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I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

blog.samuelmaddock.com

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Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#111

Post by smt1 »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #74
smaddock wrote: post #39

Blog post author here. Since this post, there's now an option available for DRM-enabled Electron. However, it's only available through a single vendor, castLabs [0]. This is a closed source, downstream effort which means no modifications can be made to Electron itself. All changes must make it upstream to show up in this fork. When asked whether they would eventually merge it upstream, they didn't provide a clear ans…

Thank you for creating a browser shell, maybe I can bring my browser project out of retirement. I just wish Chromium/Electron wasn't the only flavor (hence one of the main reasons I use Firefox). I had hoped Servo to be an additional option but alas.

Right now, I think the focus has been on the GPU layering (see also: https://github.com/gfx-rs). Given the churn in the standards themselves (which is understandable since it requires buyin both from the hardware and software communities)

I wish EdgeHTML had been open sourced.

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#112

Post by Thaxll »

Tepix wrote: post #109
Thaxll wrote: post #108

"I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me" Title is very missleading, your web browser works and google does not block you, it's all about DRM. "For the last 2 years I’ve been working on a web browser that now cannot be completed because Google, the creators of the open source browser Chrome, won’t allow DRM in an open source project." This is crap, you should probably have known that before starting the…

DRM that Google controls

You're free to open a website that directly stream some mpeg ts without encryption, Google is not to blame, the people that actually want that are the publisher. Youtube does not use DRM fyi.

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#113

Post by ufmace »

underseacables wrote: post #2

Why aren’t there more browsers? Is it just a matter of all the IP tied up by the majors?

Because a modern browser is about as complex as an operating system, and moves even faster.

Check out the complexity of ES6. You're gonna need an interpreter for that which performs acceptably well, plus a DOM interface to the rest of the browser. And check out how complex CSS is when it starts interacting with everything. Gotta handle all that too. Along with the basics of HTML structure, and how to interpret horribly broken HTML. And all of those pieces have to work together in realtime for dynamic animation, and do so fast enough for webapps to work and without eating too much of the host system's memory and CPU. And handle the constant addition of new JS APIs and how they have to interact with the host OS. Better be compatible and integrate well with Windows, OS X, and Linux too.

Building a new one from scratch today is pretty comparable to building a new operating system. You'd probably need to coordinate thousands of people working fulltime to get it off the ground. And it's basically impossible to charge any money for it, since all of the tech majors give away fully supported mature browsers for free.

In theory, you can fork an existing browser. But they all move so fast, keeping a fork with any useful changes up to date with the main browser is going to take a significant sized team too.

Microsoft is a tech giant, and even they decided to dump their independent Internet Explorer codebase in favor of using a Chromium fork. Now the only other truly independent browser codebase is Firefox's, and they haven't been doing so great the last few years.

It's probably practically impossible to build a browser that isn't a fork of Chromium these days.

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#114

Post by MaxBarraclough »

hirundo wrote: post #21
tracedddd wrote: post #13

I’m not claiming the situation is just or should be ignored, but the option the author seems to be ignoring is to launch without Widevine. Sure, a lot won’t work, but a lot will. Having a vocal community can add a lot of pressure.

The point of his browser is to be able to playback Netflix, Hulu, etc. between browsers in sync. That can't be done without DRM, and Widevine is "the only available DRM for a Chromium-based browser, especially so for Electron."

I believe that's mistaken. From the article:

> As far as I’m aware, Widevine is the only available DRM for a Chromium-based browser, especially so for Electron.

But according to this [0] the Chromium-based Edge browser supports both Google's WideVine CDM and Microsoft's PlayReady CDM. Not sure if it's really any help, but that's a different question.

[0] https://github.com/google/shaka-player/issues/2492#issuecomm...

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#115

Post by oscargrouch »

Speaking of DRM.

Where are the relevant philosophical and legal debates around digital copy?

If we establish some common ground over copy, where balanced legal frameworks can grow, i bet things like DRM would be considered illegal.

It should be not be considered a reasonable legal path to be pursued against copyright infringement (which is a reasonable right).

And while we are at that, i see a lot of people mentioning feeling betrayed by Firefox, while back in the day, i felt that it was Tim Berners Lee and W3C who stabbed me in the back with this.

Is in time like these that we see how important it is to have a guy like Linus (and all the contributors) behind important projects.

Corporations being pulled by the capitalistic strings are not suppose to look forward higher ethical things as the "common good".

Its not irrational that corporations do this kind of things, its irrational that we expect them not to, knowing the game that is being played here.

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#116

Post by Minor49er »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #60

Isn't this just how DRM works? It's precisely why so many were concerned about EME being adopted into web standards, and why so many are passionate about DRM-Free media. DRM is designed to put restrictions on where, when, and how media is played, including what software it's used with. This doesn't invalidate any of the author's points, and they're right to be upset. But the problem isn't Chrome per se, it's DRM-encu…

You should check out Bandcamp for DRM-free music. It's an excellent platform

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#119

Post by coryfklein »

Thaxll wrote: post #108

"I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me" Title is very missleading, your web browser works and google does not block you, it's all about DRM. "For the last 2 years I’ve been working on a web browser that now cannot be completed because Google, the creators of the open source browser Chrome, won’t allow DRM in an open source project." This is crap, you should probably have known that before starting the…

Users will balk if you call your application a web browser and it doesn't stream video from most of the major video providers.

Re: I tried creating a web browser and Google blocked me (2019)

#120

Post by est31 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #77
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #60

Isn't this just how DRM works? It's precisely why so many were concerned about EME being adopted into web standards, and why so many are passionate about DRM-Free media. DRM is designed to put restrictions on where, when, and how media is played, including what software it's used with. This doesn't invalidate any of the author's points, and they're right to be upset. But the problem isn't Chrome per se, it's DRM-encu…

Strictly speaking, Widevine isn't a standard - the web standards tracks really don't allow for it. Hell, they couldn't even agree on a single baseline video standard. The only part of web standards that even covers DRM is EME, which just specifies a way for JavaScript to negotiate content decryption with a DRM plugin. It specifies no standard DRM, and it can't do that, because DRM by it's very nature is not standardi…

> It specifies no standard DRM

The w3c spec does specify the clearkey DRM plugin as mandatory to implement, but as the name says, the encryption keys are not hidden in any fashion from users, so most deployments use one of the proprietary plugins.

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