothered with using and installing my own phone OS.

        • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m with you. I’ve disabled some of the more intrusive system apps and Google apps, but there’s no replacement for Maps atm. The best I’ve found is OsmAnd, but it is unusable for me because there’s no way to track movement while observing the convention of north = up.

      • liquidparasyte@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Basically the Google equivalent of Pocket Reader; saves a whole bunch of links from Google News/Articles for you, Google search, and general web links. It’s not the same as your Chrome bookmarks (though at one point they were considering merging them until everyone hated it).

        • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Ok, I just checked. My collections consist almost entirely of saved maps locations of which restaurants and tourist places I want to visit. Interesting.

    • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Crazy that I had to scroll past 9 other comments to reach this one. Maybe I oughta start sorting comments by top.

          • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Okay sure but that’s not a service that google is explicitly providing and hosting on their server. Bookmarks are saved locally.

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      62
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s really that simple for much of their products. I really don’t understand why people still insist on using chrome, in particular. Google is a horrible company that would literally sell you into slavery if it was legal and they thought it’d boost their ad business somehow.

  • SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    153
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    Google keeps taking L’s and firefox keeps taking W’s. If they keep going maybe firefox will be most used browser again

      • Localhorst86@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        1 year ago

        A few days ago, a friend asked me what browser I was using, a question he asked me in a genuine manner of getting my opinion. When I asnwered that I was using Firefox, he - again, what seemed to be genuine - wanted to know why. Knowing that he likes to use adblockers, I then told him about Google’s recent attempts of attacking an open web, specificly mentioning ManifestV3 and WEI API and how they are a potential threat to his use of adblockers.

        “Well, I use ublock origin on chrome and it still works, so I’ll keep using that.”

        Apparently, I am not convincing enough.

      • baked_tea@discuss.online
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        Unless they sort out their funding (find someone that is not Google for majority of their money), people shouldn’t care.

        • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don’t understand. You think people shouldn’t care about privacy? You think people shouldn’t care about one or two massive corporations having complete control over the internet?

          Explain.

          • Event_Horizon@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            I think his point is that as long as Google is the primary funding source for Mozilla it’s not worth relying on Firefox because there’s always the risk Google will demand Mozilla capitulates and tows the line. Once/If Mozilla secure independent funding then they can be ‘trusted’

            • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              11
              ·
              1 year ago

              Oh, I see. For some reason, I thought they were referring to content creators and others who profit from Google ads or something like that.

              And yeah, there’s a lot that Mozilla’s corporate branch needs to sort out, but Firefox and its forks are the only viable alternatives to chromium browsers right now, so people should still care about that.

              “Perfection is the enemy of progress” … or something like that

              • BaconIsAVeg@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Making a browser isn’t terribly hard, and there’s dozens of ‘browsers’ (see nyxt, qutebrowser, vimb, brave, vivaldi, etc). Making a browser engine is hard, and expensive, which is why all of the alternatives i’ve used are either chromium or webkit based. The webkit ones seem to crash on anything with complex javascript. The chromium engine ones work great, however that doesn’t stop Google from making changes to the engine which people are up in arms about.

              • liquidparasyte@pawb.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Browser engines are very, very, very, very very hard to make and maintain.

                See: Opera and Microsoft Edge, which formerly ran on bespoke engines until they converted to Chromium because no one would support their browser.

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  It doesn’t matter, we literally have no choice. We either accomplish something very hard in our lives or suffer. And life is very very unkind to the indolent and downtrodden.

            • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Mozilla cannot be unplugged on demand. That would cause Google to become a monopoly, and they would be held to extreme harsh laws by the EU. Like in the case of IE6 back in the day.

              Google does not want that, so they donate to Mozilla to keep Firefox as a competitor. And Firefox has to do jack shit in return other than exist.

              The only way Firefox could be unplugged is if a new non-chromium browser becomes one of the big browsers.

              • baked_tea@discuss.online
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                This is all technically correct. Although I think it’s a little naive to say that a corporation “cannot” do something today. There are lots of things they technically cannot do yet it happens on daily basis.

    • June@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I hate that I have to keep chrome on my machine because some sites I visit don’t work well, or at all, on Firefox.

      • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ve heard a lot of people mention this recently and I must live a charmed life because I’ve never had this happen. There was I think maybe, once where I was having a problem with a site and it said that I needed to use a browser like chrome so I begrudgingly did and it still didn’t work so I don’t count that as an example and other than that, I’ve just never seen it. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s not since about 2001 that I’ve seen any website give me shit with only working on certain browsers and that was sites designed to work on IE6 or something.

        • June@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Just had it happen yesterday with the the students loan simulator. It wouldn’t work on Firefox and kept getting hung and freezing. Opened it in chrome and it worked perfectly first time.

          It’s not common, but enough that I keep chrome installed for now.

        • tehmics@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’ve used several sites that just won’t scroll in Firefox. Coursera is awful for this and a lot of job sites seem to use the same library because they have the exact same issue

        • devfuuu@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          When someone sends me links to instagram on my phone, firefox mobile can’t play the thing, I’m forced to open the link in chrome to watch the video. There are lots and lots of websites and webapps that don’t work or barely open on firefox. I’m forced to regularly open every week a few links on chrome/chromium on my computer as well. Although the amount as reduced a lot, some years ago it was worse.

      • facow [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The most annoying thing is the website that insist on displaying a banner everytime you visit to tell you that it won’t work on Firefox. And then it works perfectly fine

    • aceshigh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      and here i am stuck using chrome, firefox doesn’t install properly. i’ve tried a bunch of times. i have a chromebook.

        • hackris@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Syncthing just… syncs things. Say you have a folder that you want to automatically get synced between devices, syncthing is exactly for this.

          If you want something like Google Drive, you can run Nextcloud, which is like a self hosted Google Drive, but more powerful. You upload files, which get saved to the server, not just synced between devices. Then you can also sync them, sync calendars, news (RSS feeds), edit documents in it (assuming you install the correct extension), and a lot more things.

          • boatswain
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            That sounds pretty much just like SyncThing. Is the only difference that Nextcloud requires a server, rather than being decentralized?

            • hackris@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yep, it’s centralized. However, it offers more functionality than just syncing stuff. If you only want to sync files, syncthing is the simpler, more lightweight solution :)

            • filcuk@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Nextcloud includes OpenOffice integration, like Google Docs, and loads of plugins, such as kanban project management, notes like Keep, galleries, etc. Very much unlike Syncthing, both are useful for slightly different things.

              • boatswain
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Ah gotcha; so with NextCloud I could have multiple people editing an OpenOffice file simultaneously, like Google docs? That’s interesting, though not a use case that generally applies to me.

                • filcuk@lemmy.zip
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Correct. I think it’s unnecessarily complex to setup and maintain if you only need to store files.

  • gndagreborn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    84
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    1 year ago

    Are you fucking shitting me rn? I am sick of how lame this dystopian future is. Where are my neon lights and grungy underground bars? All we get in this timeline are takedown notices, corporate overreach, disappearing content and DMCA strikes.

    • Lurk99777@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Google has plenty of skeletons in their closet. OP didn’t have to make up new ones.

      Internet will internet though I guess

      • OverfedRaccoon 🦝@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think they meant the Kickass Torrents (KAT) link. It was taken down in 2016, but it looks like it’s back by the original people that were running it.

  • snor10@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    43
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I am so incredibly sick of this intrusive digital dystopia.

  • Linnce@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    People are saying this is fake, maybe that image in particular is, but I just got that email and that’s annoying me so here’s a pic

      • Linnce@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        From the collections yes, I can’t see that item there. They are just bookmarks from mobile device though, it’s been so many years I didn’t even know that was there lol.

    • worfamerryman@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      How long until Android starts blocking access to websites.

      I really do not trust these large tech companies.

      • Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        No no no you misunderstand

        They’re helping you avoid evil bad superungood pages that don’t have the right security levels.

        Maybe their SSH cert is for the wrong site!

        Maybe their SSH cert is just too old.

        Or maybe, heavens forbid, they dont even have an SSL cert?! Heavens to Betsy what shenanigans.

        Sometimes web pages spread malware. Sometimes they even spread copyright protected materials without the the rights to do so! Maybe we should start helping you avoid copyright infringement!

        • worfamerryman@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          My cell connection blocks some pirate sites. But I’m not using for that purpose, but the second my phone does it is the second I stop using that phone.

          • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I guess it’s just DNS level blocking. If you don’t want any blocks, switch to Cloudflare DNS. If you want a customized experience, you can create a free NextDNS account which allows for 300,000 queries/month. It also has many pre-existing blocklists for ads and trackers. You can try that out for free without signup with a temporary 7 day account, just click on “Try for free”.

            Or choose some other DNS provider.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is this just chrome? Or does this affect all chromium browsers? And yes, I already use FF, but I also use Brave for when FF doesn’t work.

    • ryper@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s about synced bookmarks. Do any browsers besides Chrome sync through Google?

      • UnverifiedAPK@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        Which technically speaking makes sense as those are Google-stored data referencing illegal data. You can’t store actual ripped movies in Google drive either. Just no browser has decided to pull the trigger on this policy before since it’s so much work to collect this data unless you’re an actual web browser company as well. (So I guess this might be coming to Edge in the future)

        • JGrffn@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Google literally crawls the web and serves piracy pages as search results, complete with keywords and all. How hard is it to just… Leave personal bookmark data alone? Encrypt it for the user and let it be? What the hell does Google have to be moderating personal saved links for?