4 ms·
The thing is that there is (for all intents and purposes) no difference between ECE and plugins. Actually, ECE is a plugin. The only difference is that it help
by greenhouse_gas 10y ago
The thing is that there is (for all intents and purposes) no difference between ECE and plugins.
Actually, ECE is a plugin. The only difference is that it helps web-designers switch plugin providers.
That's it. No more security. No more standardization.
As a user, you still depend on the goodwill of the ECE provider throw you a bone. If you use a slightly niche OS (say, OpenBSD on ARM), you're out of luck.
If Adobe decides that it's not worth their time to develop a plugin for PaleMoon, they won't and you're out of luck (or will MS let their ECE plugin run on Linux, or Google's run on FF?). You (as a user) won't be able to switch to another provider. It all depends on the provider.
- djrogers 10y agoI completely understand and sympathize with your point, however this: "If you use a slightly niche OS (say, OpenBSD on ARM)" Is rather hilarious - calling OpenBSD on ARM a 'slightly niche' OS in the context of 'operating systems people use to watch video on the web' is rather ambitious, don't you think? OpenBSD on ARM would have to increase it's user base in this arena by a couple orders of magnitude to elevate itself to 'slightly niche'....
- greenhouse_gas 10y agoI picked two relativity popular platforms, though niche together to focus on the danger. All the more so would something like the rust os have problems. The bigger issue will be when these providers will start holding OS's hostage (well, you want to view half the web? You've got to have a locked bootloader and only I have the key. You want to index our sites? Google has permission (the unlocking key) but not you).
- merb 10y agoisn't the Nintendo Switch based on either OpenBSD or FreeBSD and uses ARM? woudn't that be a good reason to have a plugin for that? > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_softwar...
- caf 10y agoGoogle's CDM ("Widevine") does run on Firefox, apparently. I wonder whether it would be feasible to run the CDM within QEMU on a platform like OpenBSD/ARM? At the end of the day it's just ordinary code that runs in the Gecko Media Plugin sandbox.
- frik 10y agoECE provider is Adobe (can we assume it shares some code from Flash DRM ?).