Excuse my french but Google can fuck off with their censorship and "reminder to be civil". They have truly gone mask off, with the Code of Conducts not reinforcing good practice and a welcoming environment, but just a tool used to suppress dissent.
I've switched to Firefox and I'd recommend everyone else to do so.
https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...
It's nakedly user-hostile. A blatant attempt to invert the "user agent" relationship such that the agent works for the advertiser/corporation/government to spy on the human behind the screen. The way the intro paragraph tries to disguise this as something users need or want is frankly disgusting:
> Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in. This trust may assume that the client environment is honest about certain aspects of itself, keeps user data and intellectual property secure, and is transparent about whether or not a human is using it. This trust is the backbone of the open internet, critical for the safety of user data and for the sustainability of the website’s business.
Ugh. Here's a fixed, honest version:
Corporations like Google often depend on advertisers knowing as much as possible about their users. Their revenue may depend on fingerprinting the client environment, tracking their behavior and history, and attesting that a human with sufficient disposable income is behind the keyboard. This personal data mining is the backbone of Google's business model, critical for their continued dominance of the web and for the sustainability of their enormous margins.
I can't agree more strongly. I sat down to write a letter to the FTC, and I can't even articulate my objections because after reading this spec my only response is encompassed in "WTF is this shit?". I've worked in my past with members of the Chromium team and I've generally found them competent and well-meaning, and I can't see any amount of well-meaning (and some lack of competence) in this spec proposal. This feels like a shift in the behavior for Google far beyond their existing slow drive to consume everything, to something far more draconian and direct.
Not only the proposal, but Google itself. Google desperately needs to be broken up.
The platforms most people use will see benefits. Apple users apparently already do.
I understand the argument that the open source experience will get worse. But frankly, google.com will still work for you. It will be other websites that make your experience worse.
If you want to know more, others have written novels in these comments.
https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...
And here's why it may be bad:
https://vivaldi.com/blog/googles-new-dangerous-web-environme...
And the HN discussion on the latter:
Your personal opinion may well be that ‘this is fine’ but by failing to declare that bias and having never posted much of anything else it is difficult to interpret your actions as a good faith contribution.
I stopped declaring my employment because it's a hassle to do that on every comment when writing multiple comments. And no one else seems to disclose their biases in this discussion.
That said, I agree with you that I should have declared my affiliation. Apologies.
As many people here, I am trying to understand the implications of WEI. Of course I will challenge the mainstream opinion to advance my own understanding and hopefully those of other readers too. I don't think arguments should be dismissed based on affiliation.