It's like everything is named ironically these days. There is nothing "trusted" about a device whose sole purpose is secure things against the person who ostensibly owns it.
this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Corporate doublespeak is great, isn’t it?
What's that, Google? You say you want me to switch to DuckDuckGo and Firefox? And you're insistent that I do it? Okay, sure.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/duckduckgo-privacy-browser-facing-backlash-over-microsoft-trackers
DDG is far from perfect. It's like Brave. They like to make you think they're all about privacy, when they're not. I recommend you use Bing.
This comment is sponsored by Microsoft.
(Joke aside, if you want privacy, use a search engine without logging in and use a VPN.)
This won’t last long. Sites that implement this will notice their user count and clicks plummet almost instantly.
Yeah, DRM has always scared away all the users. That's why nobody adopted DVDs, that "Netflix" company failed to create a video streaming service, Steam never became a dominant game distributor, etc.
Most people won't notice or care. Most companies' customers will buy what's advertized to them. It's very dangerous to assume consumers want freedom, we need to fight for it, not ignore the threat due to naïve idealism.
I’d like to think most people at least have an adblocker installed. They should then notice that it’s not working on a website.
If a site has a pop up saying I need to disable my adblocker to view the site I don’t bother and go elsewhere.
IT guy here. Most people do not, in fact, have an ad blocker installed.
That’s actually a surprise given how easy it is to install one.
Next you’ll be telling us that most people don’t care about companies like Google, Meta and Twitter vacuuming up as much of their data as humanly possible.
Maybe they care, maybe they don't, but they definitely value convince over privacy.
Which is strange because I find the internet without an ad blocker to be extremely inconvenient
That’s possibly the most depressing thing I’ve read all year.
You'd be surprised at how many "easy" things someone will avoid because they're a "not computer person" and think clicking the wrong button will launch a fucking nuke.
To be fair, a lot of my customers are clueless boomers.
I once worked at a software company where it took the frontend guys like a month to finally notice that common adblockers broke one of their sites (which didn't actually have ads on it, funnily enough). None of them noticed because none of them used adblockers on any of their machines. When people like that don't run adblockers, it's not realistic at all to expect the average user to do it.
As a full stack guy that has done his fair share of front end work, I use an adblocker on the devices that I use in my personal realm. I don't have them in my development area because most people don't use them. I want what I test on to be as stock as possible. I've observed that most people go with what "comes out of the box." That said, I get to look at my efforts on my personal devices. If something is off, I'll see it. If I had to code to every popular extension, it would be hard to get anything done.
Sadly most people don't have an ad blocker installed. Per this site <50% use ad blockers. Most users are using mobile devices, and the majority of those don't have any ad blockers available in their default browsers/webViews. They won't notice.
People didn't have access to non-drm versions of those for 20 years first though. If we started with drm web then I'd be less optimistic, but people are going to notice when their sites don't work.
So Google wants to do to the whole internet what Spez did to Reddit?
Yeah, good luck with that.
Except Google actually has the power to do that. Do you think Youtube content creators are going to use Peertube? No I don't think so.
This will be great, just filter me out from all ad content. I will not even need ad blocker.
Your doctor, tax office and other public services or your employer or job seeking webite says hi.
Very few of us can truly live without the internet.
How does this affect browser modifications and extensions?
Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the modified browser can still request Web Environment Integrity attestation.
In other words, you don't have to worry about the removal of ad blockers. At least, not through this Google proposal.
You do have to worry, because that part is essentially bullshit designed to soothe you while ignoring the actual problem. The attester (in practice the platform holder, so Google/Apple/Microsoft) is allowed to pick which apps can use the API. The criteria they are supposed to use (as well as the entire privacy section) is a "todo" in the actual spec, but even then, there is literally nothing stopping them from deviating from those criteria as the spec isn't legally binding. It is entirely plausible for Google to deny attestation capability to Firefox and other browsers capable of ad blocking.
Sure, they can request it. It doesn't mean that they will receive it, or that websites will be okay with the result. The "risk of websites using this functionality to exclude specific attesters or non-attestable browsers" is something not excluded by either the spec or the explainer; all it says is they "look forward to discussion on this topic". Google, Apple and Microsoft will be the ones in charge of deciding which browsers are non-attestable.
More importantly, if they allow modified web browsers, it is completely pointless for their very own stated goals. Doubly so because the attestation can't be meaningfully bound to the device (ie you can build a modified Chromium that does nothing but request attestation results and forward them to a bot running on a desktop and the website would be none the wiser).
So in order to accomplish what you're saying, all attesters would have to reject all browsers with extension functionality then, right? And if they really wanted to eliminate ad blocking, those browsers would not even be allowed to run debugging scripts.
I don't see a lot of buy in from users to such a system. The proposal requires the site, the user, and the attestor to comply. I don't see any plans for an overhaul of the entire tech infrastructure.
The worst that can happen as I understand it is a handful of websites will start blocking users who aren't validated per the spec, they'll display a message like "this website only works in BrowserEveryoneHates", and then a competitor will swoop in that works in every browser.
The best that can happen is users will have a little more security from tampered software, advertisers won't lose as much money from bots, among other things as they describe in the spec.
I'm open to changing my mind, but this is just how I understand it so far.
There is little to no competition for a lot of services. Just a reminder, the IRS just got caught selling data to Facebook. Imagine you can only do your taxes in ad-ridden Chrome.
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