While WEI is thankfully cancelled, it’s not entirely cancelled… They’re planning on making it available still in WebViews with the intention that websites can check if a malicious Android app is trying to do a phishing scheme.
Seems like such a niche “security” feature… what are they really trying to accomplish here? Something seems fishy to me
@dean When they removed “Do no evil” from their company motto, it flipped the sense and then etched the opposite into marble. Google doesn’t suddenly stop being a bog monster just because someone put a daisy on it. Companies have no soul, they have no conscience, and they have no memory. They are profit seeking tentacle monsters and not seeing that is something that customers and the public have to do for themselves. Regulation strangulation, for the win.
this is not cancellation. This is Google taking a step back, and regroup to attack back.
Ah yes, the old Unity Trick™.
They care about one thing only: Money.
Obviously this is more of a strategic retreat and nothing else. It’s also a very common tactic to push for something crass, pull back, wait a bit and repeat. Most commonly resistance gets weaker each time, because people are people.
Now if anyone thinks they made money with a retreat and won’t try again, because it’s obviously much more lucrative, which stone exactly are you living under?
You are 100% correct. Nothing is won till you make it impossible for Google to push forward or destroy their motivation for trying again later.
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If they can’t storm the front door, then try to sneak in through the back door I guess.
Its a common practice to do exactly that. Just demand something very absurd and let people rage about it, then “step back” to “please the masses” while in reality your “step back” idea is the thing you actually wanted to do from the beginning on. But now people are happy about it.
I learned that as a negotiation tactic. Pick the number you want to get, then ask for more. The counter will likely be around what you wanted!
Damn? Really?
Nope. It’s getting integrated into Android WebView.
Daaamn poor GrapheneOS devs…
I don’t know about graphene, but doesn’t some android roms allow to use custom ( more private Webview implementations) instead of default ?
Even on “stock” android (at least the Pixel version) the option is there in the developer settings.
Like, you can switch some, but idk how you install a second one
Chromium comes with a webview APK, but I couldn’t find one for Firefox / gecko
Firefox doesnt provide a webview for some reason.
Its really shitty, because it could be a better standard for webapps on Linux too. But now we have electron, which is basically compatible with firefox as its web technology
As someone who uses GrapheneOS but knows very little about the technical side of things, what implications does this have for the OS? I’ll actually just not use a smartphone anymore if I’m going to be forced back onto the privacy nightmare that is stock Android.
It means a bunch of work to undo all the things Google is about to do
@macleod @dean @rysiek they already started, they want to put it in android now: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/11/increasing-trust-for-embedded-media.html?m=1
They want to put it on the default webview in android, which doesn’t seem like a huge deal to me. It would basically let apps that use webview for things like logging in beef up their security.
It’s not like the entire concept of this API was bad, it’s just that with Google’s proposed implementation companies would abuse the fuck out of it to do bad things. Not having it in browsers pretty much eliminates that while still letting things like banking apps enjoy some of the benefits.
We did it!
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We gotta remain vigilant.
Agreed, but I disagree about the first part. It being only available in webviews can’t really be abused and makes all the difference. Sure they could try to reintroduce all the bad stuff, even if the had cancelled it altogether, but for now this is a success.
You’re completely wrong.
This means that they will implement it, and then it’s only a tiny change to make it available everywhere if they decide to do so later.
The option alone also now also allows people to build stuff that will only work in those WebViews, rejecting to work without the integrity check, which is already a huge loss.
The option alone also now also allows people to build stuff that will only work in those WebViews, rejecting to work without the integrity check, which is already a huge loss.
Can you give a concrete example how this would be a huge issue? A webview is part of an app, which is already a closed system. If a developer wants to, they can already build their app using native UI with integrity checks. Now they can do the same when using webviews. It really has none of the implications it would have for browsers.
He means this builds all the backend and proof of concepts necessary to force it on every other environment, and websites will be prepared for the switch, giving the public that much less time to react when they push it to desktop again
It’s basically “OK, we can’t stop the pushback, so we’ll tell the public it will only work on android web view, but all teams keep working full steam, we’ll wait to merge into the bigger systems until all this dies down, and we won’t have lost any dev time!”
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If you are aware of this issue, it is your obligation to tell all of your friends, family, associates and coworkers to stop using Chrome immediately, and try out a new search engine.
It’s the least you can do.
This behaviour by Google is not going to stop. The mask has slipped too many times. They have become the very thing they swore to destroy.
Not many people will be ready to de Google their phones and stop buying their products. It’s the little things that will hurt them the most and show they’ve stepped over a line this last year or so.
For whatever reason I am the least convincing person on earth, and 99% of the time it’s pretty useful shit I’m trying to inform people about and they just want nothing to do with the information. The 1% is when I went full retard and thought GME was going to make me rich instead of much poorer and tried to get others to invest, I’m glad no one listened to me on that one.
Specifically, everyone who’s not using Chrome and its derivates did it. Use Firefox, people.
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That’s what Google want you to believe, forget about and step back. It’s not over yet. We just stopped the first wave and it will get harder with each wave.
It’s a good thing that people are calling out their deception.
I would never agree with what Google proposes, though
Ha, I didn’t know there’s a name for that, but it’s definitely what I assume they’re going to do. My initial reaction was to wonder what they’ll now present as the “reasonable” option to WEI.
Considering they’re rolling it out in Android, maybe they’ll just wait a moment and then integrate it into desktop Chrome as well, just without any of the fanfare?
People here really can’t just accept a win
A win is when we have forced them to abandon the wretched plan. Them taking it elsewhere with a different name, only to be brought back in the future isn’t a win - it’s more or less the folly the Trojans committed with the Greek wooden horse.
It’s a much less broad, though. That’s a win right?
I don’t trust Google’s word that they will keep it that way. Besides, would you have accepted this proposal if WEI wasn’t proposed first? It’s a form of manipulation.
Sites inside webviews can already communicate with the app running them, I don’t see how this proposal in this form causes any additional problems
The same can be said about WEI on browsers. Just wait till it becomes a problem - only problem is that you won’t be able to escape it at that point.
Except websites can’t just communicate directly with the OS like they can in webviews
I’m convinced people on Lemmy just want to be miserable all the time.
We have won the battle, but the war is not over. If one is tired, he or she could employ escapism. But don’t blame or poke those, who don’t do that.
@dean @lisamelton One of the reasons I don’t use Chrome. Here, they’ve revealed what they are working towards. They’ll try again.
Sure it isn’t. * Wink wink nudge nudge*
It’ll be back. With a different name and modified messaging.
That probably would’ve been true even if they did follow through.
They grew thanks to the open internet where everyone let them scrape their website’s content. They can’t let anyone do that again.
the concept is good in theory; the reasoning was not.
