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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
jakob wrote #329679:
What’s the state with Gmail? I always try and help people set up their own domain-based email, but many, many people use gmail and prefer it and whenever there’s an email hiccup with regular IMAP email for whatever reason, that’s what they return to…
Do you remember the post(s) here about being outliers, the small minority of people who are even aware of this stuff? That. I have four distinct groups of clients:
- “I want my email to work, and I don’t care how much it costs as long as it works and I never have to call you to fix it.” (they get Fastmail – affiliate link)
- “I want my email to work because my entire work ecosystem lives in email & Excel, and I send huge attachments that take up gobs of storage space.” (they get Google Workspace – affiliate link)
- “MS Office is my world and I love me some Outlook.” (they get Microsoft 365)
- “I don’t care about any of this.” / “Email is gross.” / “I refuse to pay for technology.” \ “Stop calling me, Pete, we’re talked about this.” (they get ISP email or, if I’m feeling particularly impatient, I will suggest they use Yahoo! Mail.)
Close to zero percent of most business folks care about what Google, Microsoft, etc do with their email as long as it works and it is delivered. That’s it. I’ve had clients move from crappy hosting (e.g. Easily in the UK) to better hosting (e.g. Siteground), then the yearly invoice comes around with a whopping increase from the starter package (normal for Siteground, they don’t hide it), but since the experience of sending and receiving and getting support and so on is easier, it’s worth the $/£/€ spent for them.
I used to run reseller hosting for my clients, never made any money in the end, and I was single point of failure. I’m now notable with other tech people around here because I don’t look after hosting and email for people, I just hook them up with who I recommend and they pay directly. The flip of this is that if something does go south, and the provider isn’t being helpful, it’s way easier for me to jump in, fix it, and bill the client because it’s not my failure.
I’m possibly an outlier within this thread because I use Google search, albeit on devices and computers that have tools for blocking some or most of the tracking. I set up Google Workspace for clients, and it works really well. The dashboard can be a bit overwhelming for your average person, but that’s what nerds are for, right? Take the nerdiness and translate it.
Lots of people love Gmail. Let them use it for their email, they’re happy, you don’t need to worry about it. Obviously what you do with your own stuff, that’s your business.
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
EFF has a released a first tool to test if FloC is enabled in the browser.
It is interesting to see that I get a different message, depending on the browser.
Brave (FloC is not supposed to be turned on for now):
Your browser does not currently have FloC enabled.
The FLoC origin trial currently affects 0.5% of Chrome users, and it doesn’t look like you are one of them. Google may add to or change the set of users in the trial at any time. You can check back here to see if FLoC is turned on in the future.
Safari & Firefox:
Your browser does not have FloC enabled.
The FLoC origin trial only affects Google Chrome versions 89 and above.
I don’t have Google Chrome installed anywhere, of course.
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
phiw13 wrote #329768:
I don’t have Google Chrome installed anywhere, of course.
Have you considered Chromium? It’s useful for testing against Blink rendering in something very close to Chrome, without the inherent Google-ness. I get my ‘unGoogled’ macOS build from here: chromium.woolyss.com
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
gaekwad wrote #329769:
Have you considered Chromium? It’s useful for testing against Blink rendering in something very close to Chrome, without the inherent Google-ness. I get my ‘unGoogled’ macOS build from here: chromium.woolyss.com
I use Brave with its tracking and ads prevention tools build in when I need to test & verify things on the Chromium/Blink rendering engine. How does that Chromium build differ from Brave ? Absolutely not married to that thing, it is just the least bad option I found for testing. I don’t like their business model (bitcoin scam…).
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
phiw13 wrote #329770:
How does that Chromium build differ from Brave ?
No idea, to be frank. Same engine, different…engineers?
Pragmatically, I know that close to zero percent of people use Brave (or any other non-Chrome but Blink-y browser) in real life, and a billion more people use Chrome, so when I want to check that sites work well enough for the majority, I use Chromium since I’ve read from multiple sources that it does an OK job and seems to be at parity feature-wise with the latest Chrome, so it’s good enough for me.
I’m not a vocal activist or persuader by any stretch, at least not consciously, so consider this a single data point without any extra weight.
Last edited by gaekwad (2021-04-10 09:51:34)
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
gaekwad wrote #329772:
No idea, to be frank. Same engine, different…engineers?
Mostly, same rendering engine, different “paint look” (also known as the browser chrome: toolbars, toolbar buttons, and so on). All Blink/Chromium based browsers are at feature parity. So no differences as far as testing goes — only a personal preference of sort.
But do check out that Floc test too (amifloced )l I posted above . And repeat from time to time (I will too). Just out of curiosity to see when / how far that tracking will spread.
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
Last edited by gaekwad (2021-04-10 21:44:00)
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
gaekwad wrote #329775:
Good. Let’s hope it comes quickly to a release build (and that G. doesn’t try to prevent it by modifying the core implementation).
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phiw13 on Codeberg
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
Even if you don’t use Chrome, FloC will exploit you as a website owner, apparently. One response to preventing it.
‘If you have access to the .htaccess file on your Apache server, you can edit it with this code to set your Permissions Policy:’
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header always set Permissions-Policy: interest-cohort=()
</IfModule>‘Frameworks and CMS providers that care about privacy should add this header by default.’
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
Destry wrote #329833:
Frameworks and CMS providers that care about privacy should add this header by default.
That’s us, right? So do we set this in our default .htaccess? I’m game.
(related) Pete: being our resident Nginx guru, is there anything we can ship with our release bundles as examples of Nginx configuration files. Not just for this policy but in general. nginx-dist?
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
Destry wrote #329833:
Thanks for tip. Useful (something on the todo list for tomorrow).
Even if you don’t use Chrome, FloC will exploit you as a website owner, apparently. One response to preventing it.
Thats is not fully correct. What is happening is that Google (Chrome browser) will include any site in their profiling system unless that site has opted out. Still only affects users of the Chrome browser. Subject to change in the future, it seems, once the dust on their “spec” has settled.
Bloke wrote #329834:
That’s us, right? So do we set this in our default .htaccess? I’m game.
Prolly won’t hurt, … But note that the whole ‘thing’ still might change.
Their “spec” is here. (
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
phiw13 wrote #329835:
Prolly won’t hurt, … But note that the whole ‘thing’ still might change.
Something to put on the @todo list when the dust settles then. However long that may take. If we do it, a salient .com article might be prudent, mentioning the change and highlighting ways that:
a) upgraders can implement the policy in their existing sites by copying stuff from the shipped .htaccess (assuming they’ve not overwritten it as part of the upgrade already), or;
b) new installs can opt out if they want Txp to leak this info to Dear Uncle Google and any interested advertising buddies.
An article like that would be good link juice.
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Hire Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
Bloke wrote #329836:
Something to put on the @todo list when the dust settles then. However long that may take.
A blog post or similar advertising way(s) to protect a site (its users) form the grubby hands of dear big brother™ would certainly not be wasted.
Note that the spec for that http header is (also… eh) still a draft (text here) and only Chromium/Blink supports it (check caniuse.com).
An article like that would be good link juice.
Certainly – and between the lines Textpattern team & community) can voice disapproval of the whole Floc show.
Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
Bloke wrote #329834:
That’s us, right? So do we set this in our default .htaccess? I’m game.
We need to be VERY careful here. Textpattern enthusiast policy should not become de facto release policy.
We have a CMS that can be used for hosting malware, weaponised adtech & all kinds of other unsavoury stuff, should the site pilot decide to do that – and that’s honestly fine with me – but getting involved in advertising / tracking policies by default is sketchy ground and in my opinion extends our reach beyond a reasonable limit.
(related) Pete: being our resident Nginx guru, is there anything we can ship with our release bundles as examples of Nginx configuration files. Not just for this policy but in general. nginx-dist?
I’d be inclined to do a good article on .com, outlining the relevant how-to’s for each platform, and outlining our policy very clearly, rather than a blanket (or even commented) thing with headers in web server config files as part of our release bundles.
Last edited by gaekwad (2021-04-15 15:23:15)
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Re: Fook Google and its fookin' sheet
phiw13 wrote #329835:
Subject to change in the future, it seems, once the dust on their “spec” has settled.
This is the pull quote I’m interested in. Much more appropriate to at least wait until this settes before we take an official line. My 2c.
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