cross-posted from: https://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.

  • Fisting for Freedom@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    98
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Everyone who uses Chrome (or Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, or anything else that uses Chromium as a base) - you’re helping google extend their power over the open web, and those helping them do this.

    It’s a small thing, but Google’s power over the web derives from each of the the millions of people who continue to make Chrome the standard that webdevs cater to.

      • itadakimasu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        Sidebery v5 beta (on GitHub not on the addon store yet) + Firefox on MacOS and a few CSS tweaks has my experience almost exactly matching what I loved about Edge.

        Just wish I could collapse (on demand , not via auto-hide) the vertical tabs sidebar to 1 icon wide when I need more horizontal room (anyone got a trick for that?)

    • smolyeet@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t think it’s fair to place the blame on the user. It’s not their fault for using a browser they like. Blame those whodient prevent or try to breakup google owning the browser. The damage is done an most of chromium’s base won’t know shit about this or why.

      • Gerula@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Everyone else should do something just not the holly user. No, they are not to be bothered by the consequences of their actions.

        Well my friend when everbody flocked to Chrome or one of the various clones because they like it they gave power to Google whether they like it or not. And now Google is using this power against the user in it’s best interest because they like it (to be read “can”).

      • jackfrost@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        But do they like Chrome, or do they just use it out of habit, and because it’s the default on Android phones and constantly marketed on Google’s search engine? Perhaps they use it because it’s the “good enough” solution that’s dropped right in front of them?

      • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t think it’s fair to place the blame on the user.

        Consumers/users don’t deserve all the blame, obviously but they deserve a significant share.

        It’s not their fault for using a browser they like.

        A huge amount of what’s wrong with the world comes down to people saying “I’m going to go ahead and do this even if it causes harm”. Same situation here.

        It’s someone fault if they choose to do something that causes harm. We can’t help what we like, but we can help what we do.

      • Fisting for Freedom@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        You’re looking too narrowly. By getting devs to cater to whatever gets rolled out in Blink and v8, google extends the power they have over the whole ecosystem by making any browser that doesn’t follow them look “broken” (as opposed to, not slavishly following everything google does).

        It also increases the difficulty of making a competing browser engine by adding tons of complexity (for questionable value), only further entrenching google’s dominance. But at least you get some stupid new CSS3 behaviors (that people will bitch about not working in Firefox or Safari) so I guess it’s worth it.

        • elscallr@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          People who didn’t live through the first browser migration (away from ie6) don’t understand just how insidious browser lock in is.

            • elscallr@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              In those days the internet was a curiosity, mostly untapped potential. It became a bit different in 2000 +/- 5 years, and started being a livelihood for most of the planet.

    • inspxtr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      as much as I would really like that, that’s a catch-all statement that is not realistic. Unfortunately google has its claws in enterprises, universities and organizations all over the world, across so many domains.

      I don’t believe “stop using” is good enough, as it seems only a very small minority realistically could.

      This needs to be paired with proper legislation, like others have said, from EU as an example.

      If you have friends/family with Google employees, please raise this issue up with them. This also needs to come internally as well, in addition to top-down processes from regulation.

      • YⓄ乙 @aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I agree and I also agree with the YouTuber named Louis Rossman. He said that majority people- regular 9-5s/ normies dont care about this. They will only care if it starts to affect them personally until then goodluck asking them to stop using google products.

        TLDR: We are royally fucked.

        • 1984@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          I think there will be two webs if this goes through.

          One corporate web filled with surveillance, ads, forced use of approved operating systems and software, no ad blockers etc. This is the one all people who don’t care will use.

          Then you will have another web where servers do not implement this shit. You are free to use any operating system, plugins, etc. The servers will be run by individuals. It’s the corporate free web that many of us actually want. It will have stuff like Lemmy and Mastadon, and probably some kind of a web search since the main search engines will all not be here I assume. New software technologies will evolve here.

          As long as they don’t put this shit on router and network level, it’s possible to escape it by not using the ordinary web. But ofc we will have to use it to some degree at work, probably.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Nerds who are aware of this ignoring Google doesn’t make a difference.

      Make noise about them instead. Bring up articles about who they actually are and what they are trying to do.

      But sure, also stop using them if you are still using that shit. I don’t, there are tons of alternatives.

  • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    49
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    More and more people in the industry saying that Google is trying to implement it under false pretenses of making the web safer for the end user. But I guess for most it was obvious?

    • whatisallthis@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Almost all attempts at taking freedom away are done under the guise of increased safety.

    • cloudy1999@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      40
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Every day this week I’ve thought, ‘Thank goodness for the EU.’ They just keep stepping up against the tech companies.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    What can we realistically do, shouldn’t we be making more noise on the wider internet about this? I already use Firefox, and am barely using any service from Google, doesn’t seem enough.

      • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think realistically, even if we did raise enough of an uproar, and the major players did actually pay attention enough to get Google to back down, they’d just wait 6 months and implement it anyway with a different name, or keep grinding away until people are too tired and distracted to fight it anymore. That seems to be the general playbook for stuff like this.

        So I assume it will be implemented, and those who don’t care will just put up with it, and those who do care about it will either figure out how to break it or just learn to live without certain things online I guess.

        • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          “Listen, and understand. That Google is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until the open web is dead.”

  • ZephyrXero@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 year ago

    Sounds like the Trusted Computing shit that was pushed onto processors, and can make running Linux more difficult.

    Chrome has really become the new IE

  • 001100 010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    1 year ago

    I feel like the future of technology is just a constant war between hackers and pirates vs big tech, no one will really ever win, just a constant struggle (unless new laws are passed). Just like how games and video streaming have DRMs, but people still are able to circumvent them given enough time.

  • moog@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    goodbye adblock goodbye anything not chromium based goodbye fun

    • LedgeDrop@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh, it’s worse then that: you want to scrape some content, cut and paste content, save an image, save a stream of music/video - "oh… sorry, you can’t do that Dave cause the command line tool/3rd party website/gui isn’t trusted, but if you subscribe to our ultra premium package you can have some of that functionality unlocked (but just for our site) or you can watch some ads. "

  • shinobizilla@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    Whats not stopping some governments from embracing this? A new way to validate and monitor what you can and cannot do on the web is a nice way to assume control. They might consider this to be a good thing which worries me.