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Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

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Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#21

Post by geofft »

otterley wrote: post #13
efficax wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could already use random URLs to serve ads and track, not sure how a bundle changes anything

Browsers like Safari are increasingly enabling privacy features that, among other techniques, block third party cookies by default. So this could be Google’s way of reacting to this change.

I don't see how. Web bundles don't affect whether a cookie is considered third-party or not. Either the content is provided and signed by the actual website, which cannot place cookies for the advertiser's domain, or it's provided and signed by the advertiser, at which point it would be subject to blocking just like normal web traffic from the advertiser. Is this any different with bundles?

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#22

Post by glenstein »

tmd83 wrote: post #5

I am really curious what's the general opinion on Googler's as a web developer. I have seen a long while ago some nice articles from Google about site optimization. Do they even follow any of their original advice or Google basically keep doing over engineered stuff fixed by adding another set of over engineered staff? Let's talk gmail. I just refreshed the window and it did close to 400 request, ~8MB download which…

>And they are preaching the world about optimizing the web?

The transformation has been amazing. Google properties, to the extent that they used to have a unified aesthetic, used to be quite lean and mean. How anyone can look at a product like Gmail and say that this is coming from a standard bearer on efficient use of resources is beyond me.

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#23

Post by CapeSecession »

TekMol wrote: post #8

I think their idea is to combine that with signing the bundles, so a page from www.someserver.com can be served by anyone, aka Google. I guess this would mean Google can serve all content on the web. There seems to be a strong urge in Google to cut the connection between then endpoints of the web and become the central authority. Make all traffic flow through their machines. Let no information arrive at the endpoints…

Disappointing that the author concludes : "As a user, there is little that can be done in this regard other than to watch how this will all unfold in the future."

As with all other power grabs, the ability to resist it is simply a function of how organised the resistance is.

The apathy shown here directly counteracts any urge to resist.

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#25

Post by geofft »

TekMol wrote: post #10
laurent123456 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seems to give some clue. The format would allow serving unblockable ads using random urls, or urls that look legitimate. Google’s goal is to have full control over the user experience so that they can serve more ads.

Kind of. It is already be possible today to put ads into a page directly. But the benefit for Google would be that if they deliver the bundle, they would know that their ads are in there. Heck, they would know everything that is in there. So they would have full information about all ads and everything that is taking place on this new "web". Of course, they could also use the opportunity to hinder ad blockers further…

> But the benefit for Google would be that if they deliver the bundle, they would know that their ads are in there. Heck, they would know everything that is in there.

Is this a problem for Google currently?

1. They already get loaded/notified for the ads themselves. Do they have a problem with sites claiming they're serving ads and not doing so? (Wouldn't those sites just not get paid?)

2. They'd be serving this in response to web searches. They've already crawled the web page, or at least some version of it. (Yes, it could be a different version, but given the increasing unpopularity of what's now called "server-side rendering" aka the normal thing back in the CGI days, there's no guarantee even with a bundle that the site as seen by a human matches the same site as seen by Googlebot.)

3. If you are running Google Ads or even Google Analytics, you're evaling JavaScript controlled by Google in the context of your web page. They already have access to every detail of what's happening with your site, down to (if they want) where the user's mouse pointer is. What more information would they have access to by seeing the bundle?

> For example by not allowing plugins to get between reading the bundle and rendering it.

Why could they not do this with normal web pages? Define a Content-Security-Policy: no-extension-modifications header and make up some story about protecting high-value sites from buggy extensions....

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#26

Post by maproot »

rektide wrote: post #18

I for one believe in the specified use cases of Web Bundles, & believe they are worthy. https://wicg.github.io/webpackage/draft-yasskin-wpack-use-ca... What we have here is a budding conspiracy theory, not even a theory, just gesticulation. Consensual Delusion, a belief that we are persecuted by secret forces that must be held off, held at bay. This started months ago with an incoherent rambling ticket by the Brave a…

Is it "simple coincidence" that "conspiracy theories" almost always come true? I'm about conspiracy theories which are not made up by to make fun of conspirators to show them like "idiots" on public.

Anyway, users always lose. Another coincidence and in this case they will not lose, right? :-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24383039

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#27

Post by GuB-42 »

return1 wrote: post #7
tmd83 wrote: post #5

I am really curious what's the general opinion on Googler's as a web developer. I have seen a long while ago some nice articles from Google about site optimization. Do they even follow any of their original advice or Google basically keep doing over engineered stuff fixed by adding another set of over engineered staff? Let's talk gmail. I just refreshed the window and it did close to 400 request, ~8MB download which…

Yes because heavy pages clog their crawlers. Of course they are not following their advice (neither does FB)

And I don't really understand why they don't follow their advise. Saving a single byte on Google front page can potentially save terabytes of bandwidth. I know the idea of "developers are expensive, hardware is cheap" but when you serve trillions of search queries, hardware is worth considering. The 8 MB you get don't come from nowhere, there is a server somewhere sending them to you.

And improving user experience for billions of users is not a negligible advantage either.

Maybe it is a sign that Google is ready to be taken over by a less bloated company. It is, after all, how Google came to power, by being efficient and to the point. Just look at to original Google home page compared to its competitors.

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#28

Post by lachlan-sneff »

maproot wrote: post #26
rektide wrote: post #18

I for one believe in the specified use cases of Web Bundles, & believe they are worthy. https://wicg.github.io/webpackage/draft-yasskin-wpack-use-ca... What we have here is a budding conspiracy theory, not even a theory, just gesticulation. Consensual Delusion, a belief that we are persecuted by secret forces that must be held off, held at bay. This started months ago with an incoherent rambling ticket by the Brave a…

Is it "simple coincidence" that "conspiracy theories" almost always come true? I'm about conspiracy theories which are not made up by to make fun of conspirators to show them like "idiots" on public. Anyway, users always lose. Another coincidence and in this case they will not lose, right? :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24383039

> Is it "simple coincidence" that "conspiracy theories" almost always come true?

That's quite a statement to make. In no way do "conspiracy theories almost always come true."

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#29

Post by jasode »

Fyi... Web Bundles and Signed HTTP Exchanges are confusing topics so I think it's worth reading 2 previous threads with comments from 2 Google employees (spankalee, jefftk) [1].

One may still choose to discount their explanations because they may be biased sources but I still think everyone should try to understand what they're saying. Hopefully, being familiar with the technical details will elevate the discussion so people who disagree can point out specific and concrete technical flaws of those explanations rather than just restating a generalized version of "Google is trying to take over the whole web."

[1] previous threads:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24275752

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24278068

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24324120

Re: Google proposed Web Bundles could threaten the Web as we know it

#30

Post by bad_user »

efficax wrote: post #12
laurent123456 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seems to give some clue. The format would allow serving unblockable ads using random urls, or urls that look legitimate. Google’s goal is to have full control over the user experience so that they can serve more ads.

You could already use random URLs to serve ads and track, not sure how a bundle changes anything

Serving ads or doing tracking from random URLs doesn't work with extensions like uBlock Origin.

In Firefox, uBO can block first party domains: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/780

Also domain or URL blocking isn't the only thing you can do. You can also ban scripts from the page, or monkey patch JavaScript to change behavior that ad networks rely on. And you can also do cosmetic ads blocking, to hide elements from the page, via user stylesheets.

It's no wonder that Google is deprecating the APIs uBlock Origin relies on, in Manifest v3 ;-)

Fact of the matter is Google is now engaged in war against ad-blocking.

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