-9 points

You can use a VPN but then that VPN will track you. People need to let “internet privacy” go. That’s a fairly tale for Toddlers. There’s no legislation that will come to save privacy ever not even in the eu, the government tracking is enough to make all the tech companies turn green with envy.

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0 points
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I hate it, but I tend to agree with your take. If you don’t want someone to be able to find out about it, don’t do it on the internet.

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4 points
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The only thing a VPN really does is to mask your IP address. Can be useful in some cases, but there are way more ways a website can track you (like browser fingerprinting).

Not that it debunks your claim that privacy is just a fairy tale.

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7 points

People need to let “internet privacy” go.

“Too hard; give up”? No thanks.

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-6 points

Lol I would give anything to live in such a naive state of mind. What bliss it must be.

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37 points

Use Firefox. Sure, a clean session of cookies isn’t going to keep you anonymous, but at least you can do it while not being on Google’s own browser and also have it collect information on you.

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6 points

It doesn’t matter. Companies have tracked cookielessly for a decade now thanks to Safari.

This is why everyone is OK with giving up cookies. They don’t need it. It’s a facade.

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2 points
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It still matters. Is it as effective as advertised? Not really. But it’s still doing something. Privacy and security are never a one off solution, but a group of methods/tools.

I also feel you missed my point in my original post. My point is, using “incognito” from a browser from a company like Mozilla is better than using it from a browser made by an advertising company. One of them has an incentive to screw you. One does not. And to reiterate, I never said it was a perfect solution. It’s mitigation.

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2 points

Is there any way to re-enable password saving in private mode? All the discussions say “you don’t want to do that because it’s a type of history” but it’s sure less convenient leaving Firefox in private mode all the time.

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4 points

I use a password manager with a browser plugin so it just pulls from that. You can choose to enable whatever extensions you want in private browsing mode.

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14 points

Thank you merciful Google immeasurably for agreeing to delete data that you shouldn’t have collected anyway!

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5 points

you shouldn’t have collected anyway!

Because it was in incognito mode? That’s never how it worked at all.

Because of moral reasons? Arguable.

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23 points

Google should have to clearly communicate to users what they did. Only few will even read and know about this. Rarely anybody will care.

Misbehavior on such a scale should at least be communicated so users can make an informed decision on their continued trust.

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21 points

The incognito mode start page literally tells you this. I do not know, how this is news.

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-6 points

It says it because of this lawsuit.

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17 points
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I’m sure it always done so. I’ve been aware of this the moment incognito mode was introduced.

Edit: here’s an old screenshot of Google chrome describing what incognito is: https://tfpcservices.net/software-tips-3/

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184 points

Pretty sure it’s always been upfront with that it still tracks you? I always thought of it as a “don’t store history and cookies locally” thing and nothing more. Maybe I read that disclaimer with more cynicism than most?

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10 points

it’s always been upfront

The language it uses/used to use was rather ambiguous, especially for less tech savvy people.

Perhaps it wasn’t false, but it definitely wasn’t upfront.

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11 points

What about it is ambiguous or not written for less tech savvy people?

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3 points

You do know they updated it soon after this became a major thing, right?

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-7 points

It is implied that google is not storing any tracking information…

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67 points

Yeah, it has always been the “don’t log my porn activity” mode. I don’t understand how so many people misinterpret it as some kind of privacy protection mode.

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34 points

Yeah, it has always been the “don’t log my porn activity” mode. I don’t understand how so many people misinterpret it as some kind of privacy protection mode.

Well, also the “log into your accounts on someone else’s machine without storing the account in the browser” mode. Or the “shop for your partner’s gifts without leaving a trail” mode. But yeah, primarily for porn.

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4 points

But yeah, primarily for porn.

https://piped.video/watch?v=LTJvdGcb7Fs

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6 points

“Always”? Nope.

“If you’re concerned, for whatever reason, you do not wish to be tracked by federal and state authorities, my strong recommendation is to use [Google Chrome’s] incognito mode.”

  • Eric Schmidt, 2014

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/01/05/super-cookies-can-track-you-over-google-incognito/

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16 points

Yeah, most websites do fingerprinting. I doubt Firefox is immune to it either. In fact, it probably makes it worse since there’s so few people using it.

https://amiunique.org/fingerprint shows me as being unique in both browsers, and that’s without even taking into account IP address which narrows you down to people on your connection anyway. Only a VPN will hide that.

They don’t need cookies to track your visits. Yet apparently they still need to ask if you want to share data with 2184 trusted data partners every time you visit without them, so maybe they can pack that the fuck in.

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8 points

I visited that site and rejected the cookies

I am now untraceable on the Internet

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21 points

Yeah I feel the same way.

I admit that I know quite a bit about computers and such but I thought everyone knew private mode isn’t intended to stop any tracking.

Pretty sure some browsers by default enable extra tracking protections when in private mode but that’s just an extra feature.

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