Your choice of browser matters — Google’s Web DRM and the open internet
https://grafcube.codeberg.page/blog/2023/08/06/web-drm-api.html
I wrote this blog post to inform the people I know who aren’t as tech savvy or otherwise don’t put any thought into their choice of browser. Another goal is to help get enough awareness on the topic and make sure it fails.
@opensource @privacy #webintegrityapi #WEI #google #mozilla #chrome #firefox #chromium #foss #opensource #OpenWeb #privacy #drm #nodrm #drmfree #freesoftware #browser
@grafcube it’s very important to push back against google’s browser hegenomy just like we did back in the day with microsoft because now it’s not just about one company controllin the software to access the majority of the web but the privacy of it.
“Sure, Chromiums code is available and you can modify and redistribute it. But if you want to send your changes to the main project so that more people may benefit from it, it is ultimately Google’s decision. This is the problem with projects that are not community-run.”
Google is asshole. This shows than NOT all open source codes are free as in freedom. Stallman is right.
Excellent write up. Thank you for doing this, I’ll share with my whole family and friends.
@grafcube @opensource @privacy So mostly, I agree with what you said, but except the things you got wrong, which I already, mentioned there some other things I wanted to say: You critized Brave for including it’s crypto stuff, which is fair, but you said it like it would make it less trustworthy or bad for privacy which isn’t true, also u just can disable it and it has also the posetive effect that people who like this crypto stuff, start using a privacy respecting browser instead of the others
@grafcube @opensource @privacy Which I also wanted to say, the only Ads Brave allow are Ads in Search Results as far ik, I never seen any other ads so far while using Brave on Android (on Desktop I have uBO on top), you also said that Firefox has the superior Fingerprinting Protections which isn’t rly true, Brave’s approach to defend fingerprinting by randomization (giving every website a unique fingerprint every new session, etc.) is pretty effective. While Vivaldi has almost no fingepriting1/2
@grafcube @opensource @privacy 2/2 protections which make it a lot weaker compared too Brave. I wouldn’t never recommend Vilvadi over Brave, if it’s about privacy.
I have been using Firefox since the release of Firefox 57 aka Firefox Quantum in 2017. I love the browser and most of sites run well in firefox. But there have been a few cases where I had to use a chromium based browser.
Firefox + Ublock origin is a great and awesome combo.
I also use Firefox on android. It is okay, but I sometimes feel it is slow at loading some sites. But it is not a big deal.
Oh, also Firefox is the only mainstream browser on Android that supports installing extensions.
This. I switched to Firefox on Android, because of extensions. At the same time I switched to Firefox on Windows. And I never looked back. The only problem I have is native support for PWA on Firefox for desktops (we can add support with 3rd party app), and backgorund notifications doesn’t work on PWAs on Firefox for Android
Weird , I have been using ff , twitter pwa for years and notifs work for me , although i voluntarily disabled notifs now !
Hm… It doesn’t work for me on my own app, where notifications are main part of the app. It does work on Chrome for Android and on both Chrome and Firefox on Windows, but on Firefox I never received a single notitication. And all notifications are enabled. I will try to remove and add PWA in firefox again and we will see. Is there some PWA app where I can test if notitications are working? I am not using Twitter.
There is a telegram pwa i think but i use the open source app for that !
I could never browse the internet without mobile firefox and ublock origin.
@grafcube @opensource @privacy I will make some comments to it, when I finished reading. I just want to say u already got some points wrong, Brave plans to continue supporting MV2 too, same for Vivaldi as far ik. Also DuckDuckGo’s Browser are not chromium based too, they use the Systems Webview.
Edit: removed the info that Brave will not support WEI, since it got later mentioned in the blog post
The WebView on Android at least is Chromium based though, but I agree its probably best to make that distinction.
True, that’s why its probably good for a distinction to be made, I agree.
Also its breaking sites left , right and center ! Things load on ff much better
What is the Systems Webview?
So you mean DuckDuckGo is just using the default browser engine?
Windows is probably using Edge/Chromium Mac OS is using WebKit.
That what you mean? I only found an Android app of a browser engine called System Engine.
@hevov No, It’s using the Webview Implemantion of the OS, which is different than a OS based on chromium. Since it’s function differently, probaly is based on Chromium, but is more like a fork of it. Windows has Edge Webview2 (Which isn’t that much related to it), Android has Android Webview or Chrome if Webview isn’t installed, you can also install alternative Webviews on Android. About iOS and MacOS, I don’t rly know. They have probaly smth with webkit.
Good article actually! I think non-tech-savvy people will also appreciate some kind of TL;DR
Edit: didn’t know Codeberg can host static sites, definitely migrating mine there from Guthib!
@grafcube @opensource @privacy
> But why do you use Chrome?
I can tell why I do. I used to use Firefox but had to move to Chromium long time ago for several reasons:
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It was nicer on RAM on a very small machine I had at the time. I think Firefox got better in that sense since then.
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Many web apps don’t work quite well (or don’t work at all) on anything but Chrome. That’s a sin many lazy web developers make, and it forces their choice on the users.
The first point is no longer true. The second point is, sadly, quite relevant.
After using Firefox for 20 years, aside of maybe 3 times I never had any problems. So I can’t confirm the second point at all
To the second point, as a avid firefox user, I noticed that some Webapps seem to not depend on the Browser alone.
Even in safe mode, some Webapps sometimes work better on different systems than on others using the same Firefox version.
For instance youtube streaming seem to work better on my Linux laptop then on my Windows desktop, where it becomes stuttery. In Chromium there it works as well as Firefox on my Laptop.
What I want to say is that browsers and all the systems around this are very complicated. So your milage with the same browser will vary, and you might blame the wrong thing.
Oh I’m aware of that. Network drivers, GPUs, running processes, etc.
By just changing user agent string you can make the site work on Firefox too!
True for many cases. But I was referring to cases in which the site really acts out because it’s optimized for Chrome.
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Seamonkey (Mozilla browser/email/news suite) still exists! https://www.seamonkey-project.org/dev/
And there’s even still a build of uBlock Origin for it! https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/
There is still hope, if we keep the open tools alive…
Posted from freshly-installed Seamonkey browser with uBlock Origin :)
If WEI proceeds, I won’t have a choice of browser. Or operating system.
I am fairly tech savvy and I willingly avoid using Firefox because I despise Mozilla. Thank you for your concerns.
What do you use? And why do you despise mozilla?
Don’t even ask, not worth it with this guy.
Obviously everyone knows that internet explorer is the best browser!
It’s the best browser downloader for sure.
Look, if it’s not Netscape Navigator I’m not interested.
What’s your beef with Mozilla?
You are a brave user, aren’t you?
I don’t really like Mozilla, but how is Google any better? And those are the two options, unfortunately.
And those are the two options, unfortunately.
Exactly. Mozilla is better but not that much. What we really need is a 100% community-developed browser engine sponsored by several large companies that are independent from each other. But seems like it’s too late, we’re boiled frogs at this point. Although maybe these are the circumstances under which such an initiative could finally emerge.
Developing a community based browser engine that remains up to date with all the updates to the html, css, and javascript standards would require an immense amount of infrastructure and monetary backing. Essentially Firefox’s Spidermonkey is the closest we have.
I’d be curious if Mozilla could somehow get enough funding without Google or Microsoft or any other big tech corporate funding/influence and still keep up to date with new features and security patches. Doesn’t seem likely though.
Librewolf on Linux Desktop with NoScript, Chameleon, etc. Mull on Android mobile with similar. (Both are firefox based).
I’m on Graphene OS for mobile though, which necessitates the use of Google’s Pixel and uses a hardened Chromium based browser called Vanadium. Main dev has criticized Firefox for being insecure in the past, but still use Mull anyway…
@z3rOR0ne @wAkawAka How about @servo ?
#Servo aims to provide an independent, modular, embeddable web rendering engine, allowing developers to deliver content and applications using #webstandards. Servo is written in #Rustlang, taking advantage of the memory safety properties and concurrency features of the language.
Crowdfunding page:
https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/servo
You could at least explain why you avoid firefox, so the comment at least is more informative.
Anybody knows what happened to the impervious browser?
There is no internet without Firefox. There is an internet without Google.
@grafcube @opensource @privacy
Yaaay, time to really push that SearX/alternative-search-engine crusade, because there is more reason for a user to say “fuck you” to the hungry machine.
I was using Brave’s engine for awhile but I feel like its results were getting worse. Went back to my own SearXNG instance, it’s pretty polished these days.
Did they change stuff ? I was running an instance on my home server , but the server ceashed and didnt get time to reinstate it !
Compared to a few years ago the UI, especially on mobile, looks super nice. Also they added Lemmy support built-in very recently if you use the latest commits.
I generally take a pull from their git and build it on my machines so yeah !
This new invention from Google has nothing to do with the browser you use. It is an API incorporated into, with Google affiliates and its own, web pages, which allows these pages to block any browser “for security reasons”, when it does not have a Google Token incorporated, that accredits it as secure. That is, it is then Google itself who decides which browser is worthy to access the web. It doesn’t matter which browser you use, or incorporate this Token in it, or forget about a large part of the internet and anyway about any Google page or service (Gmail, YouTube, GDrive, GoogleMaps, …). This is the danger that the free internet faces, that Google decides which browser is worth using and which is not, being able to allow only Chrome itself as the only valid browser to access half of the pages on the network, and Game over for everyone else, Chromium, Gecko, WebKit or any other, without Google Token in it no internet, except if some geek comes up with some Fake Token which can be used (complicated)🤬.
For the downvoters, also Firefox and forks need to insert this Google Token in the Browser or die. Because of this Mozilla, Vivaldi and several others have started a protest before the legislator to prevent this crap. In the EU there is already a debate whether or not this is compatible with GDPR and user rights. We’ll see what comes of this. It is legitimate that Google provides tools to web pages to protect against entries from bots and insecure browsers, but it is not legitimate that the decision which browser is secure and which is not, depends on this company, only a certificate from an independent technical institution can be valid on technical grounds and not by Google itself for possible commercial reasons.
