google connections.
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@KSB said in google connections.:
The high and mighty Brave is chromium too, are the same Google connections baked in there as well?
i would of thought so..if those connections are blocked then you make yourself insecure..
srware iron browser is an example of how NOT to fork chromium,
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I suggest all those that have an issue should be blocking google domains properly via HOSTS or similar DNS blocking, then stop worrying about what the browser can do if you can't be bothered disabling those options.
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@Dr-Flay Well, Ungoogled-Chromium is a good option but not for Windows..
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromiumAnd DNS blocking all of Google is pretty much impossible, you'll never get everything.
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@KSB I have had all goolge connections with all browsers disabled in windows for ages and have never had an issue.
Not to say it won't happen but my AV has live monitoring of web transactions and although I use the internet a lot I am usually just on one project at a time so I have an idea of where I'm going and if I actually want to go there,
I do not even trust VirusTotal, agooglealphabet company, anymore. They are just filtering their own spyware as "Clean". -
@greybeard "Never had an issue"? What does that mean?
You got your own DNS server? You know for sure there are absolutely no google queries of any kind? How much traffic is IP targeted back to Google without DNS? You firewalled all that too?
I have a Pi-Hole and external firewall, block one seemingly random string subdomain of google and another pops up. Not worth tearing your hair out over.https://firebog.net/
https://github.com/blocklistproject/Lists
There's a reason these guys don't maintain a table to actively block everything google related. There'd be no end to that, more so than what they currently go after - and they have facebook blocklists. I haven't seen any blocklists anywhere else either that purely target Google. If you've seen, please share.I do what I can to cut them out too, but I don't kid myself in thinking I have zero traffic going to google. Probably never will. And I use a Graphene phone.
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@KSB perhaps I mispoke... By saying I
have never had an issue
I meant that I've never had a site try to deliver malware without me being warned. Even with google malware and phishing "protection" dissabled.
In my browsers, where possible, I disable:- Search suggestions
- google malware and phishing "protection"
- using a google DNS (I use quad9)
- use a google service to Autofill
- any type of suggestions in address or search fields
My AV does not block any and all google requests, in fact I have not even set it to do that. It is just malicious sites I worry about and google snooping and MS snooping and so on...
There are only cerain things I can't control. I recognize that and act accordingly.
I am paranoid, about 60%, because I know they're watching, but as a normal user there are only so many tools available to me. I use them with discretion as the act of using them draws attention to myself. -
@greybeard , Google on Android is really annoying. Today I was checking my mail on my mobile and following a link sent to me by a friend. I do what I do, the link opens in Chrome, despite having put Vivaldi as default browser (I don't have root access and can't delete Chrome). Worst of all, then the links appeared in Vivaldi's history.
It was the last time I opened an email on Android. -
@Catweazle I don't use pure Android but Amazon Kindle Fire OS based on Android 6.x but this may help
- I use the MS Outlook app for email
- Installed is FireFox Klar (or whatever browser)
- In app settings set your browser to "Open links" if there is such a setting (I get a more than my share of dodgy links so I want them opened somewhere safe)
- Any links you tap on in Outlook should open in whatever browser you've chosen.
Hope this helps.
P.S.
I have to agree with you about Android. It's my device. I paid for it. I paid for the apps.
Yet the maker will not allow me to customize as I wish -
@greybeard , I don't have that many luxuries, it's a 'smart'phone Alcatel 1C, which costs โฌ 45. For my needs it is sufficient, but it does not support many customization options.
That Android is Google spyware I have assumed it, so I use the PC for important things. -
What I want to know is why Vivaldi and Iron browsers both want to make connections to Doubleclick and Google-analytics when starting up. I blocked those with my outbound firewall, and have seen no problems with browsing as a result. Why connect to snoops like that?
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@Streptococcus Vivaldi does not make connections to Doubleclick or Google Analytics on startup. It does make connections to specific Google servers because of built-in Chromium component updates, Safe Browsing, Spell Checker, Extension updates and so on:
https://vivaldi.com/blog/decoding-network-activity-in-vivaldi/The activity you're seeing is probably coming from an installed extension.
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@Pathduck
My outbound firewall caught those things going by UDP to both Doubleclick and Google-Analytics. Why UDP? I thought streaming media used that. -
@Streptococcus OK this thread was specifically about someone claiming Vivaldi contains "spyware" from Google and the article I link tries to explain why Vivaldi needs to make connections to Google servers on startup for certain things. Some extensions might also make outgoing connections to various servers on startup.
But if this was during regular browsing, then chances are these UDP connections are HTTP3/QUIC.
See:
https://blog.cloudflare.com/http3-the-past-present-and-future/
https://blog.chromium.org/2020/10/chrome-is-deploying-http3-and-ietf-quic.htmlThere's not a lot of sites using HTTP/3 at the moment, but more are sure to come. If you open Devtools on the Chromium blog above, and enable the Protocol column, you will see things things like
h3-Q050
which is HTTP3 and the QUIC version.Be warned though, that while HTTP/3 will probably still work if you block UDP, it might also cause site issues or delays if the browser needs to change protocol.
I definitely agree that seeing outbound UDP connections on your system would usually be a sign that something fishy is going on. Well, unless you torrent that is
And I'm not sure I think this HTTP/3 thing is a good idea, but it's out there and it's a spec from the IETF, so it will be adopted more in the coming years. I'm especially worried that this is yet another spec developed mainly by Google, and what their ulterior motives might be. After all, Google's primary objective is to make $$$, not make the internet better for everyone...
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@Pathduck
As far as I am concerned, anything trying to contact Doubleclick or Google Analytics is acting like spyware, however it does it, so I have blocked access to those sites from Vivaldi with the outbound firewall. -