Uninstall Chrome.
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Uninstall Chrome.
Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
That Privacy Guy! (www.thatprivacyguy.com)
@mhoye sorry, I can't
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Listen to me.
Install Firefox from this link: https://www.firefox.com/
Uncheck the AI pref.
Install the uBlock Origin addon from this link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
That's it. There's more you can do, but spend a few days with a proper web browser and a real ad blocker and you'll get it.
@mhoye why not Brave
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@mhoye why not Brave
@sibrosan the cryptocurrency scam and eich specifically.
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@sibrosan the cryptocurrency scam and eich specifically.
@mhoye what is "eich"
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@mhcat My opinion is that librewolf is a misguided spite-fork with no meaningful test or deployment infrastructure and no security team at all. You can do whatever you want with your computer but if you care about security or reliability at all you're far, far better off using mainline firefox, and - if you object to the idea of telemetry or automatic updates - click those two checkboxes and get on with your life.
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Listen to me.
Install Firefox from this link: https://www.firefox.com/
Uncheck the AI pref.
Install the uBlock Origin addon from this link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
That's it. There's more you can do, but spend a few days with a proper web browser and a real ad blocker and you'll get it.
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@mhoye what is "eich"
@sibrosan the founder.
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@mhoye what is "eich"
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Listen to me.
Install Firefox from this link: https://www.firefox.com/
Uncheck the AI pref.
Install the uBlock Origin addon from this link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
That's it. There's more you can do, but spend a few days with a proper web browser and a real ad blocker and you'll get it.
@mhoye I mostly use Firefox, but have to switch to edge for many web stores
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@mhoye I can also recommend @Waterfox and @torproject / #TorBrowser…
@kkarhan @Waterfox @torproject Waterfox and Librewolf are both spite-forks with no security team and no update mechanism. You can do what you want with your computer, but if you care about security at all you're far better off on mainline Firefox with the options you don't like turned off.
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@mhcat My opinion is that librewolf is a misguided spite-fork with no meaningful test or deployment infrastructure and no security team at all. You can do whatever you want with your computer but if you care about security or reliability at all you're far, far better off using mainline firefox, and - if you object to the idea of telemetry or automatic updates - click those two checkboxes and get on with your life.
@mhoye @mhcat that’s a bit harsh, have you had a negative personal interaction with the Librewolf team? I’ve found that even with the toggles you mentioned, Firefox still sends data back to Mozilla constantly. It’s as if they don’t honor their own settings. With Librewolf I have yet to find any nefarious or secret behavior like that. I can’t speak to their test environment since I’m not a developer, but the fact that the entire reason for their existence is to secure and harden Firefox is why I use their browser.
I’m going to dig into your claims about their lack of security and testing because that kind of thing is deeply concerning.
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@kkarhan @Waterfox @torproject Waterfox and Librewolf are both spite-forks with no security team and no update mechanism. You can do what you want with your computer, but if you care about security at all you're far better off on mainline Firefox with the options you don't like turned off.
@mhoye then I guess @torproject / #TorBrowser is the way to go…
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@mhoye @mhcat that’s a bit harsh, have you had a negative personal interaction with the Librewolf team? I’ve found that even with the toggles you mentioned, Firefox still sends data back to Mozilla constantly. It’s as if they don’t honor their own settings. With Librewolf I have yet to find any nefarious or secret behavior like that. I can’t speak to their test environment since I’m not a developer, but the fact that the entire reason for their existence is to secure and harden Firefox is why I use their browser.
I’m going to dig into your claims about their lack of security and testing because that kind of thing is deeply concerning.
@kaidenshi @mhcat Not sure what to tell you:
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@kaidenshi @mhcat Not sure what to tell you:
@mhoye @mhcat So from what I gather, it's pretty much what I already knew: It's upstream Firefox with hardening and privacy focused changes, with community testing. It's not a funded effort, it's a community effort to improve security and privacy on the notoriously insecure and privacy-eroding Firefox. It makes sense that they rely on community testing and feedback as they are not a huge corporation with funding to do that themselves. I can't find fault with that; there are countless successful and useful projects out there in a similar position and if we faulted them all for lack of paid personnel we wouldn't have the open source ecosystem we all enjoy.
I get why someone would be cautious about a project like Librewolf; I was myself when I first heard of it but the fact is that it's simply a modified Firefox where all of the changes are positive and beneficial, if a bit heavy-handed in the name of security and privacy. I recently explored building it from source on OpenBSD and had the opportunity to compare changes in the source to upstream, and while I'm not a developer by trade I do have a little experience with coding and I never saw anything malicious or harmful. Then again, I am one person and it's a huge project.
Still, I'm put off by your statement "...librewolf is a misguided spite-fork...", that sounds deeply personal and emotional. I try not to let one person's negative interaction with another person or project color my viewpoint; if they have attacked you or otherwise acted negatively towards you I can understand your opinion, but I can't share it as that has not been my experience at all.
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@mhoye I mostly use Firefox, but have to switch to edge for many web stores
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@elebertus But when you can show them what adblocked internet looks like, it's like giving them clean running water for the first time.
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Listen to me.
Install Firefox from this link: https://www.firefox.com/
Uncheck the AI pref.
Install the uBlock Origin addon from this link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
That's it. There's more you can do, but spend a few days with a proper web browser and a real ad blocker and you'll get it.
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