Google Spyware is still not removed

stilgarwolf

@gwen-dragon
This may help: I used Wireshark to monitor three instances of Vivaldi (snapshot, last version) on three computers: one Debian/64, two Win7/64, all extensions disabled, all privacy options related to Google disabled, some other settings may differ.
Two instances (Debian and Win7) were ok, but on third (Win7), every time Vivaldi starts it connects to Google (TCP port 5228, keep-alive), sends and receives some data.

After one start: 
Dst: mobile-gtalk.l.google.com (66.102.1.188), ... Dst port: 5228
After another start: 
Dst: wn-in-f188.1e100.net (74.125.71.188), ... Dst port: 5228

vivaldi --log-net-log=vivaldi_startup.json

matt2kay

Please take this seriously, Vivaldi! It's not the first time this topic has come up.

Para-Noid

I live in the USA.
We lack the privacy laws many European nations have.
I have found extensions like Ghostery to, at the very least, give me some control on what Google gets.
FYI, Yahoo collects metadata too.
Here in the USA you will not be able to stop very much of the Google/Yahoo data mining since the NSA, CIA and FBI rely on them for this information. 9/11 changed everything.

stilgarwolf

@gwen-dragon OK, reported.

mottenmouse

@stilgarwolf @gwen-dragon : Do you use notifications? Please check chrome://settings/content/notifications.
If yes:

you allowed notifications before
a cookie (google. com - Channel-ID) was set
on every Vivaldi start you will get at once a connection to the described IP-address on port 5228 (keep-alive)

For testing purpose: www.utopia.de is using notifications.

Windows 10 Pro. Vivaldi 1.13 (last stable)

mottenmouse

@gwen-dragon

Google drive: no
any Google software: no
tested with fresh Vivaldi standalone installations (1.12 and 1.13)

Steps to reproduce:
on a fresh Vivaldi 1.13 Stable installation, no extension.

Settings --> Privacy: disabled all "Third Party Services")
Settings --> Startup -> Homepage: "blank page"
Settings --> Startup -> Startup with: last session
visit utopia.de -> allow notifications
close all tabs, close Vivaldi
restart Vivaldi with the log command
the Vivaldi logfile and the firewall (G-Data, non free) shows the entry on port 5228

How can I send the logfile if I'm not the originator of the bugreport?

mottenmouse

@gwen-dragon No I didn't make a bugreport. ~~I want to send the logfile direct to VB-34858. I will create a new bugreport with the same title and send the attachment in reply to the bugreport mail.~~
New bugreport: (VB-35103) "Vivaldi connects to Google at startup, if notifications are allowed".
Logfile was send in reply to the bugreport mail.

paul1149

@ayespy said in Google Spyware is still not removed:

the only connections with Google are to compare version numbers/check for an update and to see if he browser wants to "sign in" (which it can't, being a non-Chrome browser)

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but Slimjet is a non-Chrome browser that signs into and uses Google user accounts.

Ayespy

@paul1149 Pretty sure SlimJet is not non-Chrome, but rather modified Chrome.

paul1149

@ayespy Thanks. Interesting.

TbGbe · Win: Snapshot Vivaldi 7.4.3671.3

@gwen-dragon said in Google Spyware is still not removed:

That will add a connection. See vivaldi://gcm-internals/

A new page !!
Hmm, apparently GCM involves time travel, should we be concerned ?

Next Checkin Tuesday, 2 January 1601 at 23:58:45

Slightly overdue!!

TbGbe · Win: Snapshot Vivaldi 7.4.3671.3

@gwen-dragon said in Google Spyware is still not removed:

Check it in Chromium 62

No chrom* on my PC.
Only Vivaldi and Opera using chrom* engine.
On Opera(dev) all entries on the internal gcm page are blank/empty, nothing enabled.

However, I'm not expecting to go to 1601 soon

yngve

There is no "spyware" involved here.

The two main reasons for Vivaldi to access Google servers automatically are:

Downloading and updating necessary components, the two major ones are the Certificate component and the Widevine video decoder. The certificate component performs extra checks on certificates, including revocation. The list of components is available on this internal page vivaldi://components
Downloading and updating the Safe Browsing blacklist. This is a so-called Bloom filter. This system works by calculating a very big number (hash) for the URL and parts of it. Then a few digits (32 bits) of these numbers are used to check in the local filter database. If the entry corresponding to the smaller number indicates that the URL may be blacklisted, Vivaldi uses more digits from the candidate number to request more information from the online Safe Browsing database, if still a possible blacklist, more data, using more digits of the number, are requested, until the server sends a list of URLs that are blacklisted. If one of the URLs is a match, then the page is block. At no time does Vivaldi send the URL to the server. The use of calculated hashes means that two almost identical URLs have wildly different hashes, but two wildly different URLs can have the same calculated hash (especially if one is using just a few digits). It is also almost impossible to reverse the calculation to get the original URL. These two points mean that it is not really possible for Google (or anyone) seeing the hash to tell which URL the user visited (in the case of the URL list, one might reasonably assume it was one of those, but it is still not a sure thing).

In neither case does Vivaldi send any cookies to the servers; only the IP address is, as always, known to the servers.

With respect to the connections to mtalk.google.com, this server is Google's Push Notifications server aka (Google Cloud Messaging, GCM). One of its uses is updates for a user's Sync data, which we are have disabled, since our Sync system uses a different system for such notification. Another use of this service is "Push Notifications" aka "Notification" from web sites. Whenever the user accepts Notifications from a website, persistent actions for receiving and handling these notifications are registered in Vivaldi, and among these actions is the establishment of a persistent connection to the GCM server, to listen for the notifications, and these connections are re-established immediately when Vivaldi starts. IOW, the connections to mtalk.google.com were initiated and configured by the user. Relevant URLs for this is chrome://settings/content/notifications , chrome://settings/siteData and vivaldi://gcm-internals

I hope this clears up some of the questions about this.

matt2kay

@yngve Much appreciate the clarification!

matt2kay

@gwen-dragon cc @yngve @jon Indeed. In general, I'd be looking forward to a more technical and detailed blog entry regarding Vivaldi and privacy. More in-depth than the admittedly fantastic TOS. After all one of my main reasons to use Vivaldi is wanting to shrink my use of Google products. And I'm sure I'm not alone with this.

Morg42

Funnily, I'm seeing this just now; I might have reacted earlier...

@matt2kay said in Google Spyware is still not removed:

I'd be looking forward to a more technical and detailed blog entry regarding Vivaldi and privacy

Do you have specific information regarding privacy (and/or implementation) you are hoping for? Or do you have a specific field where you'd like more technical information?

I think the above post clarifies most items with regard to connections to Google. It does not mention the often-criticized 224.x.x.x (or similar) multicast addresses, which in most scenarios will only be LAN-only.

matt2kay

@morg42 As I wrote in the original post I was being general and I see https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-different-from-chrome/ as the mission statement regarding privacy and the use of Chromium I was thinking about and hoping for.