this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
253 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16746 readers
3 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Google has abandoned the “Web Environment Integrity” API that was supposed to allow websites to only allow approved and verified browser environments. The plan would allow websites to reject browser or even OS modifications that were “unattested” for the purpose of supposedly stopping bots, piracy, ad-blocking, and other activity Google deemed to be malicious. However, critics of the plan called it corrupt tyranny in which Google flexes it’s muscles to control the entire internet.

The plan was rejected from Firefox and Brave browsers, and could potentially shut Linux users out of many websites as there would be no telemetry company to “verify” the operating system was not modified. Further, some said it was an outright attempt by Google to force people to submit to the API even if they didn’t want to use Chrome browser.

Now this horrible tyrannical plan from Google was abandoned after severe “community backlash”, however it could see a limited version for Android Chrome only when embedded into apps themselves. Some privacy advocates criticize this move as merely a trial testing ground, where they can prove to websites and services that the concept works and then try to push it to a larger audience. These critics call for a boycott of the apps that use this functionality.

We can only hope these rotten Google executives can abandon their plans for world domination and the submission of all knowledge to pass through their ad tracking software.

https://simplifiedprivacy.com/google-abandons-web-environment-integrity/

all 25 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] BlackPit@feddit.ch 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Taking the win. Celebrating the fact there was a big enough backlash to get Google to pull their head in.

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 68 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I switched back to Firefox and un-installed any chromium browsers at the news.

I will now be talking all credit for affecting this change and sharing it with nobody else. You're welcome, internet! 🙏

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Thank you for your hard work

[–] errer@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I did the same thing you did. I’m sure the numbers were modest but Google must have noticed the trend…

Unironically, thank you.

[–] Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] intrepid@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course. You didn't think that they would take back a user-hostile greed-motivated feature without an alternative, did you?

[–] DieguiTux8623@feddit.it 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One can use a different mobile OS if they don't like Android at least.

[–] intrepid@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

You're right - for the time being. But what I'm not willing to do, is give them the benefit of the doubt. They're just waiting for all this backlash to blow over. Then they will start extending it to other components and eventually to the net, under some other name.

[–] SGG@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

Sadly with all this evil crap now days, they'll bring it back in a few weeks or months, rename it to the "won't somebody think of the children API"with a massive ad campaign saying anyone or any website not using the API are r*ping kids...

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

s/abandons/delays/g

[–] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't believe them. They will try to do it again, slightly modified, under a different name, but they WILL try to introduce it again.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And for round 2 they’ll try to be sneakier about it

[–] intrepid@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

No. That's round 3. Round 2 is already announced - they are 'restricting' environment integrity to multimedia on Android webview. Of course, what they don't say is that the feature is going to be developed and tested outside the view of the general public - since this doesn't need to go through a public standardization like web specifications. Once they get that perfected, they will silently expand its scope outside webview and gradually into browsers with a new name. That's round 3.

[–] ebits21@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago
[–] disconnectikacio@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Disgusting piece of craps! All should continue to open eyes, against google. They wont stop!

Spread the word to install firefox based browser, use different frontends to block youtube ads in browser, Invidious and use piped youtube apps on android to block youtbe ads: Newpipe

[–] intrepid@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

While I agree with that sentiment, I really wish people use something other than YouTube. I wish peertube or even paid platforms like nebula take off.

[–] sphere_au@reddthat.com 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This was an utterly terrible idea to begin with and it's still a terrible idea for Android apps as well. Apart from messing with ad blockers, this has the ironically "helpful" feature of allowing malware to be force loaded into your browser. If it ends up in Android, some popular app that uses it will get owned and then every user of the app will also end up getting owned as well.

[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago

Google is already sort-of imposing similar restrictions on Android trough their near monopoly on the play store and play protect

[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago

Great idea for Google, terrible for everyone else

[–] Papanca@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

They will tweak the most unimportant detail and say; we listened to you, now take it!

[–] spez@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago
[–] Overlock@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)