I doubt google cares very much.
Imagine if everyone used a browser made by an advertising company.
A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox
I doubt google cares very much.
Imagine if everyone used a browser made by an advertising company.
Google already makes like 80% of their revenue from ads, so no they don't care at all
Good, but like all other evil motions like this, they'll just take a short break, rebrand it / rework it / rename it / etc... and try again. And again. And again. Until everyone gets tired.
We have to stay diligent and keep defeating these assholes every time they try to take over the entire internet.
Yep.
Just look at Bethesdas paid mods fiasco. Only took two tries to get it accepted by a lot of people.
Well, that's nearly 3% of the market.
Google's plan is foiled once again.
It's about 10%. Still not a lot.
Of desktop, maybe.
Overall (and like 60% of all browsing is now mobile), no way. Mobile is where alternative browsers really suffer. Firefox actually seems OK for Android but it's not quite as slick on many sites, probably due to them targeting Chrome. Apple force Safari on you so you can't use Firefox at all.
Doesn't matter. Websites will break on the rest of the browsers. Users will complain. All browsers now have Web DRM
Or web site owners that use it will go out of business because people don’t want to change their browsers. The companies will realize their decision was bad when all of a sudden their customers stop coming to their sites.
Google needs shut down! Or at least go back to being a search engine.
The chance that happens when google is the most used is pretty small
The chance of that happening when large corporations, banks, etc. start rolling this out....
Call me when Safari weighs in with their 20% share. That's a big enough group to actually kill this effort outright.
Let's hope Apple puts their "privacy first" money where their mouth is.
Sadly I do however think the ability to further lock down and control what uses can see and access might be just as tempting for them...
Apple already has something similar in place (https://httptoolkit.com/blog/apple-private-access-tokens-attestation/).
And 90% of them complain about privacy invasions by big tech or lack of anonymity
We need some new Anti-Monopoly governments to come into power and take a hatchet and machete to google and carve it up, and learn from the ATT/Ma Bell situation by making it so the richest fragment cant buy up all the remaining fragments after a couple decades and go all T2000 on the situation.
Unfortunately you're probably right. Vivaldi has already said they will likely adopt this standard despite them disagreeing with it, I assume the same will happen to Firefox and Brave if the standard becomes widely adopted and used enough. Its not an easy issue to tackle. The good thing is we can fight back and push its adoption back as far as possible, as well as just avoiding and boycotting any websites that adopt the standard. I don't know if the push back will be big enough to make an impact, but we at least have to try and do what we can.
We've already seen DRM garbage added to nearly every browser for media playback, despite massive backlash and concerns from organizations like the EFF. Mozilla didn't want to adopt it iirc but they caved in to not lose market share and adopted it in the most user friendly and secure/privacy respective way that they could (Restricting the DRM in its own sandbox), so I could see something like that happen again unfortunately. However to be fair, this new Google DRM standard will be significantly worse and more of a problem than that DRM implementation, as this effects entire websites themselves now and is on a whole new scale and precedent, and not just for certain media content, so hopefully more can be done to prevent this and fight back.
I wonder if there can be any anti-monopoly law suits involved if Google just starts implementing drm on its websites and products without other browsers agreeing to implement it. Sounds a lot like "use chrome, or else."
Mozilla:
Mozilla opposes this proposal...
I wish they took a stronger stance like Brave:
We won’t be shipping WEI support
C'mon Mozilla, show some gonads.
Mozilla is funded by Google, they're pretty good at just opposing them.
They have the same stance. Mozilla just won't implement it.
Brave needs to make it known they won't ship it because their browser is based on Chromium.
Building dystopias is a trend nowadays. The only difference is that some do it openly, while others trying to brand it as security benefits.
Apple are the only other ones big enough to throw their weight around. Hopefully they join in.
Imagine Microsoft saying fuck Google, Internet Explorer is back, boys!
That would be so glorious I would install and daily drive it on Linux
With added trust(telemetry) of Microsoft
Oh, but they already did join in, google that is.
I always say that Apple's biggest success is somehow convincing people that they're pro-consumer.
Write to your country’s anti-trust body if you feel Google is unilaterally going after the open web with WEI (content below taken from HN thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880390).
US:
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation [email protected]
EU:
https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust/contact_en [email protected]
UK:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tell-the-cma-about-a-competition… [email protected]
India:
https://www.cci.gov.in/antitrust/ https://www.cci.gov.in/filing/atd
Example email:
Google has proposed a new Web Environment Integrity standard, outlined here: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explainer.md This standard would allow Google applications to block users who are not using Google products like Chrome or Android, and encourages other web developers to do the same, with the goal of eliminating ad blockers and competing web browsers. Google has already begun implementing this in their browser here: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b2899412e79a2727355efa9cc8f5bd Basic facts: Google is a developer of popular websites such as google.com and youtube.com (currently the two most popular websites in the world according to SimilarWeb) Google is the developer of the most popular browser in the world, Chrome, with around 65% of market share. Most other popular browsers are based on Chromium, also developed primarily by Google. Google is the developer of the most popular mobile operating system in the world, Android, with around 70% of market share. Currently, Google’s websites can be viewed on any web-standards-compliant browser on a device made by any manufacturer. This WEI proposal would allow Google websites to reject users that are not running a Google-approved browser on a Google-approved device. For example, Google could require that Youtube or Google Search can only be viewed using an official Android app or the Chrome browser, thereby noncompetitively locking consumers into using Google products while providing no benefit to those consumers. Google is also primarily an ad company, with the majority of its revenue coming from ads. Google’s business model is challenged by browsers that do not show ads the way Google intends. This proposal would encourage any web developer using Google’s ad services to reject users that are not running a verified Google-approved version of Chrome, to ensure ads are viewed the way the advertiser wishes. This is not a hypothetical hidden agenda, it is explicitly stated in the proposal: “Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that they’re human, sometimes through tasks like challenges or logins.” The proposed solution here is to allow web developers to reject any user that cannot prove they have viewed Google-served ads with their own human eyes. It is essential to combat this proposal now, while it is still in an early stage. Once this is rolled out into Chrome and deployed around the world, it will be extremely difficult to rollback. It may be impossible to prevent this proposal if Google is allowed to continue owning the entire stack of website, browser, operating system, and hardware. Thank you for your consideration of this important issue.
do you have a link for canada?
Google sent me here https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/frm-eng/GH%C3%89T-7TDNA5
Thanks, just filed a complaint.
and all of the world with basic knowledge about privacy and all users who doesnt use the google chrome browser.
Not just Chrome. Apple already rolled out something similar in Safari.
The main problem with all this is the average user doesn't know or even care what DRM is, they just want their sites to work and they'll take the easiest route to get there, which will be switching to google approved browsers/devices.
I'd argue even most "techy" people will just give up any real fight once they can't watch Youtube anymore.
This will go through. Firefox already caved on the video/audio DRM last time, and even if they don't, people will just switch browsers. The only thing that could do anything about this are powerful governments and maybe Apple. But Google has bribed all of Washington and half of Brussels at this point, and I imagine the press actually likes the idea of putting DRM on their shitty websites, so they won't make a big stink I don't think, even though they beef with Google. If Apple actually drags their feet I'm sure Google can bribe them.
Thank goodness the other browsers are sane enough not to buy into Google's bullshit. But it does feel like it's only gonna be a matter of time until Google wins, given their massive market share and all that.
It would've been nicer if 9/10 of these other browsers weren't also based on Chromium, strenghtening Googles position
Good