okra with no aitch

[darkoshi]

Things I learned about okra from its Wikipedia page:
There's a red variety, which tastes the same as the green one.
The leaves can be cooked and eaten like other greens.
"Okra seeds may be roasted and ground to form a caffeine-free substitute for coffee."
An oil can be pressed from the seeds.

In case you're bored, here's a funny little story (not at all about okra) I came across after reading one about okra:
Mr. Mathrubootham is exasperated with national stupidity
(In sharing that story, I don't mean to make fun of India, as I think just as many people here in the U.S. and elsewhere are fascinated by those kind of videos.)

.

Lately Google Maps shows location balloons for hotels when I search on places, so that I can hardly find what I'm looking for, because of the balloons and hotel text covering the map. Does anyone know if there's a way to disable that layer in the options somewhere? I'm viewing it on a computer, not on a phone.

Comments

[nozomi604]

I love okra. I've never seen the leaves sold anywhere; I'll have to give them a try if I ever find some!

[darkoshi]

I've never seen them sold either. I wonder if they are slightly fuzzy, like the okra pods.

[marahmarie]

Best I can guess on the overlay (I don't use Maps enough myself to really know!) is to delete Google search history or delete (or even block) their cookies, or maybe do both (I take a number of steps on the laptop to stop tracking, so I can't really speak to what to do once it happens, but setting CCleaner to wipe everything and setting your browser to dump everything upon exit should clean up whatever can't be prevented).

Opening Maps in a Container (Firefox) might also help (or might not, but you never know until you try). I don't know if Google tracks users across the Web like Facebook does (via a tracking pixel) but containerizing things can't hurt, especially if that's the case.

[darkoshi]

Unfortunately, I don't remember which addresses I was having this problem with, or I could ask you to see if they display the same for you. I don't think it's related to cookies as they are already set to be deleted upon closing the browser, which I do multiple times a day. Most of the time, I'm not logged into a Google account either, so unless they are tracking me by IP # or something else, it shouldn't be based on my search history. On most non-Google pages, I also keep Javascript disabled from Google domains.

Is this the FF containers you are talking about?:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/
(Or are you using FF nightly - that page says it is built into that version)
I haven't tried containers before, and it looks useful, but I do pretty much the same thing using different browsers and different browser profiles for certain sites.

[marahmarie]

Is this the FF containers you are talking about?:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

It's built into Fx Beta, too (what I'm using). I haven't installed or run Nightly in a while, but the add-on above is, afaik, exactly the same as built-in Containers and vice versa.

And it is very useful: you can open every new or existing tab in a new container, which isolates what other tabs can know about each other (essentially, nothing). I have so many add-ons installed to block tracking (and my little JS Switch) that I don't feel the need to do that - but for Facebook (which I've already got contained via various add-ons) I use a container because no site follows everyone around like it does. All I had to see was the diagram of what their tracking pixel does (I sent it to OP and can dig through my email to link to you) and that was it for me; at that point I decided FB was basically Satan, so. :)

ETA: OK, my memory failed me on this one (I first saw it back in April) as it's an infographic, not a diagram: https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-11-at-3.19.17-PM-1523474442.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1000&h=624

The Intercept article it's tied to: https://theintercept.com/2018/04/11/mark-zuckerberg-is-either-ignorant-deliberately-misleading-congress-or-both/ (The Intercept has several other articles on FB, too, that dive much deeper)

/end ETA

I don't think it's related to cookies as they are already set to be deleted upon closing the browser, which I do multiple times a day.

For that (don't know if you've seen/tried this yet) I like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/. Works on the phone, too. Basically, you never have to quit the browser to clear cookies, since as soon as you leave a site and/or close the tab the cookies get eaten. Yum.

Most of the time, I'm not logged into a Google account either, so unless they are tracking me by IP #

Yeah, they track logged out users too, by IP. I never log in to search Google from my laptop yet they customize my results depending on my searches, based on what I've searched for in the past/what they think I want now. On the one hand I hate it but on the other it helps me find really obscure stuff that like, only I ever look for (think stuff on my DW, mostly), a lot faster or at all.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/android/googles-privacy-shift-is-march-1-everything-you-need-to-know/ (logged-out tracking ramped up with some changes they made starting in 2012)

https://www.lifewire.com/stop-google-from-tracking-your-searches-4123866

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-secret-tracking-location-services-disable-privacy-apps-a8068961.html (this one applies to Android phones, where tracking is more well-known/even more insidious; try logging out of your G account on your phone and actually getting anything done; come to think of it, I'm not sure if that's possible!)

The above links are basically an overview; one can dig deeper but finding articles from Google itself that'd point you in the right direction is kinda hard. But I'm an anti-Googler, from way back (2006) so I've kept up over the years with their privacy issues, though I didn't save all the articles I've run across on that.

Keeping JS disabled on Google search used to be kinda cool since you'd get the sidebar I used to write a script to restore for everybody. Now (just checked) I get a blank page (though turning JS off combined with all my other add-ons might be causing that, so I'd have to check more to see. Google should work without JS in any case, though what people see now is beyond me, at the moment).