Oh boy, it’s happening. Google is flexing it’s muscles and abusing it’s market position. It has never been a better way to convince and support family and friends in moving across to Firefox, a fast and privacy supporting browser.
What does it actually do? And will it affect at all if I use Firefox?
It’s up to the individual websites to use it or not, any websites I would use probably wouldn’t use it. Hopefully the only website I need to access that is not FOSS, my mobile banking website, won’t use it.
Mozilla and Firefox opposed this change. How much impact this has on if you if you use Firefox is yet to be seen.
If this change goes in, and has wide spread use, then Firefox won’t work with those websites, and you will be impacted. If this change goes in, but enough people use Firefox, then you won’t be impacted.
As for what this change does: Its a little murky, but the short version is it allows for a remote web server to verify if you have messed with the local version. This could be as simple as preventing Ad block from working, as useful as ensuring it’s not a bot interacting with your website, or as idiotic as breaking all accessibility tools.
TL;DR; Use Firefox.
This article is also useful to understand it: https://lemmy.ml/post/2483035
If you use Firefox, you will be blocked from most websites going forward, including banks, doctors, and government. They’ll say it’s for security, all while harming your security by forcing you to use proprietary software.
(My phone keyboard thought I was trying to type “penitentiary software”, which…isn’t a bad description, actually.)