Chrome doesn’t exactly have a velvet touch, when it comes to privacy.
Are browsers an emotional issue for everyone?
Or just for those who’ve had Microsoft’s Edge descend upon them like a guillotine from the sky?
Many people seem to just accept a certain browser and live with it for far longer than they really should.
But then there’s LG’s global corporate communications chief Ken Hong. I happened upon his strong feelings as I was browsing Twitter, desperate for a feeling of hope.
Hong was responding to a tweet emitted by gadget reviewer Ben Sin.
Sin mused: “Seriously is wild how I googled a foldable bike once or twice a couple weeks ago and I’ve been getting bike ads on Facebook, IG, everywhere. the level to which these companies all team up and know everything about us is wild.”
This is something that’s become wildly normal in digital life. Brands follow you around in the belief that they can pester you into submission. Because that’s how marketing works, right?
I had a similar eye-opening incident like that happen 2 years ago which led to me deleting my FB account and dumping Chrome for Brave. https://t.co/hsNJjAPYou
— Ken Hong (@visitken) September 1, 2020
Hong, though, made a dramatic declaration. He replied to Sin: “I had a similar eye-opening incident like that happen 2 years ago which led to me deleting my [Facebook] account and dumping Chrome for Brave.”
It was only in 2018 that Hong noticed how these companies make dramatic incursions into our personal lives?
Still, there’s something truly uplifting about a senior figure in technology saying “enough is enough.” There’s something heartbreakingly hopeful when one considers that Chrome is the default browser on, oh, most LG products.
Yet Hong, I suspect, is still very much in the minority. Chrome enjoys an almost 50 percent market share, despite having become increasingly memory-sucking and slow.
Perhaps many people just fall into a browser habit and put up with the stalking. They believe it’s everywhere. Some, I fear, are even flattered by it.
See also: Pick privacy-friendly alternatives to every Google service | Brave deemed most private browser in terms of ‘phoning home’ | Startpage private search engine now an option for Vivaldi browser | Brave to generate random browser fingerprints to preserve user privacy
Sin himself explained he was at peace with tech companies following him around.
He said: “For the record I don’t even mind too much. I think consumers complain way too damn much about stuff they don’t pay for. Like the way I see it, you wanna be on always connected in this day and age you gotta accept tech brands know all our info.”
Ah, it’s all about the money. If you don’t pay for it, don’t whine. Even if you actually pay for it by giving your whole life away.
Sin added: “Either live like a disconnected hermit life, or accept there ain’t no such thing as privacy in 2020. Google knows more about us than our partners and mom.”
What a choice the tech industry has given us. Either live like a hermit or let us creep into your every pore.
They call this progress?
