• ayyy@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    3 days ago

    What evil creepy browser extensions and cookies did they have to trick unsuspecting users into installing in order to collect this data?

    • YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth
      0·
      3 days ago

      You might be surprised to learn that nearly all sites collect this data by default. It’s built into the standard analytics package of most hosted WordPress services, Cloudflare, Google, etc.

      A simple JS script can collect your system and browser info, generalized location, exactly where your mouse is and for how long (which links you hovered over but didn’t click, how you found menus and submenus, etc.), which search engine you used to get to the site, how long you stayed on each page, and so much more.

      You need a browser extension to not provide this data, even on Firefox. I always recommend uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. The two together generally do a good job of blocking most of these scripts.

      Source: I’m a web developer

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    what cracks me up is I will often mention the importance of email and I get flak for it like being old and going away and that is not where people do stuff today and its going away or such. Looks to me like its the largest general thing up there. 25% of the named blocks and I would not be surprised if its a higher percentage of the unnamed ones.

    • EtnaAtsume@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 days ago

      Unfortunately, I don’t have the data close at hand, but Twitter is actually not used by that many people online. You’d be surprised given the huge amount of proliferation that Twitter screenshots get, but honestly, I think that might just be a psyop, or I’m just paranoid.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 days ago

    more people use chatgpt than reddit? The famously massive, addictive website? Are you kidding me? I wonder, as a person that’s never used AI beyond sometimes perusing the “AI answers” that results from a google search, am I a unicorn? How many other people have never used it?

    • QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      2 days ago

      volunteered to do the paper forms for highschool signups at the start of the year last year. Nearly 100% of the kids had a Gmail address but the parents had around ~60% Gmail ~30% Hotmail and ~10% yahoo.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldMEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      I imagine a lot of people have a tab with whatever their mail service is open all the time, and it’s not much of a stretch to assume that Gmail is the most popular one. I’d doubt people are actively looking at it all that time, though.

      Gmail will also send keep-alive pings back to Google’s servers regularly until your login times out, which if I recall correctly lasts one week.

      • Mika@piefed.caEnglish
        0·
        3 days ago

        Thats poor metric then, I do have tabs open but that’s sub 1% of my daily screentime.

  • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    3 days ago

    I wonder what the data covers. Does it show only genuine browser traffic or also apps? Do apps that periodically phone home for updates, like mail apps, count towards the ‘attention’? Is that why gmail is so massive?

    • Jason@feddit.uk
      0·
      2 days ago

      If I open a tab for gmail and leave it for 24 hours, is that 24 hours worth of ‘activity’?

      • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        2 days ago

        Better yet, if you are having the gmail app installed, is the app checking in the background counted as activity? Might explain Facebook’s share. Mark ‘Zuccy the Zucc’ Zuckerberg famously gets ping every time a Facebook user’s heart beats.

    • GloriousGasHole@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      I would also like to know this. I’ve gotten rid of my streaming services and social media (minus the fediverse), but I don’t see how people spend more time on Facebook than on Netflix. I have wasted entire weekends binge watching TV.