#browser data

[political-us]

Google putting profits over protection

[definetly]

Mozilla Firefox has started sharing and selling your data and has now implemented a terms of service.

TL;DR: Mozilla has done the following to Firefox (edit)

They removed from their FAQ a statement that they'd never sell or collect your data. (So much for "never")

For the first time ever, they added a Terms of Use for Firefox which includes the ability to bar you from using Firefox for any reason by adding a Termination clause to their new Terms of Use.

Mozilla claims that there they're changing the language of 'selling of data' to avoid potential lawsuits due to "the broad and vague language of 'data selling'"; which could legitimately be true.

Alternatives

If you want a good alternative that doesn't do that, try out LibreWolf, a more private fork of Firefox, or LadyBird, which doesn't include clode from other browser.

Librewolf:

Ladybird

[bubu0h]

How I Manage my personal AO3 e-library Archive

Download everything I want/hope to read in EPUB format. I try to anyways... if I notice I got too many tabs open on my browser, time to download If multi-chapter remember first to press 'Entire Work' and then 'Download'

2. I use Book Story (Android App) to manage the mess that is my downloads folder - this app is a great book database manager AND scroll reader with Big letters as well - The app has this fantastic feature that allows me put the books into 'Reading' 'Already Read' 'Planing' 'Dropped' categories; I move the books around and it helps me keep a visual tab on them - , plus if you like scroll reading this one is fantastic at that as well.

Periodically I update the BACKUP of the folder(s) were the copies of books live. KEEP A BACKUP OF YOUR BACKUP , if you mess around and don't got no backup is really painful and irreversible.

On my computer I then make a copy of my messy ass downloads folder from my phone into my computer. While looking at the visual information the app provides me I delete books that I 'Dropped' and I move 'Already Read' books into my computer E-Library Data Base (I use Calibre) that's my main book hub where I will quickly notice what books need covers and I take my time working to finding an image I like for the book , so I can recognize them books by just looking at the covers I am terrible at remembering book titles

If you are curious this is what Calibre looks like - this is just AO3

3. To read EPUB books I use Libera FD Is frankly the best reader I have tried because I prefer page turning. If you like scroll reading Book Story is much better option for scroll reading.

Libera FD can customize pretty much EVERYTHING and is very very feature rich ( it can be overwhelming) HUMONGOUS FONT SIZE , you can download any font you want to use, replace words if I want to , it has OLED dark mode for reading at 3 am, you can configure it so it reads to you (using TTS) , several reading modes including auto scroll and speed reading mode, and so much more; the dev(s) are still updating and adding functions to it is kind of amazing I am probably not using it to its full potential You can sort books by 'Genre' which is how the app recognize the tags from the website.

Here some visuals of Libera FD (I wrote in the ALT of pics, click on it)

Book Story is a neat app , less overwhelming and the UI is a lot more intuitive. It looks like this for me , you can configure the essentials to your preference. Is a fairly new app be patient with it (sometimes just give two minutes to cook) , it is still being updated. The dev is very active if you got suggestion or present bugs.

4. How to provide enrichment to glorious magnificent authors , that share their passion with us for free. When you open any ao3 .epub on either of these apps the links are underlined. I tap on the link it leads back to the original posted website page at the beginning of every book you get from A03.

Tap the link, keep it open in your browser and star reading.

Open a note taking app.

I usually take notes about my silly musings as I read, copy quotes and whatever else I want to leave in the comment section of the chapter I am on. Cut and paste and that's it. I load the next chapter in the website and then continue reading the next chapter on the reading app (I comment on all the chapters if I have something to comment, sometime I don't have anything to say so I don't . Figure it makes authors happy and i find it very fun. Sometimes they answer back it feels nice) remember to leave kudos and comments specially if you are rereading.

I use Quillpad (android app) the most important feature of any note taking app you choose, in this case in particular, is that it saves your notes automatically (I used some apps that didn't it was devastating losing all my notes like that. I though that as long as I didn't close the app it was fine turns out not - some you have to manually save - and sometimes it would timeout and gone , all my notes gone. With Quillpad I haven't lost notes)

I haven't taken the time to figure out if Librera has a feature for annotation that could be useful for commentary note taking

I think that's all I can think of sharing on this topic. I am open to questions and adding things to this post with visual aid and whatever I can do to help , do let me know.

Keeping a copy of books safe and easy to find KEEP BACKUPS OF YOUR BACKUPS

-Updated Nov. 11 , 2024.

[rorydrawsandwrites]

So Google's been trying to smother uBlock in their browser. Had to go into my extensions' settings to turn it back on, I thought I couldn't

Wow. Scummy

[ace-detectiv3]

Hello Tumblr please help me my wallpaper thingy suddenly disappeared and I don't know how/ where to get it back ): I miss that sunset sea/ beach wallpaper but now it's just this. Blank grey . all the sudden,,

[monetizeme]

I remember seeing a post going around about how creepy Chrome is & that Firefox was a safer alternative. Not anymore.

[darkdesangue]

Random rant time!

I updated all my fandom-related account emails to Proton mail, discarded the old Gmail account I had. You know why? Because I tried to login to this gmail account after perhaps years, and I remembered the password, I remembered my stupid recovery email which I had created a decade ago, and I remembered the password to my recovery email also. But noooooo that's not enough for Google to verify me, No Sir.

Bloody site had the audacity to ask me for my fucking phone number. I don't fucking want to associate my phone number with that account, or any account for that matter. Is that so fucking difficult to understand, Google?

I am so done with this shit. These data grabbers who have no fucking concept of basic privacy and decency. Bastards, all of them.

So, my new privacy focused Trinity beckons - Protonmail for emails, Tor for browsing and Protectedtext.com for writing.

Fuck. You. Google.

Okay, rant over 😐😠

[melyzard]

Time for a new edition of my ongoing vendetta against Google fuckery!

Hey friends, did you know that Google is now using Google docs to train it's AI, whether you like it or not? (link goes to: zdnet.com, July 5, 2023). Oh and on Monday, Google updated it's privacy policy to say that it can train it's two AI (Bard and Cloud AI) on any data it scrapes from it's users, period. (link goes to: The Verge, 5 July 2023). Here is Digital Trends also mentioning this new policy change (link goes to: Digital Trends, 5 July 2023). There are a lot more, these are just the most succinct articles that might explain what's happening.

FURTHER REASONS GOOGLE AND GOOGLE CHROME SUCK TODAY:

Stop using Google Analytics, warns Sweden’s privacy watchdog, as it issues over $1M in fines (link goes to: TechCrunch, 3 July 2023) [TLDR: google got caught exporting european users' data to the US to be 'processed' by 'US government surveillance,' which is HELLA ILLEGAL. I'm not going into the Five Eyes, Fourteen Eyes, etc agreements, but you should read up on those to understand why the 'US government surveillance' people might ask Google to do this for countries that are not apart of the various Eyes agreements - and before anyone jumps in with "the US sucks!" YES but they are 100% not the only government buying foreign citizens' data, this is just the one the Swedes caught. Today.]

PwC Australia ties Google to tax leak scandal (link goes to: Reuters, 5 July 2023). [TLDR: a Russian accounting firm slipped Google "confidential information about the start date of a new tax law leaked from Australian government tax briefings." Gosh, why would Google want to spy on governments about tax laws? Can't think of any reason they would want to be able to clean house/change policy/update their user agreement to get around new restrictions before those restrictions or fines hit. Can you?

SO - here is a very detailed list of browsers, updated on 28 June, 2023 on slant.com, that are NOT based on Google Chrome (note: any browser that says 'Chromium-based' is just Google wearing a party mask. It means that Google AND that other party has access to all your data). This is an excellent list that shows pros and cons for each browser, including who the creator is and what kinds of policies they have (for example, one con for Pale Moon is that the creator doesn't like and thinks all websites should be hostile to Tor).

[tyote]

lmao @ mozilla putting telemetry in firefox, then saying they will "anonymize it" and "not sell it to third parties"... and then a month later they acquire an advertising broker and send your data to that, which technically means it's a first party and their little "promise" isn't broken, while still attempting to send you directed ads based on your browsing data & profit from it

[generallemarc]

Do you want to help people in countries with censored internet?

Install the Snowflake browser extension to help people access the uncensored internet by using your computer's signature! I'm 95% sure there's one for Firefox too, and it comes bundled in with Brave-just go into the settings and turn it on! All you have to do is have a working PC with internet access and live in a country with low internet censorship. Brave even has an option to let it do it's thing even when you don't have the browser open, so that you can be doing this literally as long as your computer is on. Would not recommend using it on Opera though, as Opera is Chinese-owned and is thus not something you should ever have on your computer.

[mewharley]

I think I might be a liiiittle obsessed with the music from Trolls 3..

it´s *really good*!

Can´t stop listening to "Let´s get married", "Brozone´s back", "Mount Rageous" and "Vacay Island"! I love them!

and I´m starting to like more "It takes two" and "Better Place" (both versions)

and just how ??

who´s in charge of Trolls movies music? sounds so good!!! such great mixes/medleys

even with music I usually don´t listen to!

[deciphered-narrator]

if i was google i could send a million write requests to my database without a care in the world. but instead i have to program around people who won't hit the "save" button

[emeraldspiral]

TL;DR

The Honey browser extension not only makes money by poaching affiliate commissions from the very influencers it partners with, even when it doesn't find any coupons, it's guilty of straight-up fraud. It's advertised as scouring the internet to find the best coupons for a given site and when it doesn't find any, assures users that they already have the best price. But in actuality, it lies about there not being any coupons or better coupons than the ones it automatically applied for you, while selling itself to business that it partners with on the basis that it will get them more money by tricking shoppers into not looking for better coupons so they spend more money. The ending of this video seems to be teasing a part 2, but is already strongly implying that Honey also creates unauthorized discounts costing businesses it partners with (likely small independent operations) thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

[aggressionbread]

world's dumbest bitch gets data working on her phone after 6 years

[ganondorf]

i really don't think opera gx is spyware any more than chrome is but "internet browser for gamers" is just kind of an embarrassing concept

[yddaw]

Sometimes it’s unfortunate seeing that a lot of people are anti [insert technology here]. It makes sense of course, but it seems like the idea being shared is that the technological tool itself is “bad” but not the company using it.

Like Chromium is not the same thing as Chrome itself. And AI is not only for stealing content and reselling it. But having so many companies do this and use these tools with little to no regulation (specifically on privacy) paints such a nasty image for the tool that has so much potential 😩