Do you consider stop using Google products after hearing about the webpage DRM they're currently implementing?
A site will check your browser,add-ons and operating system and if they like what you are using, you will be able to use their site.
If not you will not be able to use their site.
Eg., YouTube checks your configuration, you have adblock, or your run a custom OS, or you have that add-on that makes the background of the page purple. No can't do, use chrome or no videos.
It is described as DRM for websites, also Google has the ability to push it to all of the pages that use AdSense, cause they will not give them money if they don't use it.
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well from what i understand sg is operating mostly off patreon subs and referrals on fanatical/humble so i can't really imagine them suddenly implementing anything of sorts
but wow what a fun times ahead on the internet it must be
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I don't think cg runs any Google code here, not even Analytics I assume. But the worse part is this thing might be inevitable, imagine being an outcast because of this on the internet, at least for the bigger part. If this passes on without any restrictions (EU laws) the stance of people will be important. Even worser part, new Steam client built on Electron, which is Chromium, which is Valve cannot prevent the upstream code.
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I have this script 'googletagmanager.com (1)' blocked here on SG.
Don't know if it is on basically every site there is...
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Huh, I guess that's something related to Google Analytics. I didn't notice anything on the browser because they got blocked on Pi-hole before they reach Firefox I guess.
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I only use Firefox. Edge is not bad. But I reallllllly don't want Google to control me more than it already does
Anyway, I don't think the EU would ever allow that, so there is hope
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Put a gentle “Use Firefox” (or any other non-Chromium-based browser) message on your website.
i mean... really?
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I think it's not useless thinking of the Firefox's market share which is roughly 6%. With Safari the total amount is 20%, the other is Chromium. There are people who don't know what a browser is, there needs to be some kind of awareness.
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my "really" meant (sorry if it sounded for you or, in a more general sense, for your thread) that problem is how you raise awareness, not if raising it it's positive or not.
also, i've put more than a single gentle "Use Firefox" message. but it was ages ago, and Chrome wasn't there. history repeats itself, ok... but we have plenty of better choices, nowadays :D
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Eh, what that person wrote is pretty much barebones of the main idea so don't take literally. It used to be enough to just write that because Internet Explorer was very slow and bloated, that is not the today's situation. Also Microsoft didn't control the majority of the web back then but Google does today. Even if Firefox is a little bit faster than Chrome today, that probably won't last long if Google runs this DRM and many websites follow it.
Well, most of those choices are Chrome under the hood but yes there are many. :)
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Haha yeah I was thinking the same, back in the dark days of internet explorer, one of the best uses of their custom IE targeting CSS rules was to include a box that said "Works best with firefox"
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Looks like it's time to make a new internet. I miss the 2000s standards :/
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I miss GeoCities pages with neon green text and that little counter in the corner that showed how many people viewed the page.
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Steam is the new Geocities (profiles with animations/GIFs everywhere) :)
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I'm starting to think that HTML and especially JavaScript was a mistake...
Usenet and Email was usable enough...
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I often say that javascript is the worst human invention since the nuclear bomb.
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Saying that after crypto and nfts is hard...
I personally give that spot to social media. If there were no javascript something else along its lines would fit the same roles (maybe in a better way), so i think a world without javascript would still allow the birth of social media
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Google already owns my soul for a good part of my lifetime. It may or may not become the end of me, but their ecosystem has entirely consumed everything I do, go or see.
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That's an interesting way to low-key saying Google is the Satan. :P
Anyway, it's not just you, millions of people are in the same situation. Though at least you're aware. Maybe you should check this, not showing this for you to feel bad about yourself, but showing this to you can do something about it, if you want of course.
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Thanks for the resource, I'll read through it though I doubt I'll do much with it. After almost 2 decades of grooming, my pores ooze Google.
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No problem. I know it can be hard since this is like a drug addiction. I was a huge Google fan once and I started using Gmail while it was invite-only. 15 years of emails, conversations, besides other things. It was hard to delete. Of course I did an offline backup and a Google takeout beforehand but took me 2 years to completely cut my ties off with Google (On the surface at least.).
However, a start is a start. It's kinda like exploring the Blackreach in Skyrim, you always a find a new thing about it. And everywhere connects to Blackreach.
It's a slippery slope so gotta be careful. :)
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As I tried to think where it might lead, I got scared. :(
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This will literally kill YouTube. I hate watching it on my tablet on my treadmill because I can't get adblock in that app. I normally just put up with it because it's 1 or maybe 2 ads since most of the YT I want doesn't puts ads. However if they deny me, I just stop using YT 100%
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I hope people will be astute enough to pull this off and stop using YT entirely to protest. Somehow I doubt this but we'll see I guess.
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Can't you install Firefox on your Tablet? It has background play and also no ads on YouTube. That's how I listen to music on my phone if I'm using YouTube.
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Quite the opposite. YouTube is funded by ads. Adblockers are choking off that revenue. The alternative is that you pay a fee to watch YouTube, which nobody wants.
Most of the internet runs on paid ads.
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im using SmartTube on my Chromecast stick and it has all the features including Adblock/Sponsorblock :)
maybe it works on Tablets too? give it a try and enjoy yt again
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What do you expect? People tend to forget that Google is an advertisement company first and foremost, everything they do is in service of their core business, namely serving ads!
So it should be of little surprise that they are using their monopoly of chrome-based web browsers to hijack the open web (think: FLoC, Topics API, Manifest V3, and now WEI)
Over 80% of their revenue comes from ads, 10% cloud services, and the measly rest split across whatever hardware/software they do actually create.
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To be fair, I expect nothing less from Google but I expect something from people.
What they do is simply abuse of dominance and it's illegal in EU, and many other places too. They already got many penalties because this before, but this time it's more serious.
Kinda surprised that Youtube ads are only 10% though.
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We haven't been in control of our web browsing for years now.
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Sad truth though not entirely a calamity as long as there is an opposition force out there, yet it's a minority.
Firefox + uBlock Origin + Pi-hole + VPN gives some of the freedom back.
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Meh. I use Google stuff if I need it, mainly email, drive and docs. Don't see myself really stopping using them because of this. Nor will I stop watching YouTube because of unskipable ads. I'm sure people will find a way to bypass this in some way, and if not, tis what it is. Used Firefox not too long ago, but switched to Edge when I got a new PC and Windows 11. So far, no complaints. In fact, it's a much better experince (especially with how easy it is to add certain add-ons compared to Firefox). Maybe I'll try FF again someday, but don't see the point really. I still used it to log into lots of Google shit anyway, and getting personilized ads and such doesn't really bother me. It's like Steam bombarding me with "This game just released!" or "This game is on sale!" pop-ups when I open it. I'll just ignore it.
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Everyone has their own ways to cope with it I guess. I was already scrapping Youtube videos when I need them, or using a frontend if something is kinda urgent. If they won't even let me use frontends, I'll completely turn to scrapping. Only main Google product that doesn't really have a viable alternative yet is Youtube for me which I slowly started using alternatives thanks to some content creators.
Edge is just a Chrome integrated into Windows so I can understand the convenience about it. They are just a tool in the end. However it doesn't feel good to know the fact that the big corporations using you too. Some people don't care about that and I also understand them since they only want things to work. I guess there is a threshold about these issues. Once you pass that, it's not easy to turn back.
Firefox is currently doing pretty good actually. This is not a reason to switch of course but maybe it will be if this continues.
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The thing is, YouTube for example needs ads to, well, function and keep growing. Without that, YouTube wouldn't be YouTube. So, I think it's a fair symbiotic relationship. We consume FREE content, and in turn, Google makes personalized ads for us, that play during the video. I don't see issues with that.
You bring up big corporations using us. But it's not like we aren't getting anything in return for what we give. I already mentioned how we get YouTube videos, for free. It's the same with some websites using ads to bring in revenue so they can pay for their servers and such. Look at SG. This is a completly free website for us to use. So, I don't care about the ads they put. We get to use many things for free but pay with it with our data that's then processed to give us personalized ads. So, as I said, I'm fine with that.
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Ads are fine in a sense, personalized ads are not. They're unethical and creepy. All the big corporations market it like it benefits people while they only incite people's impulses. I'm not opposed to using big data in ads, as long as they're anonymous. "People who bought this, also bought that." it's fine. Creating profiles over this data is creepy, creating personalized profiles over this data is unethical. I mean, isn't this creepy?
Another problem with Google's ads is Google doesn't care about ad content (unless they're too extreme I suppose) so if you buy an ad space, you're golden and can put anything you want. There are literally fraud ads in top of Google Search. "Fraud + personalized ads" doesn't equal to a good thing. Also Google knows too much about us.
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I mean, to be fair, when you get a new, brand PC, of course the browser is going to be much faster. You could have used the slowest browser ever, and still it could have seemed much faster.
The best way to compare, would be to install Firefox now, in you new computer, and see if it's faster than edge
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Meh, speed isn't the only thing that I noticed, nor do I really care for it much tbh. I much more prefer the ease of add-on installing on Edge, compared to FF. So, no real reason to go back to FF given Edge is doing quite well for me. And it also has Bing AI which I find fun to use.
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Everyday, I am learning more and more about FireFox/its Forks/Firefox-based browsers.SO,if things are too much...I'll happily jump the ship eventually.or I will use my existing practice:Chrome for personal use/gaming,Firefox for University and Brave for things that don't fall in either category.
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Using Firefox for university seems kinda unorthodox to me since people I know usually do the other way.
Anyway, Google pushes things too hard nowadays. I guess we'll see how will things go with Firefox, hopefully in favour.
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Firefox comes default with Linux,so What I can continue at home on windows with firefox wherever I left in Uni thanks to Firefox Sync.
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Why does the internet and people keep getting more frustrating :(
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Been a happy Firefox user since '07 but started using Google Suite in '13. I use Chrome as a secondary browser, but I'm honestly thinking of hopping on the Brave train as a secondary.
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Brave folks chose a different way by not using Manifest v3 but I wonder how far they can go once Google pushes all these into Chromium.
Firefox all the way. <3
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It already annoys me google knows what I watch on tv and recommends videos about it on youtube right after, now it wants to nose into how I browser. It's looking more and more like a cyberpunk corporation.
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Years ago there was a joke about Google being Skynet and it doesn't feel like a joke anymore.
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I'm using Brave atm, it's working fine. If however it stops working as desired as a result of chromium changes, I'll jump back to Firefox.
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Brave didn't make the Manifest v3 change though we'll see how long they'll hold up while Google pushing upstream.
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Does feel like they've been playing the long game on this one. Get most people using Chromium browsers in one way or another.
I won't be cutting off all G-services any time soon but I will use a non-chromium browser. I used to use FireFox many many years ago but had issues with memory leaks. Maybe it's time to try them again (Or Opera, hear their browser is pretty good these days)
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It's possible. We're at a point where writing a browser from scratch that meets today's standard is pretty hard and no one wants to go that way, so people used Chromium and built their browsers top off that. Even without other Chromium-based browsers, Chrome holds ~60% usage on desktop.
Opera is also Chromium by the way.
I used to use FireFox many many years ago but had issues with memory leaks.
I assume that's from Firefox 4 times? It's changed a lot since.
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Ah, thanks, was mislead by a search. Yeah, pretty sure it's been over a decade by now, so I'm sure lots has changed since then, heh.
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No problem. Original Opera developer quit around 2011-2012 so Opera isn't the same Opera from those days. He then made Vivaldi.
Later Opera was sold to a Chinese company, today's Opera is Chromium-based since. On the other hand, Vivaldi is also Chromium-based.
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Most interesting that you link to a post made by the Vivaldi team. That is the exact browser I started using well over a year ago when I decided you stop using Google products and it's a great piece of software.
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Because it's Chromium-based? :)
Vivaldi is the true successor to the old Opera, though it's also Chromium-based. However Vivaldi Team is not happy with what Google does with Chromium code. They care about user privacy, but it's still Chrome.
Maybe this time, these news encourage them to write their own code-base.
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Added a new FSF article to the OP. Also changed the title for more visibility.
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been a while since i started degoogling everything. why stop there though? facebook, microsoft, twitter, discord, are all just as evil.
started using lineageos with microg on my android phone, which also allows me to get all the latest security updates that my phone wouldn't get otherwise
ditched windows almost entirely - have a ssd with it still installed in the rare occasion i need something that linux can't run
and reading the comments here, it seems that there's a common belief that they make their money solely off of advertising... they don't, your data is way more valuable than any of the advertising in the world, and it's currently being freely sold to the highest bidder.
don't believe me? this is from 2018 - https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-sells-future-powered-your-personal-data-n870501
oh, and "anonymous data collection" is a meme, don't be fooled.
here's an interesting site as well - https://tosdr.org/ - imagine what they do that's not in their terms of service :) steam is a nice one to check as well
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"been a while since i started degoogling everything. why stop there though? facebook, microsoft, twitter, discord, are all just as evil."
How do you keep in touch with people? If you ask an average person to install a privacy-oriented app for contacting them they will not bother. None. Shit I meet tech-savvy people all the time and they can care even less than normies about privacy.
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luckily i have a couple of friends who care enough about me as to install xmpp to contact me. but i've never had many friends in the first place, and honestly i'd rather not have friends who can't give up some of their "convenience" as a one-time thing. maybe i'm speaking for myself exclusively, but i usually do much more than that for the people i care about.
so, i don't have an answer to that aside from this. try to convince them. if it fails, maybe it wasn't worth it in the first place.
if you mean like, meeting a new person irl and keeping in touch... texting is not ideal, but it still works i suppose? if anything, as a means to chat about an alternative
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It's nice to see a fellow degoogler here. I generally use degoogle as "de-corpo" as well.
Not everyone's needs are the same of course but I'm happily only using Linux for everything since the beginning of pandemic (I'm not counting the Win7 in my VM because its sole purpose is to send music to my iPod). I guess we're in the same situation more or less.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-sells-future-powered-your-personal-data-n870501
Thanks for the spotlight for this article. In theory "anonymous data collection" isn't inherently a bad thing, in fact it can be useful on so many field. In reality, almost no one gathers data anonymously.
Thanks for tosdr as well. Bookmarked.
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you're welcome :) always happy to spread good info!
and yeah, i understand the needs thing... while using windows, i struggled to be a "power user" because of all the restrictions microsoft would impose on me. it lacks any way of being able to be "in control" of your system. their user experience is built for one purpose, to be simple and easy to understand. unfortunately, it ends up being more difficult than it should. this, along with awful performance issues, even after disabling telemetry altogether. as an aside, it's amazing how microsoft essentially forces you to have to script that via powershell. and if you don't know the ins and outs, you have to rely on a third party for it. apparently they don't care about user experience, nor safety, as they seem to claim...
and what "power user" meant, is actually not that advanced. no programming or any of the sort. i just wanted some extra configurabilty, which they outright do not allow for unless you actively tinker with the registry and thereabouts.
surprisingly, linux just works flawlessly. maybe it's the distro that i picked - a fork of fedora - that makes a difference. i've been using it for around a month now (?), and i really can't fault it. the user experience is so much better compared to windows, windows felt so sluggish and bloated that i always had to reboot it for it to stop being like that - killing all the memory hogging processes wasn't enough. the thing is windows uses tons of resources, even without the telemetry. linux has its bugs, namely graphics driver related, but i've been running it pretty well, minor hiccups sometimes but nothing at all major.
so, all in all, i can't say i'm experienced in this field, i've been using windows all my life and i know it really well - the amount of third party programs you had to install to have certain functionalities, whereas this distro has almost everything i could want out of the box. it's really night and day, and i just regret not having moved earlier.
i'm still getting used to it, but i'm already addicted and i can't wait to learn more. my bout with debian was the complete opposite, lol...
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When I tell people Windows caused me much more problems than Linux ever was, they usually don't believe me but it's more like people just got used to ignore those problems. If you don't tinker anything, using Windows is probably fine for a normal person. However the thing is, I believe even the most normal Windows user had to do something with cmd at least at one point. For tinkering, Windows is hell.
On the other hand, if you are being patient and take your time to read man pages, Linux is quite straightforward. And the fact that everything is a file in Unix-like systems makes everything much better. On Windows, registry is a bunch of non-human-readable values. You cannot do anything yourself without a guide. On Linux, most of the system settings files are human-readable and even if you don't know what to do with them, it's much easier and understandable to follow a guide.
It seems it's the year of the Linux desktop for you. :)
the amount of third party programs you had to install
The worst thing about this, most of the time Windows already has that function yet you need a third-party program to be able to use it.
Well, Debian is top-notch but for servers or if you don't require updated programs. Gamers cannot do with Debian. Even Valve switched to Arch for SteamOS (previously it was Debian and they probably chose it for its stability I reckon). FedoraNobara? is a nice choice by the way, since it's cutting edge. :)
Happy computing. <3
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thank you! :)
yep, debian is quite stable. the use case i have for it is, indeed, a server from old parts i had. it wasn't a pleasant first experience, but ultimately it was a good "crash course" for me (emphasis on crash) and that knowledge is invaluable now
and you got the distro right :)
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I'd like to share some links for the privacy mind:
https://www.privacytools.io/
https://www.linuxlinks.com/best-free-open-source-alternatives-google-products-services/
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PrivacyGuides made quite a drama last year though:
https://www.privacytools.io/guides/jonah-aragon-privacyguides-failed-attempt-to-takeover
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Thanks for the blog post. I knew about the drama but never knew why all that happened suddenly, now I know and it totally makes sense.
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As an Indonesian, u/BurungHantu disappearance from r/PrivacyToolsIO for one year as head mod (2020 - 2021), then when other mods want to retake the sub due to his inactivity, he reappeared and make dramas by locking the privacytools.io website and source of incomes. And after his activity of the drama (managed to do 300+ comments in the span of two months, mostly 200+ words) one and half years ago, his lack of activities (100 for one and a half years, less than 100 words + spamming link post to other subreddit) is highly suspect while all other mods on PrivacyGuides still active in lemmy lemmy.one and discord PrivacyGuides.
Take notes that u/BurungHantu is not the head mod on r/PrivacyToolsIO as reddit admin sided with PrivacyGuides team.
His behavior made me don't want to trust anything regardless of privacytools.io.
Take notes that deleted comments are u/BurungHantu alts trying to attack PrivacyGuides current team.
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/qk7qrj/a_new_era_why_rptio_is_now_a_restricted_sub/
https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/pnhn4a/rprivacyguides_privacyguidesorg_what_you_need_to/
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Thank you, it's interesting to take different views from both parties.
My motto is always take thing with a grain of salt.
IMHO, the tools at privacytools.io are really good.
Bear in mind that I only consider open source tools, so this is my bias.
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Bump for added a blogpost about the whole thing as an easy read. It's under Edit V.
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Seeing these 1 2 news for a couple days now and obviously Google's trying to kill open web with this implementation. DRM on web means basically no alteration from user side. Like, if you're using adblock, they can deny your access completely. More like this will affect all browser extensions. Even more terrifyingly if your browser is not trusted by this API you won't be able to use that site. Firstly this will baked into Chromium based browsers. secondly all Google services and lastly any website that uses Google's code-base.
All these started with Manifest v3 and Google is fortifying their business, which is personalized ads. From "Don't be evil" to "How can we be more evil?". Sad.
What do you think about this?
Edit V: I came upon a post that runs through the whole thing and it's kinda written for non-tech savvy people in mind so hopefully this will reach more people. It's also a good summary of all things related to this, recommending it for everyone.
https://grafcube.codeberg.page/blog/2023/08/06/web-drm-api.html
Edit I: Google employee responded to the negative feedback.
It looks like they're explaining it as if it's the perfect thing to do for open web, except that it's the opposite.
Edit II: A new FSF article has dropped: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/web-environment-integrity-is-an-all-out-attack-on-the-free-internet
I recommend everyone to read it to see how serious is this.
Edit III: An article about Google employee's respond.
Edit IV: Another article about the whole issue.
Edit VI: Google partially cancelled WEI >> https://9to5google.com/2023/11/02/google-chrome-web-integrity-api/.
However they are still going to integrate it into Android WebView.
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