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Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 572 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Even if you spend a lot of time on the internet, you may not give much thought to your browser. Once you find one you like (probably Google Chrome, if you're anything like the other 3 billion people who use it), chances are it just fades into the background while you do your scrolling. But behind the scenes, browsers handle a lot of information, especially when it comes to collecting all of your sweet, sweet data.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Matt Burgess joins us to talk about the dark side of browsers, and how to go about blocking ads and controlling your data online.

Show Notes:

Read Matt’s story about DuckDuckGo’s desktop browser. Listen to the WIRED podcast here. Here’s the EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere browser extension. Here’s the Minimal Twitter Chrome extension. For ad-blocking, check out Ghostery. Read Lauren’s story about how websites tracked her after she called off her wedding.

Recommendations:

Matt recommends the memoir A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, and also pomegranate seeds. Mike recommends giving cash at weddings instead of buying something off the registry. Lauren recommends Apple TV+, particularly for shows like Severance, WeCrashed, and The Morning Show.

Matt Burgess can be found on Twitter @mattburgess1. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Mike.
0:00.8	Lauren.
0:01.6	Mike, if you had to choose just one browser to use for the rest of your days, and this is your choice, this is not a tech company, sort of forcing a browser upon you.
0:11.0	Which browser would you choose?
0:13.1	Part of me wants to say links, because I would love to just enjoy the web with text only.
0:18.8	But I think the practical side of me is going to have to say Chrome.
0:23.7	Wow.
0:25.1	I mean, you went for the obvious choice.
0:27.1	Yeah, I mean, you know, it's the default on the web right now.
0:30.3	What if I told you that you should maybe reconsider Duck, Duck, Go?
0:34.6	I would say Duck, Duck, maybe. All right say, duck, duck, maybe.
0:38.9	All right.
0:39.4	Well, we're going to talk about that today.
0:47.5	Hi, everyone.
0:48.5	Welcome to Gadget Lab.
0:49.6	I'm Lauren Good.
0:50.6	I'm a senior writer at Wired.
0:52.6	And I am Michael Colori.
0:53.9	I'm a senior editor at Wired. And we're also joined today by Wired senior writer Matt Burgess, who's joining us from the UK. Hey, Matt. Hi, good to be here. Is this your debut on the gadget lab? I think it is. It is. Yeah, it is. It's very exciting. Well, if Matt's voice sounds a little bit familiar to all of you, it's probably
1:11.3	because you've heard it on the Wired podcast, which is hosted by our colleagues in the UK.
1:17.4	And Matt is joining us via Zoom here on the dark side. I guess I should say the rainy side.
1:22.2	It's very rainy in San Francisco today. Yeah, it's a little wet. It's a little wet.
	...

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