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Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

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Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#211

Post by saagarjha »

saurik wrote: post #109
madeofpalk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and enabled by developers who have insisted we shove as much difficult-to-implement functionality (by which I am talking about CSS complex stuff, not powerful-but-easy-to-code APIs for OS-level access) Interesting that fixing "how to center a div" is considered harmful, but WebSerialPort is actually very good? > The result: there is now effectively one dominating web browser run by an ad company who nigh unto contr…

> Interesting that fixing "how to center a div" is considered harmful, but WebSerialPort is actually very good? It is certainly "interesting", but "true" nonetheless: one determined person--think Fabrice Ballard if you want an example--is in a great position to throw together a web browser and even implement ALL of the crazy API wrapper specs, but when if they aren't you simply don't need most of them to browse any g…

The end result of this seems to me like clicking on any link means I’m going to download 50 MB before I can see any content?

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#212

Post by saagarjha »

jefftk wrote: post #187
quenix wrote: post #59

What's strange to me is that the main author of the spec -- Ben Wiser -- seems to be against closed, wall-garden paradigms as he has written in a blog post "I just spent £700 to have my own app on my iPhone" [1]. In the post, he laments the state of the App Store monopoly on iOS and ponders returning to Android for the app installation freedom. How can he reconciliate these views with this spec, which he is the main…

A good explanation of how he would reconcile his proposal and the ideas he's previously expressed: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...

This just seems like a generic “oh people might hate this proposal here’s a place where we mention this”, not a response to the question asked above.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#213

Post by saagarjha »

troupo wrote: post #123
quenix wrote: post #59

What's strange to me is that the main author of the spec -- Ben Wiser -- seems to be against closed, wall-garden paradigms as he has written in a blog post "I just spent £700 to have my own app on my iPhone" [1]. In the post, he laments the state of the App Store monopoly on iOS and ponders returning to Android for the app installation freedom. How can he reconciliate these views with this spec, which he is the main…

> How can he reconciliate these views with this spec, which he is the main author of? Surely Ben sees the parallels? It's easy: he works for Google. Every single public-ish web developer and/or devrel from Google will spend inordinate amounts of time lambasting Apple, writing eaassays on how Apple cripples the web etc. While Google has broken the web so badly that Apple would need several decades to come anywhere clo…

The ones that do this are sadly the ones that end up being public.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#214

Post by paulmd »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #209
spystath wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do we protest this? You do not and you cannot. It was written in stone once Chrome dominated the browser market. What Chrome (Google) wants, Chrome (Google) gets. Despite all the good engineering Google wants to sell ads, that's all there is to it. And the result is this proposal. > The saving grace here might be that Firefox won't implement the proposal. It's irrelevant and we are an irrelevant minority. Unles…

Whatever happened to legislation? I bet most people here would have said the same about Apple's App Store monopoly on iOS, and yet the EU passed the DMA and the matter was closed. There's no reason why the same can't happen here. The defeatism attitude helps with nothing and is part of the reason why this happens in the first place.

EU passing the DMA is literally the specific reason why google is unstoppable. They finally cracked the last significant holdout against chrome/chromium market dominance, now there is nobody left to oppose them in the browser market.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#215

Post by saagarjha »

chrisco255 wrote: post #156
kibwen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And tech people fell for it hook, line, and sinker. It's completely and utterly irrelevant that Chromium is open source, because the web is a protocol, and having the source for an implementation of the protocol doesn't matter in the least when you don't control the protocol. You can't just fork Chromium and remove a feature, because websites expect the feature, and your browser won't work on them. You can't just for…

> You can't just fork Chromium and add a feature Of course you can. Microsoft's Edge and Brave already add proprietary features like AI and reader mode, tab groups, video calling, crypto wallet etc. Brave could add a custom CSS or HTML feature. Hell that was the status quo we came from ten years ago when each vendor had their own feature flags and implementation for WebRTC and proprietary video codecs, etc. Brave alr…

I think you missed the point of the comment you’re replying to. Without market share, the custom feature will never be respected by the web. At best if web developers don’t have to do any work for it you might get something that you can maintain for a while.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#216

Post by EMIRELADERO »

paulmd wrote: post #214
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever happened to legislation? I bet most people here would have said the same about Apple's App Store monopoly on iOS, and yet the EU passed the DMA and the matter was closed. There's no reason why the same can't happen here. The defeatism attitude helps with nothing and is part of the reason why this happens in the first place.

EU passing the DMA is literally the specific reason why google is unstoppable. They finally cracked the last significant holdout against chrome/chromium market dominance, now there is nobody left to oppose them in the browser market.

Except that if that happens the government will come at them just like they did to Apple.

They considered it enough that Apple had a monopoly on distribution for apps for a device with ~50% marketshare in the US, and even less in Europe.

Imagine what they would do for something that has ~97%

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#217

Post by keepamovin »

saurik wrote: post #5

This is pretty much the inevitable end-game of the web, in no small part funded by ad-based business models (as the analog gap pretty much destroys most attempts to use this stuff to do copy protection) and enabled by developers who have insisted we shove as much difficult-to-implement functionality (by which I am talking about CSS complex stuff, not powerful-but-easy-to-code APIs for OS-level access) into the browse…

While the 'Web Environment Integrity API Proposal' is portrayed as a measure to enhance web security and prevent fraud, it poses potential threats to competition, especially for open-source browsers like ours. It may seem to protect the ad business model, but what it could lead to is the monopoly of Google Chrome, curbing the emergence of new competitors.

We are an open-source browser developer and these concerns deeply resonate with us. We understand the paradox Alphabet faces, yet we firmly believe the solution isn't about exerting "DRM" level control over a ubiquitous means of access.

We're committed to standing up for the future of the web. We don't just see ourselves as a browser company but as advocates for an open, fair, and free web. We invite you to join us in this endeavor. Visit https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserBoxPro today. Stand with us for an open, free, and fair web.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#218

Post by kibwen »

raggi wrote: post #205
kibwen wrote: post #72

It's time to break Google up. They're the AT&T and Standard Oil of our generation. Make Ads, YouTube, Search, Cloud, Chrome, etc. all independent companies. Demand that antitrust regulators do their damn jobs for a change.

Let's just think this through: Google Cloud becomes a VC driven organization that slowly eats margin dirt against it's competitors until insolvency. There was no way for it to recover enough resources from the mothership before being split out. Search trundles along ok, assuming it took search ads and a ton of core infra with it, but it never makes enough money to ship a decent product extension. It hopefully removes…

> Vultures make off like bandits, and amazon, apple, microsoft, and cloudflare are the biggest winners in the fallout.

In this world, Amazon et al get the same treatment. As for "vultures make off like bandits", welcome to market-based economics, these companies can compete if they don't want to die, and if they can't compete, then let them die.

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#219

Post by keepamovin »

dmantis wrote: post #7

The literal attempt to censor web usage of Linux and BSD desktops, other FOSS clients, custom Android ROMs, etc with an open reasoning "to sell you ads". They don't even try to masquerade it.

I'm worried about this too, as we run a company that invests heavily in developing browsing technology that is powered by these browsers (like chromium) but liberates them in various ways (such as running headless in the cloud, and then having users connect to it remotely), or running in a "semi automated". Both of these things would possibly be flagged by these attestation guards, and would not be environments that "preserve the integrity of the ad business model and the dominant browser market". If you want to get involved in doing something about it, come and check out our open source browser work at: https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserBoxPro and get involved

Re: Web Environment Integrity API Proposal

#220

Post by saagarjha »

charcircuit wrote: post #199
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking web sites seem alive & fine & well, so unsure what you are trying to claim here.

When P(fraud|request from browser) increases and P(fraud|request from mobile app) decreases and P(customer has mobile device) approaches 1 it starts making less and less sense to support running a web interface.

A good way to drive fraud to zero is to make it so that nobody uses your service.
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