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Comcrap alternatives?

tzrider said:
Given that basically everything is HTTPS these days, how would they do that?
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They know the URL's of the pages you've navigated to, that's a lot of data without knowing the contents.

Remember that their server can retrieve the page separately, if they want to go that far.
 
tzrider said:
Uh, no.
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Uh, yes.

While your ISP cannot see the actual bits passing to and from, they can see that you tend to make a lot of http requests from Amazon on Tuesday evenings, that you're constantly scrolling facebook, that you tend to check pornhub in the morning from your phone, or that you watch a lot of youtube on your laptop during working hours.

https://spreadprivacy.com/protection-from-isp-spying/



Why even ask if you already believe you know the answer?
 
tzrider said:
You need to go read their privacy statement (which isn't something they can just bullshit about).
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We use the information we collect to provide our Services and communicate with you. We also use it to improve our Services, develop new products and services, give recommendations, deliver personalized marketing and advertising for our own and others’ products and services, investigate theft and other illegal activities, and to ensure a secure online environment.

We may combine information across our systems, platforms, and databases. This includes combining information we receive from third parties and information about your use of our Services. We may also combine information about your use of one Service with information we get from your use of another Service.
...
We may also share personal information that does not identify you with third parties for their own marketing and advertising purposes, which you can opt out of
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These were written by lawyers to make it seem like one thing but give them free rein to do other things.
 
Compare that with, say, someone like Sonic.net's privacy policy and you can easily get a sense why they're so loved, and Comcast is hated as much as they are:

Sonic.net, LLC keeps information about its customers such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and details about Sonic.net services used by the customer. All such information is considered private. Sonic.net also keeps logs of limited technical information pertaining to matters such as customer connectivity and email processing. These logs are retained on a temporary basis in order to insure high-quality service, and no logs are kept indefinitely. The only circumstances wherein Sonic.net will disclose any of the above-mentioned information to a third party are:

In the course of providing services our customers have specifically requested, Sonic.net, LLC may make some of this information available to our affiliates in order to fulfill the requirements of order processing.
In the event that we receive a legitimate, legally-mandated request for customer information, Sonic.net, LLC will respond only within the narrow scope of that request.
Sonic.net, LLC will not otherwise disclose any private information about its customers to any other third party.
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https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/articles/235963988-Sonic-net-Policies
 
TylerW said:
Why even ask if you already believe you know the answer?
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I wasn't really asking. There is a lot of FUD spread about Comcast, but their actual privacy practices are very different than what you fear.

That thing you're calling "metadata" is really DNS lookups. They purge their DNS server history every 24 hours and don't sell the data to anyone else.

Look, I've had a mixed experience with them too, but let's get the facts straight at least.
 
Climber said:
These were written by lawyers to make it seem like one thing but give them free rein to do other things.
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This was written by their CPO: https://corporate.comcast.com/stori...s.&text=It's how people navigate the Internet.

As your Internet Service Provider, we do not track the websites you visit or apps you use through your broadband connection. Because we don’t track that information, we don’t use it to build a profile about you and we have never sold that information to anyone.
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They do have an internal ad serving program to deliver targeted ads. This is not the same thing as selling your browsing history.
 
tzrider said:
I wasn't really asking. There is a lot of FUD spread about Comcast, but their actual privacy practices are very different than what you fear.

That thing you're calling "metadata" is really DNS lookups. They purge their DNS server history every 24 hours and don't sell the data to anyone else.

Look, I've had a mixed experience with them too, but let's get the facts straight at least.
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Your original point was that SSL makes it impossible for companies like comcast to collect information about their customers, including information that could be used to identify them and understand their online habits.

That's simply not true. As to what comcast does with that information is a completely separate discussion.
 
TylerW said:
Your original point was that SSL makes it impossible for companies like comcast to collect information about their customers, including information that could be used to identify them and understand their online habits.

That's simply not true. As to what comcast does with that information is a completely separate discussion.
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My original point was to refute this statement:

Find a good VPN to prevent Comcast from tracking/reading everything you browse.
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Comcast isn't reading shit.
 
tzrider said:
Comcast isn't reading shit.
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Which also isn't true. When I was a comcast customer, I received a few emails politely requesting that I stop performing certain activities on their service. Those emails included specific details about my activity.

Granted, my activity wasn't technically legal, and it was in their right to make that request. But they wouldn't have that information if they weren't monitoring their customer's information and usage behaviors.
 
TylerW said:
Which also isn't true. When I was a comcast customer, I received a few emails politely requesting that I stop performing certain activities on their service. Those emails included specific details about my activity.

Granted, my activity wasn't technically legal, and it was in their right to make that request. But they wouldn't have that information if they weren't monitoring their customer's information and usage behaviors.
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I'm not sure how we're having this disconnect. People are claiming that Comcast can read the sites you visit, or your content, or whatever. It isn't true.

They do track activities based on the sites you visit and they can make inferences about your activities based on download sizes, along with whatever data they have about the site itself. If they think you're doing something illegal, you'll hear about it. I am also a Comcast customer and have never received such comms from them, but am aware it's possible.

This is in no way the same as reading stuff or selling your information. That's the assertion I'm refuting and the stuff you're bringing up is a sideshow.

Comcast, being a multi service company, is for sure going to look for legal ways to monetize what they can legally find out about you. In that respect, companies like Sonic, who have a much narrower line of business, won't engage in as many of these activities and will market themselves as being more secure. In terms of their respective policies about who they share data with, they aren't very different.

While I haven't used Sonic (not available here, last I checked), it's easy to believe their support is better, because the bar isn't very high if comparing to Comcast. My Comcast service was dead reliable until it wasn't. Then I started experiencing several short outages a day. I employed three different uptime monitors to prove to them that my network was down. They tried all kinds of stuff over a period of months to no effect. I didn't switch because we have too many other services bound to them and the rest of the family didn't want to change.

Finally a rep from Comcast Business reached out to try to sell connectivity for my company. I told him I couldn't begin to consider them based on the experience I'd had. They rolled a truck that day and attempted to fix the issue. Nice gesture, but not representative of what the average customer could expect. In the end, they replaced our gateway with the latest version and the outages stopped.

I run my gateway in bridged mode in order to use my own security appliance. As a result, I am not a Comcast hotspot. I'd buy my own gateway but we use their VoIP service too and the options are limited. They do change protocols from time to time and it's easier to hold them accountable for service if you're using their gear, even though the cost is higher.

Not ideal, but they are still the best option in my area for speed/cost. There are a lot of reasons to grumble about them, but they aren't selling your data.
 
tzrider said:
I'm not sure how we're having this disconnect. People are claiming that Comcast can read the sites you visit, or your content, or whatever. It isn't true.

They do track activities based on the sites you visit and they can make inferences about your activities based on download sizes, along with whatever data they have about the site itself. If they think you're doing something illegal, you'll hear about it. I am also a Comcast customer and have never received such comms from them, but am aware it's possible.

This is in no way the same as reading stuff or selling your information. That's the assertion I'm refuting and the stuff you're bringing up is a sideshow.

Comcast, being a multi service company, is for sure going to look for legal ways to monetize what they can legally find out about you. In that respect, companies like Sonic, who have a much narrower line of business, won't engage in as many of these activities and will market themselves as being more secure. In terms of their respective policies about who they share data with, they aren't very different.

While I haven't used Sonic (not available here, last I checked), it's easy to believe their support is better, because the bar isn't very high if comparing to Comcast. My Comcast service was dead reliable until it wasn't. Then I started experiencing several short outages a day. I employed three different uptime monitors to prove to them that my network was down. They tried all kinds of stuff over a period of months to no effect. I didn't switch because we have too many other services bound to them and the rest of the family didn't want to change.

Finally a rep from Comcast Business reached out to try to sell connectivity for my company. I told him I couldn't begin to consider them based on the experience I'd had. They rolled a truck that day and attempted to fix the issue. Nice gesture, but not representative of what the average customer could expect. In the end, they replaced our gateway with the latest version and the outages stopped.

I run my gateway in bridged mode in order to use my own security appliance. As a result, I am not a Comcast hotspot. I'd buy my own gateway but we use their VoIP service too and the options are limited. They do change protocols from time to time and it's easier to hold them accountable for service if you're using their gear, even though the cost is higher.

Not ideal, but they are still the best option in my area for speed/cost. There are a lot of reasons to grumble about them, but they aren't selling your data.
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I think we're on the same page, but misunderstanding one another. I thought you were trying to make the case that Comcast cannot and would not monetize information about their customers, inclusive of their usage habits. While you are trying to make the case that they cannot read the actual content that comcast serves to their customers via their service - A statement that I agree with.

I did however notice, via participation in this thread, that Barf finally supports SSL. Hooray! :thumbup :thumbup :thumbup
 

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tzrider said:
.... I'd buy my own gateway but we use their VoIP service too and the options are limited....
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Not sure if this fits, but you can get VOIP independently of your ISP. Look at voip.ms and callcentric.com for example.
 
rodr said:
Not sure if this fits, but you can get VOIP independently of your ISP. Look at voip.ms and callcentric.com for example.
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That has occurred to me, though Comcast structures the bundles so it's cheaper to do it that way. I should probably look at whether unbundling would net anything if I bought my own gateway. There is still the matter of whether Comcast would want to blame my equipment if the network went down; when it's their equipment, it's a fight you don't have to have. Yes, that whole issue is in the minus column for Comcast.
 
Bumping this - for now, any recommendations on a router? The Comcast one's wifi barely reaches to the living room and the signal isn't strong enough for the TV to get a good connection, so trying to stream anything via wifi results in constant stopping and buffering / loading.

If I had a router I can run a hard line or use better WiFi but the WiFi on the provided modem/router combo suuuuuucks.
 
what's the max distance you need to cover (single powerful router vs mesh)?
 
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