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-   -   CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates (http://www.pcbanter.net/showthread.php?t=1105856)

Stan Brown September 19th 18 01:36 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 

I'm sure this How-to Geek article won't change the minds of CCleaner
lovers, but here it is:

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/cclean...pdating-users-
who-turned-off-automatic-updates/


That links to "Here's What You Should Use Instead of CCleaner" at

https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/her...d-use-instead-
of-ccleaner/


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Roger Blake[_2_] September 19th 18 01:41 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off AutomaticUpdates
 
On 2018-09-19, Stan Brown wrote:
That links to "Here's What You Should Use Instead of CCleaner" at

https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/her...d-use-instead-
of-ccleaner/


Do the warnings pertain to the portable version of ccleaner? As far as
I can tell that doesn't install anything, it's just a standalone
executable.

--
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Ant[_2_] September 19th 18 01:49 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
Roger Blake wrote:
On 2018-09-19, Stan Brown wrote:
That links to "Here's What You Should Use Instead of CCleaner" at

https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/her...d-use-instead-
of-ccleaner/


Do the warnings pertain to the portable version of ccleaner? As far as
I can tell that doesn't install anything, it's just a standalone
executable.


I'd like to know too. So far, mine is the same. Maybe I will need to
block all network accesses to CCLeaner for now on?

--
Quote of the Week: "Still we live meanly, like ants;... like pygmies we
fight with cranes;... Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify...
simplify..." --Henry Thoreau
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
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Paul in Houston TX[_2_] September 19th 18 04:58 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off AutomaticUpdates
 
Stan Brown wrote:

I'm sure this How-to Geek article won't change the minds of CCleaner
lovers, but here it is:

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/cclean...pdating-users-
who-turned-off-automatic-updates/

That links to "Here's What You Should Use Instead of CCleaner" at

https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/her...d-use-instead-
of-ccleaner/


My CC 5.10.5373 does not call home.



VanguardLH[_2_] September 19th 18 07:46 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
Stan Brown wrote:

I'm sure this How-to Geek article won't change the minds of CCleaner
lovers, but here it is:

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/cclean...pdating-users-
who-turned-off-automatic-updates/

That links to "Here's What You Should Use Instead of CCleaner" at

https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/her...d-use-instead-
of-ccleaner/


Sure glad I stuck with (actually went back to) version 5.40. No changes
in later versions are needed on Windows 7 and I certainly don't want
Avast's adware platform or regenerated tracking cookie.

By the way, the EU's GPDR legislation is ****ing over a lot of software
authors. One of the latest Windows 7 updates has only do to with
changes mandated to be complaint with GPDR.

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2018...nce-tools.aspx

The EU are idiots: the whole GPDR stupidity is having just the opposite
effect. The result is to NOT protect privacy. Software authors can now
implement even more data collection which requires users to discover the
change to then opt-out from new default settings that divulged them
more. Or send an e-mail that notifies of GPDR changes requiring the
user to make config changes in their account. Uh huh, like that'll have
a 100% correction effect by users.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.co...-improve-data/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/25/gdpr_fails/
Yeah, just lock out the EU visitors from your site. That'll really help
promote GPDR, uh huh. Sorry, your EU ****ed you over, so goodbye.

https://digiday.com/media/everyone-b...falling-short/

Big Al[_5_] September 19th 18 08:56 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off AutomaticUpdates
 
On 09/18/2018 08:36 PM, Stan Brown wrote:

I'm sure this How-to Geek article won't change the minds of CCleaner
lovers, but here it is:

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/cclean...pdating-users-
who-turned-off-automatic-updates/


That links to "Here's What You Should Use Instead of CCleaner" at

https://www.howtogeek.com/361112/her...d-use-instead-
of-ccleaner/


I like the built in Windows 10 cleaner they have now, but it's just not
comprehensive like CC. I like to flush my browsers and a few other
things now and then. And yes to keep the old version.



Java Jive September 19th 18 11:50 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off AutomaticUpdates
 
On 19/09/2018 07:46, VanguardLH wrote:

By the way, the EU's GPDR legislation is ****ing over a lot of software
authors. One of the latest Windows 7 updates has only do to with
changes mandated to be complaint with GPDR.

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2018...nce-tools.aspx


Seemingly a Microsoft front-window, nothing useful there supporting your
rant.

The EU are idiots: the whole GPDR stupidity is having just the opposite
effect. The result is to NOT protect privacy.


None of the links you give below claim this, and in fact they mostly say
the opposite, though there is no shortage of statements that the
legislation needs to go further.

Software authors can now
implement even more data collection which requires users to discover the
change to then opt-out from new default settings that divulged them
more. Or send an e-mail that notifies of GPDR changes requiring the
user to make config changes in their account. Uh huh, like that'll have
a 100% correction effect by users.


That's not my reading of those links, though they do make it plain that
at least some companies are not really trying, and rather than beginning
with the spirit of the law and working through their system accordingly,
they're trying to obfuscate their present practices sufficiently to make
them seem compliant. We don't know how that will pan out for them
if/until they start to get fined, and by how much.

The purport of the act seems to be similar to one that has already
existed in the UK for some time, the Data Protection Act. I have
already used (the threat of invoking) this successfully to:

* Refuse a corporate parking fine of questionable legality
* Force my school to remove me from their begging lists
* Forcibly prevent a firm from sending letters to my house
addressed to its previous owners.
* Force Readers' Digest to remove me from their mailing
lists

The last must be considered the greatest victory of all - somehow they
had tracked me past several house moves across the south of England for
at least a decade after I had stopped subscribing.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.co...-improve-data/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/25/gdpr_fails/
Yeah, just lock out the EU visitors from your site. That'll really help
promote GPDR, uh huh. Sorry, your EU ****ed you over, so goodbye.


It's much more likely that any demotion in people's minds will be of
such sites rather than of GPDR. What they're effectively saying is: "We
don't care sh*t about your privacy!" ... Hardly a selling point.

https://digiday.com/media/everyone-b...falling-short/


In many ways the best link.

In summary, I'm sure the GDPR isn't perfect, but, over recent decades,
the economic power of the EU has tended to ensure that its safety and
similar legislation that has become the norm worldwide, so GDPR or
something very like it, hopefully an improvement on it, is likely to
become a template for other such legislation across the world. Might as
well stop ranting and get used to it.

Mayayana September 19th 18 02:11 PM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
"VanguardLH" wrote

| By the way, the EU's GPDR legislation is ****ing over a lot of software
| authors. One of the latest Windows 7 updates has only do to with
| changes mandated to be complaint with GPDR.
|

|
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2018...nce-tools.aspx

I don't get how it's a problem for software authors.
If you don't spy on your customers and store the data
then you don't have to worry. If MS were not collecting
data that's none of their business then they wouldn't
have to worry. Your link explains that they have to worry
with Win10 because they're the "data controller" who's
collecting surveillance data from customers. So the law
says they have to protect that data, they can be fined if
they don't, and customers have a right to demand that
the data be erased. Isn't that good?

And if you read the Register article you'll see the
sites blocking EU are American companies. Why should
Dick's Sporting Goods or Pottery Barn get involved if
they don't have enough EU customers to justify it?
That doesn't make the law bad. It just highlights our
lack of protection in the US.

What's worse is sites that say, "Hi! Happy to see you...
as long as you agree to this thing that signs away your
rights."

I'm periodically getting a page at npr.org that tells
me to choose between a page with a handful of
links to plain-text stories or giving them permission
to spy on me. A non-profit news outlet! Yet they
demand the right to spy. And this is an American visiting
a US site. I don't know what I'd see if I allowed
javascript. As it stands now, I only see that
page about once per week. (And of course I can't
agree, even if I wanted to, without javascript.)
The rest of the time the site works. So I'm guessing
that they're experimenting with options.

Another increasing problem is sites that put their
content in javascript, so that their pages just won't
work at all unless you allow them to use all the spy
tool javascript provides. Script, as it's used today,
fundamentally changes the nature of a webpage.
A passive publication becomes dynamic software.

(Anyone who doesn't know about that... try visiting
this site with js enabled and without:
https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

The GPDR does seem to be unnecessarily complicated,
but it provides important things like requirements to
implement good anonymization of data.

What's really needed is two things:

1) Fully opt-in for any data collection, without penalty
for opt-out.

2) Outlaw cross-site spying, like Google Tag Manager,
which allows fully ID-ing and tracking people online
and goes against the original spirit of the Internet.
(Cookies were supposed to be restricted to the site
visited.) Any effort to share surveillance of visitors
with other companies, even an advertising company,
should be illegal. Let them collect data the old-
fashioned way, by offering some kind of reward for
completing a survey.

Here's one example of only one of many ways that
Google spies on people who aren't visiting their domains:

https://www.lunametrics.com/blog/201...ng-real-users/

There needs to be public recognition that corporate
spying on people in civil society is not allowed. Period.

When and if that kind of law might happen? It
certainly doesn't look good. Wired has a very interesting
article, published recently, about how tech companies
are trying to hijack California's already modest,
proposed law:

https://www.wired.com/story/why-cali...ook-or-google/





VanguardLH[_2_] September 19th 18 09:01 PM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
Mayayana wrote:

I don't get how [GPDR] a problem for software authors.


It's a nuisance to them. It is a problem for the users. Authors have
to push a new version to be GDPR compliant. Users get a new version
with the defaults set to divulge their information with opt-out
settings. The GPDR does not mandate the authors default to opt-in, so
some can add more options or change old ones that require the user to
opt-out to increase their privacy.

For example, Microsoft, Avast, and many other software programs have
logistics collection sometimes called community reporting or some other
euphemism. It lets the authors know how their programs or services are
being used. Yep, you could opt-out but you were initially and covertly
opted in by default. GPDR doesn't stop authors/owners from adding even
more collection methods but it states the user must opt-in, not have to
sometime later upon discovery to opt-out.

Alas, GPDR does not require opt-in when the user has already consented.
When you open an account at a site or establish any business or
interaction with a site, you're supposed to have already read their TOS
and privacy terms. Establishing a relationship means you grant them to
contact you, which opens the door to them spamming you. There's a whole
mess going on regarding spam and GPDR. Of course, that only affects EU
citizens since the US and other countries are not part of the EU.

What's worse is sites that say, "Hi! Happy to see you...
as long as you agree to this thing that signs away your
rights."


Yep, their property (the web site), so they can dictate anything that
remains contractionally legal for them. GPDR only mandates the user be
informed although the information can be buried where most users cannot
find it or won't bother to look.

The GPDR does not ban any author (software or web) from collecting
information on you whether it be generic (they're not identifying you
but instead just collecting statistics) or specific. GPDR only requires
the user/visitor be informed. Silent or covert opt-in is not allowed by
GPDR.

I'm periodically getting a page at npr.org that tells me to choose
between a page with a handful of links to plain-text stories or
giving them permission to spy on me.


They aren't spying. They are collecting metrics on how you are using
THEIR property. They aren't spying on YOU. They are seeing how their
property is getting used. A car rental agency checking the mileage on
THEIR car upon you returning it to them is not them spying on you. It's
them checking how their property got used.

I visited npr.org with Javascript disabled (which is presumably why they
present you with non-dynamic content). As I recall, you have Javascript
disabled by default. With Javascript disabled, http://npr.org won't
take you to their https://npr.org site. In uBlock Origin, the only
domain allowed to deliver content was npr.org. In uMatrix, I block all
3rd-party content but allow all 1st party content except scripting by
default. Couldn't get the popup you mentioned.

Most sites have a Terms of Service or separate Privacy Policy page and
that makes them GPDR compliant. That users don't bother to read those
pages is their choice for not being active in protecting their privacy.

Sounds like NPR is GPDR complaint if they are showing you popups to
their text-only site. They are informing you and letting you opt-out
rather than covertly opting you in. Since they, like many sites, have
TOS or privacy policy pages, that may be all they need to be GPDR
compliant. However, you think web surfing would be convenient if every
site upon visiting them first redirected you to the TOS or Privacy
Policy page as their home page?

Of course, there is https://text.npr.org/. Have fun there. GPDR is
only protecting its EU citizenry. International web sites (those that
have a regional presence, not just that some user can reach them across
the oceans) are now creating different content based on region. For
example:

USA Today
EU site
Size: 500KB
javascript: 0
US site:
Size: 5.2MB
javascript: 124 scripts

Remember when it was a bitch visiting sites because they rendered
differently depending on which web browser you used to visit the sites
(by the way, Google is becoming the new Internet Explorer for just that
reason)? Now we're getting into the same mess with GPDR. NPR went
hardcore and has their text-only site (text.npr.org) to be GPDR
compliant; however, did you find that site as easy to navigate or read?

Not sure how you are setup to get NPR to issue prompts about using their
text-only site. If you give some clues, I can try to simulate.

Like those good old days of having to decide which web browser to use
when visiting a site depending on how you want it rendered, now we're
getting differentiation between EU and non-EU sites. Oh joy. The
Chinese already know that joy: the Great Firewall Of China.

Another increasing problem is sites that put their content in
javascript, so that their pages just won't work at all unless you
allow them to use all the spy tool javascript provides. Script, as
it's used today, fundamentally changes the nature of a webpage. A
passive publication becomes dynamic software.


Yep, their content so they decide what, if anything, you can view of
theirs. Old-timers think they are entitled to free content because
that's the way it was long ago (by the way, I'm an old-timer, too).
They can block based on IP address of the visitor. BBC has been using
that for a long time to keep non-UK visitors from seeing some content at
their site. Many sites won't present all of their content unless you
create an account with them.

None of that has anything to do with GPDR. You are complaining that
content is becoming more dynamic over an electronic venue rather than
remaining static, like books printed on paper. Nothing to do with
privacy. Just you reminiscing about the good old days of static
content.

The GPDR does seem to be unnecessarily complicated,


Actually the biggest complaint I've seen so far by site owners is that
it is too vague. That's how law works: it cannot be written for every
conceivable case but gets modified over time to adapt to what actually
happens. However, these type of "laws" or regulations often stay static
for decades.

Here's one example of only one of many ways that
Google spies on people who aren't visiting their domains:

https://www.lunametrics.com/blog/201...ng-real-users/


Ever notice how many sites no longer produce their own specialty fonts,
don't use a limited set of fonts that most of their visitors are likely
to have already available in their OS, and are using Google's fonts?
The redirection to Google's fonts lets Google track who used their
fonts, at which site, using which web browser, and when.

Programmers are taught not to rebuild the same code if they can use a
pre-built library. Same for fonts. While the fonts could be embedded
(copied) to the site, that requires further management of the server's
resources, so web devs just link to Google's fonts to get them from
there. Google isn't the only one providing fonts to sites through
redirection, so other font houses can also just as easily track who is
using their fonts from where and when; however, they are the huge data
collector of Google.

https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq

So even with you disabling Javascript and using various ad/content
blockers, you can still get tracked when a site uses someone else's font
library. Well, actually when a site utilizes anyone's resource external
to the site to which the client must connect.

I've seen this in practice. Some fonts are graphics, like arrows or
special images. Sites will use them rather than design their own image,
save in a file, and deliver from their server. Instead they use Google
Fonts to pick a charset with the cutsy image-like characters. My
pharmacy is one of those. When you visit their login page, and if
external font loading is blocked, you see weird characters and don't
know what to do on that page. With external font resources unblocked,
the goofy chars turn into arrows or other chars that make the page
understandable. This became apparent when I configured uBlock Origin to
block remote fonts. All of a sudden a lot of web pages were hard or
impossible to figure out how to use.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wi...o-remote-fonts

So just who is supposed to inform a visitor per GPDR requirements that
they may be tracked by fonts? Is the site going to interrupt your visit
with a prompt saying a 3rd party (perhaps Google if the site is using
their fonts or someone else if using other external fonts) /might/
collect information about the visitor at that site or can they not
bother at all because the one doing the actual tracking is not the site
but whomever is providing the font library used by the site?

It's not just fonts as external resources used by a site that could be
used to track. Anyone providing resources commonly employed at many
sites can do similar tracking; however, mostly likely that is them doing
metrics measuring of how their property is getting used but there is the
potential for tracking of users.

Would you bother [re]visiting a site that prompted you on every external
resource they use at their site that the external resource might collect
metrics which could possibly be used to track you? How many dozens or
hundreds of prompts would you have to get through before you could view
the site? And do that on every visit to the site?

Sites just don't realize how all those external resource they employ
could be used to track their users. Protonmail (outside US and EU
jurisdiction) uses web fonts at their site (in this case, Google's). Of
course, ProtonMail service is only to protect the content of your
e-mails, not from getting tracked by them, Google, or anyone else when
using ProtonMail's web site which is outside the scope regarding the
content of your e-mails or to whom they are delivered.

Mayayana September 20th 18 03:01 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
"Wolf K" wrote

| It's that promise to "personalize" that's the giveaway. That, and "...
| to improve your experience..."
|

I was surprised at how blatant they are. They'll
share data about me with advertisers, business
partners, Facebook, analytics companies and
"other third-party service providers", which means
"anyone else we decide to share it with".
Yet this is, in theory, a non-profit company.
They don't even have ads as such. They have
sponsorships. (At least that's the way the TV
branch works.)

This whole spying thing has gone beyond
crazy. Yesterday there was a story about
Facebook trying to get people to use Messenger
for banking so that Facebook can collect financial
data directly from banking transactions!

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/18/1...cy-advertising





VanguardLH[_2_] September 20th 18 04:28 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
Mayayana wrote:

Only if they're spying. There's no reason for software
authors to be collecting personal info in the first place.


Many users consider metrics measurement as spying despite that it
doesn't necessarily identify the user. For example, they're afraid a
site will get their IP address (but then EVERY endpoint must know your
IP address to know where to handshake and send back the requested
content). Since the IP address could be collected is why users get
afraid that their identity is surrendered. If you had someone's IP
address, can you tell what is their name, sex, age, religion, political
affiliations, economic status, marital status, and so on? Nope, just
something like a 50+ radius circle for their geolocation.

Does the GPDR apply to web browsers? If not then those clients don't
need to alert their users that geolocation is enabled. In Firefox, you
have to dig into about:config to disable geolocation. There have been
many programs that send metrics on their use (crash reports, run-time,
etc). Avast is one. There are many others. Yes, users can disable
that "feature" but how many users actually delve into a program's
settings? Is collection your IP address considered "personally
identifying information" when it merely lumps you in with everyone else
in a 50-mile radius? Is repeated capture of your IP address considered
personally identifying you?

Of course they're spying. They say so themselves.
They want me to agree to being tracked for the
purposes of targetted ads. Here's their quote:

"By choosing "I agree" below, you agree that NPR's sites use cookies,
similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device
you use to access our sites to enhance your viewing, listening and user
experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR's sponsors,
provide social media features, and analyze NPR's traffic. This information
is shared with social media services, sponsorship, analytics and other
third-party service providers."


Cookies are used for re-login. Do you actually have an account at NPR?
You are not forced to retain their cookies. DOM Storage is local data
similar to cookies but to hold more information about your visit and
current state at a site to be reused later. You are not forced to let
them store your user data in a local cache. If you configure your web
browser regarding privacy, they cannot detect your return. So whose
responsibility is it to comply with GDPR? The site for using features
in your web browser or the author of the web browser for defaulting to
enabling those features? This getting akin to the argument "Who is
responsible for someone getting shot? The gun maker, the gun shop that
sold the gun, or the person that used the gun?"

See, NPR is GPDR compliant and you even stated such. They identify
their practices in their TOS or privacy policy. So is it your
responsibility to read those site documents or for the site to prompt
you on each condition in their policy requiring you to allow or deny
each condition, and do so upon every revisit to their site? Even if
site's didn't create EU versus non-EU versions of their sites, they
could infuriate EU citizens by prompting them to okay each condition of
their TOS or privacy policy. And, or course, denying any of their
conditions could have them just say "Goodbye. We respect your privacy
restrictions."

If users are currently ignorant of how to configure their web browser
regarding their privacy, you really think they'll understand a barrage
of prompts querying on each point in a privacy policy or read it should
there be an obvious link on the home page? How many users read the EULA
that comes with software?

There's also a link to further details:

https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=609131973#cookiepolicy


None of which qualifies as *personally identifying information*.

IP address: Identifies the IP pool for your ISP, not you.
Domain of ISP: That's not you.
Website, application, platform or service before or after your visit: So
who warns you? Them or your web browser maker telling you how to
configure their web browser regarding privacy?
Info about your web browser: Again, that's info your web browser sends
to them. So whose fault is they can get that data? And how does
"someone using Google Chrome or Firefox" identify YOU?
Unique identifiers from your devices: Only if an app sends it. NPR has
an app?
Geolocation: You're the only person in a 50-mile radius to have a region
identify just you?
Dates, times, duration, frequency of visiting their site: Yeah, metrics,
not personally identifying information.
Listening data, downloads: Obviously they will know what content they
delivered.
Info in e-mail interactions: How does anyone doing e-mail with you not
know what you said?
Error in using their service: More metrics.
Info from a social service when you use it to login: Again, is it the
site at fault or the social service sharing that info in the first
place? What was your agreement at the social service? Likely you
agreed to the exchange of info, so NPR isn't violating your privacy
because you already agreed to divulge.

They say flat out that they'll tell ad companies,
analytics companies and others about whatever
info they get about me...


Metrics, again. Not personally identifying information.

That they'll send me spam and try to track whether I read it. And so
on.


If you establish a business relationship with them, you agree to their
terms regarding them contacting you. Visiting their site doesn't expose
your e-mail address (unless you're dumb enough to sign in with a social
service that divulges that info). If you create an account with them,
and part of that info is your e-mail address, yep, they have permission
to contact you regarding your use of their service. That's not legally
defined as spam. In fact, it is a legal exemption per the CAN-SPAM law.

Your e-mail client actually defaults to allowing connections to external
resources by default when viewing a message?

| Of course, there is https://text.npr.org/. Have fun there. GPDR is
| only protecting its EU citizenry.

NPR is American.


GPDR is EU.

I block [web fonts]. But most people have no idea.


And there's jquery if a site uses Google's copy instead of copying it to
deliver from their own domain. You don't care because you disable
Javascript but you are the rarity in the populace of web surfers. ANY
resource external to a site's web server can collect data on the client
that retrieves those external resources. You're going somewhere else
than the site to render the web page delivered by a site. All those
CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) are collecting the same metrics at
Google's web fonts. Sites use CDNs to warehouse their content and let
larger data centers pool their resources rather than incur all the
overhead, like bandwidth, at the site's server. Very similar to
corporations leasing a "company" jet shared by several corporations
rather than buying their own and having it sit mostly idle.

Google have made things so easy. And now they're
pushing their AMP, to actually be the host of sites.


How is Google doing webhosting different than CDNs, Amazon, 1 and 1,
Level3, GoDaddy, or any other webhoster?

How is providing a library of code or services different than
programmers using an IDE to code for multiple OS platforms? They're
using someone ELSE's code, not building from scratch. There are tons of
code and services available to web devs to build their sites without
having to do it all in-house. There have been IDEs to do cross-platform
development for a l-o-n-g time. It's been moving to cloud services for
a long time, too. Not really much of a surprise that development of web
content has been moving to the web.

I certainly wouldn't want to write the assembly code for the C runtimes
included in Windows. Microsoft provided a common graphics library (DX)
for use by many game programs. This really isn't news, just another
getting into the fray of providing code or services to assist others who
CHOOSE to use that shared code or service.

Is it Google's fault for providing the service or the web dev for making
use of Google's service? In fact, sites moving to Google AMP might make
it easier to filter out ad content at sites: just block the resource
connects from a site back to Google's AMP servers. Like you blocking
web fonts (don't know if you block all off-domain font sources or just
Google's web font server), adblock authors could add Google AMP servers
to their blacklists.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disabl...ndroid-iphone/

From what I've read of AMP, the problem is with misuse by sites, not by
Google providing an open-sourced library, like popping something up if
you arrive at a site using a non-AMP URL listed in a Google search
(assuming you use that search engine). Is it Google's fault to collect
metrics on the use of their web fonts or the site that chooses to use
Google Fonts instead of storing their own locally at their server? AMP
is just a runtime library. Bitch to the site owners if you don't like
them using that library. Good luck with telling them how they deliver
their content from their servers; i.e., telling them how to manage their
properties and what content they can deliver.

VanguardLH[_2_] September 20th 18 05:21 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
Wolf K wrote:

For most services online, I would be happy to pay a per-use or
subscription fee, if and only if I had absolute control over the
information they gather about me (and some of which they have to
have, merely to provide the service(s) I've paid for).


Reminds me of the e-mail electronic postage stamp proposal a long time
back: require a tiny charge on every e-mail sent from any provider or,
alternatively, require a tiny "postage" on every e-mail recieved at a
provider's SMTP server. I think it was called CentMail (because the
proposal was to charge 1 cent per outbound e-mail rather than a more
acceptable 0.001 cent per outbound e-mail). It would be likely
impossible to force the sending server to charge the spammer because
that would require knowing who is the spammer. So, more likely, the
postage method would only work at the receiving end: receiving servers
wouldn't accept e-mails unless the sending server paid a postage fee to
the receiving server, and let the sending service figure out how to
charge their users. E-mail would no longer be free but extremely cheap.
I think the proposal was something one-hundredth of a cent for the
postage.

Spamming works because one boob in a million qualifies the spam
campaign. Spamming would not have survived if no one bought from the
spammers. It would've come and quickly disappeared because no one acted
upon that spam. So, is spam the fault of the spammers that find it
lucrative to catch one out of a million or the fault of the assholes
they buy to further fund the spamming effort? Prostitution and drug
trafficking continue to exist because there exist customers. Same for
spam.

With a new revenue stream to the e-mail providers, I was thinking they
would embrace the "e-mail postage" scheme. Spam volume is currently
about 53 billion messages per day. Even at 0.001 cent per e-mail
(trivial to personal-use senders who would have to send 10,000 e-mails
before paying just 1 dime), the e-mail providers could collect about $53
million per day, or $19 billion per year (or charities would get a lot
of money if CentMail had the proceeds sent to charities but then e-mail
providers would have to do the accounting and money payment for free).
There are a lot of e-mail providers but even a tiny slice of that pie
would bring in a lot of revenue to offset the cost of operating their
service. Even legitimate marketers, because they don't puke at the same
volume as spammers, wouldn't care about the postage expense provided the
e-mail services provided guaranteed delivery. It would be the
high-volume spammers that would disappear because it would no longer be
free or galatically cheap to puke their turds via e-mail.

I haven't counted how many e-mails I've sent in my entire e-mailing
history but I doubt I come anywhere close to 10,000 even when including
those I sent to/from or within the workplace. And it would only cost me
a dime for all of those ... and over many decades of me doing e-mail.
I've posted in Usenet far more times than the number of e-mails that
I've sent: 30,742 (and now 30,743) versus ? (sorry, unknown for my
outbound e-mail count, especially since I purge e-mails older than 5
years - older than 1 year goes into my archive, older then 5 years in my
archive get permanently deleted). For e-mail, I get a hell of a lot
more incoming e-mail than I send out. Even if I assume I've sent as
many e-mails as posts submitted here, and guessing that I started
e-mailing around 1984 when I got an IBM PC-AT and using dial-up back
then, and discounting any e-mailing from work before that, that is 30K
e-mails for a cost of 30 cents over 34 years - under a cent per year.
If I had sent out 1 million e-mails, that would've been $10 over 34
years - still ****ing cheap at 30 cents per year. Compared to how much
money I've wasted on beer, what I would've paid for e-mail postage fees
for sending e-mails would've been so miniscule that I'd surpass that
entire 34-year cost with just a couple beers at a bar with my buddies.
But a spammer spewing out 1 million turds per *day* and having to pay
$10 each day would severely deter their spam flood.

VanguardLH[_2_] September 20th 18 05:31 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
Mayayana wrote:

"Wolf K" wrote

| It's that promise to "personalize" that's the giveaway. That, and "...
| to improve your experience..."
|

I was surprised at how blatant they are. They'll
share data about me with advertisers, business
partners, Facebook, analytics companies and
"other third-party service providers", which means
"anyone else we decide to share it with".
Yet this is, in theory, a non-profit company.
They don't even have ads as such. They have
sponsorships. (At least that's the way the TV
branch works.)

This whole spying thing has gone beyond
crazy. Yesterday there was a story about
Facebook trying to get people to use Messenger
for banking so that Facebook can collect financial
data directly from banking transactions!

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/18/1...cy-advertising


https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/face...2017-arpu.html
$6.18 average per user worlwide.
$26.76 per US+Canada user.
And just for Q4 of 2017, not for the entire 2017 year.
Uffda!

J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_] September 20th 18 10:39 AM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
In message , VanguardLH
writes:
[rant]
Info in e-mail interactions: How does anyone doing e-mail with you not
know what you said?

[mega-rant]

From conversations I've had by email (usually starting with a webform)
with various entities (most recently ebay "customer services"), I've
_frequently_ been pretty sure that the person I'm communicating with
hasn't read what I've said ... (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never make the same mistake twice...there are so many new ones to make!

Mayayana September 20th 18 02:28 PM

CCleaner Is Silently Updating Users Who Turned Off Automatic Updates
 
"VanguardLH" wrote


I snipped the foregoing because you're just arguing
for the sake of it. Issues are getting blurred rather
than clarified. But Google AMP is something that
could stand some airing out and you're
mischaracterizing it.

| Google have made things so easy. And now they're
| pushing their AMP, to actually be the host of sites.
|
| How is Google doing webhosting different than CDNs, Amazon, 1 and 1,
| Level3, GoDaddy, or any other webhoster?
|

They're not acting as web hosts. Look it up. It's
a system of script tools and caching, connected with
ads. The script tools are yet another step toward
letting Google track visitors and also another step
in the growing complexity of script in pages, resulting
in pages that just won't work without script.

But the bigger concern is caching. Google and some
other big tech companies are developing their own
proxy servers and encouraging commercial websites
to take part. The trend could easily lead to having
a handful of large corporations controlling most
of the Web. Not so much by force as by providing
business reasons for websites to hand over control.


"The Google AMP Cache is a proxy-based content delivery network for
delivering all valid AMP documents. It fetches AMP HTML pages, caches them,
and improves page performance automatically."

https://www.ampproject.org/learn/overview/

In other words, you write an AMP version of your
page using Google's tools, they cache it, then when
someone searches for your site they get Google's
AMP version from the Google server.

Maybe you see that as no problem. Maybe you'll
see it as no problem merely because that's the
opposite of what I'm saying. :) I see commercial
control of the Web in any manner as a problem. I
certainly wouldn't hand the running of my site over
to Google. In fact, I'd consider it a betrayal of my
visitors to be letting Google lasso them when they
think they're just visiting my website.

No company should be able to track you on a page
that's not part of their domain. That was the original
intention and design of the whole thing. That's why
cookies can only be read from the domain that serves
them. Now it's gone way beyond that. It's reached a
point where a visited website can track fine movements
*and* numerous external trackers can follow you
around online. Yet no one is working to stop these
intrusions. 3rd-party cookies are spyware by definition,
but even Mozilla sets them enabled by default.

Now with things like AMP there's an escalation.
It's headed toward the shopping mall-ification of
the Internet. AOL had their walled garden because
people were inexperienced with the Internet. But
the trend now is toward the whole Internet being
a commercial product. (Ironically, shopping malls
are now dying because they all have the same bland
chain stores, mostly selling tight jeans and t-shirts
to teenage girls. Ironic but not surprising. The shopping
mall exists *only* for making money, so the denizens
naturally try to take the shortest, easiest path to
profits.)

Interestingly, that trend has gone so far in so many
areas of life that people often don't even notice.
Citizens are now "consumers". Teenagers often grow
up in the private, commercial world of shopping malls
rather than hanging around public parks and city
streets. Festivals, which used to be community-based
events centered around cultural semiotics, are now
typically created by PR people from local business
organizations and are often comprised entirely of
commercial services like food stands and craft sellers
-- a tent city version of a shopping mall. To
celebrate "Millville History Day" people go downtown
and buy stuff. To celebrate "Anytown Harvest Festival
people go downtown and buy stuff. To celebrate
"Porttown Annual Marine Arts Festival" people go to
the beach and buy stuff.

Increasingly, people are living their
lives in commercial venues and are not noticing. I read
just yesterday that John Hancock insurance will no
longer offer basic life insurance. In the future you'll
have to let them track your exercise with gadgets
and report your food purchases to them. Why would
people put up with that? Two reasons:

1) JH will offer discounts, coupons, freebies in
exchange for buying fresh produce and running
around the block. People love freebies.

2) People increasingly don't consider it odd to
view themselves as "consumers" and their lives
as a series of retail interactions.

I'd love to hear what the real John Hancock might
say about this. He risked his life for personal freedom.
Now his namesake is telling you that if you want to
provide for your wife in the event of your death then
you'll need to let them monitor and partially control
your personal activites.

But the consumers are already plotting ways to
beat the system without questioning it. One person
suggested getting a dog, fitting it with a fitbit, then
sending that data to John Hancock. It would be
funny if it weren't pitiably true.

What has all that got to do with Google? You're
finding excuses to accept Google, Facebook and
others controlling your use of the Internet.




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