this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Privacy

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And since you won't be able to modify web pages, it will also mean the end of customization, either for looks (ie. DarkReader, Stylus), conveniance (ie. Tampermonkey) or accessibility.

The community feedback is... interesting to say the least.

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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 93 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Inb4 you can only browse the internet with Chromium.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 82 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Well, the engineers say it themselves: nothing would prevent websites developers to prevent access from browsers that do not support this "Web DRM".

My biggest fear though is that it becomes a standard which all browsers will have to support to stay relevant. And with Google building the engine used by the vast majority of browsers, they can force this upon other browser engines (ie. Safari and Firefox).

[–] sab@kbin.social 107 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's such a potent example why everyone who cares need to stop using Chromium based browsers before it's too late. Stunts like this would be much harder to pull if there wasn't a de facto browser monopoly.

[–] Landrin201@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

It's such a potent example of why we need antitrust laws to actually be applied to tech companies.

But our government here in the US is both run by geriatric idiots who don't even know how to use a computer let alone regulate one and also is bought out by these companies.

This is a blatant, out in the open anti-competitive action that is suggested in this article and it shouldn't legally be allowed to stand, but our politicians understand so little about how technology works that they'll blindly accept Google telling them that it isn't monopolistic rather than actually try to understand it.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

All they need is a few major sites and tools requiring it to domino everything on the internet. Suddenly it's standard.

Most businesses all use either chrome or Microsoft. And they're both Chromium.

[–] Cube6392 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Literally just applying it to YouTube would send tremors throughout the internet. If YouTube stopped working in Safari or Firefox, anyone using those browsers who don't really care and just liked those browsers for other reasons will give them up and go to a chromium based browser.

Google is fighting an apathy battle. One they know they can probably win because they own the Internet's favorite content hub

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

It makes sense that they have YouTube in their sights for DRM lockdown.

[–] brombek@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google will just say that pages with DRM will rank higher in their search and it's all done.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's time to fork the community internet off the corporate one. Set up our own DRM-free sites and our own search engines, run by open source software. With blackjack and hookers.

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We kinda have the small web (Gemini & Gopher), but it is a different, much simpler format than html (Gopher is literally plaintext)

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

I remember gopher but I haven't used it for about 30 years. Does anyone still use that?

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't Firefox support DRM? I know on netacad.com it prompts me to enable it, or rather on a CCNA course. Or is it something else?

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What you are mentioning is media DRM (think Netflix, Spotify). This is something entirely different: a mechanism to ensure the entire content of a web page is not tempered with.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago
[–] 001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please drink verification can

[–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

ERROR! Piracy detected!

[–] fistac0rpse@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

I have exceeding low expectations, but I would hope that would be grounds for an antitrust lawsuit against Google as Chromium browsers account for roughly 70% of all users (based on numbers I pulled from Wikipedia)

[–] fearout@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Subscription-based, restricted to verified accounts Chromium, that shares your personally identifiable public key with each website you visit.
Shudders

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

It makes such complete sense for Google and Microsoft that it's a wonder we didn't see it coming sooner.

[–] argv_minus_one 8 points 1 year ago

Not just Chromium, but the proprietary binary Chrome. Chromium can still be modified to block ads.