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Richard Stallman: “Google Can Forcibly Impose Software Changes and the User Can’t Say No.”

First published a decade back

Summary: "This is the same thing that Microsoft has in Windows," Stallman told me, "so Microsoft can also impose software changes. Any malicious feature that's not in the program today could be remotely installed tomorrow."

I think in practice one of the issues is many of the browsers these days have actually got some surveillance built in and one of the usual excuses these days is security, so they try to prevent phishing scams and things like such that are absolute; I think since Internet Explorer version 7 and Google Chrome and other browsers by default they will track the users and leave a trail, or at least provide the corporate maker of the browser, with a list with pages you visit, so the other releases...

"...Google can forcibly impose software changes and the user can't say no."Richard Stallman: Those are non-Free programs. Internet Explorer is non-Free and Google Chrome is non-Free. Not only that, Google Chrome has a universal back door, which is another way of saying auto-update; basically it means that Google can forcibly impose software changes and the user can't say no. This is the same thing that Microsoft has in Windows, so Microsoft can also impose software changes. Any malicious feature that's not in the program today could be remotely installed tomorrow. So, once a program has a universal back door, you must consider it not merely malware but universal malware.

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