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Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

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Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#811
post #351

I don't see how this will end the "free web." No publisher will be forced to use DRM. Anyone can still create a website and make it accessible to anyone for free with an internet connection. If certain publishers want to require ads to view their content, that seems like their prerogative.

Until Google Search starts punishing sites that don’t require a trusted execution environment…

I've seen people open up all of their users' "private" content to Googlebot IPs just to get rid of errors in Google's search/Adsense console "in case it helps revenue" (as in they didn't even know for sure if it would help, only that it shows up as an "error" in Google's console and red=bad)

All you need to do is to jingle some real, if small SEO/ad advantage and people will bend over themselves to lick Google's boots.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#813
post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the ask for forgiveness approach. It's common in large, dysfunctional organizations as well. Sometimes the easiest way to get attention is to break things. Then once enough pain is felt, everyone starts taking interest. Trying to follow a proper change control based process only works when everyone is invested in the process.

No, this is just "doing your own thing in a way that doesn't affect anyone else, and allows you to gather data to cite when designing the standard."

It does affect everyone else when it starts breaking compatibility.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#814
post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Mozilla is long past dead. Mozilla is far from healthy but calling it dead is overstating things.

Less than 5% of global usage [1], and no presence whatsoever on mobile. Pretty much dead. [1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage And CF stats doesn't depend on JavaScript.

Linux market share on the desktop was 3.08% on June (source:0). I don't see it dying anytime soon because of that. Firefox isn't pushed by Google, hence the much smaller adoption; it's not about quality but rather which one is being advertised the most.

0: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#815
It's such a lazy, bad proposal that even if one wanted what it promises to deliver, you'd be hard pressed to choose a better way of getting it used for malicious purposes. Handing the token back to the web script means successful cross site scripting attacks can farm, exfiltrate and repurpose the tokens, as well as bypass attempts to limit which domains are allowed to receive their contents.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#816
post #186

It's small, but here's a real actionable item that you can do to help: Put a gentle "Use Firefox" (or any other non-Chromium-based browser) message on your website. It doesn't have to be in-your-face, just something small. I've taken my own advice and added it to my own website: https://geeklaunch.io/ (It only appears on Chromium-based browsers.) We can slowly turn the tide, little by little.

I like this idea, but has Mozilla said anything about their position in all of this? I'm a Firefox user, but I haven't felt great about Mozilla in quite a while. I'd love to know they are on the right side of this issue before I start promoting them like this.

Mozilla posted its position on Google’s Web Environment Integrity API here:

Mozilla opposes this proposal because it contradicts our principles and vision for the Web. Any browser, server, or publisher that implements common standards is automatically part of the Web. ... Mechanisms that attempt to restrict these choices are harmful to the openness of the Web ecosystem and are not good for users.

The full response is here:

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/852#is...

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#817
post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It only appears on Chromium-based browsers. Small anecdote: I am not sure how you're detecting the browser, but this note still appears in Orion (webkit-based browser) while it does not in Safari. Persists even when I change user agent explicitly to Firefox or Safari.

I check for the existence of `window.chrome`. I've never heard of Orion browser before, but based on a brief glance at their website, my guess is that because they allow running of Chrome extensions, they are also replicating at least some functionality provided by Chromium-based browsers, including `window.chrome`. Thanks for pointing this out, but I won't fix this.

Why not?

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#818

Mozilla should call for Google's removal from the W3C over this implementation of Web Environment Integrity. "But Chrome has 65% market share, what good is the W3C without them?” If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw…

When Google announced the EME DRM in the semi-public W3C HTML working group, it created a massive backlash. So W3C moved the EME spec under a new, closed, invite-only working group, and then announced that there is a consensus among everyone (there), and it can move forward to become a recommendation. They didn't even fix known bugs in the spec written by Google (e.g. architecture diagram in the EME spec is factually incorrect).

So I don't think this rubber-stamping W3C will do anything. They have no power over Google, and they know it.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#819
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? Everything I care about works fine. I've no idea what people are referring to when they say sites don't.

I have had a couple of banking websites, I want to say wellsfargo corporate card login in, as well as video conference sites.

If a website doesn’t work in Firefox (due to a bug in Firefox or the website or because the website blocks Firefox), please file a bug report on https://webcompat.com/

Mozilla developers will then try to reach out to the website’s owners, add a fix or workaround in Firefox, or (as a last resort) spoof Chrome’s User-Agent string to bypass the website’s Firefox block.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#820

The web is not dying, it is being killed. And the people that are killing it have names and addresses. Shame on Rayan Kanso Shame on Peter Pakkenberg Shame on Dmitry Gozman Shame on Richard Coles Shame on Kinuko Yasuda Shame on Rupert Ben Wiser: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity Google needs to be broken up.

Thank you.
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