New Tracking Prevention in Microsoft's Edge Will Hit Google the Hardest (zdnet.com) 64
Microsoft's Edge browser is built on the same open source code as Google Chrome. But Ed Bott, writing for ZDNet, noticed something interesting:
On January 15, 2020, Microsoft is scheduled to roll out a completely revamped Edge browser to the general public. That browser, which is available for beta testing now on all supported versions of Windows and MacOS, includes a feature called Tracking Prevention. If that name sounds familiar, you're not imagining things. Microsoft added a Tracking Protection feature to Internet Explorer 9, back in 2011; it used simple text files called Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) to allow or block third-party requests from specific domains. That's the same general principle behind Tracking Prevention in the new Edge, but the implementation is more usable and more sophisticated, with multiple Trust Protection Lists taking the place of a single TPL.
I've spent the past week looking closely at this feature... [A]lthough it's aimed at the online advertising and tracking industries in general, my tests suggest that its effects are likely to be felt most directly by one company: Google.
Using the default Balanced setting, Tracking Prevention blocked a total of 2,318 trackers, or an average of 35 on each page. Of that total, 552 were from Google domains. That's a mind-boggling 23.8% of the total. To put that into perspective, the second entry on the list of blocked trackers was Facebook, which represented 3.8% of the total.
Rather than an anti-Google conspiracy, the article suggests this is instead just a reflection of both Google's ubiquity and its business model.
"Google Analytics and Google AdSense are embedded on a staggering number of web pages."
I've spent the past week looking closely at this feature... [A]lthough it's aimed at the online advertising and tracking industries in general, my tests suggest that its effects are likely to be felt most directly by one company: Google.
Using the default Balanced setting, Tracking Prevention blocked a total of 2,318 trackers, or an average of 35 on each page. Of that total, 552 were from Google domains. That's a mind-boggling 23.8% of the total. To put that into perspective, the second entry on the list of blocked trackers was Facebook, which represented 3.8% of the total.
Rather than an anti-Google conspiracy, the article suggests this is instead just a reflection of both Google's ubiquity and its business model.
"Google Analytics and Google AdSense are embedded on a staggering number of web pages."
We'll be right back... (Score:3)
Sponsors are in charge of paying for websites you like to access, including this one. If Microsoft goes too far with this, there's going to end up being a boycott of Microsoft's ad-paid sites by the sponsors. Really, without Google/DoubleClick and Commission Junction the web would see a ton more paywalls.
Re:We'll be right back... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, so what? Before the ads-infested web, we still had websites.
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I forgot to add that today, with crypto-currencies, it's easier than ever to set payment accounts for really small amounts, ex: 100 Dogecoins per month for membership.
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Convert them back to dollars so they can pay their bills.
The fundamental problem with running a website is that the cost of serving up a webpage is so cheap it might as well be free. But if it's free then your revenue is $0. And so far there hasn't been a workable system created for handling micro payments created.
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Why on earth would I want to do this?
Re: We'll be right back... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the internet was pretty good before the ad armageddon. And even if it wasn't, that doesn't mean ad raping us all is the only business model.
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There's "ads" on the Internet? News to me. I think I saw one once back around the time of the influx of the mass unwashed. Quickly dealt with by blocking that crap. Never seen one since.
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It was good but you had to pay for it. Very little was free, at least once it went beyond just academic stuff which wasn't really free either (paid for by students and research grants).
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You had to pay for what? Most interesting web pages were made by hobbiests back then, tons of fun pages were completely free.
I don't understand how you are measuring "free" here. I count it as, "I, personally, don't have to pay, either with money or by watching ads I don't want to." By your measure, nothing is free because someone has to pay for it. That's a truism. It's true, but completely trivial. So what? All I or anyone else cares about is, is it free for me? And by that standard, most of the early web
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I've been using the internet since it was available on dial-up in my area (1995). In 1995 search engines were paid to put your site to the top of their list. Many sites used banner ads which weren't as invasive as current ad systems. Most news sites were paid subscription which you did by mail or via phone. Most of the content was free because as you stated, it was generated by hobbyist. The quality of content today is significantly better than a 3KB web page with no pictures. It wasn't sustainable for hobb
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Well hosting your own web page wasn't free for a start. All those hobby sites had the be paid for by the owner.
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In don't care who paid for a site, that's like giving me a free ice cream and then saying "Well it's not free because I paid for it." Sure, so what? If I didn't pay for it, it's free to me. Claiming "it's not free if anyone, anywhere, paid for it" is just destroying the meaning of "free" for fucky ideological purposes.
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I care because free hosting gives many more people a voice.
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As long as that voice is saying things the owners approve of, sure. Weren't you just arguing that nothing is free though? By the argument you literally just used, that hosting isn't free.
Personally, I liked the barriers to entry of the early Internet. Kept the children and the idiots out. The Eternal September ruined everything.
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Reason breaks down when you think of everything in absolutes.
Hosting is free. There is a small amount of speech that will get you booted off your free hosting. Compared to having to pay to publish anything on the internet that's clearly better. Looking around we can see billions of people posting stuff every day, many of whom who likely would not have that ability if they had to pay.
More over it's not perfect but still far more egalitarian to give everyone some access to publishing than it is to reserve it
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Fair enough.
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Back then, it was also common for ISPs to also provide hosting for your website. Sure, your website was hosted at www.example.com/~yourusername/ and you got like 5MB of storage, and anything you served up was static content - no server side scripting. But it was included with your ISP bill. So yes in some ways you were still paying for it, but on the other hand it was like the usenet server they also likely provided - you were paying for whether you used it or not.
If you were at a university, you often h
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ISPs were not free.
Re:We'll be right back... (Score:5, Informative)
Before the tracking-infested web we still had advertising. It everyone is disarmed and has to go back to using data given with consent instead of tracking people around the web then the ad revenue will still be there.
Even with ad blockers there is still product placement, sponsorship deals, paid reviews etc.
Re:We'll be right back... (Score:5, Interesting)
This may not matter as much to the larger advertisers, but without effective targeted ads, the smaller ones might decide their advertising budget is better spent elsewhere (like on specific sites frequented by their demographic, as was the norm before Google dominated the market). It will shift business away from the larger platforms, but it remains to be seen to what extent the various sites will be affected.
Re:We'll be right back... (Score:5, Informative)
Ahh you have just been scammed. Of course M$ wants a browser that blocks everyone else because those fuckers have you data mined right in the fucking OS, Windows anal probe 10, data mining you web access so the browser (hell they can data mine you hard disk drive before you even load a browser) no longer needs to and ohh yeah promote that for advertising purposes whilst they invade your privacy like there is not tomorrow for you that they do no control and as a bonus, it keeps their competitors out whilst they shove their probe as far into you as possible, right in the fucking operating system.
Ohhh yeah M$ looking after you privacy, bwa haa haa, you so funny :|.
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At this point, the paywalls are probably the lesser evil.
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Ad company (Score:2)
What will the good censor do?
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If they can't add, maybe they could try shl?
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Code around the efforts of MS top browser experts to get all the ads working again
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add, shl... look up "opcodes".
Firefox too, please! (Score:5, Interesting)
I certainly how the folks over at Mozilla are taking notes and comparing to their own tracker blocking tech. The pervasiveness of tracking on the web is just sad.
And the telemetry ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
Does it prevent the Microsoft / Edge telemetry too? Because the "Diagnostic Data Viewer" I have installed on my Windows 10 system(s) seems to have a filter for "Browsing History" -- and that make my ass twitch. I don't use Edge at all -- except if it gets started by some built-in thing -- though I did install the uBlock Origin extension, just in case.
Also note that Edge can be pre-loaded by the OS and sit idle in the background (presumably doing nothing) and also perform tab pre-loading. Here are the registry settings to disable that:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
;; Disable Edge pre-loading
;; https://www.ghacks.net/2018/08... [ghacks.net]
;; https://www.ghacks.net/2019/02... [ghacks.net]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\MicrosoftEdge]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\MicrosoftEdge\Main]
"AllowPrelaunch"=dword:00000000
"PreventLiveTileDataCollection"=dword:00000001
"SyncFavoritesBetweenIEAndMicrosoftEdge"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\MicrosoftEdge\TabPreloader]
"PreventTabPreloading"=dword:00000001
"AllowTabPreloading"=dword:00000000
Re:And the telemetry ... ? (Score:5, Funny)
Of course not. Why would Microsoft want to block Microsoft from making money? That is as counterproductive as Google blocking Google tracking in Chrome, or blocking malicious Javascript and advertizing.
So of course it will not happen. A Google product will never *block* anything that is makes Google money (though apparently they are just now getting around to ensure that they do not permit the configuration of such a feature), just as no Microsoft product will ever block (or even contemplate a configuration allowing) the blocking of "stuff" (including malicious javascript) that makes them money.
You need to take a Scumbaggery course at your local college -- I think they call it an MBA!
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You need to take a Scumbaggery course at your local college -- I think they call it an MBA!
Simpler to just join the GOP ... :-)
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Into my optimiser script they shall go.
Telemetry != Tracking (Score:2)
At least geeks on a geek site should be able to tell the difference. Non-personalized telemetry acquired with the express purpose of product-improvement and the express understanding that it will not be used for profile building and personalizing ads IS NOT tracking. Think questions like "how big a percentage of Windows 10 users actually use the calculator regularly?". "Do they use the scientific functions?".
Even under the rather strict GDPR, non-personalized telemetry is allowed. If the telemetry collector
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You can go into the Windows Firewall and block Edge from having any network access at all.
It's all relative... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's all relative... (Score:4, Interesting)
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It makes no difference what the rendering engine is -- they can switch to the Wizards of Waverly Place engine if they wish -- provided they continue to wrap it in a completely useless and non-configurable abortion of a UI.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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I guess that means that UMatrix will have to change its defaults regarding what it considers to be first party? You have a few whitelisted subdomains, then blacklist the rest.
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is pihole smart enough to block webassembly bitcoin miner?
I see more and more site run webassembly miners from their main javascript include with names that are obfuscated randomly and change every few hours.
That made the weapons race against bad javascript more and more painful.
I am started to think that only running GPL3 javascript like FSF was trying to provide a few years back may not be a bad idea.
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PiHole just screws with DNS resolution so your machines don't connect to the trackers. Basically like APK Host File Engine.
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How does the certificate validation work? The advertiser won't have a certificate to match the new CNAME in the website's domain.
Ad War (Score:2)
Microsoft tracks you too, of course, but they do it at the desktop level, so it's nearly impossible to get around:
https://about.ads.microsoft.co... [microsoft.com]
Use Microsoft Search for searching for *anything*? All that data is hoovered up and sold to advertisers.
Re:Ad War (Score:4, Informative)
It really is nearly impossible to get around. I've tried a bit, but MS plays dirty. The default privacy settings are always 'track everything' and if you change them, updates often cause them to revert to defaults silently. The Windows services responsible for spying are exempt from the Windows firewall and ignore the hosts file, going directly to DNS regardless, with hard-coded IP fallback. You can block them at an external firewall, but the required range blocks are wide enough to kill a lot of other Microsoft services too.
Privacy Badger (Score:3)
And in all the other browsers you can use the EFF's Privacy Badger to block trackers. It's really the only safe thing to do these days. That and uBlock Origin.
I thought Privacy Badger was coming to Edge, since it's a WebExtension. Even with MS's tracker blocking enabled, it's still worthwhile to have Privacy Badger also, if it's available.
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Don't Say It!!! (Score:2)
Sounds a lot like the host file...
But in a higher, less efficient ring...
552 Google domains for tracking you? (Score:4, Interesting)
To me, the mind-boggling part is Google actually have 552 domains for tracking you.
Or, IOW, you need to block 552 domains to have some effect in stopping Google from digitally stalking you.
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Eh. Just use a whitelist. Why block 552 domains when you can block all domains except those you unblock on a case-by-case basis?
Hosts file (Score:1)
Pretty sure you can use hosts file to block google adsense. Got that from an authority on Slashdot.
No it won't (Score:2)
In order to ''hit Google'' they need a significant shift in what users browse with. They have 3.9 percent of the browsing traffic. Besides, most users that use Edge are also using the most invasive operating system available.
There's no level of trust there.. this is FUD
Pot vs. Kettle Wars (Score:3)
So, Mr. Telemetry is trying to block Dr. Tracker, because why again?
Oh yeah, that's right. I almost forgot it doesn't matter. We still have zero reason to trust either of them.
Welcome to the Pot vs. Kettle Wars.
Block away (Score:2)
I just have one question: can it block the new video ad overlays here, with their curiously difficult to click pause and close buttons, even though I have my karma " don't show ads" on?
Anyway, they can track by IP and by surfing behavior pattern matching to re-align you with new IP addresses, so whatever.
Tracking Prevention Will Hit Google Hardest..? (Score:2)
What About IPs (Score:2)
So either this won't really affect google's business model or it will and they will just be forced to relax their self-imposed restrictions about what kind of information they use.
Ultimately, no technological measure that doesn't change the fundamental workings of TCP/IP can stop google from doing quite detailed tracking because they can always just fallback to tracking by IP addresses and count on people visiting a google property (or some site hosted on google hardware) to associate IPs with accounts in e