Microsoft admitting Chrome is a better browser?

[Glenn]

"We will offer our Windows platform expertise to improve the experience of all Chromium-based browsers on Windows," reads a letter from Microsoft to the Chromium open-source community. "We recognize that making the web better on Windows is good for our customers, partners and our business – and we intend to actively contribute to that end. We welcome the opportunity to partner with the Chromium community in the areas of battery life, touch, accessibility, security, and other areas of mutual interest."

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128661/microsoft-chromium-project-chrome-support-windows

[robinc]

I use Slimjet which is based on Chromium. I greet this news with sadness and despair.   

MS will no doubt 'improve' it to the point where it is totally out of user control with no way of adding ad-block and other useful extensions.

MS is only concerned with total domination of all it touches and it's insane to think that it will contribute anything to anything in the spirit if open source.

[nowster]

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

[zappaDPJ]

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

[nowster]

It's a real thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

[zappaDPJ]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it's a perfect fit for some of their more dubious business practices. I had no idea it's for real.

[steve195527]

and you trust google more than Microsoft?most seem to forget chrome is a Google product and Google do make Microsoft seem like Mother Theresa when it comes to treating users privacy with any kind of respect,I read into it that Microsoft want to make Chrome work better on Windows to try to stop users moving to other platforms, especially as chrome books are now getting established

[JB]

Personally I use a browser called Slimjet. This is a browser based on Blink and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is not open source but trusted by a large number of people.

Slimjet can be used with Google Chrome extensions but does not have the 'phone home' code as Chrome does. Might be worth trying out.

https://www.slimjet.com/

[nowster]

Remember that Chrome and Chromium are distinct. Chromium doesn't have the Googlespy stuff.

[Technical Ben]

and you trust google more than Microsoft?most seem to forget chrome is a Google product and Google do make Microsoft seem like Mother Theresa when it comes to treating users privacy with any kind of respect,I read into it that Microsoft want to make Chrome work better on Windows to try to stop users moving to other platforms, especially as chrome books are now getting established

No. But when the crash *together* it gets worse. Having both = each is half the size. 

[steve195527]

Remember that Chrome and Chromium are distinct. Chromium doesn't have the Googlespy stuff.

I wouldn't be surprised if chromium contained some spyware hidden so deep by google when they initially wrote the source code that chromium browsers are based is based on  that the developers of it aren't aware of,it's only come to light recently that android phones still track and report back even when everything that is supposed to track you is disabled,I bet most of the phone makers didn't realise that either,to be honest I also feel anything open source is open to abuse of users ,not just development for the good of users,anybody remember who/which company objected the most when Microsoft introduced the "do not track" option into IE?

This is interesting :-
https://www.howtogeek.com/108384/6-alternative-browsers-based-on-google-chrome/

[nowster]

The tracking from Google is part of the huge Google Services library, which is closed source. Chromium is open source.

[steve195527]

The tracking from Google is part of the huge Google Services library, which is closed source. Chromium is open source.

I did indicate it is open source in the last post,the original source code is by google,how can you be 100% there is nothing included in the code they released for others to work with that there is not something there that does just that?things keep getting found in the android OS that really shouldn't be there from a user privacy point of view

[Technical Ben]

I did indicate it is open source in the last post,the original source code is by google,how can you be 100% there is nothing included in the code they released for others to work with that there is not something there that does just that?things keep getting found in the android OS that really shouldn't be there from a user privacy point of view

Because it is open source. You can see where/how it is made and make it your self. That's like saying there might be tracking in the cake you just made. XD
Android is different, it's an entire OS, and is part of Google.

Chromium is more like Java, or Linux Kernel etc. With the Google stuff on top. Yes, things sneak through/errors are made at times. But no more or less than any other browser (you/we cannot be 100% certain MS/Firefox/Vivaldi/etc don't decide to sell out to google tomorrow, or did 3 months ago and told no one).

So Chromium is as secure or less secure as anyone else, even with Googles fingers in the pie.

[steve195527]

Because it is open source. You can see where/how it is made and make it your self. That's like saying there might be tracking in the cake you just made. XD
Android is different, it's an entire OS, and is part of Google.

Chromium is more like Java, or Linux Kernel etc. With the Google stuff on top. Yes, things sneak through/errors are made at times. But no more or less than any other browser (you/we cannot be 100% certain MS/Firefox/Vivaldi/etc don't decide to sell out to google tomorrow, or did 3 months ago and told no one).

So Chromium is as secure or less secure as anyone else, even with Googles fingers in the pie.

your analogy to a cake made by you or me is totally wrong:-you can choose ingredients from scratch, unadulterated by anyone with any browser (or even OS)based on code initially written by a 3rd party, in this case google, you have no way of being 100% sure what is included in the original code which all chromium browsers are based, by selling out to google or turning to google are you referring to the way Opera has decided to go?
The problem is at the moment is most of online stuff is now being designed to work with chrome based browsers the best, like historically it used to be IE, so I can see other browsers eventually becoming chrome based, I wonder if governments  will step in to stop such a monopoly like they have in the past with Microsoft,I may be being paranoid but with things they have done in the past regarding user privacy I just don't trust anything google or google based, no matter how "far removed" it may be from the initial product it is based
I'm not sure how much if at all users of the initial browser code are allowed to back engineer it,are you?

[Technical Ben]

your analogy to a cake made by you or me is totally wrong:-you can choose ingredients from scratch, unadulterated by anyone with any browser (or even OS)based on code initially written by a 3rd party, in this case google, you have no way of being 100% sure what is included in the original code which all chromium browsers are based, by selling out to google or turning to google are you referring to the way Opera has decided to go?

You seem to be missing the point. You are claiming paper must be evil, because it's used by the Daily Mail, and they own the paper mill. What you put in/on a thing is different to what the thing is. Or that you don't want to use Daily mail paper with your chips, because it must be evil, so use Evening Telegraph instead? How do we know Gecko or Spartan are not doing the same as Chromium? But you say Chromium is worse? That's illogical.

Any tracking *in* Chromium (Blink) is going to be the same, or similar, to any tracking in Edge (Spartan? I forget the actual codebase name), Gecko or Webkit. Because, as you say, it's all magically hidden? If it's hidden, then we don't know. If it's opensource, we have some knowledge of it. Our knowledge is that there is none.
https://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-chromium-and-chrome/
[Actual code and packet analyses from people states:]

Code Select Expand

With my limited knowledge, I recently used Fiddler to do some traffic analysis. This is what I know.

Most often, when you open Chromium browser, it connects to Google to update the extensions installed. It regularly checks up if the extensions are up to date and if not, it will update them.

Also, there will be some DNS queries being made when you open Chromium. I read on the web that the queries are being made to check if the ISP is doing any funky business while responding to URLs requested.

Since Chromium is open source, and since the code is being viewed by hundreds of thousands of developers on the Internet, I think its safe to assume that no browsing data is being sent to Google.

However, Google will know your IP every time you open the browser. And any queries made on Google search, or visiting to sites that have Google Analytics installed can be easily tied up to the user. But it the same whether you use any other browser.
The only thing that other browsers help is that Google doesn't automatically know your IP when you open other browsers.

These are the observations I made so far, and I want someone to correct me if I am wrong.

You can, and I agree with, blame Google and Chrome for anything under the sun. But that is not what Chromium is. You can say we don't want to use Chromium because it economically supports Google, and it's morally wrong. But factually, the Chromium (or Blink if just using the render engine) part has nothing to do with the "business practices" of data collection. It *may* support product segmentation and monopolisation, but I was only commenting on the *tracking* of the browser engine used by other companies developing on top of Chromium.

Google literally cannot get any data from you is using their render engine. There are risks, such as using a customer feedback form, error reporting, etc. But anyone using Blink/Chromium are gonna send that stuff back to themselves, not fill Googles box with divergent codebase error reports.

I'm not sure how much if at all users of the initial browser code are allowed to back engineer it,are you?

Many. Because it's opensource? Get sure first, then come back and tell me. [Edit] If you mean make actual pull requests on code changes, then no, they IIRC have to be part of the Chromium development. But as said, SWIron and other browser developers would swap to Gecko/Webkit if Google was phoning home. Google does seem to do some connectivity checks, extension/update checks... but like I said, every browser except 100% "secret" browsers do this. It's part of a computer and the internet.[/edit]

I agree, monopoly == bad, tracking == bad. But Gecko =/= tracking. Web Browsers == tracking. All of them require it... they connect to the internet. 

[steve195527]

You seem to be missing the point. You are claiming paper must be evil, because it's used by the Daily Mail, and they own the paper mill. What you put in/on a thing is different to what the thing is. Or that you don't want to use Daily mail paper with your chips, because it must be evil, so use Evening Telegraph instead? How do we know Gecko or Spartan are not doing the same as Chromium? But you say Chromium is worse? That's illogical.

Any tracking *in* Chromium (Blink) is going to be the same, or similar, to any tracking in Edge (Spartan? I forget the actual codebase name), Gecko or Webkit. Because, as you say, it's all magically hidden? If it's hidden, then we don't know. If it's opensource, we have some knowledge of it. Our knowledge is that there is none.
https://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-chromium-and-chrome/
[Actual code and packet analyses from people states:]

Code Select Expand

With my limited knowledge, I recently used Fiddler to do some traffic analysis. This is what I know.

Most often, when you open Chromium browser, it connects to Google to update the extensions installed. It regularly checks up if the extensions are up to date and if not, it will update them.

Also, there will be some DNS queries being made when you open Chromium. I read on the web that the queries are being made to check if the ISP is doing any funky business while responding to URLs requested.

Since Chromium is open source, and since the code is being viewed by hundreds of thousands of developers on the Internet, I think its safe to assume that no browsing data is being sent to Google.

However, Google will know your IP every time you open the browser. And any queries made on Google search, or visiting to sites that have Google Analytics installed can be easily tied up to the user. But it the same whether you use any other browser.
The only thing that other browsers help is that Google doesn't automatically know your IP when you open other browsers.

These are the observations I made so far, and I want someone to correct me if I am wrong.

You can, and I agree with, blame Google and Chrome for anything under the sun. But that is not what Chromium is. You can say we don't want to use Chromium because it economically supports Google, and it's morally wrong. But factually, the Chromium (or Blink if just using the render engine) part has nothing to do with the "business practices" of data collection. It *may* support product segmentation and monopolisation, but I was only commenting on the *tracking* of the browser engine used by other companies developing on top of Chromium.

Google literally cannot get any data from you is using their render engine. There are risks, such as using a customer feedback form, error reporting, etc. But anyone using Blink/Chromium are gonna send that stuff back to themselves, not fill Googles box with divergent codebase error reports.
Many. Because it's opensource? Get sure first, then come back and tell me. [Edit] If you mean make actual pull requests on code changes, then no, they IIRC have to be part of the Chromium development. But as said, SWIron and other browser developers would swap to Gecko/Webkit if Google was phoning home. Google does seem to do some connectivity checks, extension/update checks... but like I said, every browser except 100% "secret" browsers do this. It's part of a computer and the internet.[/edit]

I agree, monopoly == bad, tracking == bad. But Gecko =/= tracking. Web Browsers == tracking. All of them require it... they connect to the internet. 

browsers do not need to track user activity on the web,are we talking about the same thing here? they don't have to report back which previous sites you have visited,they must "know" you are visiting the site you are on at the time of your visit and if you want to allow cookies for that site remember your preferences, none should harvest info on your browsing habits,google tried to stop Microsoft blocking this aspect of websites being able to do this in IE and tried circumventing it by constantly subtly changing google search engine,any company as determined as google is untrustworthy and will find a way to get the info they want,I wonder how private VPNs would become if more folk used them and google wanted to get around them?
If there wasn't "something in it for them"why would google allow others to use the base code of chrome? they are far from being a philanthropic company and only do things to help google

[Technical Ben]

Yes. Browsers don't need to. Who on earth is saying Chromium does report this? And if we assume it is spying and hacked and secretly controlled by Google, are you saying Microsoft, Firefox (foundation), Apple and everyone are not tracking?

What makes you think Chromium (not Chrome), has more tracking than the browser you are using? (I assume Edge then?)

google tried to stop Microsoft blocking this aspect of websites being able to do this in IE and tried circumventing it by constantly subtly changing google search engine,any company as determined as google is untrustworthy and will find a way to get the info they want,I wonder how private VPNs would become if more folk used them and google wanted to get around them?

Ok. You do know MS has tried to stop blocking of Windows 10 tracking? You do know Apple will track your purchase history in their store via address/customer/ip? I mean, that's what websites/stores do.
I assume you use either MS, Apple or Linux OS and browsers, right? How do we know those companies are better or worse than Google?

(AFAIK their website tracking is also cookie based, ip based, and Google based. You can install Chromium and never visit a Google site. You will however send DNS packets out to them, so have to change DNS, and possibly Timeserver, Possibly block Google ips on the connection, but again, that's not tracking, that's browser setup and distribution requirements).

[steve195527]

Yes. Browsers don't need to. Who on earth is saying Chromium does report this? And if we assume it is spying and hacked and secretly controlled by Google, are you saying Microsoft, Firefox (foundation), Apple and everyone are not tracking?

What makes you think Chromium (not Chrome), has more tracking than the browser you are using? (I assume Edge then?)

Ok. You do know MS has tried to stop blocking of Windows 10 tracking?
yes well aware of this,but you can block it quite easily
You do know Apple will track your purchase history in their store via address/customer/ip? I mean, that's what websites/stores do.
Yes well aware of this but not really the same as a browser trying to access all your browsing history/habits and report it to a 3rd party
I assume you use either MS, Apple or Linux OS and browsers, right? How do we know those companies are better or worse than Google?

(AFAIK their website tracking is also cookie based, ip based, and Google based. You can install Chromium and never visit a Google site. You will however send DNS packets out to them, so have to change DNS, and possibly Timeserver, Possibly block Google ips on the connection, but again, that's not tracking, that's browser setup and distribution requirements).there is no reason in this world for google to have info on which sites you or I visit unless we agree to it,and if you take time to read all of googles T&C's using any product of theirs by agreeing to them(most never read ,just tick!)you do agree to them harvesting info about you

EU data protection laws are supposed to protect us against a lot of the practices some of the larger companies use but they are seldom used by users to actually see what has been collected, most folk don't even know they can request(think that is demand)to see all data all these companies hold on you

[Technical Ben]

Sorry. You've lost me. We were talking about Chromium. How is that anything to do with how much Chromium is worse than Edge, Firefox or Safari in DNS/Net time/IP routing lookups or data collection?
(As said, how are you comparing Google vs MS or Apple for example? I can go to Google and ask for *site* wide data deletion. I can go to Chrome or Chromium and delete *browser* wide data... can I ask MS to delete my Windows 10 usage statistics... that include Edge use?    )

[steve195527]

Sorry. You've lost me. We were talking about Chromium. How is that anything to do with how much Chromium is worse than Edge, Firefox or Safari in DNS/Net time/IP routing lookups or data collection?
(As said, how are you comparing Google vs MS or Apple for example? I can go to Google and ask for *site* wide data deletion. I can go to Chrome or Chromium and delete *browser* wide data... can I ask MS to delete my Windows 10 usage statistics... that include Edge use?    )

edge  has gone down the chrome way in lots of ways but it is far easier stopping Microsoft collecting your data using Microsoft products than it is google even when you think you're not using anything google,it's also bben proven that google don't delete the data they say they have deleted when requested ,may be different nowadays since the error(which they were very sorry about,think they were only sorry it had been found out)was highlighted,any way if your happy with chrome,google and all the offspring they have produced then its fine for you

[Technical Ben]

Annd. You say MS is not, and it's easier? Proof? As said. It's rather strange you are blaming one and not both. We could agree Google is worse. But I'd also say MS is looking to be the next Google, anyway they can! 

[nowster]

Getting MS to stop collecting data is harder than viewing the bypass plans at the local council in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Technical Ben]

Getting MS to stop collecting data is harder than viewing the bypass plans at the local council in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I know, I've got the scratch marks to prove it!