"Web Environment Integrity" is an all-out attack on the free Internet ( www.fsf.org )

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/2546109

Read why “Web Environment Integrity” is terrible, and why we must vocally oppose it now. Google’s latest maneuver, if we don’t act to stop it, threatens our freedom to explore the Internet with browsers of our choice.

ultratiem ,
@ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

This all seemed to happen so fast. In the last few years we’ve lost net neutrality and now are in danger of having another slice of the internet parcelled off to big tech.

Funny, it seems Google’s motto has slowly become “do nothing but evil at all costs”. What an absolute shit stain of a company they turned out to be.

vriska1 ,
@vriska1@lemm.ee avatar

Is there anyway to stop this?

ultratiem ,
@ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

Aside from some Fight Club shit on deck, nope. Everything ends up this way.

yogsototh ,
@yogsototh@programming.dev avatar

I don’t see how this could be prevented.

There are already many “small web” movements. With different proposals. Like gemini, sub-set of currently supported web standards (typically no-js, no-css, no POST, etc…)

But the monetized web is doomed to reach a point were it will be controlled in such a way that you will not be able to block ads, not be able to hide your pseudonymous identity.

I remember reading an article many years ago about the cat and mouse game between ads publishers and ad-blockers. The conclusion were that in the end, ads blocker will lose the final war. And with these kind of system we are closer and closer to reach it.

I think we need to collectively find a way to have sub-nets. For example declare that our website conform to certain sub-net properties.

  • no-ads
  • privacy (no cookie/no js/no user-agent header/no canvas, no css)
  • etc…

The small webs are different for everyone. It would be very nice if we could put an HTML header that would list which small webs pattern this page is compatible with. And have a browser that would adapt to your preferences and also a way to filter your small-web preferences in search engine.

The closest to this we have today is probably gemini. But this a very small but friendly web. I am sure we could find other solutions to create an alternative “respecting his users” web.

vriska1 ,
@vriska1@lemm.ee avatar

Hopefully we can prevent this and ad blockers will win the final war.

rebul ,

But Google is freeeee!

bedrooms ,

I support them, but the writing reads like a mad teenager wrote it... I can't believe it's from the FSF.

davehtaylor ,
@davehtaylor@beehaw.org avatar

That’s par for the course for the FSF

theneverfox ,
@theneverfox@pawb.social avatar

There’s something no one seems to be talking about

this isn’t limited to your browser

It runs at the highest ring of security on your processor. It could mean it locks you to OEM Android, iOS, or Windows. It could be extended to look at your app list, dns settings, potentially even tell if the device is using a vpn

it could be paired with kosa to use biometrics to verify identity

And it would be shocking if cloudflare didn’t implement this - it would save them a ton of processing. It’s likely it would be a default setting - this would apply to large swaths of the Internet, not just Google services

pinkdrunkenelephants ,

Then we’ll have to write our own chips and design our own hardware. Which is surprisingly easier than it sounds.

elfahor ,

Designing hardware is easy. How are you going to mass produce it now?

pinkdrunkenelephants ,

Gain wealth and use that wealth to build a chip factory. If Intel can do it in Phoenix, so can we.

vriska1 ,
@vriska1@lemm.ee avatar

Hopefully this can be stopped and we must make sure cloudflare does not implement this!

eric5949 ,

So sick of “just use Firefox” as if everyone has forgotten how the last company to bend the web to it’s will using a browser didn’t kill the very thing Firefox was born out of. Either google doesn’t do this or it doesn’t matter if you use Firefox, your browser will either comply or die like Netscape Navigator.

vriska1 ,
@vriska1@lemm.ee avatar

Do you think Google will fully implement this in the end?

eric5949 ,

Unless they get a break up the company lawsuit before they do, yes.

guyrocket ,
@guyrocket@kbin.social avatar

I would suggest sequestering G! To their own corner of the interwebs but it's Google. They're too big for that.

Remind me: why do we allow behemoths like this to exist?

RagingNerdoholic ,

Because FrEe MaRkEt

dan , (edited )
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Why is everyone making noise about Google’s implementation while barely anyone is making noise about Apple’s, which is already in use? httptoolkit.com/…/apple-private-access-tokens-att…

My guess is that Apple just rolled it out silently, while Google goes through a standards process with a public RFC. (edit: Also, Safari isn’t as commonly used).

Ramires ,

Chrome have 60+% share of browser market, so any big change from Google will affect the entire internet.

salient_one ,
@salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.social avatar

That’s a good question. Safari market share isn’t as big as Chrome’s (62.55% vs 20.5%, according to statcounter), but it’s still the 2nd largest. Also note that the WEI proposal appeared around May but made the news only now.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Safari’s market share definitely isn’t as big, that’s a good point. However, it’s got 100% market share on iPhones (Apple forbid other browser engines from running on iOS), so there’s a lot of people that have no choice.

kelvinjps ,

Really? Like you cannot use Firefox or chrome on IOS?

zaplachi ,

You can use the WebKit (Safari’s engine) wrappers made by Firefox and Chrome - but can’t use truly independent browsers

sznio ,

There’s Firefox on iOS, but it’s practically a wrapper around Safari. You get your bookmark synchronization, but everything under the hood runs on WebKit.

megsmagik ,

I have Firefox, Brave and DuckDuckGo on iOS, just no extensions, if you want an external AdBlocker you have to download an app that works at system level

Umbra ,

Apple user are used to being enslaved by a corpo?

hakonlo ,

Apple doesn’t have the power to kill the internet, but Google does.

muddybulldog ,

We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves for that.

davehtaylor ,
@davehtaylor@beehaw.org avatar

No but they have the power to fundamentally alter how we use it.

Look at what happened after the launch of the iPhone. Flash was killed, and devs moved to mobile-first or even mobile-only development for web and apps. It completely altered how we used the web, the Internet, and what devs focus on.

Engywuck , (edited )

" it will be used by Google to deny access to their services unless you are using a browser that gels with their profit margin"

Cool. So people using a different browser will move elsewhere. Maybe they’ll even stop youtube addiction. Cant’ really see a downside.

“It is not far-fetched to imagine a future in which sites simply refuse to serve pages to users running free browsers or free operating systems.”

Same here. Sites doing this wouldn’t probably worth to be looked at anyway.

SmoochyPit ,

It’s pretty key to the internet that you can access websites using any web browser or configuration you’d like, though.

While it’s true that some websites could just be avoided, if any government, education or healthcare websites implement this “for security”, the user will be forced to download and use a verified browser.

In my opinion this proposal strips users of their freedoms and should be canned.

salient_one ,
@salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.social avatar

That’s not the end of the world, but fragmentation of the Web certainly doesn’t benefit anyone.

Umbra ,

Agreed, let them try.

TheEntity ,

If the recent rexxit is any indicator, most people will just yield and do as the corpo says. They don't care, they just want to keep using whatever they are used to. We have a self-selection bias problem in here in this regard.

ReversalHatchery ,

Cool. So people using a different browser will move elsewhere. Maybe they’ll even stop youtube addiction. Cant’ really see a downside.

Addictions do not really work that way

esty ,
@esty@lemmy.ca avatar

sites doing this probably wouldn’t be worth using anyways

what about when your bank adds this? have you tried using a safetynet enforcing app on a rooted android phone? this has bigger implications than you’re seeing

waspentalive ,

What about when your bank adds this?

I go in to the teller anyway. And if my bank gets rid of all the tellers I will choose between the bank of mattress or ATMs.

Zeus , (edited )
@Zeus@lemm.ee avatar

lemm.ee was talking about using cloudflare (i can’t remember whether he went through with it), which will almost certainly implement this. lemmy.world already does. there is no good outcome from this going through where this only blocks google sites from firefox.

even if there was, that still means you can’t open any gdrive links you find on the internet, use a youtube tutorial to fix something, use the play store to buy any apps (because if they integrate this into chrome, they will integrate it into the play store), etc.

edit 2023-08-10:

hey guess what engywuck, lemm.ee uses cloudflare now:

image showing the cloudflare “edge ip restricted” page for lemm.ee

good luck accessing lemm.ee from non-chromium if this goes through

in fact view you probably won’t be able to view any embedded youtube videos at all. people would have to go back to hosting their own videos which would push hosting costs up, which would raise the barrier of entry to people making their own sites. which is something we want to encourage

Engywuck ,

I couldn’t care less about YouTube, Gplay or GDrive. And people hosting their own videos is a good thing, in my opinion.

vriska1 ,
@vriska1@lemm.ee avatar

Hopefully this can be stopped.

pinkdrunkenelephants ,

Then we’ll just have to build and migrate to alternatives, which is preferable anyway. That’s how the internet was supposed to be.

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