In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Thu, 13 Jul 2023 10:12:09 -0400,
Retirednoguilt <HapilyRetired@fakeaddress.com> wrote:

>On 7/12/2023 1:00 PM, micky wrote:
>> In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Wed, 12 Jul 2023 00:55:38 -0400, micky
>> <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In this case, I haven't been noting what pages do it, and no pages have
>>> done it since my first post. So I'm not withholding anything.
>>>
>>> The next times I get the box, I'll note what url is doing it and get
>>> back to you.
>>
>> car.com (or is it cars.com? Sells or discusses cars.), medium.com, So
>> far today.
>
>Micky,
>
>I use the Privacy Badger firefox add-on to minimize tracking and
>minimize accumulating tracing cookies. I also have installed and active
>the AdBlock Plus and the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials add ons. I
>notice that both sites you mention (cars.com and medium.com) try to
>place google tracking cookies into firefox. Both try to place
>www.googletagmanager.com and medium.com tried to place two additional
>google cookies. Privacy Badger blocked them. I don't get a google
>login request on either of those two sites.
>
>I'm not saying that those specific cookies are on your Firefox
>installation and are responsible for your problem. But it certainly
>seems like a suspicious association!
>
>Have you tried deleting all your cookies that have "google" as part of
>their name? Do you have Firefox configured to block all 3rd party
>cookies?

I think so.

> Even if you install Privacy Badger, if you are retaining a
>cookie or cookies that cause your unwanted google login area, you may
>still have your problem.

I'll check.

But on the subject of tracking cookies, I still don't understand the
exact problem. IIUC, it just means that the ads I get will be targeted
at me, based on the sites I visit, instead of just random ads. I don't
mind that. Is there are reason to mind it that I haven't thought of? In
a way targeted ads might be interesting, compared to random ads.

On 7/13/2023 11:22 AM, micky wrote:
>
>
> But on the subject of tracking cookies, I still don't understand the
> exact problem. IIUC, it just means that the ads I get will be targeted
> at me, based on the sites I visit, instead of just random ads. I don't
> mind that. Is there are reason to mind it that I haven't thought of? In
> a way targeted ads might be interesting, compared to random ads.

It's a matter of privacy. If you're shopping for a gift, you'd think
that might a fairly benign data point to become known by advertisers.
But for example, for the first time ever, you're considering buying an
expensive toiletry for someone special. Do you want to be plagued with
ads for expensive perfumes and colognes etc. for who knows how long?
Maybe you'd rather have your browser load faster and your screen not be
littered with ads. Or, you enjoy seeing ads for random products and
services. OK,continued targeted ads would be a nuisance, but not harmful.

However, what if you're doing web research on a disease you just learned
has been diagnosed in a loved one. That information could conceivably
land at your health insurance carrier who thinks now that you might have
this disease and are keeping it from them to keep your premiums lower.
Or you're considering switching insurance carriers and find that you're
being either turned down (if it's a lethal diagnosis) or quoted premiums
that are "rated" because you're considered a substantial risk for high
dollar amount claims. You don't even have that disease. That situation
would be more than just a nuisance.

What if you have relatives living in mainland China, or North Korea, or
Iran and you are fluent in their language. Maybe your web activities
are routinely skewed towards web sites originating in those countries to
keep current with their news (propaganda?, call it what you prefer). Do
you want to risk coming to the attention of some of our federal
departments and/or agencies with the mission of rooting out potential
unregistered foreign agents and spies? You're web activity may be
entirely innocent and harmless, but....

These are not strictly hypothetical scenarios. Just because you're
retired and know that you're not doing anything that should cause
problems for you doesn't mean that you should forgo your rights to
privacy. It's not just a matter of targeted vs. random ads. Unprotected
use of the web can create real problems that go beyond the dilemma of
deciding whether to click on an ad to allegedly get more information
about the product or service that is being advertised. Miscreants are
known to use web ads as bait. You click to learn more and instead
install malware. It happens. Your choice whether to try to protect your
browsing or not.

On 7/12/2023 5:33 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
>
> So, using uBO with the blocklists to which I have it subscribed got rid
> of the Google login popup. I do not disable Javascript by default, but
> I could configure uBO that way. Instead I allow only 1st-party
> Javascript (those that originate from the same domain as visited). Too
> many sites require Javascript to be usable, but I don't want them
> running scripts resourced from elsewhere.
>
> I have uBO subscribed to the following blocklists:
> - uBlock filters: ads, privacy, quick fixes, and unbreak (badware risks
> is /not/ subscribed).
> - AdGuard ads.
> - EasyList
> - AdGuard URL Tracking Protection
> - EasyPrivacy
> - Online Malicious URL
> - Phishing URL
> - PUP Domains
> - AdGuard: annoyance, cookie notices (*), mobile app banners, other
> annoyances, popup overlays (**), social media, widgets.
> - EasyList: annoyances, chat widgets, cookie notices (*), newsletter
> notices, notifications, other annoyances, social widgets.
> - Fanboy: anti-Facebook.
> - uBlock: annoyances.
>
> (*) Used to custom subscribe to a cookie notice blocklist, but not after
> AdGuard and EasyList rolled that blocklist into their own.
> (**) Hmm, the Google login prompts are popup overlays.
>
> I do not subscribe to any of the hosts file (e.g., Peter Lowe's) since
> they don't update as often, and are usually too aggressive. I didn't
> bother to show how many filters out of the total available per blocklist
> were getting used. uBO will remove duplicates across blocklists. Even
> with duplicates removed, the total number of filters across all the
> subscribed blocklists is:
>
> 241,437 network filters
> 218,098 cosmetic filters
> total = 459,535 filters
>
> That far exceeds the limits imposed by Manifest v3 (30,000 per
> extension, and 300,000 total) that Google is pushing under the guise of
> improved security. The 300K total limit eliminates an add-on from
> splitting itself to load separate instances to overcome the limit. If
> Mozilla drops Manifest v2 support, users will suffer while rude sites
> will win.
>
> So, with uBO, how I configured it, and with the blocklists to which I
> have it subscribe, I don't get those annoying Google login popups. I
> didn't bother top open the blocklists to see which might be most likely
> the ones that are killing off the Google login popup.
>

I appreciate the info about how you set up uBO.
I had become annoyed because it didn't seem to be blocking everything it
should.
I always thought that the default configuration would be good enough,
but it wasn't for me.

On Thu, 13 Jul 2023 03:15:14 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

>I removed my WSL machine, as part of a scorched earth approach
>to removing my first personal email account from the WSL machine.
>And at least that much has worked. So far. I dumped Ubuntu2004 WSL
>and installed Ubuntu2204 WSL (still in support). This is part of
>running two copies of Firefox and walling them off from one another.

My Ubuntu VMs are primarily a redundant pair of RADIUS servers. I didn't
even remember what version they are until I checked just now.

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS
Release: 22.04
Codename: jammy

micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote in
news:3torai11fm8dvlsq95vruv7abfoe7pvvb6@4ax.com:

> When I go to google search, I'm already logged in, with the
> correct gmail identity.

Why on Earth would you want to do that?

That is how Google tracks **everything** you do...

....unless you specifically go into the Google account settings and tell it not to save that
info. They have every Google search you've done, every Youtube video you've ever
watched, access to every click from their search results, all tied to YOU. (Subject to
SOME time limit?)

IF that is even true (that I will not save that info).

I never 'sign in' a browser...and if I do, I sign in, do whatever I need to do that required me
to sign on, and then sign out.

And, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS sign out of *any website* before closing the browser.

On 7/12/23 15:33, VanguardLH wrote:
....
> I did not get the Google login popup at medium.com with uBO enabled, but
> it did appear when uBO was disabled and the page refreshed. I reenabled
> uBO and refreshed the page, and the login popup did not appear.
>
> So, using uBO with the blocklists to which I have it subscribed got rid
> of the Google login popup.
> ...
> I have uBO subscribed to the following blocklists:
> - uBlock filters: ads, privacy, quick fixes, and unbreak (badware risks
> is /not/ subscribed).
> - AdGuard ads.
> - EasyList
> - AdGuard URL Tracking Protection
> - EasyPrivacy
> - Online Malicious URL
> - Phishing URL
> - PUP Domains
> - AdGuard: annoyance, cookie notices (*), mobile app banners, other
> annoyances, popup overlays (**), social media, widgets.
> - EasyList: annoyances, chat widgets, cookie notices (*), newsletter
> notices, notifications, other annoyances, social widgets.
> - Fanboy: anti-Facebook.
> - uBlock: annoyances.
>
> (*) Used to custom subscribe to a cookie notice blocklist, but not after
> AdGuard and EasyList rolled that blocklist into their own.
> (**) Hmm, the Google login prompts are popup overlays.

Your uBO settings are duplicated here, and
https://www.mercurynews.com/ is showing me the Google login box anyway.

Not ebay any more, not medium.com, but Mercury News has defeated the
filters.
The box isn't fixed to the page so that it moves up out of view when I
scroll down, as it used to. It now floats there at the upper right corner.

Pothos <fn@smoothwater.com> wrote:

> Your uBO settings are duplicated here, and
> https://www.mercurynews.com/ is showing me the Google login box anyway.
>
> Not ebay any more, not medium.com, but Mercury News has defeated the
> filters.
> The box isn't fixed to the page so that it moves up out of view when I
> scroll down, as it used to. It now floats there at the upper right corner.

Yep, I got it, too. I then right-clicked on the element to get uBO to
block it as a cosmetic filter. The result was a new filter added to uBO
under My Filters defined as follows:

! 2023-07-15 https://www.mercurynews.com
||accounts.google.com/gsi/iframe/select$subdocument

Since the filter does not specify a frame, hopefully it will help at
other sites that attempt to open the same iframe from
accounts.google.com. I'm not sure the "$subdocument" is needed. It
wasn't specified when I created the filter, but showed up after I added
the filter to uBO.

While I can right-click on a web page to open uBO's element picker to
decide what to block, it presented both cosmetic and network filters.
For now, I chose the network filter. If that doesn't work at all sites
to get rid of the Google login popup, I'll have to see if a cosmetic
filter will be more global.

It is also quite possible that the blocklists have not yet been updated
to eliminate this nuisance.

EasyList has a filter on:

! *** easylist:easylist/easylist_allowlist_popup.txt ***
....
@@||accounts.google.com^$popup

That might've been an attempt to block the popup Google login nuisance.
However, my understanding is that @@ defines an exception rule. Instead
of blocking a popup from accounts.google.com, it is allowing it.

Once Google discovers they are getting blocked, they'll adapt to avoid
the filters. Actually I was surprised that a hash wasn't added to the
element identity which is often used to avoid filters. The hash is
changed by the server in the web doc delivered to each client. The next
time you visit, the hash will be different, so the old filter with the
old hash won't work anymore.

I looked in several other blocklists, and there were no filters on
accounts.google.com, just in the EasyList blocklist.

https://easylist.to/pages/policy.html

Their targets really doesn't cover unified logins or SSO methods, so
they may never add a block of the Google login popups to their
blocklist. Since it is not their policy to block these type of popups,
they'd probably tell you to create your own filter which is what I did.

I didn't find a tutorial on the syntax of blocklist filters at the
EasyList web site. Perhaps they use the same syntax as Adblock Plus.
If so, the only blocklist to which uBO can subscribe (other than custom
ones you can add, *if* you know the correct URL to the blocklist) that
does anything with accounts.google.com is ensuring content from there is
allowed (excepted). If you read their policies on what they block,
popups for unified logins are not covered. Oh joy, that means adding
your own filter to block that shit.

[Late response due to extended absence.]

Pothos <fn@smoothwater.com> wrote:
> On 7/12/23 15:33, VanguardLH wrote:
> ...
> > I did not get the Google login popup at medium.com with uBO enabled, but
> > it did appear when uBO was disabled and the page refreshed. I reenabled
> > uBO and refreshed the page, and the login popup did not appear.
> >
> > So, using uBO with the blocklists to which I have it subscribed got rid
> > of the Google login popup.
> > ...
> > I have uBO subscribed to the following blocklists:
> > - uBlock filters: ads, privacy, quick fixes, and unbreak (badware risks
> > is /not/ subscribed).
> > - AdGuard ads.
> > - EasyList
> > - AdGuard URL Tracking Protection
> > - EasyPrivacy
> > - Online Malicious URL
> > - Phishing URL
> > - PUP Domains
> > - AdGuard: annoyance, cookie notices (*), mobile app banners, other
> > annoyances, popup overlays (**), social media, widgets.
> > - EasyList: annoyances, chat widgets, cookie notices (*), newsletter
> > notices, notifications, other annoyances, social widgets.
> > - Fanboy: anti-Facebook.
> > - uBlock: annoyances.
> >
> > (*) Used to custom subscribe to a cookie notice blocklist, but not after
> > AdGuard and EasyList rolled that blocklist into their own.
> > (**) Hmm, the Google login prompts are popup overlays.
>
> Your uBO settings are duplicated here, and
> https://www.mercurynews.com/ is showing me the Google login box anyway.
>
> Not ebay any more, not medium.com, but Mercury News has defeated the
> filters.

FWIW/FYI: This thread is mainly about Firefox, but I thought to let
you know that - at least for me - in (Microsoft) Edge, the Google login
box is *not* shown for these sites.

I don't have Firefox, so I can't test that and (Google) Chrome is tied
to my Google Account(s) so that's not a useful test.

> The box isn't fixed to the page so that it moves up out of view when I
> scroll down, as it used to. It now floats there at the upper right corner.

On 8/2/23 10:34, Frank Slootweg wrote:

> - at least for me - in (Microsoft) Edge, the Google login box is
> *not* shown for these sites.
>
> and (Google) Chrome is tied to my Google Account(s) so that's not a
> useful test.

You’ve already granted MS and Alphabet execs Power of Attorney, so they
won’t pester you for permissions to do this or that. They’re also
permitted to harvest any of your organs, should the need arise.