This is a clear sign of Google's weakness. They are losing their monopoly and are desperately trying to hold on to the net. In the last few weeks, they have announced that they will try to block navigation if you have an ad blocker installed (for example, when watching a video on Youtube).
Take a look at Fuchsia for another example ... they are losing the control on Android, so they started this new project ... it is another sign.
My recipe: AdGuard Home, Brave browser (phone, tablet, desktop), Bromite (phone), Firefox (desktop) + uBlock origin plugin ... and FreeTube on desktop.
Just using Brave on the phone is enough to kill all ads and trackers.
In the open source community, there will always be someone smarter than they think who will find a way around their gates...
Few days ago Kevin Mitnick passed away, sadly, but there will be always another Kevin Mitnick ...
Google will lose all respect from the community and will collapse sooner or later.
Google vs. the Open Web
41–50 of 207 posts
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
FTC right now has awful leadership. They only care about blocking mergers and scoring political points.
It's literally the FTC's job to block most mergers (they are required by law to block bad mergers, see https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... for details) Their leadership isn't "awful", their leaders are finally doing their job , for the first time in decades.
Doing their job by losing everything in court like the Activision/Microsoft case just last week? Great use of government resources.
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#43How does WEI work with non-browsers, like curl or python requests? I was wondering if there is some motive here to monopolize web scraping (especially with respect to harvesting AI training data)?
I mean that’s part of the point. It’s there to exactly lock out scrapers. Or crawlers, for that matter. What a happy little coincidence.
> Or crawlers, for that matter.
Companies like Google love kicking down the ladder. You can bet that the Google crawler will have its own "attestation token" but if you want to crawl the Web with your own code you'll be SOL.
All these billion-dollar tech companies got their start thanks to open, accessible, hackable systems. Now it's all being locked down so only the big guys can play, and the rest of us have to pay a fee just to put our "apps" into their walled gardens, and if we do anything they don't like (or are just unlucky) then we get banned forever.
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
FTC right now has awful leadership. They only care about blocking mergers and scoring political points.
It's literally the FTC's job to block most mergers (they are required by law to block bad mergers, see https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... for details) Their leadership isn't "awful", their leaders are finally doing their job , for the first time in decades.
Blocking Meta's acquisition of that VR company was braindead. Absolutely pointless.
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#45I mentioned this in the other WEI thread and I’ll do it here again: Instead of simply flailing our collective arms around complaining about an evil corporation, has anyone written to the respective competition authorities (such as the FTC in the US or CCI in India) about the potential anticompetitive effects of this proposal?
FTC right now has awful leadership. They only care about blocking mergers and scoring political points.
FTC is actually the most active it's been in decades. Blocking mergers is one of its core functions. Not to mention the stance against NDAs, etc. Where have they been lacking?
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#46This is a clear sign of Google's weakness. They are losing their monopoly and are desperately trying to hold on to the net. In the last few weeks, they have announced that they will try to block navigation if you have an ad blocker installed (for example, when watching a video on Youtube). Take a look at Fuchsia for another example ... they are losing the control on Android, so they started this new project ... it is…
> They are losing their monopoly and are desperately trying to hold on to the net
> they are losing the control on Android
What do you mean by this and what does Android have to do with trying to hold on to the net?
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's literally the FTC's job to block most mergers (they are required by law to block bad mergers, see https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... for details) Their leadership isn't "awful", their leaders are finally doing their job , for the first time in decades.
Doing their job by losing everything in court like the Activision/Microsoft case just last week? Great use of government resources.
I'd rather they bring cases and lose some instead of never bringing cases and letting the corporations do whatever they want with no fear of consequences.
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#48I'm sorry, but using the term "generative system" and complaining that this undermines the internet founded on "generative systems" is perhaps the least impressive way to get anyone to care about the open web. Using buzzwords from some random paper just overwhelms people and doesn't convince them to care.
Tell my uncle, or my aunt, that "Google wants to undermine the internet of generative systems!" Whatever. Tell them "Google wants websites to be able to block any devices you might have modified, in any way, that the website owner doesn't like" and you'll get a much stronger reaction.
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#49This is a clear sign of Google's weakness. They are losing their monopoly and are desperately trying to hold on to the net. In the last few weeks, they have announced that they will try to block navigation if you have an ad blocker installed (for example, when watching a video on Youtube). Take a look at Fuchsia for another example ... they are losing the control on Android, so they started this new project ... it is…
> They are losing their monopoly and are desperately trying to hold on to the net > they are losing the control on Android What do you mean by this and what does Android have to do with trying to hold on to the net?
A huge number of people only use the internet with their phones, and Google is doing their best to tie the entire system to Google services and the Chrome browser.
Re: Google vs. the Open Web
#50I mentioned this in the other WEI thread and I’ll do it here again: Instead of simply flailing our collective arms around complaining about an evil corporation, has anyone written to the respective competition authorities (such as the FTC in the US or CCI in India) about the potential anticompetitive effects of this proposal?
If you are in the UK you can also contact the competition and markets authority.
I've also created a parliament petition, which has gotten the 5 min supporters it needs before they review and publish it. I will share it on HN once its published.
Edit: removed the link to the petition for now (it'll come back after its published)