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Google Boots Open Source Anti-Censorship Tool From Chrome Store (torrentfreak.com)
Google has removed the open-source Ahoy! extension from the Chrome store with little explanation. The tool facilitated access to more than 1,700 blocked sites in Portugal by routing traffic through its own proxies. TorrentFreak reports: After servicing 100,000 users last December, Ahoy! grew to almost 185,000 users this year. However, progress and indeed the project itself is now under threat after arbitrary action by Google. "Google decided to remove us from Chrome's Web Store without any justification," team member Henrique Mouta informs TF. "We always make sure our code is high quality, secure and 100% free (as in beer and as in freedom). All the source code is open source. And we're pretty sure we never broke any of the Google's marketplace rules."
Henrique says he's tried to reach out to Google but finding someone to help has proven impossible. Even re-submitting Ahoy! to Google from scratch hasn't helped the situation. "I tried and resubmitted the plugin but it was refused after a few hours and without any justification," Henrique says. "Google never reached us or notified us about the removal from Chrome Web Store. We never got a single email justifying what happened, why have we been removed from the store, or/and what are we breaching and how can we fix it." TorrentFreak reached out to Google asking why this anti-censorship tool has been removed from its Chrome store. Despite multiple requests, the search giant failed to respond to us or the Ahoy! team. Thankfully, the Ahoy! extension is still available on Firefox.
Henrique says he's tried to reach out to Google but finding someone to help has proven impossible. Even re-submitting Ahoy! to Google from scratch hasn't helped the situation. "I tried and resubmitted the plugin but it was refused after a few hours and without any justification," Henrique says. "Google never reached us or notified us about the removal from Chrome Web Store. We never got a single email justifying what happened, why have we been removed from the store, or/and what are we breaching and how can we fix it." TorrentFreak reached out to Google asking why this anti-censorship tool has been removed from its Chrome store. Despite multiple requests, the search giant failed to respond to us or the Ahoy! team. Thankfully, the Ahoy! extension is still available on Firefox.
They've gone to full-on evil
When you put a middle man between you and any product and expect the middleman to act in your interest over his, you're an idiot.
i dont want to use it to download any illegal material, i use chromium on Linux, and i want to know if google can access my browser extensions without my explicit permission because if google deletes it, then watching something disappear from my browser extension list will prove google accesses my browser without my explicit permission
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Google conspired with Apple and Facebook to silence Alex Jones. Google is pushing https everywhere to eliminate anonymous publishing. Why are you surprised.
Can't have the Chinese government thinking Google supports routing around censorship, now can we?
... this only works if you're blocked, not banned.
A plugin that hijacks web traffic and routes to third party proxies? Sounds legit!
Lately Google has been actively courting regimes who are heavy on censorship. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots.
Pichai is from India. His views on censorship are different. It's not really surprising Google changed its direction after he became the CEO.
They need to grow to new markets in order to keep revenue up and the stock up. Greed.
This is why these things were an awful idea. We knew this would happen, platforms kicking off people for.. no reason at all.
Boycott this garbage, App Store, Play Store, Microsoft Store, it's all bullshit. Don't support it, don't publish to it, don't buy from it. The only thing these corporate entities understand is profit/loss. So seriously, vote with your wallet, don't buy anything from any of these sites.
Only a united front vs. these abominations will yield results. We all have to take a stand and say 'no.' Even you folks publishing and making money, stop, for the greater good. Go back to the old school software distribution, do it yourself. Building a website to host your app is cheap and easy, there's no excuse. If you can develop an app, you're definitely smart enough to set up a cloud based server.
Lately Google has been actively courting regimes who are heavy on censorship.
"Foreign authoritarian regimes"?
Maybe, at least partially.
Have you heard what the US FBI, for instance, has been saying lately about things like the widespread use of strong encryption? I don't think it would be a stretch to assume US TLAs would frown upon this type of anonymizing tool for the same sort of reasons they currently object to the widespread use of strong encryption.
When you start talking about authoritarian regimes, don't leave out the US government which is one of the largest and most intrusive.
Big Brother insists you not obstruct your Telescreen, Comrade!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The beauty of folding like a goddamned fucking paper crane at the demand of Winnie the Poos Chinese Regime for a shit-ton of money is the opportunities it creates for making even more money by folding like a paper crane for the benefit of other autocratic regimes that are still at least kind of sort of pretending to hide it.... like the Liftle Donny Tiny-Hands McDipshit (or, Russians-Ð-US!) Regime in what used to once be called America, but today is looking more and more like a nightmare shithole known as Trumpistan.
Try looking for assistance on know Google+ Bugs such as their Photo store. They are self indulgent jokes. Moved on to Amazon.
Bing?
Run by Microsoft, which is just as evil and anti-free speech as Google
Baidu?
The definition of censorship -- might as well use Google.
Yandex?
If you like your search results slanted to Russia's ideology. Like Baidu, it is alright for the comrades but not for lovers of freedom.
Ecosia?
Powered by Bing, claims to be CO2 neutral, but Bing is powered by oil so not really CO2 neutral.
DuckDuckGo or StartPage?
For those not wanting to run Bing or Google these two are everyone's favorite. However, they are merely front ends for Google, but they do not let your queries become linked to your IP address or personal info.
Twitter?
Surely you jest. The master of double standards and censorship. Besides, like FB, they are dying because people are getting tired of their heavy handed and biased ways.
CCSearch?
Just another layer of snooping and 3rd party sales of your info. Logs on your searches kept for a period of time. Just use Google if you don't mind being spied upon.
Wiki.com?
A search engine which searches only Wiki's. Wikis themselves are heavily slanted and filtered to fit a certain political slant. Again, comrades should have no problem using them.
Boardreader? :(
If you’re searching for content written by everyday users about a topic this is your tool. Will the "everyday user" know what they are talking about? Too many seem to think that perpetual energy devices are real, and that Planet Nibiru is about to strike.
Slideshare?
Sponsored by LinkedIn, a comrade to Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft, it links to videos, slides, pdf's and other educational material. Many are dated. Not the site to use if you want up to date information without a slant.
So, what to use?
What ever you want. Just know what using your choice can cost you more than you may realize.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Why does anyone use chrome and voluntarily give their shit to google anyway? Just build a PGO version of firefox. It's fast as shit, and not stupid.
Just fucking ignore them and let them die out already. They're too big, too elitist, and not accountable to anyone.
Didn't work for Facebook; won't work for Google.
Both companies have been doing wrong, and lots of of it, for a long time. There's absolutely no sign that the general run of users of either one care even a little bit.
A few people shouting here on /. mean nothing.
All of which I am very sorry to observe, but there it is.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Big Tech has gone all-in on fascism (NOT Trumpism which many hate but is NOT fascism, but ACTUAL fascism where government and corporations unite hand-in-glove to oppress). Big Tech is enabling all the oppression demanded by each national or local government. China wants the keys to Apple servers and - shazam! - China gets them. China wants to censor speech and - zap! - Google is all on-board. Democrat lawmakers demand the suppression of a tawdry guy like Alex Jones, who for some reason they seem to think harms them (I certainly do not see how the guy is anything but bad comedy or "performance art"), and - abra cadabra! - all the social media sites knock him off within a 12 hour timeframe. Multiple governments despise tools people use for privacy or to evade censorship and Google is only too eager to oblige in eliminating the tools.
Big Tech had a choice: Either be facilitators of true uncensored speech and let the speakers be accountable for their own words, or become censors and in doing so become enablers of oppression. They seem to be choosing the latter.
Fascism has many benefits for corporate meat puppets - as long as they do the bidding of their masters, they are allowed all the benefits of being in control of their particular fiefdoms and as a bonus their masters will use the power of government to suppress/oppress any would-be competitors. When faced with the decision to either go fascist or remain a beacon of freedom, most corporate executives in history have made the easy, obvious, "no-brainer" choice: they goose stepped into line with fascism.
Free people of all stripes need to face a simple truth: Big Tech is not your friend. You might love your iPhone, but it's just a handy tool and the big company operating it is not your pal. You might like Facebook and Google, but they do not like you.... they are spying on you, selling you out, censoring what you see, and helping others manipulate you. Do at least half your web searches using a Google competitor. Try using other social media sites than Facebook or Twitter at least half the time. Stop feeding the beasts.
Let's hope the EU keeps extracting money from Google till they get the message.
After they booted Alex Jones, anyone is fair game. Love him or hate him, censorship is censorship.
We have an important presence in China already, and plan to expand search to China, we need to demonstrate good will with the Chinese government.
> Have you heard what the US FBI, for instance, has been saying lately about things like the widespread use of strong encryption? I
I'm afraid there is nothing recent about this. Robust encryption and robust privacy have been resisted by verious US agencies throughout the history of modern cryptography. In fact, I had a *fascinating* chat about this with Jerry Lettvin about 35 years ago. Jerry... was an amazing genius, a physician and an electrical engineering professor at MIT who proved how color vision and shape detection works in eyes. Apparently, he also developed a device that, connected to *one* end of the old telephone devices, committed electrical improprieties on the signals and left unintelligible to the FBI's recording devices, but intelligible to the humans at each ends of the conservation. (I think he horrifically abused the automatic-gain-controls of the recording devices, but I never got to see the design myself.)
According to Jerry, he was ready to file patents, and start selling the device. The president of MIT and an Army general had a little talk with him, and he was told not to publish and never to make them. When he discussed it with an "old friend", the friend told him to leave the device and the schematics in his desk that weekend, and there would be $10,000 cash in the drawer on Monday. This was apparently in the 1950's: $10,000 cash was a much bigger deal then. Jerry claimed to have declined the money.
Jerry... well, what stories of his I could check turned out to be true, and he knew enough about electronics and neurophysiology to pull a stunt like this.
Donald Trump stole my shoes!!
In the 1930's, the US was the only nation to increase investment in Nazi Germany because it was a strong government of "people we can work with".
In the 2010's, Google sees Fascist China as "people we can work with" too, and so do many others. This time, the wilful blindness to the consequences is not restricted to the US, however.
So, yeah, can't allow anyone to get around censorship - someone's got to think about the money, you know.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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I'm in Portugal. Circumventing the "censorship" is as easy as changing your DNS settings to something like Google or Cloudeflare.
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