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Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

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Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#441
Wondering what you can do?

First:

- ban Google all together in your personal life. No chrome and no excuses. Stop your bullshit or leave this profession.

- develop with and for firefox and friends only, introduce usability problems for chrome

- employ the same tactics as google.

  -> Bundle firefox with the software you are distributing. 

  -> Like google did, remove the competition altogether from the users device.

  -> make your npm-module or your website slower in chrome

  -> show a popup urging users to download firefox, provide a link.
 Refer to their current chrome as malware.

  -> use as many tricks as you can think of to spoil the well for google. 
     Destroy search results, fill their storage with /dev/random, whatever your imagination leads you too. You keep telling us you are so smart. Show it.
- remember, Google's capital is data. Hit that and the beast will die.

If you are not ready to do this, you are part of the problem. "Maybe later". No, people have warned for years. I wrote that using chrome is "less than smart" years ago, and some people took real offense when I wrote that. If you don't act now and update your projects like I wrote above, you will never do it.

Secondly, tweet, write to tech journalists. But only after you did the above.

Thirdly, Google is evil and they know it. They care only about money and they trust you to find excuses. There are already some people who talk to themselves "Well, I see both sides really". Don't be that one.

Fourthly, I am very worried that the window of opportunity is closing now rapidly. It is late to defend our values, rights and future all by ourselves while all political parties gladly take donations by the millions. I am not an anarchist (nor a libertarian), and I would rather sit on my lazy ass like you. However, the amalgamation of tech oligarchs and ruthless political factions is accelerating. They are happy to trade civil rights for something more tangible. Your legal rights are being eroded one after the other and you might lose the right (or means) to stand up for them.

If things go really wrong, keep in mind that while in theory one could burn the whole thing down, well, yes, a statement in public life would help for publicity. But PR is a hard thing if you don't have money. The easiest steps are outlined above.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#442

I'm surprised to see so many people in this thread saying "write a strongly worded letter!" (or something along those lines), and so few saying we need to build a better browser without this crap in it, which has been the traditionally successful answer to attempts to privatize the Web.

We already have one, and building a browser is a nightmare.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#443
post #5

I feel like I have to repeat this, since so much is at stake here, where it is about the preservation of the web as we know it today, at the peril of having it turned into yet another walled garden: The only way around the dystopia this will lead to is to constantly and relentlessly shame and even harass all those involved in helping create it. The scolding in the issue tracker of that wretched "project" shall flow l…

Yeah, financial and social pressure is basically the only weapons we have against corporations when regulations don't exist. And honestly, financial pressure doesn't work at this scale or in this case.

Financial and social pressure are the only ways you convince anybody to do anything that isn't biological.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#444
post #34

And also, to switch back to Firefox

Who has been mismanaged for at least a decade and depends on Google to pay their bills.. I'm a FF user since the early 00's and Firefox will mostly not go away because Google has an interest in using it against monopoly accusations but the reality is bleak.. And the reality is these people ( Google in this case ) are so far removed from any moral compass about the Web ( at least what most people here think of "the We…

> Who has been mismanaged for at least a decade

Do you think Google is better managed?

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#445
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not great if your bank arbitrarily decides Linux isn't a supported operating system, for example.

Wouldn’t this just mean I should change my bank?

Does that seem easier for people to do than buying a Windows or MacOS device? If your oldest credit cards are through your bank it could wreck your FICO for quite a while.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#446
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the bait to make it sound reasonable. Of course this hold-back feature will be quietly disabled at some point in the future. The whole proposal is full of weaselly half truths and misrepresentation about their real plans

> this hold-back feature will be quietly disabled at some point in the future. Will it though? Googles main reason for WEI I assume is to combat ad-fraud. Ie. to prevent someone making a bot farm to click ads to earn money from advertising or exhaust competitors ad budgets or manipulate search engine user ranking signals. With WEI, all ad clicks without WEI could just be ignored (ie. not billed to advertisers, ignore…

>Will it though? Googles main reason for WEI I assume is to combat ad-fraud. Ie. to prevent someone making a bot farm to click ads to earn money from advertising or exhaust competitors ad budgets or manipulate search engine user ranking signals.

Right. And so I ask this question: Why should I be forced to donate my data, CPU cycles, network bandwidth and privacy to one of the largest corporations in the world so they can address an issue (ad fraud) between them and their customers?

I'd note that I am not a customer of Google or their advertisers. Because advertisers are the only real customers of Google.

Edit: Clarified my point.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#448
post #438
post #5

I feel like I have to repeat this, since so much is at stake here, where it is about the preservation of the web as we know it today, at the peril of having it turned into yet another walled garden: The only way around the dystopia this will lead to is to constantly and relentlessly shame and even harass all those involved in helping create it. The scolding in the issue tracker of that wretched "project" shall flow l…

Corporations will dismiss all of that as asshole Luddites, and do it anyway. You're not Google's customer. The advertisers are. The only way to stop Google from treating the Web as their own OS is to take that power away from them, by switching to other browser engines.

And we have this crappy paradox that Mozilla is held to an impossibly high standard. People want to burn them to the ground for daring to use Google Analytics, or the Pocket acquisition, and keep using a 100% Google browser, with preferential integration with all of Google's services/protocols/APIs.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until your bank requires you to use it to pay your bills and tax preparation websites require it to pay for taxes.

My former business bank actually did this. They insisted their web app "was compatible with all modern browsers, but more compatible with Chrome" - I couldn't make transfers to other accounts with Firefox, it just hung indefinitely. Virgin Money, UK - https://uk.virginmoney.com/

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