Mozilla opposes Web Integrity API proposal

Mozilla is such a treasure.

We must plunder the treasure so no one else can have it!
Oh, wait
The treasure is being bankrolled by google, so I mean it’s someone’s Treasure that’s for sure.

If only Firefox would have a bigger userbase. I still use it, but the vast majority of people is on Chromium.

I switched this week.
- I'm switching today. Right now. Because of this post.
  ^^maybe
  EDIT: okay. I think I've done it. I'm currently editing this comment from Firefox. I already had Firefox installed. But now I have pinned it to my taskbar. I went to import my bookmarks from chrome, and found that I also had the option of importing other stuff from chrome, too (bookmarks, passwords, history and autofill data). That's sweet. My bookmark bar has the same bookmarks in the same position. I also installed ublock origin, like someone recommended. And I am going to give it a go. If it all goes smoothly, I will unpin Chrome from the taskbar.
  Thanks everyone for the encouragement!
- same!
Firefox is awesome now. It was great, then it lost out a bit to chrome, but it’s back to being awesome. If anyone’s reading this and isn’t using Firefox, please switch!
And importantly, their import mechanisms are great. A typical user can switch with basically no effort. Next time they ask you for help, switch your parents too, and your siblings, and that neighbour who keeps referring to the internet as “the google”. Set them up with Firefox and ublock origin and they’ll be set.
- it's back to being awesome
  What changed?
- it's back to being awesome
  What changed?
I use firefox as my sidearm browser on my work computer, but I literally just made it the default on my personal computer
I'd solely use Firefox if jetbrains had better JS debugging support for it.
So for now I use edge for that at work.
Also I really like the tab sleep and vertical tabs features on Edge.
But everything is Firefox on my personal machines

People's willingness to seize every opportunity and monetize everything that was once free and open is truly shocking. Every day when I read about another dogshit attempt to make the internet as a whole a worse place, I'm not even supprised anymore

In our society it's literally stupid NOT to do these things. If you got rich doing it you "won." Fuck the general population, fuck "good" things, fuck literally everything, C.R.E.A.M.
I hate it so much.
- Whats C.R.E.A.M.?
- People need to be paid for their efforts. If you’re not going to pay them, who is? Advertiser are.
"People's" willingness? That's rich, it seems you forgot who actually has the capital and power to put this nonsense into place. The people don't have a say in this matter, even if they'd get loud. The only way to end this and ensure software freedom is to end the thing that is in the way, capitalism.

The fact that this is even remotely controversial is stunning. Like does google not understand its not just home users that use adblock, but also businesses as well? Because google is so fucking bad they don’t understand there are viruses in their fucking ads. If this shit goes through, you think anyone’s dumb enough to believe google will be on top of the virus shit? Fuck off google

ya, using the internet without an adblocker is a security risk because Google enables scams across its services.
How about they learn to clean house first before shitting on the internet lol.
incompetent company will do incompetent things.
- I think the FBI recommends the use of ad blockers for personal safety, let me find that link real quick...
  Edit: FOUND IT, Third point under "Tips to Protect Yourself"
- More like money hungry company will do money hungry things
Ad blockers are more important to security than virus checkers.
You really think they don't exactly know what they are doing?
They are an ad and data company, you blocking anything isn't something they want to make possible.

It’s unfortunate that so many people use Chrome. Google has control over the internet that no single company should hold.

Same as with IE in the past. A little better with most of the source being open but not much. I wonder how we could solve this issue since people obviously don't care.
It's like IE in the 90s/early 2000s all over.
"It's in our interest to make the Internet better and without competition we have stagnation". From the Google Chrome comic book.
Example Firefox: As it is Google is funding Mozilla to make it seem that there is competition. I don't know if I want firefox to get bigger just enough so Google cuts their funding and it disappears. If so many people want to use spyware let them, so we can have the goodies.
- Google pays to be the default search engine in Firefox.
  The larger Firefox gets, the less Google is going to want that default search to be anybody OTHER than them.
slowly switching to firefox here
Being fair to Chrome (which I hate doing but there is a point), they got in when more tech-people online saw them as pushing so many things forward. Was functionally faster than IE for sure, but also Firefox got stuck on their 4.0 limbo and being heavy in memory usage. Though I think the issue with memory usage also came from having almost a decade of so many extensions. Chrome was also slightly simpler than Firefox (imo even though my primary browser is and has been since before 1.5). Pair that with Google also then becoming the only (in market share) real competition to Apple's ecosystem on Smartphones.
The best way to start taking down Chrome's massive control over web standards is to do the same things as when IE was the default name people knew. Start using Firefox and get others to try it again or for the first time. Since so many people would trick their parents into using Chrome by changing the name and icon to IE. Most older folks kind of don't even notice, and just think and "update" changed the look a bit. But as long as it works, they will just use it. In fact this can apply to a lot of the general public in actually scary ways. Back in the day with IE and those stacks and stacks of toolbars that I saw on almost every PC I worked on for people. I would just start removing them while they told me about why they were in (which was often caused by but not seen as to them as the issue). They would see me just OCD getting rid of them and would be shocked, and I do truly mean shocked, that those things weren't just "part of the browser and never questioned them being there."
Now that Chrome and Chromium are the main browser and browser base. I see soooo many BS Chromium browsers just get installed via the same kinds of tactics as the old toolbars. Even set themselves to both launch at every reboot, set themselves to always be able to run in the background, AND set themselves as the system default browser. Sometimes there may be multiple all doing the same things, but also have been made into desktop toolbars/docks of sorts. And that same shit is done by the super annoying ones skinned by the AV companies (AVG, Avast, CCleaner, and now even mainline Norton). And the person just thinks they are just part of Windows, but they only even came in because they "started having issues with wifi" or even a broken Windows update that wasn't related.
That shit should really really get more attention in general. With so many fake things just being ignored, it means that the mass public will just never know or care about Google turning the internet into whatever it wants. Just not even know that they had actual options before they are removed. If it wouldn't piss off the massive amount of companies that do ad business with Google. I wouldn't be shocked if they turned ad blocking into a "premium feature" to subscribe to monthly.
I personally install Firefox as the non-Edge option when setting up someone's new PC (so long as they didn't specify Chrome) so they might at least try it. I never set it as the default, and will remove it if they want it gone when picking up the PC. Also do try to let some of them that ask about Chrome know that Edge is 100% compatible for their sites that mention Chrome. Which they at least then tend to be like "oh, well then I guess don't worry about installing Chrome then." No real pressure is put on them, just information, though Microsoft is making it hard with all the wild "HEY TRY THIS FEATURE!" pop-ups and that damn pointless desktop search bar.

I can't believe I'm witnessing the death of the internet, at least it isn't going quietly into the night.

The web is not the whole internet. Plus isn't you being here prove that the internet is resilient?
- Even if Lemmy does fight it and doesn't accept the fingerprinting bullshit, how many other websites are going to do that? We're just a link aggregator at the end of the day, I feel like all of the most important parts of the Internet are no longer going to be open.
The vast majority of people will not care about or even be aware of this. They'll support it because they just want to watch their Netflix or YouTube. Things will continue on as normal, but with more ads and less end-user control.
- It'll be a problem when people are effectively banned from the internet.

As a Linux user this has got me very worried. Chromium has so much market share that this change will certainly go through, and I feel like Safari won't care as it benefits them and their ecosystem to have device checks. I feel like Firefox and non standard OSes will almost certainly be blocked on a large range of websites with little impact on total users, not to mention completely blocking ad block and anti-tracking clients.

I think eventually regulators in the US will file an antitrust lawsuit and break chromium off of Google if this actually happens, but until then Fediverse/FOSS and personal websites are going to be the only places untouched by this.

I don't think our politicians will do anything but protect big business, personally.
Safari won't care as it benefits them and their ecosystem to have device checks.
Apparently Apple already rolled it out in a previous update, they just didn't call any attention to it.
I just hope that google won't try to lobby for this API like disney does for copyright changes
- They won't need too. Chrome is the standard.

good stuff, glad to see this opposition.

Also slightly related, but I'd absolutely hate if I were an employee having to work on this project and having my name attached to this. Quite embarrassing for all those involved.

wiping_tears_with_money.gif
welp, who isnt on firefox might want to start using it now.
It's a little slower and a little more broken and a little less compatible, but its not google's.
- Firefox Has Outperformed Chrome In Speed For The Very First Time
- It's not slower, and the rare incompatibilities can be solved by changing the user agent, which shows it's artificial.
- In my experience, Firefox is as fast as Chromium and extremely stable. What are the extensions you are using? Perhaps one of them is causing the instability you're mentioning.

This is why we need Mozilla.

Firefox is all I run these days.

Ffs everyone is a firefox main, how does chrome have 62% market share is a mystery
- I would assume enterprise is a huge chunk

Google already rolled out AMP which is overtly hostile to an open internet and faced zero repercussions from it. The same will be true for this. The average person has no idea what this means, doesn't care, and won't be bothered by it. Politicians always side with big business.

I'm hoping the average user will be sufficient annoyed by the lack of adblocking to finally give a shit.
- Average users view the web raw, this will go totally unnoticed by >90% of users. If web-drm becomes a thing then it will be easy enough to block those sites and add them to the list of media that is morally acceptable to pirate.
- The most valuable sites are already advertisement free. Anyone remaining who implements this standard just reduces their viewers. People will do without or other sites will offer an alternative. The tech is doomed to fail because the consumer is always right.
Politicians always side with big business.
That's not true at all as far as EU tech company regulations are concerned. Examples: laws for GDPR, right to repair, consolidated charging ports, minimum size & pricing roof on roaming data - and related fines for disobeying them.
- There is a German ARD Video about Open Source. The EU Parlament is big in with Microsoft products and don't want to change because they are idiots.

I'm doing my part using Firefox. I've always liked it over Chrome and I don't like the sign into Google BS.

I'm still salty that they implemented video DRM (for Netflix, Amazon, etc.), but at least they're standing against this bullshit.

I think we need to try to get Firefox's user base up fast (and the user base for other browsers that are ultimately controlled by non-profits) - if non-commercial browsers dominate or even have 30+% market share, if they say no to something bad for users and the open web, it doesn't happen. While non-commercial browsers are a small minority, if they say no, services that work everywhere else follow Google / Apple and consider breaking Firefox acceptable collateral damage, and then Firefox etc... becomes an ever smaller minority, so they get forced into things like this.
The trouble is FAANG get advantage by posing an insidious threat - they treat users well when they are trying to gain market share, and invest heavily and maybe briefly offer a superior user respecting product. But when they get the market share to give them the leverage, the switch part of bait-and-switch comes out, and we see them try to take down the open web to cement their position against the non-profits, and make their browsers inferior for users to bump up revenue (enshitification, to borrow a term from Cory Doctorow).
- Alright you have convinced this internet stranger to switch
Without video DRM those services don't work at all. It was necessary to keep users.
- Without video DRM those services don’t work at all.
  (x)
I am a pirate myself but they have to implement video DRM since the content is technically their's and you are just allowed to view it as long as you are subscribed to them, and they don't want their content to be stolen (which they can't stop btw).
- The content's copyright is technically owned by the copyright holders, not Google.
  Copying isn't theft. Nothing is removed from the servers; YouTube still has its copy. Calling it "stealing" is biased loaded language.
- Funny how webrips still exist literally everywhere. They built a 10 foot wall, so someone else just built an 11 foot ladder.

Firefox is ❤️‍

IMHO we have several really big problems with the web as it is today, which are intertwined:

The web (standards) is by far too complicated. If even Microsoft doesn't have (or isn't willing) to provide the resources to implement a browser, there are not many players left with the resources and the motivation
Google Chrome and Safari are the only game in town. (My main browser is Firefox, but seriously, we have such a small market share that nobody gives a damn)
Most people/governments/companies don't care or don't understand the problem of the mono culture for browsers
The value of the web is everything which is already on the web and that one can access anything with the browser - for this reason, we can only grow in the direction of more complicated while keeping backwards compatibility
Besides lip-service to the contrary, our politicians want to control communication and supervise their citizens, so for politicians it is better to have a browser controlled by a company like Google, than a really free web

Given how fundamental important the web is for modern human basic infrastructure, we (as a society) should find a better way to protect our infrastructure, freedom of speech and basic freedoms.

Besides lip-service to the contrary, our politicians want to control communication and supervise their citizens, so for politicians it is better to have a browser controlled by a company like Google, than a really free web
I got downvoted to hell for being against a centralized authority in other threads. Good to see I'm not the only "paranoid and crazy" one.

What is the web integrity API?

Basically drm for your browser
Fuck that though
- this is the most batshit insane proposal... I hope nobody supports it
- Notice they are DRMing text and computer code, WSJ and malware brokers are gonna really happy, everyone else had their DRM fix with multimedia
- and what kinda of thing does this protect?
Some fucking greedy cunts at Google having a vision of internet being accessible only by "approved"(Chrome) browsers/clients.
- They want to approve the whole environment, including os, even if virtualized or not
Orwellian doublespeak for DRMing and paywalling the web.
A system for websites to request a proof of the "integrity" of a user's browser and underlying OS/hardware, and "attesters" to check this "integrity" and provide the proof. If that sounds vague, that's because it is. What "integrity" means is for the "attester" to decide.
Google would of course be one of the major "attesters", and could just deny the proof if you installed an ad blocker or VPN for example. In this case you would likely not be able to access the website anymore, because your device is deemed as "untrustworthy".
So it's a way for big companies to decide who can still use big parts of the internet and who can't, based on whether it would make them money.
- every day that passes we are closer to the day using TOR is not an option.
V3 manifest got too much bad press so they had to hinder it's ability to gimp ad block.
So now their trying another approach, this time they will probably develop and push this proposal out, and have multiple adopters before anyone can do anything about it. See also: WebHID.
It's an API for web integrity. Thank me later
- can you explain this further? what does this integrate that's not yet integrated in web?

I don't think OP had any nefarious purpose in it, but this title is ridiculous doublspeak. Google might have a vested interest in trying to bullshit us about this being about "web integrity," but that doesn't mean we have to accept its dishonest framing!

I don't follow.
The first line of the comment is: "Mozilla opposes this proposal because it contradicts our principles and vision for the Web."
And the proposal is called: "Web Environment Integrity API"

Thankful for Mozilla, seriously!

Fuck yes, get fucked Google !

would likely obstruct many existing uses of the Web such as ... and archiving & search engine spiders.

Well, it's not like Google can benefit from controlling which search engines could send their crawlers to websites, right?

This is exactly why we need Mozilla, this is kind of stuff what makes them the default in the open source community.

They definitely are reference!

thats like an ant trying to punch out a bear, mozillas voice has lost its true power over a decade ago sadly

Even almost literally a decade ago, they already lost a battle that was exactly the same as this, when they made a decision about W3C EME in 2014:
I know of people recommending Chrome (not Chromium) because it has Flash Player natively incorporated, so you no longer have to install it separately.
This serves to prove that the majority of users doesn’t know about either the technical or ethical differences in the software they are using.You may also think of the pirated software the are using,but this is a different matter. Ignoring this marketshare goes against Mozilla’s idea of a web available to everyone, not to mention that Firefox is no longer the most used browser as it used to be a a few years ago and it is therefore forced to comply with this kind of requests.
This will end exactly like it did back then.
- hell, i even forgot this happened

This has already happened in the past, and it will unfortunately end exactly like it did before.

It's going to end up exactly like it did with WC3 EME, as mentioned in the 2014 article mentioned few comments after the one you linked. This quote from the article sums it up perfecly:

I know of people recommending Chrome (not Chromium) because it has Flash Player natively incorporated, so you no longer have to install it separately.
This serves to prove that the majority of users doesn’t know about either the technical or ethical differences in the software they are using.You may also think of the pirated software the are using,but this is a different matter. Ignoring this marketshare goes against Mozilla’s idea of a web available to everyone, not to mention that Firefox is no longer the most used browser as it used to be a a few years ago and it is therefore forced to comply with this kind of requests.

Thank you for posting this. I've read five or six descriptions of the issues with Google's proposal by now and this was the first one that was clear, concise, and not riddled with histrionics.

What I find funny is that Ben or one of his few colleagues that helped write the draft closed the Github page over the weekend because of pressure and promises to open it back on monday or something.

Well seems like that is not going to happen now.

Anyone care to ELI5 this for me? This seems like a big deal but I have no idea what it means lol.

Google wants to introduce a new standard for the web that will DRM/SafetyNet the entire web
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/

Fuck those scummy green bastards!

Chad

I've worked for a large hospital, a very large bank and now a very large company and it's all RHEL.

Note I also worked at Red Hat in suport for 6 years, trying to be transparent, but I've sadly never seen any other Linux distro in a business aspect.

Firefox Nightly 💙

LB: Que bom que a Mozilla se opõe a essa ideia de jerico do Google.

A galera precisa parar de usar o Chrome e navegadores baseados no Chromium para não dar moral ao Google, que fica achando que pode transformar a internet num jardim murado dele para mostrar anúncios, usar rastreadores e raspar dados para o Bard (IA deles).