Maddie D
· 2024-10-19 11:36 UTC
I thought this was bull but the references seem to back this up, I also found a few youtube videos that go into detail on how it works.
I so feel like Ive been taken advantage of now. Firefox it is and **** google.
The Dark Side of Google Chrome: How Your Browser Betrays You
The Curious Codex
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Google Chrome
There seems to be a fairly recent realisation that Google Chrome doesn't have your best interests at heart, and with recent leaks and testimony its becoming increasingly clear that Google Chrome is a privacy and performance nightmare.
Many people rightly understood that Google tracks their every move online using third party cookies and fingerprinting, but not many realised that their very browser was tracking not only their every move, but every click and mouse movement, everywhere.
Google, as a company provides many 'free' products, like Search, GMail, Maps, Docs, Android and Chrome, but these aren't 'free'. In exchange for using them, you sign over any hope you ever had for online privacy, and Google will not only track you, but consume your activity and use it at will to target ads, tailor search and latterly train AI models.
Every gmail, every document, your very physical location in the world, and every website you visit and how you interact with that website is scanned, analysed and retained indefinitely by Google. To many in the industry this is just 'how it is', and Google relies in the majority of people simply not caring, but as is becoming apparent, they should.
With Google knowing every site you visit, when and for how long, every document you ever created, every email you ever sent and received, and its content, everything you do on your mobile, and where you take it, they can quite literally influence your life. They can show you search results specific to your beliefs or opinions, they can pummel you with ads for the products you were just thinking about, and they can sell this data to anyone they want. We know they share it with advertisers, but do they share it with Facebook? of course they do, as facebook shares their data with Google.
Tracking in General
Browser tracking has been around for decades now, and Google didn't invent it but they certainly fine tuned it into an artform. When you sign in to ANY google service, Google creates a 'cookie' on your computer, and this cookie uniquely identity's you. As you browse the web, other websites including Search, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and any site with either Google Analytics or Google AdWords pick up these cookies and link your activity back to you. This is called third party cookie use, and governments and regulators are trying to put a stop to it.
Google, aware of the fact that regulation is coming, have developed two methods to get around third party cookies, firstly, fingerprinting, where your browser can be persuaded to give up information about your computer, which can then be used to help identify you, and secondly, Google Chrome - Yes, Chrome doesn't need third party cookies because it's already transmitting your every move back to Google.
Even if you never sign-in to any Google service, you're still tracked but Google doesn't know who you are, until that is, you sign in to any other social media platform, or any site that uses Google ReCaptcha, or any site that uses AdWords, or any site that uses Google Analytics, and then they do, and can backdate all your previous activity linking it to you.
Think you're anonymous on Reddit? Think again, Google knows exactly who you are and what you're posting and replying to.
Third Party Cookies
Whilst good browsers block third party cookies (allowing only cookies for the current domain name to be accessed), Google Chrome does not, allowing access to any cookie. This is bad in so many ways, but it's the primary method Google uses to track you through all of the websites you visit. If, for example, you're on Reddit, how does Google know what you're doing? Reddit includes scripts from Google (For recaptcha and login) on every page, and those scripts link your Reddit session to Google identifiers. Safari and Firefox automatically block third party cookies, whereas Edge and Google Chrome do not.
Fingerprinting, is a technique which allows Google to 'guess' who you are based on your Location, IP Address, machine identifiers and various hardware exposed by your browser, like audio, screen size, plugins etc. (Use our Client Toolkit to see what your browser is revealing about you). There has been a real push to improve fingerprinting recently as some browsers now block third party cookies making it harder for Google to track you in those browsers. However, fingerprinting is not as perfect as cookies and the data isn't as definitive, yet.
This is Serious
I'm not alone, and a growing number of users are not feeling warm and fuzzy about this. I and collectively we, do not want Google to know our every move, who we talk to, where we work, where we eat, who we email, what we say in those emails and where we drive, or walk to. That is NOT OK.
Maybe, it's time to start thinking about clawing back some modicum of privacy in our lives, and to do that we need to ditch Google. I don't mean never use Google ever again, but certainly to start the journey of moving away from Google. That is, Not using Google Chrome and Gmail, instead looking to more privacy aligned alternatives, and to more generally think about 'free' services, and what that actually means.
A wise man once said, "If its 'free', then you are the product" and that's totally true. No one does anything for free, certainly not Google, or Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Their business model is; You use the service, we get to advertise to you constantly, and the success of those advertisements depend on tracking you to find out what you like, what you don't like, what you are literally thinking about right now, and where in the world you are. It was recently shown that by visiting a department store carrying your phone, that department stores ads started to appear minutes later, and why not, its easily done.
Read online that turning on "Do Not Track" will fix all this? It won't, and only applies to some third parties, not Google, of course not Google.
Think a VPN is going to make you anonymous? It won't and Google is completely indifferent by your use of any VPN.
Exploitation & Manipulation
Exploitation; is a term sometimes used when describing Google, but actually factual. Their browser, Google Chrome not only sends everything you ever do back to Google, but it also uses your device to analyse web pages and send that data back to Google, so they can incorporate that into their search algorithms. Users get all bent out of shape when they discover their favourite game app is secretly mining bitcoin in the background, but it seems that allowing Google to use YOUR device to profile websites is ok?
Manipulation; Googles market domination with Google Chrome gives them significant power over web standards, and more so allows them to hinder extensions in their browser that could be of detriment to Google. Ad-blockers, for example are commonly used extensions that help users reduce or remove many of the intrusive ads, but Google have taken steps to limit such extensions running on Chrome. Likewise with Privacy focused extensions that attempt to block some of the data being harvested are now excluded from intervening in Googles data harvest.
Google search makes it harder or impossible to find articles about Google Chrome, unless they are positively reinforcing the use of Chrome, and this isn't surprising to anyone, but nevertheless, its dishonest.
These are all issues that should make users angry, but Google seems unconcerned by numerous privacy disclosures and criticisms, because, users keep on downloading the browser and using it, and as long as that is happening, nothing will change.
History
Chrome was launched in 2008, as a lightweight alternative to Internet Exploder, which I think everyone can agree was tragic, and at the time it quickly grew in popularity, and with that popularity Google could see obvious benefits in leveraging this uptake to improve what they do - serve advertisements. As time went on, Google simply expanded on this to repurpose your browser to serve their purposes.
Market Share
We can see from the chart, that since 2016 Chrome has mostly maintained its market dominance, primarily due to two factors, the prevalence of Android smartphones/tablets, and encouragement from 'institutions' who suggest customers to use Google Chrome. The latter are likely not complicit in Googles strategy but instead simply don't take the time to make their web applications compatible with other browsers. The number of times I've heard customers say "I've been told to use Google Chrome by xxx Bank", so thank you for that.
What is apparent, is that despite the peak of Google Chrome at 81% in 2021, times are changing and with more privacy focused browsers on the market, we are seeing small but evident gains by Mozilla Firefox now taking 1 in 10 users, and Opera breaking 2%, whilst Edge remains fairly constant at 3%.
It's important to understand that browser market share statistics are not 100% because Spiders and Crawlers are not always identified, and there's a degree of spoofing going on, but they are close enough to form an opinion.
What should I use?
Mainstream Alternatives include Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari, both of which claim the high ground when it comes to Privacy and Compatibility, and neither of which use anything from Google. Other browsers use parts of Google Chrome, like the engine Chromium so let's see who does, and who doesn't.
| Web Browser | Chromium | Website |
|---|---|---|
| Google Chrome | Yes | www.google.com |
| Microsoft Edge | Yes | www.microsoft.com |
| Opera | Yes | www.opera.com |
| Brave | Yes | brave.com |
| Vivaldi | Yes | vivaldi.com |
| Arc | Yes | arc.net |
| DuckDuckGo (browser) | Yes* | duckduckgo.com |
| Safari | No | Pre-Installed |
| Mozilla Firefox | No | mozilla.org |
| Zen Browser | No | zen-browser.app |
| Librewolf | No | librewolf.net |
* - Uses Webview based on Chromium
As we can see, Parts of Chrome are everywhere, but its important to understand that the Chromium 'engine' isn't the same as Google Chrome.
Google Chrome is the proprietary, and closed source product of Google, whereas Chromium is an open source engine that does the page rendering and display.
This is how 'other' browsers can use Chromium but are not Google Chrome. Browsers like this use Chromium only to render the page, without as much of the tracking and privacy issues (Although it was recently discovered that Chromium was sharing device information exclusively with Google, and that's across all Chromium based browsers).
Using Chromium to build your browser makes a lot of sense from a technological point of view since developing a browser engine is a huge undertaking and brings with it significant cost in development time, so browser vendors can use the open-source chromium to do the actual work, and put their skin on it, much in the same way that Haier probably makes your white goods, but you know them as Hoover, GE, Candy, Fisher, Aqua, Casarte etc.
We can therefore boil the browser market down into three flavours; Chromium, Mozilla and Apple, with some Chromium browsers possibly better than others, Firefox being completely independent and privacy-centric, and Apple providing privacy-centric Safari exclusively to Apple ecosystem users.
Mozilla Firefox
The Mozilla Foundation has its roots in the Netscape browser of the 1990s. When Netscape released its source code in 1998, it led to the creation of the Mozilla Organization.
In 2003, the Mozilla Foundation was established as a non-profit organization to ensure the continued development of open-source software. Firefox, their flagship browser, was first released in 2004 as a faster, more secure alternative to Internet Explorer.
Built on the principles of openness, innovation, and privacy, Firefox quickly gained popularity. Over the years, it has introduced numerous features like tabbed browsing, private browsing mode, and enhanced tracking protection.
The Mozilla Foundation's commitment to user privacy and an open web has made Firefox a favoured choice among privacy-conscious users and developers alike. Despite facing stiff competition from Google Chrome in recent years, Firefox continues to evolve, maintaining its focus on user privacy and web standards compliance.
Firefox is completely open-source, that means it's entire codebase is available to view and scrutinise, and this is a good thing, because when Firefox claims to be privacy focused, we know it is, we can see it is.
Zen
A newcomer to the browser space, Zen promises a lot and uses the Firefox engine rather than the Chromium one. It's still in Alpha, which means its not yet ready for general use, but it's certainly worth checking out with great things promised for the future. It describes itself as "Beautify, Fast, Private" and with the Firefox engine it can certainly promise that. It is fully open-source and has several features that set it aside, like split screen, compact mode, and others. The privacy policy, which is prominently displayed states, and I quote "No Telemetry", "No Personal Data Collection", "No Third Party Tracking", and what more can we ask for in a browser.
Librewolf
Librewolf is a fork of firefox (A fork is a copy of an open-source project with modifications) which began life in 2020 on Linux. Being based on Firefox there's no Google anywhere in this browser, and its default search engine is duckduckgo. Although not widely known or used, Librewolf promises the privacy centric design of Firefox without the 'bloat' that comes with Firefox, like pocket and google search. Its worth pointing out that both pocket and google search can be easily disabled in firefox if desired, but Librewolf starts without these.
Apple Safari
Safari, Apple's proprietary web browser, was first released in 2003 as part of Mac OS X Panther. Developed by Apple Inc., Safari was created to provide Mac users with a fast, sleek, and integrated browsing experience.
Over the years, Safari has become known for its speed, energy efficiency, and tight integration with Apple's ecosystem. In terms of privacy, Apple has positioned Safari as a leader in user protection. It includes features like Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), which uses on-device machine learning to identify and prevent cross-site tracking, and Private Browsing mode.
Safari also blocks third-party cookies by default and provides privacy reports for users.
Unlike Firefox, Safari is closed-source, meaning its code is not publicly available for scrutiny. While this approach allows Apple to maintain tight control over the browser's development and security, it also means users must trust Apple's claims about privacy and security without the ability to independently verify them. Despite this, Apple's strong stance on user privacy in recent years has bolstered Safari's reputation as a privacy-focused browser, among Apple device users.
Its unfortunate that Apple discontinued Safari Development on Windows, leaving the last functional version at 5.1.7. If you're not using an Apple Mac or iPhone then you're out of options for using Safari.
In Conclusion
The dominance of Google Chrome in the browser market has raised significant privacy concerns. As we've explored, Google's data collection practices and the widespread use of the Chrome engine in many popular browsers make it challenging for users to maintain their online privacy. However, alternatives do exist.
Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari stand out as the primary options for those looking to distance themselves from Google's ecosystem. Firefox, with its open-source nature and strong commitment to privacy, offers transparency and user control. Safari, while closed-source, benefits from Apple's robust stance on user privacy and seamless integration with Apple devices.
As users become more aware of online privacy issues, we're seeing a gradual shift in browser usage patterns. The slight but noticeable gains by Firefox and other privacy-focused browsers indicate a growing desire for more secure and private browsing experiences.
It isn't just Browsers, online privacy generally has been under attack from corporations who are ever pushing the limits of what they can get away with, take any app you download for your mobile phone and check the 'data' it collects. Does it need access to your contacts, location, and call history? No, almost never but we've let them get away with this for too long now.
Ultimately, the choice of browser and online footprint comes down to individual preferences and priorities. However, for those concerned about online privacy and looking to reduce their dependence on Google's ecosystem, exploring alternatives like Firefox or Safari could be a significant step towards reclaiming some control over their digital footprint.
Remember, your choice of browser is just one aspect of online privacy, but its an important one. We will see more regulation in the coming years especially in the EU around privacy, and 'other' websites are going to find tracking you isn't as easy or even possible, but Google Chrome users will not benefit from this as their browser of choice will track them regardless, and consume their resources to feed Google's Search.
References
Comments (5)
Alica P
· 2024-10-18 09:49 UTC
I used to use chrome everywhere, but since reading this and other articles online Ive completely moved to firefox. So far its going well and everything is working just the same, but without google tracking my every move.
Alex S
· 2024-10-09 16:15 UTC
In reply to Ira I think banks are just morons, their support is all outsources and they have no idea what they are saying just reading from a script.
Google Chrome is a serious risk, but with it being the default browser on pretty much every andoid phone what can you do
I remember when Microsoft was chastised because it had IE as the default browser on windows, and were forced to give users the option, but Google can dominate the andoid browser market
You have two choices, Firefox or Safari, and Safari is only on apple devices now thanks for that
Ira F
· 2024-10-09 15:54 UTC
My bank insisted that I use google chrome or their website would not work! Are they getting some sort of kickback for promoting this or are they just morons
Aloxa M
· 2024-10-05 11:46 UTC
Interesting article, and I like the references which substantiates it. I will certainly not use chrome again, but do you think anyone actually cares Most people just want free, free google this and that, and they dont care whos tracking them or selling their data. These are the same people who use facebook and put all their personal information in, etc. Stupid or just dont care.
You wont change the world, but its nice to see someone reporting it. oh and I subscribed thank you.
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