this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It seems logical to assume that there would be no point to the whole thing if it was so easily avoided just by modifying your browser. Someone who's, for example, selling fake engagement (e.g., fake reviews), which is listed as one of the things Ben Wiser at al. want to prevent, will probably have enough technical expertise to use a modified browser that will circumvent WEI, so why would Google even bother?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To make it harder, even if not impossible, for the average user to ad block them.

Are you asking because you're not sure of the answer, or because you are, and you know that web integrity will require a pre-compiled closed source binary to browse the web?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, I'm not sure. It's possible that this is a benign technology, but many believe it's not, including people at Mozilla, people at Vivaldi, Cory Doctorow, Jay Freeman (aka "Saurik"), the developer of Cydia (via The Register), so I'm concerned.

This recent blog post also mentions the intent of disallowing unsigned software to browse the web. Perhaps you'll find it interesting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago