Both. It will prevent other sites from seeing some of your data, while giving Google more of your data. Of course Google wants to do this, it gives them a competitive edge. Smells like brewing lawsuits, though.

Looks like a great business plan to me.

Edit: Firefox is a great option for more privacy.

Librewolf is a hardened fork of Firefox, but not for everyone. Although I am very happy with it personally.

Don't worry. They'll "strike a balance"

That's pretty brilliant, actually.

I propose a nice server side open source library that will replace pages served from Google IP space with redirects to the Firefox download page. Or just a page presenting the problem and danger.

Or like an nginx plug-in. So many options.

You can't MITM HTTPS with a VPN unless the browser accepts an insecure certificate. And that can't be done without being detected; and the security community would raise seven shades of hell.

Google has actually helped build the infrastructure that (in a public, provable way that Google can't subvert) makes it impossible to get away with MITM in this manner. It's called Certificate Transparency.

Put another way: Google wants other big companies and governments to use Chrome and Android. If Google started MITMing traffic like you suggest, no corporation or government would ever touch their products again. So they've built infra that lets them prove they don't.

They could use this to get more accurate figures about the popularity of different sites or services by IP and port. But they don't need to; they have search.

FUCK GOOGLE moar liek it.

I would wager that this is probably more of a response to iOS and Apple’s encrypted proxy “Private Relay” feature.

Google doesn’t care about Edge. If you look at the browser stats, mobile Safari is their major competitor. Especially in the states.

This was actually the least-biased coverage of the day:
https://www.techmeme.com/231023/p18#a231023p18

It gives google access to all the traffic statistics for users of chrome, not just those going via google. That's valuable marketing data. They also have made sure that nobody else can get that data - they have to buy it from google as they become the sole source of it.

That's why they want to do it.. nothing to do with 'privacy'.

Unless you take considerable steps to prevent it by avoiding and blocking anything made by google, you basically already do.

And this is a Chrome feature we are talking about. Someone who cares about privacy from Google wouldn't be using it in the first place.

Googles ships the browser wich ships with the root certificates which they can update remotly as the see fit im sure u can see the issue here.

It’s some high-level BS, is what it is.

A better way to protect privacy is to use a neutral, paid VPN; use Firefox with all the best blockers; and not sign into anything while doing searches.

Google is doing this so that they can see everything and so that others will have to pay them to see the everything they’ll have. Yes, it can “technically” be private from other parties, but Google’s bread and butter comes from collecting data and selling it. This is only a tool to collect even more data.

To quote the "article":

While the IP protection feature might enhance user privacy, the tech giant has clarified that it is not a foolproof system. If a hacker is able to gain access to Google’s proxy server, they will be able to analyse all traffic passing through the network and even redirect users to malicious websites.

This means that if a hacker can do this, then obviously the same goes for Google itself. Google will analyse all your online traffic data and use it for themselves. This isn't pro privacy, it's the complete opposite.