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dns_snek 2 days ago

> Because if I don't do it, who will?

Hopefully nobody? Defending anti-competitive practices of corporations is generally a really odd thing to do.

> Chrome is not a monopoly as it compete against the apps I previously provided.

Google the company, not Chrome.

> The changes are not hostile. Their goal is to improve the web.

Please don't insult me with corporate PR. Their goal is to take control away from their users in order to empower their customers - advertisers.

To deny that is plainly dishonest, they've been engaging in the same practices on every property they own - Android as the most direct comparison.

charcircuit 2 days ago | parent [-]

>Their goal is to take control away from their users in order to empower their customers - advertisers.

Did you read the proposals to understand the actual goals of them? Taking away control from users or empowering advertisers was never a goal. The goal of the attestation API was for improving the security of the web platform. This is important to do in order to keep the web platform relevant compared to competing app platforms. MV3 was an update to extentions that improved performance, security, and privacy of web extentions. Ad blocking is still possible with MV3, so if their goal was too kill it they did a terrible job. Also if their goal was to kill ad blockers, why did the chromium team work with adblocking extentions to iterate and improve the API to better suit their needs? If they didn't like ad blockers they wouldn't be working with them.

dns_snek 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Did you read the proposals to understand the actual goals of them?

Yes, and better yet, I understood their technical implications.

> Taking away control from users or empowering advertisers was never a goal.

It was never a stated goal, but it becomes self-evident if you actually understand their technical details. Both of those effectively install locks on our digital doors and while they're unlocked for now, they can and will be locked at the first opportunity as the protests die down.

MV3 didn't block ad blockers for now, but it added technical limitations to the number of dynamic filters that ad blockers can use - a simple switch that Google can flip and hobble their functionality with some bullshit "safety and security" excuse at the first opportune moment.

The best part is, they might not even have to do that because if I worked for an ad network right now, I'd be knees deep developing a new system that simply overwhelms the technical limitations imposed on MV3 ad blockers, specifically the 30,000 rules limit.

We heard the same sleazy explanations when SafetyNet was being rolled out on Android, it's all for our safety and security, and now those mechanisms are being used to lock us out of our own devices. Not as a matter of official Google policy of course, it just so happens as a side effect of their benevolent goals.

Here's a simple canary, if these mechanisms were actually provided for our own safety and security then Google wouldn't use attestation APIs to block usage of Google Pay on GrapheneOS which has been battle tested to be significantly more secure than stock Android.