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.
K, I’m still not using Google search engine anymore. And once I find a replacement for any other Google services and devices I have, it’s out with those as well.
Both leaving reddit and leaving google s.e. were two things that I thought would be harder than they were.
Just need to install Linux as your primary OS and your transition to software freedom will be complete.
Doing so on the desktop is easy enough. Getting rid of Android appears to be a much harder challenge, though.
I can reccommend graphene os however u need a pixel for that
Lemmy has a hate boner for Apple but iOS is dope
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Heaps better when it comes to data collection and privacy, if you’re concerned about that.
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I use it for work but at home with gaming and stuff it’s just not sustainable
Proton keeps getting better and better. I long for the day when I can ditch windows completely and it might not be too far away.
If by “not too far away” you mean “5+ years ago,” then sure. That’s how long I’ve been gaming Linux-only, anyway.
Is it possible to mod Bethesda games on Linux?
Yes, I’ve done it myself following some tutorials online for Skyrim SE. It’s not as simple as on Windows but it’s definitely possible.
How’s Factorio on Linux?
If I can play that I’ll move.
it’s native since inception, i believe
prolly even runs better than on windows, although it doesn’t really matter since it’s so freaking optimized
It works perfectly fine for me.
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I still worry that leaving Reddit is going to make it tilt to the right. I spent a decade posting there in the hopes that it would nudge people towards sanity.
I think it probably already is somewhat, but there comes a point where trying to change the system from within becomes futile and complicit.
I’d rather be out here making a better place.
leaving reddit is easy leaving google is pretty damn difficult
The hard part is the cost difference (I haven’t looked terribly deeply yet) Family Proton (3TB) is 395 AUD (when you sign up for 2 years)
2 TB, 125 AUD per year for google drive, and it’s per year.
Pro-rata that’s literally twice as expensive, and you have to sign up for 2 years to get that rate, which makes moving my stuff a hard pill to swallow :(
Is there a plug and play service that’s as good as proton without the hefty premium?
(The single plans are even more steep, 24 months, 158 AUD per year for only 500 GB…)
This is something I wrote in another thread earlier but it’s relevant here too
A security guy popular in the internet, Ollam, recently left Delta’s program because they are changing it to be more pay to play vs miles traveled or something. Delta walked it back but he’s sticking to his guns. In his rant, he said something poignant. Something to the effect of “if your significant other raises their hand like they’re gonna hit you, but they don’t? The time to leave is now.” (Video)
(Quote)
Honestly. Off the back of this debacle I switched to Firefox and duckduckgo. Previously I used to use the shit out of incognito because I hated that when I searched for something once that I then get that thing popping up everywhere else in ads etc. Since the switch I no longer get the feeling of being stalked.
NoScript helps a lot, too. I suppose other extensions also. It’s horrifying how many sites embed Google and Facebook tracking, including ones that really shouldn’t like medical sites and banks.
DuckDuckGo has an extension that blocks trackers.
My concern is saving my email and photos before my account is randomly banned one day with no customer service and no recourse. God only knows what data they already harvested from when I used to back up my photos with their service.
On the topic of this, what is the best alternative out there? A few years ago I’ve tried a couple options, out of curiosity, but the search quality was super poor for anything that’s not in English, and the accuracy of found content wasn’t always there
I reckon Kagi is the best search engine out there. It’s paid though. Second I’d have Qwant followed by DDG.
They’re just starting it smaller scale. Within a year it’ll be pushed out to everyone broadly.
This is literally going to be what they did for FLoC. Basically release it as topics.
Google absolutely cannot stop tracking everyone at this point. I’m pretty sure they’ve put the entire house on the bet to track people more and do everything to ensure that Google Chrome tracks every aspect of your web browsing experience.
So while WEI is dead, I think Google’s boat is so far out to sea now that it’s either try this again a bit more gently or watch the ship sink. Everyone said FLoC was dead and they absolutely put it into the web browser with Topics. Nothing convinces me this is any different, they are absolutely going to, and I dare say have an existential need to, put this shit in everyone’s browser.
They get the permissions for the little thing that is worded vaguely enough to them funnel people into the larger thing
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.
Chrome market share actually has been declining on desktops since this spring. Could be a factor
From now on, the only browser I’m installing is Firefox.
Can you actually stop using chrome on android? Because every link I click it opens in their webview app which is chrome
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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)
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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This should never be left up to Chrome. We need antitrust laws.
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.
…yet.
Yeah gotta wait for the heat on this antitrust probe to die down before doing the dirty.
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
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? 🤔
Yes.
Moving it to WebView just makes it a Trojan horse for the rest of the web.
“We’ve decided not to pursue Web Integrity API.”
“Oh great! But what’s that giant thing under the tarp behind you”
“Oh don’t worry…”
we already have play integrity and now we have this webview attestation now?
