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looks like rendering adblockers extensions obsolete with manifest-v3 was not enough so now they try to implement DRM into the browser giving the ability to any website to refuse traffic to you if you don't run a complaint browser ( cough...firefox )
here is an article in hacker news since i'm sure they can explain this to you better than i.
and also some github docs
I will happily stop visiting any website that demands I use an approved browser.
Well, those of us who care all say that but I for one have to access government and banking websites in several countries, if they implement this I have no choice. This abomination must be prevented in the first place.
You can use Chrome for those websites if they completely break, and Firefox for everything else.
Banks and government websites don't tend to have adverts.
Do you require ad blockers with these? This use case sounds like the intention of the feature, not like the perversion we're headed for now.
... Until all the sites you absolutely need to use in order to *function in society *require approved devices with proper tracking.
So you fight it now by switching away from Google as much as you can.
You won't have a choice if it's a bank or your job. This is the truly insidious thing, if enough important websites start demanding the standard, you might just end up forcing yourself off of the internet with that attitude
Ad Blocking is cyber security
Every once in a while I help a family member or friend out with their machine and am stunned when I see the web without an adblocker. It honestly reminds me of the malicious early 2000s porn and “free downloads” sites… but it’s everywhere now, like cnn and eBay and shit. First thing I do is install Firefox and ublock origin, and mostly for their security.
Youtube has also been running basically porn ads on “for kids” youtube channels as well and my kindergarten aged niece and nephew have been exposed to that shit. Adblock is 100% cyber security AND for kids safety.
100% agree. The few times I have to turn off uBlock because it is breaking some obscure website it is always an awful experience. Auto-playing videos, ads taking up half the screen, and those annoying as fuck cookie banners. I can't imagine using the internet without an ad/cookie blocker. I accidentally turned it off on Lemmy for a while and it was the only site that I didn't immediately notice.
You remember browser toolbars? People would have 3 of them at once, having no clue where they got it from nor how to remove it.
Good times.
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.
Won't you think of the poor poor ad companies?
Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain
Do they actually, or is that just all they have to visit anymore? Would users not be happier visiting a bunch of cheap geocities pages with blink tags instead of tracking cookies?
It's all about how far we can push the user and how much the user is willing to pay. Gotta squeeze and close all avenues of escape, so they tolerate some more.
Half the internet now seems to be bots creating content purely for the enjoyment of other bots. Typing any kind of difficult question into a search engine will now have you dodging a minefield of AI generated articles, none of which contain any useful information other than what they've scraped from other AI generated pages.
Yet another vitally important front in the war on general purpose computing (it's a short and important read imo)
Fuck Google, and fuck DRM.
We need more browser options, not just Firefox and 20 versions of chrome.
If you have the funds, donate to Mozilla. They're not only the main developers of the only major competing browser engine, but also do a lot of other good work. You can hope for others, but with Firefox only having single-digit usage share it needs all the help it can get.
This. I see a lot of talk about Firefox forks on Lemmy but at the end of the day we need Mozilla to to survive for Firefox and their forks to continue
You can’t legally donate to Firefox, as it is developed by a Corp (Mozilla Corp.). Donations go to Mozilla Foundation, which does… other things with you money. In other words, your money don’t go towards FF development.
So, if you donate thinking that your money helps Firefox development, you're doing it wrong.
Time for me to start donating to Firefox. Need to do my part to make sure Chrome doesn’t complete its monopoly
-->since everyone is confused about this i'm gonna try to explain as best as i could and also clearing some misconceptions:
1# why this is such a big deal ?
if this gets implemented AND it gets widely adopted websites now can refuse to give you content if you are running a non complied browser, remember those website that say "oh you are using an ad blocker so disable it to access our site" they can detect this by various methods but ultimately all of them rely on running a JavaScript into your browser. which you guessed it, its easy to modify and tamper with manually or using extensions
now what WEI-API does is that it can verify the integrity of the web page ( JavaScript/HTML/CSS has not been modified ) and even tell the website what extensions - ad blocker detected no content for you - you are using and what browser you are using - firefox or brave detected no content for you - and do not be fooled into thinking that this can be spoofed. and website owners who think that they are running a business not a charity will implement this.
2#will using firefox save me?
if this gets widely adopted and you inevitably encounter a website that require this ( for your job ,school or your bank ) you have no choice but to use chrome just like when your banking apps refuse to work because your phone is rooted which means that SAFETY-NET is broken
3#why this is a threat to begin with?
this is only viable if the web adopt it so why bother?, well guess what google is famous for making its services very easy to integrate and well documented just look on how easy it is to integrate google analytics and google adsense* into websites and how many of them use it in the internet.
4#what can we do to prevent this?
this is my personal opinion but i think we simply can't, this not like the reddit incident were very large portion of the user base was upset most people don't know/care/give-a-fuck about web technologies and how they work.
#and Finally "but google said they don't plan to use this to fingerprint you (Device ID) or track your browser history or interfere with the work of extensions"
do you really believe that a company like google whose bread and butter is advertising would not make it easier for themselves, a company who has been exposed time and time again for lying and having ulterior motives ( you don't need to look far just look into what manifest-v3 did )
remember those website that say “oh you are using an ad blocker so disable it to access our site”
I can easily imagine this not being a necessary, anymore. Just let the website using this WEI API automatically disable all browser extensions on a WEI-enabled site. Why not, after all? Why should you dictate the traffic you receive on your computer? Why should you own anything?
How is the worlds biggest ad distributor also the worlds biggest browser maker without it being an anti-trust violation?
Because the majority of legislatures think Chrome is the Internet
I've met plenty of people who can't differentiate between facebook and the internet, or the term "wifi" and the internet - literally calling ethernet a "wifi cable".
The people in charge barely understand enough to put on their own pants sometimes, yet they're pushing legislation like they're fully informed, and most don't even read the brief about a new law before voting on it; literally voting along party lines because that's what's expected of them. They're mostly braindead as-is; and you expect them to differentiate between the internet, a website, and a browser?
They should, but I really don't expect that much from anyone who is elected.
Dude if they make youtube accessible only through Chrome we gonna have some problems.
I'd have to stop using it. I'd even go to another service like Nebula, at that point, and pay for it.
But I am not going to start running Chrome on my home computer as a daily driver.
To all the people who didn't see the point in moving away from Chromium browsers, THIS IS THE POINT!
Google Chrome (v42.12.0183, MULTi5) [FitGirl Repack]
It's going to be very annoying to find new cracks every week
Just google it.
This is exactly why everyone should use fully idenpendted browser like Firefox
Well they can DRM deez nutz
Stop using Google products I don’t know how else to fucking say it.
Chrome -> Firefox Drive -> sync or Dropbox or any number of options Sheets and productivity tools > libre office or Apache open office YouTube -> Invidious or even better, odysse Google search -> duck duck go, SearXNG, StartPage, etc Gmail -> not a ton of great options. I’d probably recommend proton mail but the FOSS email world is definitely lacking, or gets blocked or goes down, harder to self host etc.
helped with formatting:
Chrome -> Firefox
Drive -> sync or Dropbox or any number of options
Sheets and productivity tools > libre office or Apache open office
YouTube -> Invidious or even better, odysse
Google search -> duck duck go, SearXNG, StartPage, etc
Gmail -> not a ton of great options. I’d probably recommend proton mail but the FOSS email world is definitely lacking, or gets blocked or goes down, harder to self host etc.
And I agree for sure. In order I use firefox (and brave sometimes), Proton Drive, Apple Productivity suite (pages, numbers etc), and either startpage or qwant, and proton mail. I do still use use YouTube Premium, but the point is Google doesn't need to have its fingers in every aspect of my digital life.
I work at a vpn/adblocker company and we just finished releasing an updated mv3 extension that does block ads effectively (among other things) but the feature set is limited vs mv2 because of the changes. Furthermore, google has actually pushed back their mandated release schedule for mv3 compliance because something less than 30% of the extensions on their store are anywhere close to ready for it (which if they pushed ahead with mv3 they would effectively break 70% of what's on there overnight).
The DRM shit is just next-level bad though. Enshitification 101.
They want everything to run in TEE on the TPM, which has device specific keys signed by the manufacturer and can't be accessed through normal means
Best case scenario is someone learns to spoof it, but that's not easy. Possible, but unlikely to be packaged for personal use, since it'd be the kind of exploit you could sell to the right group for a 6 or 7 figure payout - and that's doing it officially and above board. Plus, if you did share it, you'd want to keep your identity hidden, the manufacturer would probably try to silence you with legal action
Hopefully, the EU challenges them if they try to move forward, someone brought up a law on the books in Germany that makes it illegal to use an automated system to make the decision to deny someone access to a system
Remember kids, piracy and shoplifting are your friends. Reason I say shoplifting is this will be used to block you from paying for stuff online, just look at how google pay is blocked on non google approved spyware Roms
And if you start building a QEMU machine that spoofes your machine IDs? So you can do all ypur DRM sruff from QEMU?
I have never used Chrome because Google is evil. I used edge once to download Firefox.
Louis Rossman made a video about this and especially where he quotes users from HackerNews hammers the point home for me. Firefox will be forced to adopt this "feature" if it ever becomes reality, as Chrome has overwhelming market share and the average user only cares that the site loads.
I have long felt that the computer industry course-corrected with mobile phones. They made a mistake in the early years of computers by letting users do things like install software from unauthorized sources, modify software to run to their liking, or even strip out the operating system and replace it with an alternative. Now we get things like TPM, Pluton, chains of trust, and DRM. 2% (rounding up) to protect users from malicious software tampering, 99% (rounding down) to extract rents from users and to track them for advertising or other purposes.
Remember when browsers just browsed....