I use Firefox and Firefox Mobile on the desktop and Android respectively, Chromium with Bromite patches on Android, and infrequently Brave on the desktop to get to sites that only work properly with Chromium (more and more often - another whole separate can of worms too, this…) And I always pay attention to disable google.com and gstatic.com in NoScript and uBlock Origin whenever possible.

I noticed something quite striking: when I hit sites that use those hateful captchas from Google - aka “reCAPTCHA” that I know are from Google because they force me to temporarily reenable google.com and gstatic.com - statistically, Google quite consistently marks the captcha as passed with the green checkmark without even asking me to identify fire hydrants or bicycles once, or perhaps once but the test passes even if I purposedly don’t select certain images, and almost never serves me those especially heinous “rolling captchas” that keep coming up with more and more images to identify or not as you click on them until it apparently has annoyed you enough and lets you through.

When I use Firefox however, the captchas never pass without at least one test, sometimes several in a row, and very often rolling captchas. And if I purposedly don’t select certain images for the sake of experimentation, the captchas keep on coming and coming and coming forever - and if I keep doing it long enough, they plain never stop and the site become impossible to access.

Only with Firefox. Never with Chromium-based browsers.

I’ve been experimenting with this informally for months now and it’s quite clear to me that Google has a dark pattern in place with its reCAPTCHA system to make Chrome and Chromium-based browsers the path of least resistance.

It’s really disgusting…

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
    134·
    1 year ago

    Remember Chrome sends a lot of information about the user

    Remember, I use the equivalent of Bromite on Android and Brave on the desktop. Those are not Chrome: they’re heavily privacy enhanced. By your theory, those browsers too should serve you more annoying reCAPTCHA more often, just like Firefox. But they don’t: even on those privacy-respecting Chromium forks, you can get past reCAPTCHA much easier.

    I use Firefox exclusively and don’t have anywhere near as many issues as you seem to.

    Try using Chromium side by side and the subtle extra difficulties of sailing through the Googlespace become quite apparent. As long as you stick to Firefox, you don’t realize that the Chromium experience is ever-so-slightly slicker on many websites.

    • El Barto@lzrprt.sbsEnglish
      121·
      1 year ago

      Brave is a chromium based browser, so maybe chromium sends out something that let’s recaptcha know what’s going on.

      • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
        7·
        1 year ago

        maybe chromium sends out something that let’s recaptcha know what’s going on.

        Maybe. But in that case, that’s not a great sign that Brave respects your privacy. But I wouldn’t put it past Brave: they too are a for-profit and I don’t quite trust them either.

        However, the Bromite fork I run on my deGoogled phone almost certainly doesn’t make any privacy compromises and it solves reCAPTCHAs more easily than Firefox Mobile.

        • El Barto@lzrprt.sbsEnglish
          131·
          1 year ago

          Any Web browser that claims privacy and security while using chromium as its base isn’t worth the risk, they may have implemented fixes and added their own proprietary code, but it’s still chromium and Google most likely hides a bunch of stuff from devs so they can’t mess with it.

          • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
            81·
            1 year ago

            it’s still chromium and Google most likely hides a bunch of stuff from devs so they can’t mess with it.

            Chromium is open source.

            • El Barto@lzrprt.sbsEnglish
              8·
              1 year ago

              It’s still made by Google, tho, so can you really trust that there’s no hidden shit? This is a company that is trying to create a monopoly over website access.

            • Rose@lemmy.world
              31·
              1 year ago

              Have you reviewed each line of the code and do you make sure to review each commit before updating?

              • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
                31·
                1 year ago

                No but some people do. And even if Google could get away with hiding spyware in open source code for a while - even for a long while, the moment they got found out doing that, it would hurt their reputation so badly it would never fully recover from it. Not that their reputation is great right now, but I’m pretty sure that’s a line even they won’t cross.

          • Zerush@lemmy.ml
            1·
            1 year ago

            They can, Vivaldi devs doing this since more than 7 Years, and other do the same even EDGE, which is certainly an privacy nightmare, by sendin a lot of stuff to M$ and a lot of other, even to TowerData, but to Google zero. Because of the continuos fails to try to control Chromium users, now Google try it with his apps and services and webpages which use these, introducing this WEI DRM crap for Webpages, which permits to block any browser if it don’t include the Google Token “to prove that it is a secure browser”. That affect all browsers equally, independent of the engine it use, even Firefox. That is, or add this Google Token or forget internet. The ring to rules them all. Or we all work together against this outrage, preventing Google from introducing this shit or game over for a lot of small browsers and forks in a future only with Chrome, EDGE and nothing more.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      3·
      1 year ago

      I know google sites (especially Google search) are a much more polished experience on Chrome, but I haven’t had an unusable experience on Firefox, I don’t notice a problem.

      I think I missed that that isn’t your point. You’re saying google streamlines things for people on Chromium to make it a nicer experience, making it harder to switch away. And I think you’re right about that.

      • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
        3·
        1 year ago

        but I haven’t had an unusable experience on Firefox, I don’t notice a problem.

        There are quite a few online web stores I patronize in which the shopping cart is broken, or the checkout is broken and there’s no way of paying in Firefox.

        My bank’s online banking site is broken too in Firefox. It’s okay to pay for things and display basic checking account information, but more detailed personal finance pages are unusable.

        My company’s ERP is half broken in Firefox.

        And quite a few porn sites I download stuff off of are broken too in Firefox.

        And that’s with NoScript, uBlock Origin and Ghostery fully disabled.

        Obviously all those sites are streamlined to work well with Chromium or Chromium-based browser because - surprise surprise - it’s the most common browser type, which is exactly the position Google wanted to place itself in. It’s was very same problem when websites were designed to work primarily with Explorer, when Microsoft dominated the browser space many years ago.

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
          2·
          1 year ago

          This is not my experience. For the sites I frequent, though Firefox is generally not listed as a supported browser anymore, the sites work fine. That includes banking and any random shopping cart site. That’s probably because in my country there are common payment portals, and for you the common payment portals are probably different.

          One site I have trouble with is one for health insurance, but a user agent spoofed to look like Chrome makes the site work fine (I hate so much that they do this, and have complained but I’m just one customer).