cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2546109

Read why “Web Environment Integrity” is terrible, and why we must vocally oppose it now. Google’s latest maneuver, if we don’t act to stop it, threatens our freedom to explore the Internet with browsers of our choice.

  • danAEnglish
    40·
    1 year ago

    Why is everyone making noise about Google’s implementation while barely anyone is making noise about Apple’s, which is already in use? https://httptoolkit.com/blog/apple-private-access-tokens-attestation/

    My guess is that Apple just rolled it out silently, while Google goes through a standards process with a public RFC. (edit: Also, Safari isn’t as commonly used).

      • davehtaylor@beehaw.orgEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        No but they have the power to fundamentally alter how we use it.

        Look at what happened after the launch of the iPhone. Flash was killed, and devs moved to mobile-first or even mobile-only development for web and apps. It completely altered how we used the web, the Internet, and what devs focus on.

    • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialEnglish
      26·
      1 year ago

      That’s a good question. Safari market share isn’t as big as Chrome’s (62.55% vs 20.5%, according to statcounter), but it’s still the 2nd largest. Also note that the WEI proposal appeared around May but made the news only now.

      • danAEnglish
        13·
        1 year ago

        Safari’s market share definitely isn’t as big, that’s a good point. However, it’s got 100% market share on iPhones (Apple forbid other browser engines from running on iOS), so there’s a lot of people that have no choice.

          • zaplachi@lemmy.ca
            16·
            1 year ago

            You can use the WebKit (Safari’s engine) wrappers made by Firefox and Chrome - but can’t use truly independent browsers

          • sznio@beehaw.orgEnglish
            8·
            1 year ago

            There’s Firefox on iOS, but it’s practically a wrapper around Safari. You get your bookmark synchronization, but everything under the hood runs on WebKit.

          • megsmagik@feddit.itEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            I have Firefox, Brave and DuckDuckGo on iOS, just no extensions, if you want an external AdBlocker you have to download an app that works at system level

    • Ramires@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      Chrome have 60+% share of browser market, so any big change from Google will affect the entire internet.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      Silently? No, I’m pretty sure they announced it that they were making captchas obsolete. Plenty of people cheered for it.