this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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ELI5
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Explain it to me like I am 5. Everybody should know what this is about.
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Right now, you go to a url, which has a server behind it. Your browser says, "I'd like the site!". The server gives you the site, and your browser shows you the site and runs it for you. When you run the site, you may actually make modifications to the site in your browser, blocking ads, doing some custom stuff with extensions, etc.
Now, Google is essentially bringing something into their browser that allows servers to block any modifications to the site as you run it. And servers may automatically block any browsers that don't support that feature. Basically, servers will be able to ensure that you run the app in the exact way they intend, without modification
Oh, and why is bad: the server requires your browser to pass a check to see if it's going to run your code correctly (called an attestation). It asks a third party to do that check, which will most likely be Google. Guess which browsers are going to pass those attestations more easily? Chrome. The only possible benefit to the average person is that maybe this will make it more difficult for bot farms to access the web
A bit clearer now. But to my knowledge, Google does not 'own' the internet, it is just popular as a search engine, browser, emails+personal information.
What if the common man decides to another browser, say chrome or edge, and search engine such as duckduckgo or bing, how will Google's proposed changes affect such use cases?
Most browsers use Chromium as the basis of how it works and these are how we access the internet’s websites. Chromium was invented by Google and both browsers you mentioned run on Chromium.
It’s not that Google controls the internet, but the vehicle (your browser) you use kind of does. And most of the vehicles are built using the code from the company that wants to impose this.
Browsers not run on Chromium:
I want to add Ladybird as one option for a new browser. It's still in its early days, but is under active development. I hope that one day it'll be in such a shape that it could be used as a daily driver. It's Open Source and built from scratch. It's awesome to follow the development of such a big project!
Where can I get Ladybird for Android?
As I mentioned it's still in it's early days. They're working on the standards and support for all CSS properties and JS at the same time. The pages don't work yet, but things are moving forward every day. Don't know if someone will work on an Android version, it's open source after all. Currently it's working on SerenityOS and Linux.
I just wanted to voice out that there are alternatives in the works, that has nothing to do with Google or the other big tech companies.
Why Ladybird over firefox?
At this point in time, since it's under heavy development, I wouldn't use it as a daily driver. I hope some day it will have enough features to compete with all the other browsers. I just wanted to bring Ladybird up so it gets some visibility in the world.
It's an open source browser, continuously being worked on, started from scratch, so it'll be a while before there are enough support for all the websites in the world. Even the JavaScript engine is built from scratch, which makes this project really exciting IMHO.