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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)

#81

Post by Leherenn »

coldtea wrote: post #28
shuntress wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web standards are designed for cooperation not competition.

Back in the day yes. Modern web standards upgrades are designed (a) because Google wants them, (b) for regulatory capture -- making it too difficult for a browser to be created (I'm abusing the term to refer to behavior regulated by "web standards").

(c) because they provide features requested by developers/users. Compare modern JS to JS from 10 years ago, it's pretty clear Google is not the only one benefitting from the new standards.

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

#82

Post by eivarv »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #76
eivarv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Qt project didn't write the origins of Google's browser engine. Blink forked from Webkit, which started as a fork of the KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE. Many KDE-projects are built upon Qt, but Qt is an independent project.

I think they are talking about Konqueror, not QT. Konqueror is what KHTML was developed for, iirc.

Ah, right. Thanks!

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

#84

Post by pessimizer »

eivarv wrote: post #53
lights0123 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice for Google to block the project that wrote the origins of their browser engine.

The Qt project didn't write the origins of Google's browser engine. Blink forked from Webkit, which started as a fork of the KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE. Many KDE-projects are built upon Qt, but Qt is an independent project.

KDE-projects like Konqueror and Falkon, the subjects under specific discussion?

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

#85

Post by smaddock »

heinrich5991 wrote: post #75
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…

The link [0] still seems to work and redirects to https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases/discussions/24 for me.

Oh! That makes sense, they must have moved it from Issues to Discussions. Thanks, I'll update the parent comment.

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

#86

Post by djxfade »

magicalist wrote: post #54
lights0123 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice for Google to block the project that wrote the origins of their browser engine.

> Nice for Google to block the project that wrote the origins of their browser engine. In this case it's blocking the embedded Blink, which is their browser engine, so at least they're consistent?

Yeah, Blink, which is a fork from Safaris WebKit, which is a fork of Konquerors KHTML. Google Chrome wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for Konqueror.

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

#87

Post by kmeisthax »

tyingq wrote: post #73

I'm curious what the gatekeeping around letting you use Widevine or similar does. As an "approved" entity are you then technically capable of copying DRMed content? Trying to understand if that's why it's so closely guarded.

Under DMCA 1201 technical protection measures automatically get legal protection against this sort of thing. There's actually two layers of protection:

1. You can't deprotect the content for a purpose that would violate copyright law (this is the "DMCA exception" process you hear about every 3 years)

2. You can't provide tools that deprotect the content for any purpose

Both provisions give DRM the force of law, though the latter poses specific risks for anyone who merely wants to run DRM content within it's protected bounds. There are loads of well-reasoned exceptions to DMCA 1201, but they're very restrictive and special-cased. You'd never be able to get away with just releasing a Widevine-compatible plugin, even if it did all the validation and security in exactly the same way as Widevine. This means that, practically speaking, the only legal way to actually play Widevine-protected content is to license Widevine and comply with the inevitable litany of restrictions they place upon you for access to that plugin.

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

#88

Post by smaddock »

speedgoose wrote: post #78
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…

Did you consider to not get a license? You could perhaps download and execute Widevine pretending to be Firefox or Chrome. Is there advanced spying software in Widevine preventing to do that?

I'm honestly not sure about the legality of downloading from another distributor. I do know that distribution requires a license [0].

The risk doesn't seem worth it to use such a workaround for a serious project though.

[0] https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:t...

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

#89

Post by smaddock »

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.

I feel you regarding Chromium, I use Firefox as my daily browser. As for building my own browser, Electron/Chromium just seems like the most achievable option to empower individuals to create a browser.

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

#90

Post by bonzini »

smaddock wrote: post #88
speedgoose wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider to not get a license? You could perhaps download and execute Widevine pretending to be Firefox or Chrome. Is there advanced spying software in Widevine preventing to do that?

I'm honestly not sure about the legality of downloading from another distributor. I do know that distribution requires a license [0]. The risk doesn't seem worth it to use such a workaround for a serious project though. [0] https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:t...

Kodi downloads an entire ChromeOS image just to extract the widevine shared library, for example.
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