No, Google! Vivaldi users will not get FloC’ed.
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@dude99, this is why it is urgent to promote alternative products to Google and get as far away from this company as possible. This is the only way, when losing customers, that Google gives up these activities. As in all harmful products, only the user himself can end up with these, by stopping consuming them, politicians cannot be expected to do so.
Although I think, by the EC's own regulations, at least here, Google will not be able to put these 'inventions', but in many other countries. -
@guigirl , I agree, but it does not mean that I continue to promote the use of alternatives where I always can.
Even Vivaldi, although quite 'un-gargled', still depends too much on the Dark Tower, even taking it in the contextual menu (click on a image, search with G, opens G search) and depending on the Store, which squeaks me a lot, like finding a spider in the cafe. -
@Catweazle This is what I worry about.
Today's Google ain't the old Google anymore, it have insert itself into Biden's White house. God knows what they can do from within with that senile old man... Also, G Chrome have become too big to fail, they may loss few millions users for months, but they will survive & continue to push ahead in the name of maximize profits.
Unless, there is a proactive group of noises loud enough to generate a social stigma around FLoC like dragonfly, tweeter, or CNN, then Google might have to put it on the back burner until they manage to repacked it. But currently I don't see it would happen that way, cuz everyone just try to avoid FLoC & not to upset the big G too much.
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@dude99 , for this reason, this information must be disseminated as much as possible, this is the only way that they are more than just a few million.
It does not change anything in the saying, that the market can only be changed by the consumer himself.
Spread the word- -
I've always blocked 3rd-party cookies. I don't remember the option in Spry or Spyglass Mosaic, but I remember the option being present in Internet Explorer, sometime around IE 3, 4, or 5. It was also in Netscape and pre-evil Opera. It's never broken a web page for me in all that time until last year, when I had to use MS Teams for something at work. The teams web interface does some pretty unnecessary random-juggling of cookies and domains just to log you in. It's so convoluted you have to actually lower Firefox and Vivaldi's privacy and security settings from the fresh-install defaults, to make it work!
Similar case with Firefox's first-party isolation and ResistFingerprinting about:config options, along with tweaks to the xoriginpolicy and xorigintrimmingpolicy. I enabled them in that browser as soon as they existed; I've only seen breakage this year (anything that redirects while authenticating, e.g. paying for something with Paypal, or online shops where a 3rd party credit-card payment page loads). Prior to this year, these features gave no noticeable impact on my browsing.
I have a few concerns about the effectiveness of Floc and its implementation, so I'm really glad Vivaldi is taking this stance! That said, there are several issues that may still rear their ugly heads:
De-facto standards Hopefully this technology, as described, can't become some sort of de-facto web standard, but I think this is still a plausible threat. Even if it's not published/accepted as an official web standard, if Goggle push it on webmasters and include it in the most popular browser, there could come a point where it is so widely-adopted that it essentially becomes a requirement to view a site. If every site starts using this nonsense and requiring their viewers to enable it, there will be no meaningful way to opt-out because doing so would render the web essentially inaccessible. This reminds me very much of Microsoft's old "embrace, extend, eliminate" policy. This would result in a Goggle-controlled web, with Goggle Crummy-um as the only web browser in existence. Think "This site works best in Internet Explorer" on steroids, or the MSN fiasco with no possibility of a "Vivaldi Bork edition".
No meaningful opt-out Apparently we have "choice" when it comes to our privacy, cookies and things on line. Apparently Goggle and Facecrook give us the "power" to be "in control of our data". I could say that this is complete and utter bovine-excrement, but Fakebook and Goggle would probably tell me that making such a statement would be "double-plus ungood". Basically because we have a "legal right" to be able to "opt out" of tracking, most companies pay lipservice to the concept without prividing a meaningful way to opt-out. For instance, both services have endless pages of illogically-grouped, disparate options to reduce data-collection, which are often hidden away. They make it so inconvenient and difficult that to many it would be prohibitive. Similarly, with cookie-notices on web sites, you get the option to disable tracking cookies, but quite often this is behind pages and pages of options for each individual advertising network. Or there's a list of 100 different cookies, with an "accept all" button and no "reject all" button, so they have to be disabled one by one to be opted-out of. Then there's all the American web sites that can't be bothered with GDPR so just geoblock Europe. Or dark patterns, such as a massive, highlighted "Track me and enable all this cool stuff" button, and a smaller (or hidden) option "No thanks, I don't want to save money or get fast delivery". These aren't allowing users "meaningful consent". Similarly, if a site decides not to allow users access if they don't accept being violated and abused, the site is still "working", however in practise the user has no meaningful choice. They either accept the unacceptable or browse elsewhere (if "elsewhere" is available).
I think these two above points mean that Goggle's new "privacy" antifeature has the potential to pose a significant threat to online freedom and also the very existence of alternative browsers. It's another way in which Goggle become the gatekeeper of the internet.
And all this to perpetuate a revenue model that's broken to begin with:
Targeted ads don't work. I used to use Facebook a little bit, and no content-blocker seemed to be able to remove sponsored posts etc., so that was the one place I ever saw adverts. Perhaps a few months after I'd bought my modern car, Facebook recognised it in a photo or perhaps some accompanying text, and decided I needed to be bombarded with adverts to have an experience as a passenger in one at a racetrack, go to a dealership and look at one, etc. I also once put a Youtube playlist on someone else's computer, which contained bands such as Immortal and Lamb of God. "Christian dating" adverts subsequently started following my ironically very Pagan-and-proud friend around the web for a little while. What would have been more effective? Those web sites could have just hosted ads based on what was on their actual pages! No profiling required!
You can't bully people into liking you. If people are going to the effort to change default browser settings to block tracking, profiling and the like, and if they are setting "do not track" (which is universally-ignored) that's sending a very clear message: "I'm not interested, I don't click ads, I won't buy anything, you won't get any money from me, you're wasting your time". If companies feel like they need to find ways of defeating this and sneaking around this, then they clearly know what they are doing is wrong and they are quite simply bullying, violating and irritating the people they hope to win-over as customers. Please excuse the language, but I don't know many businesses where you win new customers by p
ing them off! I know a lot of people will say "but the people who purchase the ad-space are the real customers, the surfers are just the product" - but the money has to enter the system in the first place from people buying stuff because of ads - i.e. the surfers. If ads were less obnoxious and respected "do not track", everyone wouldn't be blocking them, and there'd be no need for these new Orwellian "web-experience enhancing" workarounds.Anyway, sorry for the long rant, which probably echoes what a lot of other people here are already saying. I hadn't quite expected this post to get so long, but hey, you know what it's like when something really winds you up!
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I think that in general the ads are overvalued, I don't believe in their efficiency, given the over-saturation that we experience every day, not only on the Internet, but in daily life, in every corner there are posters and illuminated advertisements, in Newspapers, television, radio ..., no one notices them and they do nothing but annoy.
If a product is good, people will use it, if not, the ads also do not serve to confirm something else.
People, if they need something, go to the store, to the car dealership, to online stores, they look for what they need and buy it if it corresponds to their needs, there is no more.>Laptop ACER, AMD Ryzen, GPU AMD Radeon RAM 16GB, SSD 512GB -Win11 Home 64 v24H2| Vivaldi last stable|
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Ohhh, Man! I can't believe I completely missed one huge, major component! Yes, I got rid of Chrome a/w/a Chromium on my Linux-run computer, and I am trying to get rid of my Gmail account (which I am open to suggestions about) but I have been using Google Rewards and buying some Google Play Cards to use like real money for games, movies and such. I can't remember how many times I have answered dozens of questions for a few cents here and there. I was actually suckered into the idea that the questions were always from anonymous (to me, but not the other way around) companies that wanted to run surveys. And there are. In fact any of us can pay Google to use Google Rewards for any kind of surveys that you can direct almost any way you want. But I have been answering so many questions for a couple of years! Hmm, actually...I can never remember my blood type or the Rh Factor match (the positive or negative part of the blood types). Yeah, I mean by now, Google has to know that as well.
Wow. Sorry, I am still just blown away by my stupidity. -
@jamesbeardmore: Totally agree! Do you know how difficult it is to change the WebView Implementation from Chrumb to AngryDroid System Webview (which is trading one bad for another as Geegle owns AngryDroid anyway!) but it took over 10 tries and I have auto updates disabled but Chrumb took liberties anyway.
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@dude99 i am not saying Google is good, just that FloC is easy to change or randomize, this, you shouldn’t be so worried
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@code3 , you can use the system that CyDec uses, which blocks nothing, delivers everything that the pages request, but all random fake values. This is what is normally expressed with the middle finger.
>Laptop ACER, AMD Ryzen, GPU AMD Radeon RAM 16GB, SSD 512GB -Win11 Home 64 v24H2| Vivaldi last stable|
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great job, guys. Appreciated!
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@Catweazle I would like to but it has a limited free plan that seems to break too many websites. Maybe I will try it again, instead of trace, which is not as good as I thought. I also suggest ScriptSafe, time zone spoof based on IP, and Font Fingerprint Defender if you have strange fonts.
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Thanks!!
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@code3 , make no mistake, Trace is very good, but just like CyDec breaks pages, if you activate all the blocking it has.
With everything activated in Trace, for example in YT you will only see a blank screen. Also in Trace you have to find a compromise.
Ahora como lo tengo configurado, no rompe hasta ahora ninguna página, pero ya no hay Google header y YT ni siquiera guarda mi historial. -
"FLoC does have very serious implications for people who live in an environment where aspects of their personality are persecuted — be it sexuality, political viewpoint, or religion. All can become a part of your FLoC ID."
Yikes! I guess all I have to add to that is: "It can't happen here" are the words of a fool! So don't think this doesn't endanger you, just because you live in the West or something.
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@Catweazle said in No, Google! Vivaldi users will not get FloC’ed.:
I think that in general the ads are overvalued, I don't believe in their efficiency, given the over-saturation that we experience every day, not only on the Internet, but in daily life, in every corner there are posters and illuminated advertisements, in Newspapers, television, radio ..., no one notices them and they do nothing but annoy.
If a product is good, people will use it, if not, the ads also do not serve to confirm something else.
People, if they need something, go to the store, to the car dealership, to online stores, they look for what they need and buy it if it corresponds to their needs, there is no more.My whole life, I have questioned the effectiveness of advertising...
To the point where I am conscious of the rare times I see an advert and realise it has actually informed me of some product I wasn't previously aware of. That really doesn't happen very often.
The received-wisdom that every company must do it and that it's essential to the consumer society doesn't seem to match up with the amount of wasted time, money and effort (and annoyance) it sucks up.
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@Eggcorn said in No, Google! Vivaldi users will not get FloC’ed.:
@mossman I suspect ads are targeting the whales (see definitions #5 and #7), not the common man. In other words: That ads are going after the people who impulsively spend lots of money.
Maybe for online purchases, but I don't see how that applies for the average TV ad for cleaning products etc.
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Humans could now be defined as sheep. I for one have no desire to be in a FLoC about to be fleeced.
Money the root/route of all evil.
Viva VIVALDI.
