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Mozilla should call for Google's removal from the W3C over this implementation of Web Environment Integrity. "But Chrome has 65% market share, what good is the

Mozilla should call for Google's removal from the W3C over this implementation of Web Environment Integrity. "But Chrome has 65% market share, what good is the W3C without them?” If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw this implementation. It is unbelievable that over the course of 3 days, the potential future of the web has been put in such dire straits. There's already an existing, far less troubling (while still bad), proposal in the form of Private Access Tokens going through a standards committee that Google chose to ignore. They presented this proposal in the shadiest way possible through a personal GitHub account. They immediately shut down outside contribution and comments. And despite the blowback they are already shoving a full implementation into Chromium. What we need is real action, and this is the role Mozilla has always presented itself as serving. A "true" disinterested defender of the ideals of the web. Now is the time to prove it. Simply opposing this proposal isn't enough. This is about as clear and basic an attack on what fundamentally differentiates the web from every walled garden as possible. If someone drafted a proposal to the W3C that stated that only existing browsers should be allowed to render web pages, the correct response would not be to "take the stance that you oppose that proposal," it would be to seriously question whether the submitting party should even participate in the group. Make no mistake, that is what is happening now.

MildRant 3y ago
There is no chance Mozilla does anything that actually matters here. They may do some virtue signaling and put out a statement about how they support the open web but nothing more.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
easyThrowaway 3y ago
Quite frankly, the W3C stopped having any say on the matter when the WHATWG supplanted the XHTML standard with the HTML5 committee. They had enough weight at the time to say "The Web is XHTML2, you can make your own internet if you want " compared to what they can bargain for these days. Maybe at the time it was a somewhat reasonable decision to abdicate their responsibility over to big internet companies, but that's what brought us to the current state where we're basically going back to original version of The Microsoft Network[1]. [1]http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/the-microsoft-network/ http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/the-microsoft-network/
tzs 3y ago
> If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw this implementation. It's pretty generally accepted that the correct way to do web standardization is for proponents of some new thing to implement that thing and deploy it and then once it has been shown to actually work bring a spec to the the standards folks for standardization. That usually works fairly well, although sometimes if that first pre-standard implementation does too well the original implementor may have trouble replacing theirs with something that follows whatever standard is eventually approved, because there are often significant changes made during the standardization process. An example of that would be CSS grid layout. That was a Microsoft addition to IE 10, behind a vendor prefix of -ms-. Nearly everyone else liked it and it was standardized but with enough differences from Microsoft's original that you couldn't just remove the -ms- prefixes from your CSS and have it work great with the now standard CSS grid. It was 4.5 years between the time Microsoft first deployed it in IE 10 and it appearing in other browsers by default (Chrome had it within a year of Microsoft, and Firefox had it about two years after that, but both as an experimental feature the user had the specifically enable). In that 4.5 years enough sites that only cared about IE were using the -ms- form that Microsoft ended up stuck with that on IE 10 and 11 instead of the standard.
- deelowe 3y ago
  Basically, the ask for forgiveness approach. It's common in large, dysfunctional organizations as well. Sometimes the easiest way to get attention is to break things. Then once enough pain is felt, everyone starts taking interest. Trying to follow a proper change control based process only works when everyone is invested in the process.
  - derefr 3y ago
    No, this is just "doing your own thing in a way that doesn't affect anyone else, and allows you to gather data to cite when designing the standard."
    - 3y ago
izacus 3y ago
It didn't happen when Apple did it with Safari (and you all were quiet as a mouse as well, with HN actively defending Apple Safari monopoly with this feature enabled)... so why would NOW be any different?
- tolmasky 3y ago
  I am not HN, you'll find no comment of mine defending that (despite, for the record, Apple's system being less bad than this one, while still bad). NOW would be different because, again, this system is worse than Apple's, and because Chrome has a larger influence on the web than Safari (on Desktop, on mobile its a foregone conclusion since you're not allowed a different engine other than Safari anyways, so the real fight there is allowing third party engines). Does this answer your concerns? I can't tell if you are defending Apple and Google, or are against both but are using this what-about-ist accusation as a way to vent general frustration.
  - gunapologist99 3y ago
    > for the record, Apple's system being less bad than this one, while still bad Apple's just more subtle than Google.
- kykeonaut 3y ago
  I think the main difference is that Apple already controlled what operating systems can run Safari via other mediums. Adding this to Safari effectively changes nothing regarding the web ecosystem on Apple devices.
- toyg 3y ago
  Apple don't have enough web properties to force this sort of change. Google can turn around tomorrow and say that no browser without WEI can access GMail, GMaps, GSheets, Photos etc; people will have to comply, effectively killing any browser that does not support the feature. This is the problem with the Chromium monoculture. "We", as generic IT people and developers on HN, definitely have a responsibility for not deprecating this monoculture earlier. If you use Brave, you're guilty; if you use Ungoogled Chromium, you're guilty; if you use Safari, you're guilty. It's high time people start taking responsibility.
rabite 3y ago
Good luck getting anything from Mozilla, Google is their largest source of revenue by far. Over half.
- creatonez 3y ago
  Mozilla publicly opposes Google's actions all the time, especially when it comes to web specifications. One time they publicly endorsed an ad blocker intended to DoS google's ad servers with nonsense data, an extension that the Chrome Web Store considered to be malware.
  - propogandist 3y ago
    [dead]
solardev 3y ago
It's far, far too late for this. The W3C is already irrelevant, not that it ever mattered much. The internet is made by big companies. Not standards bodies. The WHATWG has the actual living standards, and Google, Apple, Cloudflare and Amazon make the actual software. Nobody cares about the W3C. And Mozilla is long past dead.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- matkoniecz 3y ago
  > And Mozilla is long past dead. Mozilla is far from healthy but calling it dead is overstating things.
  - solardev 3y ago
    It's only alive in the same sense that a zombie is... constantly moaning and groaning while begging for brains, shambling aimlessly along waiting to be put out of its misery
    - oskarw85 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - slig 3y ago
    Less than 5% of global usage [1], and no presence whatsoever on mobile. Pretty much dead. [1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage And CF stats doesn't depend on JavaScript.
    - matkoniecz 3y ago
      4% of global browser usage can be described in many ways (defeated, miserable, collapse compared to the past etc) but it definitely is not dead and is one of few developed browsers.
ffgghjjjj 3y ago
[flagged]
SoftTalker 3y ago
> It is unbelievable that over the course of 3 days, the potential future of the web has been put in such dire straits. "Move fast and break things." How many here used to cheer this approach?
- Xorakios 3y ago
  I. And still do.
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    I'd like to think that if I were this type of assdouche I'd at least have the decency to be ashamed of it.
pornel 3y ago
When Google announced the EME DRM in the semi-public W3C HTML working group, it created a massive backlash. So W3C moved the EME spec under a new, closed, invite-only working group, and then announced that there is a consensus among everyone (there), and it can move forward to become a recommendation. They didn't even fix known bugs in the spec written by Google (e.g. architecture diagram in the EME spec is factually incorrect). So I don't think this rubber-stamping W3C will do anything. They have no power over Google, and they know it.
jacooper 3y ago
Mozilla doing something instead of just talking ? Doubtful

MildRant 3y ago

There is no chance Mozilla does anything that actually matters here. They may do some virtue signaling and put out a statement about how they support the open web but nothing more.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

easyThrowaway 3y ago

Quite frankly, the W3C stopped having any say on the matter when the WHATWG supplanted the XHTML standard with the HTML5 committee. They had enough weight at the time to say "The Web is XHTML2, you can make your own internet if you want " compared to what they can bargain for these days. Maybe at the time it was a somewhat reasonable decision to abdicate their responsibility over to big internet companies, but that's what brought us to the current state where we're basically going back to original version of The Microsoft Network[1]. [1]http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/the-microsoft-network/ http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/the-microsoft-network/

tzs 3y ago

> If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw this implementation. It's pretty generally accepted that the correct way to do web standardization is for proponents of some new thing to implement that thing and deploy it and then once it has been shown to actually work bring a spec to the the standards folks for standardization. That usually works fairly well, although sometimes if that first pre-standard implementation does too well the original implementor may have trouble replacing theirs with something that follows whatever standard is eventually approved, because there are often significant changes made during the standardization process. An example of that would be CSS grid layout. That was a Microsoft addition to IE 10, behind a vendor prefix of -ms-. Nearly everyone else liked it and it was standardized but with enough differences from Microsoft's original that you couldn't just remove the -ms- prefixes from your CSS and have it work great with the now standard CSS grid. It was 4.5 years between the time Microsoft first deployed it in IE 10 and it appearing in other browsers by default (Chrome had it within a year of Microsoft, and Firefox had it about two years after that, but both as an experimental feature the user had the specifically enable). In that 4.5 years enough sites that only cared about IE were using the -ms- form that Microsoft ended up stuck with that on IE 10 and 11 instead of the standard.

deelowe 3y ago
Basically, the ask for forgiveness approach. It's common in large, dysfunctional organizations as well. Sometimes the easiest way to get attention is to break things. Then once enough pain is felt, everyone starts taking interest. Trying to follow a proper change control based process only works when everyone is invested in the process.
- derefr 3y ago
  No, this is just "doing your own thing in a way that doesn't affect anyone else, and allows you to gather data to cite when designing the standard."
  - 3y ago

izacus 3y ago

It didn't happen when Apple did it with Safari (and you all were quiet as a mouse as well, with HN actively defending Apple Safari monopoly with this feature enabled)... so why would NOW be any different?

tolmasky 3y ago
I am not HN, you'll find no comment of mine defending that (despite, for the record, Apple's system being less bad than this one, while still bad). NOW would be different because, again, this system is worse than Apple's, and because Chrome has a larger influence on the web than Safari (on Desktop, on mobile its a foregone conclusion since you're not allowed a different engine other than Safari anyways, so the real fight there is allowing third party engines). Does this answer your concerns? I can't tell if you are defending Apple and Google, or are against both but are using this what-about-ist accusation as a way to vent general frustration.
- gunapologist99 3y ago
  > for the record, Apple's system being less bad than this one, while still bad Apple's just more subtle than Google.
kykeonaut 3y ago
I think the main difference is that Apple already controlled what operating systems can run Safari via other mediums. Adding this to Safari effectively changes nothing regarding the web ecosystem on Apple devices.
toyg 3y ago
Apple don't have enough web properties to force this sort of change. Google can turn around tomorrow and say that no browser without WEI can access GMail, GMaps, GSheets, Photos etc; people will have to comply, effectively killing any browser that does not support the feature. This is the problem with the Chromium monoculture. "We", as generic IT people and developers on HN, definitely have a responsibility for not deprecating this monoculture earlier. If you use Brave, you're guilty; if you use Ungoogled Chromium, you're guilty; if you use Safari, you're guilty. It's high time people start taking responsibility.

rabite 3y ago

Good luck getting anything from Mozilla, Google is their largest source of revenue by far. Over half.

creatonez 3y ago
Mozilla publicly opposes Google's actions all the time, especially when it comes to web specifications. One time they publicly endorsed an ad blocker intended to DoS google's ad servers with nonsense data, an extension that the Chrome Web Store considered to be malware.
- propogandist 3y ago
  [dead]

solardev 3y ago

It's far, far too late for this. The W3C is already irrelevant, not that it ever mattered much. The internet is made by big companies. Not standards bodies. The WHATWG has the actual living standards, and Google, Apple, Cloudflare and Amazon make the actual software. Nobody cares about the W3C. And Mozilla is long past dead.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
matkoniecz 3y ago
> And Mozilla is long past dead. Mozilla is far from healthy but calling it dead is overstating things.
- solardev 3y ago
  It's only alive in the same sense that a zombie is... constantly moaning and groaning while begging for brains, shambling aimlessly along waiting to be put out of its misery
  - oskarw85 3y ago
    [flagged]
- slig 3y ago
  Less than 5% of global usage [1], and no presence whatsoever on mobile. Pretty much dead. [1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage And CF stats doesn't depend on JavaScript.
  - matkoniecz 3y ago
    4% of global browser usage can be described in many ways (defeated, miserable, collapse compared to the past etc) but it definitely is not dead and is one of few developed browsers.

ffgghjjjj 3y ago

[flagged]

SoftTalker 3y ago

> It is unbelievable that over the course of 3 days, the potential future of the web has been put in such dire straits. "Move fast and break things." How many here used to cheer this approach?

Xorakios 3y ago
I. And still do.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  I'd like to think that if I were this type of assdouche I'd at least have the decency to be ashamed of it.

pornel 3y ago

When Google announced the EME DRM in the semi-public W3C HTML working group, it created a massive backlash. So W3C moved the EME spec under a new, closed, invite-only working group, and then announced that there is a consensus among everyone (there), and it can move forward to become a recommendation. They didn't even fix known bugs in the spec written by Google (e.g. architecture diagram in the EME spec is factually incorrect). So I don't think this rubber-stamping W3C will do anything. They have no power over Google, and they know it.

jacooper 3y ago

Mozilla doing something instead of just talking ? Doubtful