{"id":23006,"date":"2018-10-05T15:11:19","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T19:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=23006"},"modified":"2024-04-23T13:38:36","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T17:38:36","slug":"why-matthew-green-is-done-with-chrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/05\/why-matthew-green-is-done-with-chrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Matthew Green Is Done With Chrome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Green<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

In this setting, Chrome was a beautiful solution. Even if the browser never produced a scrap of revenue for Google, it served its purpose just by keeping the Internet open to Google’s other products. As a benefit, the Internet community would receive a terrific open source browser with the best development team money could buy. This might be kind of sad for Mozilla (who have paid a high price due to Chrome) but overall it would be a good thing for Internet standards.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago Google shipped an update to Chrome that fundamentally changes the sign-in experience. From now on, every time you log into a Google property (for example, Gmail), Chrome will automatically sign the browser into your Google account<\/em> for you. It’ll do this without asking, or even explicitly notifying you.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Nobody on the Chrome development team can provide a clear rationale for why<\/em> this change was necessary, and the explanations they’ve given don’t make any sense.<\/em><\/p>\n

This change has enormous implications for user privacy and trust, and Google seems unable to grapple with this.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Chris Siebenmann<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

In theory, I’m not affected by this behavior. I almost never log into any Google site in the first place and I’m basically always doing so in incognito mode, where this doesn’t (currently) apply. In practice, this has pushed me to deciding that this is a bridge too far and I no longer want to use Chrome if I can avoid it, and fortunately I can these days.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Paul Frazee<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

There’s a reason people are reacting to Chrome like this. This isn’t an overreaction over one single event. It’s a delayed reaction to a pattern of bad behavior.<\/p>\n

It’s contextualized by the very messed-up power dynamic between Google and the open Web.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Matthew Green<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

The tech backlash even caused Google to back down, sort of. It announced<\/a> a forthcoming update last Wednesday: Chrome’s auto-sign-in feature will still be the default behavior of Chrome. But you’ll be able to turn it off through an optional switch buried in Chrome’s settings.<\/p>\n

This pattern of behavior by tech companies is so routine that we take it for granted. Let’s call it “pulling a Facebook” in honor of the many times that Facebook has “accidentally” relaxed<\/a> the<\/a> privacy<\/a> settings<\/a> for user profile data, and then—following a bout of bad press coverage—apologized and quietly reversed course<\/a>. A key feature of these episodes is that management rarely takes the blame: It’s usually laid at the feet of some anonymous engineer moving fast and breaking things.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2018-10-18): Renaud Lienhart<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

WTH: Chrome is now forcing you to “Hold ⌘Q to quit”, breaking one of the most sacrosanct macOS convention.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s not as though it will forget the open tabs when you quit.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Green (Hacker News): In this setting, Chrome was a beautiful solution. Even if the browser never produced a scrap of revenue for Google, it served its purpose just by keeping the Internet open to Google’s other products. As a benefit, the Internet community would receive a terrific open source browser with the best development […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-10-05T19:11:21Z","apple_news_api_id":"b1c89c40-59c6-44c5-8015-a04511a85082","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-04-23T17:38:39Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AscicQFnGRMWAFaBFEahQgg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,456,30,32,355,96],"class_list":["post-23006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-google","tag-googlechrome","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-privacy","tag-web"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23119,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23006\/revisions\/23119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}