'Secret agents' warning removed from Chrome incognito tab

http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/app/generated_resources.grd?r1=239201&r2=239282

by shill • 12 years ago

146 41 12 years ago

src.chromium.org

eli• 12 years ago

Maybe the joke just isn't funny any more.

hayksaakian• 12 years ago

Maybe it's not a joke?

line-zero2• 12 years ago

It was their way of warning us.

cachichas• 12 years ago

Great The Smiths song!

tptacek• 12 years ago

People had apparently been complaining for awhile (search for the bug thread on this); for instance: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.chromium.bugs/1815...

catshirt• 12 years ago

on unreasonable grounds...

> Government surveillance is nothing to joke about

i didn't consider it a joke, and i'll let the next one speak for itself:

> it isn't performed by secret agents, but via lawyers and engineers

0xdeadbeefbabe2• 12 years ago

Offended by use of via.

bo10242• 12 years ago

If government surveillance isn't performed by secret agents, then clearly the secret agents joke has nothing to do with government surveillance.

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

People will complain about anything. I, for example, am going to complain about this slight decline in my browser humor.

zeckalpha• 12 years ago

Try NetPositive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetPositive#Error_messages_in_...

deathhand• 12 years ago

It was a disruption tactic: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

nitrogen• 12 years ago

Some of the comments after that article are rather bizarre. Sometimes I forget just how good the comment quality is on HN, even though it can get pretty bad.

csoghoian• 12 years ago

As one of the complainers (and the person who filed the bug you linked to), I'm happy to see Google make some progress here. I'm even happier to see that they hired Adrienne Felt, who is excellent, and are letting her improve the usability of Chrome's warnings.

shill• 12 years ago

What are your feelings about the "Aw, Snap!" error message?

not_kurt_godel• 12 years ago

So, uh, your complaint sucks. First, although it may have been interpreted jokingly by some, the text absolutely had a serious meaning behind it. Now that meaning is gone. Second, your suggestion of a link to the tor project is the real joke. Third, if you file a bug complaining about wording without suggesting a precise and usable alternative, you suck.

jcutrell• 12 years ago

This seems to happen a lot after a certain half life - all of the little quirky personality-showing additions get stripped over time in projects like this. Even happens in code comments too.

Things slip through the cracks and go to production, and then everyone complains and then things with too much color get pulled.

headwayoldest• 12 years ago

Software grows up too, for better or worse. I find this less surprising than nmap losing "...requires root privileges which you do not appear to possess. Sorry, dude."

TrainedMonkey• 12 years ago

I think like people software should have character and history as long as they do not interfere with functionality. I am always a bit sad seeing either one go.

georgemcbay• 12 years ago

Terrible change, IMO.

Even if the older expanded list skewed a bit into jokey territory in the wording (which I think is fine, even for -- maybe especially for, the secret agent bit because jokes are a fantastic way to highlight injustices) it gave Joe Random user a much better idea of what things incognito won't protect him from than the new text does.

The dividing line of protection incognito gives you may seem completely obvious to anyone reading HackerNews, but I assure you that it is non-obvious to my non-tech friends and family who tell me their new computer has "2 terabytes of memory".

line-zero2• 12 years ago

I once had a conversation with someone about how Incognito Mode doesn't actually provide anonymity, and he said, "No, it's cool dude. I have my DSN [sic] set to 8.8.8.8 -- that makes you totally invisible online. It just makes it look like you're Google. Don't worry."

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

Here, have some Streisand effect, Google!

zenocon• 12 years ago

I bet the folks over at https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!forum/chrom... must get a good chuckle out the hysteria swarming over this

npdoty• 12 years ago

Interesting that this change from early December is being discussed now. A more recent commit (from @__apf__) in mid-December changes the text to, as the author puts it, "increase emphasis on what incognito doesn't provide".

https://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=revision&revisio...

xacaxulu• 12 years ago

Probably because government surveillance is completely expected now.

dbloom• 12 years ago

"Cookies are delicious delicacies"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213186

Houshalter• 12 years ago

So this is why Never-Ending Language Learner thought that computer files were baked goods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never-Ending_Language_Learning...

gbog• 12 years ago

I for one welcome this change, on stylistic grounds. Browsers are used by many people around the world from all ages, all of what they tell to their users must be carefully edited to avoid misunderstandings and anything not necessary needs to be removed. A joke or half joke like that was prone to misunderstandings and unnecessary.

dsugarman• 12 years ago

it also won't protect you from bullying from people named incognito

oceanstone• 12 years ago

Out of sight, out of mind

cordite• 12 years ago

If only this was a canary clause.

'Secret agents' warning removed from Chrome incognito tab

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