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| title | description | thumbnail | date | draft | rss_ignore |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| You seem to be using Chrome or a Chromium derivative... | ...and I'm here to tell you to stop! Google's actively trying to monopolize and undermine the open internet. | blinky.png | 2023-08-09T14:23:48+02:00 | false | true |
Update 2 nov 2023
The WEI repository has been archived and its README file now says they've scrapped the idea and started working on some other DRM-like idea but that's confined to the Android WebView on devices with Google's services. Read more about it here. I'm still not sure if I will be removing this Chrome block page yet.
Google's new Web Enviromnent Integrity API proposal (and ongoing implementation) is a serious threat to the open internet. It's described as a way to verify the validity and trustworthiness of a client when connecting to a website, but what this really means that it's pretty much a DRM for the web since Google could take advantage of it by making popular websites adopt the API and forcing users of these websites to use Chrome and selected operating systems. This also means that they're gonna force users to suffer the Manifest v3 changes that stand in the way of the effectiveness of ad blockers and get more advanced tracking with a rate limiting of physical devices feature as described in the proposal.
Google Chrome retains around 66% of the global web browser market, Google also has some of the most popular online platforms like their search engine, YouTube, AdSense, Maps, Gmail, Android and even the open source Chromium browser used as a base by many browsers such as Edge, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi, which means that any significant change that Google does to Chromium could end up downstream to these forks as well. There's also Electron-based applications that could be affected since it's essentially Chromium. By keeping to use their products, you're encouraging them to tyrannize the internet, a place that should be platform agnostic and encourage free exchange of ideas and creations. I don't mean to offend, I'm just saying you should seriously consider switching to the many alternatives so that you don't contribute to Google's monopoly.
There has to be a significant pushback for them to revert on the decision (luckily many major browser makers have publicly opposed to WEI), or at least to pretend to revert since part of the reason they're doing this is to reimplement FLoC but in a more subtle way (edit 19 Oct. 2023: that's what they actually did) with the usual excuse of "ensuring users' security." This is how evil they are.
Here's some articles and videos to learn more about WEI:
- Ars Technica: Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web
- Defective by Design: "Web Environment Integrity" is an all-out attack on the free Internet
- It's FOSS: Google's New Web Environment Integrity Proposal Dismissed by Brave, Mozilla, and Vivaldi
- Brodie Robertson (YT): Google's Web Environment Integrity Will Destroy The Web
- Louis Rossmann (YT): Google's trying to DRM the internet, and we have to make sure they fail
- Switched to Linux (YT): Google's Web DRM Proposal?
Yeah, okay, can you leave me alone?
Disable Javascript (it's used for a lot of garbage anyway), spoof your user agent or switch to another browser, my recommendations are LibreWolf on desktop and IceRaven on Android, although plain Firefox, other derivatives or other browsers should be fine too.
I'm sorry, but I'll keep being annoying to Chrome/Chromium users like you until Google backs down with the proposal or maybe I'll just keep doing this even further into the future, depends on my mood. If the proposal were to go through, you should start to get used to sites blocking your browser like this, user agent spoofing won't help you then.