See With Eyes Closed Digest

By Benjamin Hollon

Stop Using Chrome. - Issue #8

#8・ Apr 11, 2021

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Stop Using Chrome. - Issue #8

By Benjamin Hollon • Issue #8 • View online

Okay, so this week’s issue is pretty focused on one topic: web privacy. I don’t think most people realize how serious this issue is. In the modern web ecosystem, you may not be paying, but that’s because you are the product.

Blog Post: Stop Using Chrome. Seriously.

Here’s my semi-rant about some disturbing things I’ve found out lately about Chrome. This is the first article resulting from an in-depth study I’m doing of how personal information is processed on the web.

Stop Using Chrome. Seriously. | See With Eyes Closed

Okay, I’ve been planning to make a post on web privacy for a while now, and I took so long because I wanted to put together something super-convincing, but I’ve about had it by now with Google Chrome have to get something out. Chances are, you’re using Chrome while you’re reading this. If not, I congratulate you. Do make sure that you’re not using a Chrome-based browser that’s just as bad, though, because there are a lot of those. Now, why am I so mad at Chrome? Well, it all comes down to this: Chrome has a conflict of interest when it comes to privacy. (Banner Image Credits: EFF)

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Current Projects

Web Privacy - As you can probably infer from above, I’m taking a close look at what websites are doing with data. I was planning for this to be a quick write-up, but everything I’m seeing is so disturbing that I’ve got to make something better to make sure it gets taken seriously. This may take some time.
Vocado and Amole - My site’s backend currently uses ExpressJS and Pug. I’m a bit fed up with how easily modern web developers use dependencies, so I decided to re-code them from scratch without any dependencies. (I’ve come up a term for low-dependency devs: orb-weavers. Stay tuned to later issues for more info.) I’m having a lot of fun so far and making a lot of progress! Almost my entire site works with the current version of Vocado. The one downside is that now I’m disillusioned and see how simple what these frameworks are doing is! 😅

Space!

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve talked about space, hasn’t it? Well, there’s good news: I got my telescope! It’s been really fun so far, and I’ve gotten some great views. Just this morning I got up early to take a look at Jupiter and Saturn. I was able to see Jupiter’s moons and Saturn’s rings, it was totally awesome! Sadly, I have yet to find a reliable way to get pictures. But here’s a blurry smartphone picture of the moon I was able to get through some clouds:

The first picture I took with my telescope

Also, the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity (or Ginny 😅) has its first flight tomorrow! It’s at 3:30 am EDT, so I’m sorry people living in the US. Honestly, this is one that may be worth getting up early for (at least if you’re a space nut like me). I’ll be watching that, though I have my last class while it’s happening so I might be seeing it a bit delayed.

Thought of the Week

A bit of fun this week! 😉

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.

– Lemony Snicket

Have a great week!

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By Benjamin Hollon

A weekly digest of my new blog posts, projects, and things I'm currently working on as well as just an eensy bit of plain old fun.

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