Simple solution
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Sep 21, 2013 5:28 PM EDT |
We all know there is no privacy on the Internet, but you don't have to make it easy for Google and others to mine your data. Simple solutions here: 1. Don't use Chrome. ARAIK, Mozilla isn't collecting data and neither are the Midori folks. 2. Use a search engine that respects your privacy, like DuckDuckGo, Ixquick, StartPage or PrivateLee. You could go through an onion router and proxy (think Tor and Privoxy for example) or a VPN to anonymize your browsing but as we know that increases the chances the NSA will look at you, plus it slows things down. Still, it may add some privacy, at least from data mining companies and advertisers. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 21, 2013 8:15 PM EDT |
agreed. i already switched back to firefox for technical reasons (chromium triggers a compiz bug, and it has a bug in the inspector not showing the result of failed xhr requests, making debugging hard for webdevelopment) but an ID in the browser would be a killer. i don't want to be tracked. period. unfortunately there is still fingerprinting of the browser response, that's more tricky to get away from... greetings, eMBee. |
| Ridcully Sep 22, 2013 4:02 AM EDT |
Hi Caitlyn.....it's perhaps a sign of my attitude (or age - LOL), but the privacy problem has never worried me. If Google et al. want to know my purchase trends, let 'em.....I already get unsolicited emails from Amazon and eBay, and I could not care less.....On rare occasions I am interested, but usually I just delete them. And if anyone wants to know my political/religious comments sent to a friend of mine, good luck.......I'm not ashamed of them and wouldn't hesitate to put them here if, and only if, this was a site devoted to political discussions. It isn't and I don't and never will. LXer is no place to air such concepts. On a more serious note, I have been using Chrome because I found it faster than Firefox.....Okay. I am going to spend a week using Firefox and see if it performs just as quickly in its latest versions. I use Google because so far, I have found it excellent, and Google hasn't tried to sell me anything. And if Google seriously wants to try, I have to agree......and almost certainly won't. If it sells my "browsing habits" to anyone, good luck with that too.....it's erratic and awfully mundane. To quote a famous American movie right at the end: "Frankly.......I couldn't give a damn !". |
| PsynoKhi0 Sep 22, 2013 7:05 AM EDT |
I just use different browsers for different purposes. Firefox with NoScript + RequestPolicy + AdBlock + Ghostery for senstive, password protected stuff (banking, email), Chromium for sites still requiring Flash, Chrome for online purchases (clearing everything with BleachBit before and after), Opera for everything else. Plugins are prevented to autostart and "Do Not Track", as symbolic it might be, is enabled across the board. Ads keep sites afloat, I'm not against them per se as long as they are relevant. Plus sometimes it's kind of funny to try and figure out why you get *this or that* particular ad. I take it as a challenge to try and game their own system by let them know only what I want them to know. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 22, 2013 9:50 PM EDT |
for me it's not about being ashamed about what i do, but about being in control. i don't like others to make decisions for me. that includes which adds i look at. when i got to a website on a certain topic i want to see adds relevant to that topic, and not any adds about dating websites because due to my actions i am perceived as being single. keeping things private helps to keep that control. greetings, eMBee. |
| Ridcully Sep 23, 2013 5:47 AM EDT |
It's now at least 24 hours since I have started using Firefox exclusively. Overall, I think it is slightly slower, but not enough to say: "I must return to Chrome !!". Sometimes, it can be very fast, other times you sit and wonder what it is doing......But it is certainly much, much faster in this present version 23 than it was when I last depended upon it. I think I will stay with it and enjoy being free again.....Certainly, it offers a much better range of plug-ins (if I want them) and a far better way of storing downloads ------again, if I want them. So, overall, nice to be back on Firefox. |
| Fettoosh Sep 24, 2013 11:45 AM EDT |
Quoting:To quote a famous American movie right at the end: "Frankly.......I couldn't give a damn !". I fully agree with all you said here Ridcully and I respect those who are concerned about their privacy. I have nothing to worry about and I don't get influenced by any psychological marketing schemes. I used Chrome for a while then I decide to go back to using FireFox until recently when FireFox was freezing my machine KDE WM on occasions. It became so annoying I switch back to Chrome. I am not sure what is the cause yet but since it doesn't happen with Chrome, it must be some sort of incompatibility. |
| Bob_Robertson Sep 24, 2013 1:18 PM EDT |
"To quote a famous American movie right at the end: "Frankly.......I couldn't give a damn !"." Actually, the last line in the movie is, "Tomorrow is another day!" |
| gus3 Sep 24, 2013 3:37 PM EDT |
And finally, Steve Ballmer quit saying it. |
| Ridcully Sep 24, 2013 4:15 PM EDT |
I stand corrected Bob.....but frankly, etc. I know many Americans think it's the greatest movie of all, but on the few occasions I have either tried to watch the thing or read the book, I gave up out of "just not to my taste". Still, that phrase I used lingers in your memory as a classic example of a man closing the door on all that's happened and moving on. Or in Ballmer's case, Gus3, moving out. :-) |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 24, 2013 11:54 PM EDT |
fettoosh: curious, i have the same problem with chromium and compiz: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1664467 it was what drove me to switch back to firefox in the end. greetings, eMBee. |
| Fettoosh Sep 25, 2013 9:20 AM EDT |
@eMBee, Thanks for the valuable info. The freeze I am experiencing is very very similar to what is described. I noticed the problem with FireFox and not sure if I did with Chrome. I should have suspected Compiz to be the cause since such freeze-up happened to me before, but I really did not experience it for a very long time until I upgraded to the latest KDE 4.11.1 I will stop Compiz to see if it goes away. Thanks again |
| Ridcully Sep 25, 2013 6:15 PM EDT |
@ Fettoosh and mbaehrlxer.......I have no idea as to whether or not this is relevant, but I have never had the trouble you are both describing. However to explain further, I am currently using openSUSE 12.3 with KDE4 but previously used openSUSE 11.4 with KDE4. My first move after installation is always, ALWAYS, to turn off all desktop effects such as rotating cube displays, transparency, snowflakes, etc. etc. I personally don't like them and it is possible my personal tastes have ensured I have never had the problems you are both experiencing ? Any comments on that ? Just curiousity. :-) |
| BernardSwiss Sep 25, 2013 8:01 PM EDT |
I had for some time a somewhat similar problem with compiz on a laptop running Ubuntu 12.04 , but instead of affecting FF, it was triggered by clicking on the Updates window from Super-W view. If I accessed the Updates window via Alt-Tab, everything was fine; if I used Super-W, partial lock-up and if didn't go to the console to fix it, the laptop would eventually overheat and crash (on purpose -- the logs would record something about critical temp and emergency shutdown) I eventually figured this out (able to reproduce or avoid at will) and eventually whatever caused the problem was fixed. Until now, I had assumed it was an issue with Ubuntu's updater interface, rather than with Compiz, as the problem never raised its head any other way in Ubuntu, or in any other OS I played with on that laptop. Though I never used Chrom(ium) either -- if I want an alternative to Firefox/Iceweasel, I generally go to Opera first. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 25, 2013 8:12 PM EDT |
what version of compiz are you all using? i am on a rather old 0.8.6. opera would have been nice if it was Free Software... greetings, eMBee. |
| BernardSwiss Sep 25, 2013 8:38 PM EDT |
I make allowances for Opera, because though closed, they were making an excellent, cross-platform, security conscious, and standards compliant browser, back in the day when there was no Firefox, and any company supporting Linux in a meaningful way was notable. It was also a concrete demonstration that the software available for Linux was just as good as what people were familiar with on Windows. And a useful step in getting people to see that Microsoft simply wasn't the automatic best choice. Any Windows using acquaintances that expected my ongoing help also got moved over to Opera, for their own good. Now there's Firefox, but for those that don't like Firefox, Opera still makes a great second option. (Chromium is OK, but I don't feel comfortable recommending Chrome, and Windows users are prone to get that instead of Chromium, despite warnings.) |
| DrGeoffrey Sep 25, 2013 9:27 PM EDT |
Quoting:though closed Aye, there's the rub. In this world of NSA spying on everyone (and happily lying about it to Congress and the supervising courts), closed-source software has no home on my family's systems. |
| Fettoosh Sep 26, 2013 5:19 PM EDT |
Quoting: I personally don't like them and it is possible my personal tastes have ensured I have never had the problems you are both experiencing ? Any comments on that ? Just curiousity. :-) @Ridcaully, I don't use Compiz per se since the desktop effects is part of KDE. From my experience, the most severe problem in KDE that causes performance issues (slowdown) and other problems is lack of good support for graphics hardware. I used to keep Desktop Effects turned off until it became reliable enough. I usually use it for very limited features (switching windows, etc). it has been over a year since I had problem with it. I noticed the problem recently after upgrading to KDE 4.11.1 and I thought it was FireFox until @eMBee mentioned Compiz. Yes, I haven't experienced any freeze ups since after turning off Desktop Effects. Thanks @eMBee |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 27, 2013 2:19 AM EDT |
just to note that the desktop effects in kde are different code from compiz. (although they may have copied some code)
but of course this would not be the first time that the same kind of bug shows up in two different code-bases. greetings, eMBee. |
| Ridcully Sep 27, 2013 9:49 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh......now, no laughing please, but I am addressing this to you because you are a confirmed KDE4 supporter. (Everyone else is free to burst into LOLs :-) ) Because this thread has come up with both the KDE desktop and Compiz, I just had to put in print something I have only just comprehended: I have understood for the first time what KDE4 means by the "folder view". Isn't that ridiculous ? Previously, I just accepted it as a "name for the particular desktop manager layout I preferred", but this morning I happened to do something and noticed for the first serious time, that the folder "Desktop" was displayed in my Dolphin folder view side panel....Out of sheer curiousity, I opened the folder and saw all the icons of the desktop and realised for the first time what KDE4 means by that view - it is a true folder and is part of the main file system of the computer. It might be simplistic, but I now look on the folder view desktop that I use as a sort of "automatically opened spreadsheet folder" with icons as the files, plus the ability to put any pretty picture I want as a background for the icon files......I can even store real folders and data files in it and now I know why I can..... Isn't it strange ? You just use something almost unthinkingly, and I have even written about it a year or so ago, but never truly understood the delightful simplicity (and underlying complexity) of the various KDE4 desktop options, or the way my preferred option works. It's not that I want to use the other desktops, but it is very, very satisfying to have finally come to grips with what is going on. Very, very nice KDE. |
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