The Flaws of Facebook's Instant Personalization

[pne]

charmian has an entry about the flaws of Facebook's “Instant Personalization”, with links to some articles.

Executive summary: you may wish to consider logging out of Facebook before going to any other site.

Comments

[steorra]

Hmm... thanks for the heads-up. I think what I may do is shift my facebook usage to my non-primary browser so that I can stay logged into facebook without going to other sites more.

[pne]

That should also work (and I think a commenter on charmian's entry mentioned they had a browser exclusively for Facebook).

I think in German, Facebook would be called "eine Datenkrake" (a data octopus) - because it's got its arms everywhere.

[ewx]

Note also that FB leaves a bunch of cookies even after you log out. c_user is gone, but I don’t know if it can infer who you were from any of the others. So the cautious might be best advised to manually deleted the FB cookies.

I’ve been staying logged-out and cookie-free for FB except when actually using it for some time now. Of course this adds to the inconvenience of using it, which means I look at it probably less than once a week these days.

[pne]

Of course this adds to the inconvenience of using it

*nods* Looks like separate browser (or porn mode/InPrivate/whatever-it's-called, where everything gets discarded at the end) is easiest.

eine Datenkrake

[steorra]

Oh, that's a wonderful word!

Is Krake a normal word for octopus, or is it specifically for the giant sea monster which I've seen called kraken in English?

Re: eine Datenkrake

[pne]

Yes, "Krake" is the normal word. Some say "Oktopus", but it's pretty rare.

Some also say "Tintenfisch" (ink-fish), but I think that properly refers to squids (with ten arms) rather than octopuses (with eight).

*wikipedia*

Apparently the situation is more complicated than I had thought: all "Kraken" are "Tintenfische", since Tintenfische are Coleoidea, which includes both octopuses (Kraken) and squids ("Kalmare"), and also cuttlefish ("Sepien"). (I hadn't heard of either of those German words before - though I had heard of the Italian loan-word "Calamari" for squid as food, which was also borrowed into German.)

The Wikipedia article notes, however, that "Tintenfisch" refers "colloquially (and also historically) to only a subgroup of coleoidea, the cuttlefish". (Huh, so my identification of "Tintenfish" with "squid" was wrong - it's cuttlefish that are typically meant? Still, ten arms rather than eight....)

...which is probably more than you wanted to know.

[mc776]

This sounds like an idea... ::moves all his stuff back to Opera::

[steorra]

The thing I quickly discovered was tricky is that I keep wanting to follow links that people post on facebook, but of course clicking the link breaks the facebook/other site segregation. So I have to remember to copy the links and paste them back into my primary browser. A bit of a hassle, but not too much.

[mc776]

clicking the link breaks the facebook/other site segregation

...I never gave that any thought. D:

But then, the second reason I keep a FB account at all (besides the handful of people who won't communicate by any other means and I don't feel like phoning) is sharing links that I personally publicly endorse (or the mockery of which I publicly endorse), so I guess it's the difference between knowing and caring. :X