The Chrome team says they’re not going to pursue Web Integrity but…
it is piloting a new Android WebView Media Integrity API that’s “narrowly scoped, and only targets WebViews embedded in apps.”
They say its because the team “heard your feedback.” I’m sure that’s true, and I can wildly speculate that all the current anti-trust attention was a factor too.
I’d like to believe that enough of us actually stopped using chrome and switched to Firefox the day they made that announcement that swayed them… But in reality I’m sure it was just the bad press and they’re going to try to find a different more sneaky way to do the same shit.
I’ve been using Firefox since it was Mozilla.
Amateur. I’ve been using Firefox since Netscape Navigator.
I was born a decade after Netscape navigator was launched. I’m legally an adult. Wow, you’re old!
What shall I say? The first browser I ever used was called “Arena” and it ran on a UNIX system because Windows back then didn’t even have (native) networking - you had to purchase TCP/IP for it from third parties back then.
And one of the first websites I visited was “the original one” on Tim Barners-Lee’s NEXT cube in CERN.
And guess what - there was a network way before the Web. We had chat, “social media” before it was called that, and played online multiplayer games. All without any spam or advertising.
… I still mud. Kind of funny having characters that haven’t logged on for 28 years.
Yep. Could be about as long for me. It was crazy back then.
you had to purchase TCP/IP for it from third parties back then.
LOL WAT?!! The precursor to the WinRAR subscription, huh…
And one of the first websites I visited was “the original one” on Tim Barners-Lee’s NEXT cube in CERN.
Wow, this is kinda like witnessing the moon landing live, right? That’s amazing!
And guess what - there was a network way before the Web. We had chat, “social media” before it was called that, and played online multiplayer games. All without any spam or advertising.
Interesting… Which chat server was this? And what year approximately?
Well, the TCP/IP stack we had was not at all like WinRar. You bought a box with a bunch of disks (5.25in) and some thick paperback manuals. The price was about 150$, and installation was tricky. It only worked with a certain set of network cards. But it did work together with the other network stack back then: Novell Netware, which did the majority of work in corporate networks back then.
The chat had a bit different structure back then. Messages went from client to client, and the “TALK” server only did coordination. There was a system, IIRC it was called NICKSERV or something where you globally registered your nickname.
I was not only watching things back then. I wrote a number of tools that made the rounds back then, a client for such a multiplayer online game that worked both in a text terminal and with a GUI, and a non-interactive NNTP (USENET) client that allowed access to our equivalent of the fediverse remotely. And I even wrote our companies first SMTP (email) gateway to the internet back then. Not “installed” or “configured” - wrote.
Wow, you’re old!
Well, I retire next year so, yeah, I’m that too.
Bah… NCSA Mosaic FTW.
I strayed away over IE6, then Chrome v1.0 for a short period, but then came back to my senses.
From now on, the only browser I’m installing is Firefox.
Chrome market share actually has been declining on desktops since this spring. Could be a factor
Can you actually stop using chrome on android? Because every link I click it opens in their webview app which is chrome
Dunno if this is what you mean, but you can definitely set another browser as default. Any context menus will change too: “Open with Firefox”, or w/e you’re using.
No, I’m not talking about default browser but the WebView app. For example I’m using Voyager for Lemmy, and if I click on this post’s link it will open the website in the WebView, then I can click to Open with firefox.
But WebView itself is still chrome as you can see
You must be on stock android. I think you can still swap out the webview component but I forgot how
You can customize Voyager to open links in default browser not in-app: Settings -> General -> Open Links in
Weird, I can’t see this option
It’s only available if you are using the native app. The PWA doesn’t have that option due to web limitations unfortunately.
Ohhhh I see. Yeah, I think Sync uses Chrome too. Sync has an option to always open links in external web browser, so that’s how I got around that.
It’s even crazier than that. On some versions of Android there is no webview, only chrome! I think that was around Android 8 or so they dropped webview then re-added webview in the next version
I’ve been using Firefox for a couple months now, no issues.
Yeah there is a setting and now when I click links it opens in Firefox. But if you use the Google search widget it still opens in chrome, which is to be expected I guess.
That’s not only a problem for google search, most apps uses webview to handle web links. They can do like Voyager and have a option to open the default browser instead, but most of them don’t bother with that.
To be fair I still think Google services, Microsoft, etc and all that jazz is great, I’m no corporate shill or some free software nutter, but the issue however is the consistent anticompetitive strategies and vendor lock-in used to compensate for a lack of innovation.
Imagine if you could, for about a month, up to a year long period, where you just use a de-googled phone, a live USB and a portable hard drive, you’ll actually have a different perspective and appreciation for what works with computers, printers, etc and our use of technology as a whole
Actually right now Congress is writing new laws for the Internet, and the EU is looking pretty hard as well, so they might be backing off just so they can get the new laws being written minimized.
Not proceeding for now.
Yes, something tells me that they will just switch to attempting to introduce this piecemeal so that fewer people will notice what’s going on.
Bet they’ll just rename it later, like what they did with FLoC to Ad Topics.
‘Heard your feedback’ is becoming the death flag of future fuckery these last few years
more like they realised that the Irish data protection officer looked like they were gonna side with privacy advocates over anti-adblock, which is a precursor (and main usecase of) this API
Irish data protection office
I had to look this one up.
https://www.digitalguardian.com/blog/irish-data-protection-puts-google-notice-data-privacy-again
edit: that’s from 2020 about google, not chrome
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
That usually means they will have something worse at a later time.
The most likely option is that they will rebrand and we will have to push back against a “completely new, completely different functionality” in a few months.
They have to figure out how to apply DRM to YouTube first.
I mean, Widevine is present in all browsers and actively used by Netflix for example. YouTube also uses this when you’re watching movies on YouTube Movies.
Not running DRM on the majority of YouTube content is also likely due to the added cost of running such encryption (the encryption is usually on a per-customer level, not one key fits all) and the added bandwidth and computer cycles required. Not to mention that this might be a legal struggle with the content creators.
Yeah, it makes me worried about what they have planned to replace it.
They had some of those changes already checked into their code base. It’ll be interesting to see how much of that code comes back out.
My money is on zero. They’ll comment it out and then turn it back on when no one is looking.
Comment out? Nah, they’ll just put it behind a feature flag so it keeps passing the tests.
The Advert People are easily startled, but they’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers.
…yet.
Yeah gotta wait for the heat on this antitrust probe to die down before doing the dirty.
This is your wake up to stop using Chrome and Chromium based browsers (e.g. Brave, Vivaldi, etc). Switch to Firefox if you haven’t already.
the real problem will begin when big websites start blocking unverified browsers. it means the end of spam and ad blockers, but it also means the end of privacy.
My biggest problem is the security and sandboxing around Firefox. I use both, but I feel my passwords are safer in Chrome tbh
I use Firefox on Mobile with the bitwarden addon. Works well for me. Plus you export all your saved Google passwords into bitwarden. I need to make the switch on my PC now.
But the add-on isn’t sandboxed like in chrome. Like i remember, depending on if you use an external MAC like apparmor or not, where if you’re runnimg in Linux and you’re using Firefox, websites could steal your ssh keys from ~/.ssh/
Malicious addons or websites could easily do the same thing, and steal your bitwarden credentials. Unless you have the premium version, you can’t put otp on it.
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Tbf, I have tried but on Android the performance is dogshit. There is a few seconds difference between Firefox loading pages and Chrome loading unfortunately.
If there was a third option I’d gladly take it, but for now Firefox just doesn’t have the functionality and I’m willing to put up with the current state of Google shit. If it gets much worse I may just have to suck it up though.
I use Fennec (fork of Firefox)
This should never be left up to Chrome. We need antitrust laws.
We’ll see how this shakes out in a year.
Eternal vigilance is the price for a free web.
Do we get freedom with it or do we have to double eternal vigilance to get both? 🤔
I believe the scale is
n * log2(n).Yes.
the web has been getting so shitty lately i’ve actually gotten into drawing and reading and vinyl and film, which i highly recommend as a backup plan; just the idea of this feels like the atomic bomb for the internet
The mainstream web… yes.
The back of the house has never been fucking better. Mastodon changed the game. Why hang out at some asshole’s website, hating the website, lacking features and full of advertisements to suck you dry, when you can just come down to the flea market of federated social media and shoot the shit with someone real?
“Flea market of federated social media” is an awesome description!
The “don’t be evil” motto was replaced with “don’t be evil, but greedy and posessive is okay”
And then later edited to
“
don’t be evil, butgreedy and posessive is okay”Soon after it changes to it’s final form:
“
don’t be evil, butgreedy and posessive is okay”I just figured they skipped straight to:
“
don’tbe evil,butgreedy and posessive is okay”Then it will eventually come to its end and become:
“
don’t be evil, but greedy and posessive is okay”Some people have moved to /e/ already.
It has always been…
“
don’tbe evil,butgreedy and posessiveis okay”FTFY
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That’s the problem. They could have made it a requirement for a site to work in Chrome. And since Chrome has such a majority sites would have to comply. Then the other browsers would have to fall in line or just stop working with most websites. Google’s monopoly is complete enough that they can dictate how the web works. You need to both care what chrome does and care that other people are still using it or you’re just as fucked as they are.
Please, people, stop using Chromium-based browsers and handing Google a near-monopoly. Firefox is awesome and has even more privacy-oriented derivates.
Bope. I’ll continue using Brave, as it’s the best browser out there for my use case. Thank you for you concern. Firefox plainly sucks, thanks to Mozilla, and I tell this after having been a FF user, supporter and advocate for almost 20 years.
What sucks so much in FF?
Yes, performance used to be spotty but this is no longer the case.
UI/UX/Performance/Mobile app/Slow on Linux/Mozilla (the latter is the worst)
I’m not open to further debate. You asked, I replied. I preferred to migrate to a different browser and never look back, thanks to Mozilla.
Your info isn’t up to date
Yeah, sure /s.
Fuck Mozilla, really. I wouldn’t go back to FF even if it was the last browser on earth, as long as it gives oxygen to Mozilla. I’d like Moz Corp. to disappear.
I’ve been using FF (and Thunderbird) for about 5 years now on my dual core old laptop running Gentoo, and it’s always run pretty smooth. Especially when they switched to the Quantum web engine.
Of course. Everybody is having a great time on FF, that why this happens:
https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
Yeah, surely Chrome/Google/$EandomEvilCorp are to blame, but Not Mozilla, the can’t do anything wrong, poor souls /s
Yeah, the current management is so horny to have Chrome be the next Internet Explorer like that. So sad Google has fallen so far.
I’m not sure on stats or anything, I know Google has paid a lot of money to get Chrome as a default browser, but I remember a time when it became ubiquitous because the family nerd would tell their parents to use it and so on. It could possibly happen again and have a lot of people switch to firefox because their favourite site stopped working on Chrome. It’s the kind of plan that could backfire pretty bad. There’s a lot of legal reasons for their hesitance I’m sure, but I think that sort of thing would also play into it. A bunch of parents calling up their children because something stopped working and being told to download firefox isn’t outside the scope of reality I don’t think.
