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are they seriously still going ahead with this shit? Web Integrity API is the worst idea in existence
If the web integrity API goes live and I canโt use some sites because of it, it will be very nice to have a very clear filter on what websites are complete garbage for using it. Vivat librewolf + VPN!
any websites that implement that API will never see me visit them ever again
Probably Netflix, YouTube, and streaming apps first. Iโd say banks, but banks are slow. Games wonโt take long. If thereโs not enough blowback itโll spread to every website that uses captchas today.
This is the kick in the butt I needed to de-google my life. Iโve already gotten halfway there, just need to make the full switch to proton mail, and then see what I can disconnect from my android phone.
I would hate to switch to Apple, but I may consider it if they are gonna pull this nonsense.
Ahh so Iโm about to stop visiting some sites I see. Thanks google for the internet break.
Not that I donโt fully agree actually, but just want to point out thatโฆ Not using the web is an outcome they absolutely want. That way only the โright peopleโ are using the Internet so there can be the maximum amount of advertising and money made from each iota of bandwidth they have pried from their hands.
You arenโt monetizable? Well they donโt want you wasting resources if you wonโt increase their paycheck. Itโs just the Internet once again being early in resource hording.
Once the web became a corporate landscape it instantly turned to shit. Give me pure html/css sites again hosted by my friendsโ.
f i r e f o x
we should have been using it for decades now.
but then simply switching browsers wonโt really do in the long run, next step is hopefully banding together to eat the richโฆ
I used to use Firefox before Chrome, and it was working great. Then at some point Firefox just started sucking and so I ended up switching to Chrome.
Around the same time I stopped using hotmail in favor of gmail as well
ย
Now, probably almost 20 years later Iโm back at Firefox
I havenโt escaped gmail yet though
I used chrome for a long time. Itโs just the browser I downloaded when I was a kid, and realized there were options other than Internet Explorer. I used it for years, just because I couldnโt be arsed to switch.
It was this Web API shit that made me finally bite the bullet and switch. Honestly, after some tinkering and researching plugins I barely notice the change. Shouldโve switched years ago.
I started using Firefox after Opera changed to being Chromium-based about 10 years ago. (RIP) Fortunately Firefox is a lot better than it used to be so itโs not so bad.
Oddly enough I got a lot of unprompted flack from my colleagues about using non-Chrome browsers. It boggles my mind how much people are really attached to Chrome.
From my understanding, it allows a website to check if youโre running a Chromium browser, and block your access to the site or to features of the site if you arenโt
Well then I am a chromium browser. At least as long you need to think that.
What technology they are using I canโt fake on a Firefox?
Itโs the API itself, itโs a little more complicated than just checking if you have a chromium browser. What itโs looking for is special tokens generated by google within chromium browsers. Google is selling this idea as a way to help verify identity of the end user and thus block bots. Thatโs concerning, because it suggests that google will have some verification method likely involving ID and generate a unique token with that info associated with it. This is a real concern for web privacy for like a million reasons, obviously, and ideally should not be adopted by anyone. If other tech gatekeepers adopt it (and they would love to) it will block giant swathes of the internet from people refusing to use the tech and further googles monopoly over general consumer browser use. Now, could the token be fudged? Possibly. But it will take time to figure out.
โฆ Oh. Sorry friend, theyโre using TEE, trusted execution environment, aka the place where a key is put by the manufacturer and not available to the user without an exploit or taking apart the processor. Faking it isnโt going to be like changing the user agent
Fun how companies came up with a way to run code on our hardware at home without our ability to modify it
Bing for enterprise is already blocking browsers that arenโt Edge. Clicking โEdgeโ from the list of browser identities in Firefox seems to go around the block.
On what grounds? I know why google wants this, but why would the average website do this?
I can already picture Google down-ranking search results for any website that doesnโt implement it because obviously โif they arenโt using the integrity API we canโt guarantee theyโre safe for our usersโ
The โaverageโ website wouldnโt but many of the social giants are desperately looking for a way to limit bot use. So Google gives them what they want and simultaneously gets to be the most reliable advertiser, ensuring impressions are viewed by not just a human but the right human.
This goes with other changes they did to chromium. Google claims it is to prevent bots, but it really is a crackdown on ads blocking and any other โtamperingโ with their websites.
If you care about keeping web free, you should stop using chrome and its derivatives and switch to Firefox. They are believing that Firefox user base is low and websites can simply exclude FF and force it to implement it as well.
Itโs not about whether itโs a chromium browser or not. Itโs about whether a browser is โtrustedโ and installed from a โtrustedโ source, like the windows storeโฆ Basically gatekeeping. Still, Firefox and any browser could still be approved.
This would be an insane damage to the Linux community since there are many different ways to install programms(including browsers).
Itโs not just chromium in and of itself. Itโs that it would be a browser thatโs unmodifiable by the user, so no unapproved extensions, no ad blockers, etc.
Itโs a way for google to tell its ad buyers that โhey, we can 100% guarantee the end user is seeing your ads if theyโre using this browserโ. And then all of the corporate websites cater only to that browser, or give a different user experience for all other browsers.
Personally, I find this problematic for several reasons:
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I wouldnโt be in control of my browser and how it executes arbitrary code on my machine
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The system creates second class citizens on the internet
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It cedes control of the open internet to corporations, like google
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Privacy; I donโt give a shit what google says about pseudonymous and group identities, researchers have found problems after problems after problemsโฆ
You know, I canโt wait for the EU to tear Googles ass open until an elephant can walk through it. DMA my beloved
why is this even a comic
It is part of serie โDay 622 of poorly drawn stuff until YouTube brings back the dislike count or a better video platform appearsโ, they are mostly about internet things.
