Re: The Spirit of Free Software, or The Reality

[Bas Wijnen <wijnen@debian.org>]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 01:06:28AM +0200, Jakub Wilk wrote:
> POST https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/downloads?client=Iceweasel&appver=38.1.0&pver=2.2&key=no-google-api-key
> + a few dozens of GET requests to https://safebrowsing.google.com/
> 
> So nothing serious here. It's just casually violating your privacy.

I disagree that the safebrowsing part is not serious, especially considering
that it continues to send a message there on every new page you visit.  Best
case the only thing that happens is that Google checks that you aren't visiting
a dangerous site.  But really?  Does anyone believe that Google does not store
this data to monitor browsing habits?

I'm not saying I have a solution; unsafe sites are a reality, and a static
database delivered with the package is just not good enough.  But it would be
good to try to solve this.  Tor seems like the best service for the job.
However, auto-connecting every Debian machine with Iceweasel installed (which
is pretty much every Debian machine) to Tor may not be the best idea either.

Are there any other ideas?  Am I the only one who thinks this is a big deal?

Thanks,
Bas