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Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

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Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#851

Post by Klonoar »

pjmlp wrote: post #848
Klonoar wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh, no. We would’ve gotten Electron any other way if it wasn’t Chromium, it’s the only endgame for UI given how native layers shat the bed. Mozilla also no longer even supports embedding. ;P

Speaking as someone that has been doing native and Web for 30 years, it is the only game for developers that couldn't care, and in the process help Chrome to widen its market share and influence.

I've been doing this for 20, which is enough to say: rattling off years of experience isn't going to win me over on this point.

> it is the only game for developers that couldn't care

Yeah, dude. Most devs literally do not care, they just want to write and ship stuff. The native stack(s) are not cohesive enough and the numbers do not lie; devs do not want to rewrite the UI n times.

Signed, someone who also does native and web UI dev. ;P

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#852

Post by pluc »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #634
strix_varius wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that led to Google's current dominance is folks like us (certainly me, at least) pushing folks to replace their default IE installation with Chrome as soon as they set up a new computer. I hope, pragmatically, something similar might happen with this: say that Brave (my daily driver) disables WEI in their Chromium build, and a new Chromium-derived browser surges in popularity... like judo, using the…

What's wrong with Firefox?

In the last few years (or in the first few), not much. But there was a time where Firefox was difficult to recommend for performance reasons - I think it's right when they switched XUL iirc. To me that's what afforded the then-competition (Opera, Safari, Chrome) to start to eat the market share. It's why I switched to Chrome for a while (before everything was Chrome).

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#853

Post by ddalex »

derefr wrote: post #779
EvanAnderson wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The attester will attest whatever they want. They can evolve to match the further degradation of user freedoms. Agreed. Eventually the attestor will be measuring “proof of life” with the camera, for example. “Please drink verification can” isn’t too far down that road either.

> Agreed. Eventually the attestor will be measuring “proof of life” with the camera, for example. Ultimately, it's all just instructions being sent to your computer to be executed, and "your computer" is whatever you say it is. Everything (e.g. Intel SGX et al) can be emulated in a sandbox. That's how modern DRM is defeated.

Not if the HW has baked in private keys that you can't read, but which are known to the attester.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#855

Post by pjmlp »

Klonoar wrote: post #851
pjmlp wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone that has been doing native and Web for 30 years, it is the only game for developers that couldn't care, and in the process help Chrome to widen its market share and influence.

I've been doing this for 20, which is enough to say: rattling off years of experience isn't going to win me over on this point. > it is the only game for developers that couldn't care Yeah, dude. Most devs literally do not care, they just want to write and ship stuff. The native stack(s) are not cohesive enough and the numbers do not lie; devs do not want to rewrite the UI n times . Signed, someone who also does nati…

Then don't complain about Chrome taking over the Web.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#856

Post by propogandist »

creatonez wrote: post #822
rabite wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting anything from Mozilla, Google is their largest source of revenue by far. Over half.

Mozilla publicly opposes Google's actions all the time, especially when it comes to web specifications. One time they publicly endorsed an ad blocker intended to DoS google's ad servers with nonsense data, an extension that the Chrome Web Store considered to be malware.

[dead]

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#857

Post by propogandist »

dang wrote: post #654
ricardo81 wrote: post #324

fwiw I found Vivaldi's overview a good primer on the situation. https://vivaldi.com/blog/googles-new-dangerous-web-environme...

Thanks. Let's discuss that article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875940 .

why have you shadow banned my account?

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#858

Post by pg_1234 »

TastyAmphibian wrote: post #845
ricardo81 wrote: post #324

fwiw I found Vivaldi's overview a good primer on the situation. https://vivaldi.com/blog/googles-new-dangerous-web-environme...

Sounds interesting

As pointed out, EU law may prohibit this ... even if they are slow to act.

There is another possibility; EU countries may decide that this amounts to tacit admission by Google that the revenue generating event in ad sales happens on the browser, and ad revenue is therefore always taxable in the country where the browser (and viewer) are located. No more laundering international revenue through tax havens.

And since Google just demonstrated such an effective verification mechanism ... well they can just repurpose it to track all such taxable revenue for the countries in question ... otherwise they might be deemed a criminal enterprise and have to be blocked nation-wide.

No need to block the useful parts, just the illegal tax-evading ad empire.

... and countries can move fast when there is a lot of money to be had ...

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#859

Post by freedomben »

cpeterso wrote: post #816
freedomben wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thank you!

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#860

Post by Alifatisk »

icoder wrote: post #467
Alifatisk wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about WEI, Web environment integrity. The article below sums it up pretty good. "The proposal suggests that websites should be able to request an attestation from the browser about its “integrity”. Such attestations are to be provided by external agents, which – presumably – examine the browser and its plugins, and issue an approval only if those checks pass. The attestation is sent back to the website, which…

The way you put it, it's like a captcha (but stronger, and with a high risk of unwanted side effects)?

Yeah, I think that’s a good explanation. It’s like a captcha for your device and it’s the underlying OS that handles the attestation.

The downside with this is that there will be a walled garden where custom devices are not allowed access too.

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