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I’m skeptical. Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. People have been fiercely debating wh

by oefrha 1y ago

I’m skeptical. Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. People have been fiercely debating whether that’s a terrible thing, or whether that’s the least bad practical solution on offer for website owners. I don’t want to make a judgement on that, but I don’t think the observation that CF is pushing us in that direction is very controversial. But an independent open source web browser is obviously against that ethos. So what’s the play here exactly? Just for goodwill? (Regardless of motivation, they’re lending more support than most other companies, so it’s applaudable nonetheless.)

imcritic 1y ago
How do you call someone who has been doing evil things suddenly do one good thing?
- jsheard 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway1777 1y ago
[dead]
MarsIronPI 1y ago
By your argument, this could still be interpreted as Cloudflare approving Ladybird. I don't see how indie genuine browsers (i.e. not bots) are "against the ethos" of restricting the web to approved browsers only.
- oefrha 1y ago
  "Approved browser" in this context have technical restrictions on user freedom, e.g. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cryptographic-personhood/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cry... I'm not talking about someone at CF just adding a random browser to an approved list. More empirically speaking, a browser can't be considered approved if you can freely fork it and not revoke the approved status.
  - MarsIronPI 1y ago
    I read the article you referenced, though not very carefully due to lack of time, but I don't see anything like a list of supported browsers. They even mention Firefox as supported, which can be forked just like Ladybird.
oefrha 1y ago
Responding to a dead comment from a banned account: > The big new game for them is AI crawler metering. Don’t think browser matters much anymore from their perspective. Truly open browsers are easy to spoof. Approved browsers with whatever attestation features they champion builtin are hard to spoof. So browsers do matter. Edit: authentication => attestation for accuracy.
- jorvi 1y ago
  Browser attestation doesn't really matter, its device attestation. Browser attestation is downstream from that. Google with SafetyNet attestation (whatever the hell its called these days) has pretty much locked down Android as tightly as iOS at this point. Hell, Apple device users already get to go in the internet "approved" fast lane because of attestation. iDevices and M-series Macbooks can send out a special response that bypasses all captchas. Windows 11 has a requirement for TPM2, which features hardware attestation too. Linux of course cannot be locked down in a similar manner, thus cannot attest and will have to suffer for it. It would probably be illegal for CloudFlare + Google to outright block you from accessing the internet, but they can just drown you in a sea of captchas until you give up and join the attested crowd. Hell, YouTube outright forces you to sign in if they detect a VPN, they won't even offer a captcha. Like 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' points out, it isn't a 1984-esque brutal fascist control that will erode our freedoms, but rather a Brave New World-esque situation where people will sign away all (digital) control because the dopamine must flow.
  - bstsb 1y ago
    i'd be surprised if it was actually illegal. "operating system" isn't a protected characteristic in law
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      Access to public resources is. Companies aren't even allowed to dictate what can be installed on their OS anymore.
  - tracker1 1y ago
vulcan01 1y ago
Cloudflare supporting Ladybird makes sense for the same reasons that Valve invests in Proton. Cloudflare's job is easier if everyone standardizes on a few approved browsers, but right now the three major browser engines are controlled by Google (IIRC most of Mozilla's funding comes from Google) and Apple, just as Valve's Steam is heavily dependent on Microsoft's Windows. Both companies are basically hedging against future incentive misalignment with other (larger) companies, and reducing their dependencies on platforms they have ~zero influence over.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  To add to this, Apple’s share of the control is minimal and precarious. A timeline where Google is the sole web engine authority could easily become reality and is even likely. Hedging on a promising upstart makes a lot of sense.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Apple isn't the only one standing in the way of a Google hegemony. If they are, then the web is already fucked since neither corporation has a benevolent track record pertaining to Open Source. Apple just can't compete without steering privileges that are equally harmful to the open web.
    - scared_together 1y ago
      > Apple isn't the only one standing in the way of a Google hegemony. Who else would you consider? Chromium-based browsers from companies other than Google are still contributing to Google’s hegemony. And Mozilla is funded by Google.
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        KHTML, Gecko, most Blink forks.
        1y ago
tonyhart7 1y ago
why you acting like cloudflare forced people to use their services???? there are a alternative on the market like akamai and fastly people free to use their favorite cdn over CF lol
- oefrha 1y ago
  > People have been fiercely debating > whether that’s the least bad practical solution on offer for website owners > I don’t want to make a judgement on that I explicitly said I don't want to debate that. Take a deep breath, no one is taking away your favorite CDN.
  - tonyhart7 1y ago
    people have hate boner for CF, you cant deny that but replace CF with another provider and they would do the same shit
blibble 1y ago
a wide rollout of remote attestation would mean cloudflare becomes completely redundant so I doubt they want that a murky world where you "need" a guardian middle-man is what they want to preserve
robinhood 1y ago
I don't understand why we always assume bad faith. I wish more companies were like Cloudflare actually - trying to balance the need of revenues while trying to do good for internet and open source as a whole. As a normal user with a few sites, I'm glad they provide what they provide to block bots, attacks and everything AI.
- xandrius 1y ago
  There is no way you didn't write this comment while laughing out loud. For-profit companies care about profits for their shareholders, that's it. Heck, even non-profit often tend to value more profit than their integrity or cause but that's a topic for another day. I wish this wasn't the case but even good-willed individuals at the helm of for-profits are forced to pursue profit and avoid anything clearly leading to losses, else they are sacked.
  - robinhood 1y ago
    I'm sorry you see the world that way.
    - superkuh 1y ago
      Those of us who get blocked from access services (government, commercial, personal) by cloudflare nearly every day have the lived experience to really understand the issue and the company. Most are blissfully unaware of their lack of experience. If you stick to corporate browsers you'd never know. It's not your fault, but maybe reflect on this lack of experience before commenting with so much confidence.
    - dpflug 1y ago
      Cloudflare is domiciled in the USA, where shareholder supremacy has been part of US corporate law going all the way back to Dodge v Ford Motor Co. in 1919. Now, it's in Cali, where it's not as strong a statement as in some other states, but it's still got a lot of precedent behind it.
  - parineum 1y ago
Exoristos 1y ago
I would think it's like Vercel and Svelte. Investing in something so small is good PR and gives them an image of goodwill but also very unlikely to result in actual market changes.
cbdumas 1y ago
> Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. It seems your confusion stems from this premise. Is it possible this is not a correct assumption?
dev1ycan 1y ago
Corporations sometimes will do seemingly good things in order to maintain their control, Google is a threat to Cloudflare and their business, what I believe however is that this will have significant pushback from the government seeing how Google seems to be pretty favorable for the current admin, not sure Cloudflare is on the same favorability.
Vinnl 1y ago
Honestly the post tries to frame it under the banner of the open web, and offers some justifications for Omarchy that I think could all also apply to a project like Bluefin, so it feels a bit flimsy. My guess would be that it's just that someone with access to the purse strings got excited about both projects and decided to fund them, without necessarily a larger play in mind.
pepoluan 1y ago
> Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web CloudFlare is in the CDN business. If CloudFlare gatekeeps who can access their CDN, then people will move to a different CDN. Because people want their websites to be accessed by as many people as possible. Your statement does not compute.

by oefrha 1y ago

imcritic 1y ago

How do you call someone who has been doing evil things suddenly do one good thing?

jsheard 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

throwaway1777 1y ago

[dead]

MarsIronPI 1y ago

By your argument, this could still be interpreted as Cloudflare approving Ladybird. I don't see how indie genuine browsers (i.e. not bots) are "against the ethos" of restricting the web to approved browsers only.

oefrha 1y ago
"Approved browser" in this context have technical restrictions on user freedom, e.g. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cryptographic-personhood/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cry... I'm not talking about someone at CF just adding a random browser to an approved list. More empirically speaking, a browser can't be considered approved if you can freely fork it and not revoke the approved status.
- MarsIronPI 1y ago
  I read the article you referenced, though not very carefully due to lack of time, but I don't see anything like a list of supported browsers. They even mention Firefox as supported, which can be forked just like Ladybird.

oefrha 1y ago

Responding to a dead comment from a banned account: > The big new game for them is AI crawler metering. Don’t think browser matters much anymore from their perspective. Truly open browsers are easy to spoof. Approved browsers with whatever attestation features they champion builtin are hard to spoof. So browsers do matter. Edit: authentication => attestation for accuracy.

jorvi 1y ago
Browser attestation doesn't really matter, its device attestation. Browser attestation is downstream from that. Google with SafetyNet attestation (whatever the hell its called these days) has pretty much locked down Android as tightly as iOS at this point. Hell, Apple device users already get to go in the internet "approved" fast lane because of attestation. iDevices and M-series Macbooks can send out a special response that bypasses all captchas. Windows 11 has a requirement for TPM2, which features hardware attestation too. Linux of course cannot be locked down in a similar manner, thus cannot attest and will have to suffer for it. It would probably be illegal for CloudFlare + Google to outright block you from accessing the internet, but they can just drown you in a sea of captchas until you give up and join the attested crowd. Hell, YouTube outright forces you to sign in if they detect a VPN, they won't even offer a captcha. Like 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' points out, it isn't a 1984-esque brutal fascist control that will erode our freedoms, but rather a Brave New World-esque situation where people will sign away all (digital) control because the dopamine must flow.
- bstsb 1y ago
  i'd be surprised if it was actually illegal. "operating system" isn't a protected characteristic in law
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    Access to public resources is. Companies aren't even allowed to dictate what can be installed on their OS anymore.
- tracker1 1y ago

vulcan01 1y ago

Cloudflare supporting Ladybird makes sense for the same reasons that Valve invests in Proton. Cloudflare's job is easier if everyone standardizes on a few approved browsers, but right now the three major browser engines are controlled by Google (IIRC most of Mozilla's funding comes from Google) and Apple, just as Valve's Steam is heavily dependent on Microsoft's Windows. Both companies are basically hedging against future incentive misalignment with other (larger) companies, and reducing their dependencies on platforms they have ~zero influence over.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago
To add to this, Apple’s share of the control is minimal and precarious. A timeline where Google is the sole web engine authority could easily become reality and is even likely. Hedging on a promising upstart makes a lot of sense.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Apple isn't the only one standing in the way of a Google hegemony. If they are, then the web is already fucked since neither corporation has a benevolent track record pertaining to Open Source. Apple just can't compete without steering privileges that are equally harmful to the open web.
  - scared_together 1y ago
    > Apple isn't the only one standing in the way of a Google hegemony. Who else would you consider? Chromium-based browsers from companies other than Google are still contributing to Google’s hegemony. And Mozilla is funded by Google.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      KHTML, Gecko, most Blink forks.
      - 1y ago

tonyhart7 1y ago

why you acting like cloudflare forced people to use their services???? there are a alternative on the market like akamai and fastly people free to use their favorite cdn over CF lol

oefrha 1y ago
> People have been fiercely debating > whether that’s the least bad practical solution on offer for website owners > I don’t want to make a judgement on that I explicitly said I don't want to debate that. Take a deep breath, no one is taking away your favorite CDN.
- tonyhart7 1y ago
  people have hate boner for CF, you cant deny that but replace CF with another provider and they would do the same shit

blibble 1y ago

a wide rollout of remote attestation would mean cloudflare becomes completely redundant so I doubt they want that a murky world where you "need" a guardian middle-man is what they want to preserve

robinhood 1y ago

I don't understand why we always assume bad faith. I wish more companies were like Cloudflare actually - trying to balance the need of revenues while trying to do good for internet and open source as a whole. As a normal user with a few sites, I'm glad they provide what they provide to block bots, attacks and everything AI.

xandrius 1y ago
There is no way you didn't write this comment while laughing out loud. For-profit companies care about profits for their shareholders, that's it. Heck, even non-profit often tend to value more profit than their integrity or cause but that's a topic for another day. I wish this wasn't the case but even good-willed individuals at the helm of for-profits are forced to pursue profit and avoid anything clearly leading to losses, else they are sacked.
- robinhood 1y ago
  I'm sorry you see the world that way.
  - superkuh 1y ago
    Those of us who get blocked from access services (government, commercial, personal) by cloudflare nearly every day have the lived experience to really understand the issue and the company. Most are blissfully unaware of their lack of experience. If you stick to corporate browsers you'd never know. It's not your fault, but maybe reflect on this lack of experience before commenting with so much confidence.
  - dpflug 1y ago
    Cloudflare is domiciled in the USA, where shareholder supremacy has been part of US corporate law going all the way back to Dodge v Ford Motor Co. in 1919. Now, it's in Cali, where it's not as strong a statement as in some other states, but it's still got a lot of precedent behind it.
- parineum 1y ago

Exoristos 1y ago

I would think it's like Vercel and Svelte. Investing in something so small is good PR and gives them an image of goodwill but also very unlikely to result in actual market changes.

cbdumas 1y ago

> Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. It seems your confusion stems from this premise. Is it possible this is not a correct assumption?

dev1ycan 1y ago

Corporations sometimes will do seemingly good things in order to maintain their control, Google is a threat to Cloudflare and their business, what I believe however is that this will have significant pushback from the government seeing how Google seems to be pretty favorable for the current admin, not sure Cloudflare is on the same favorability.

Vinnl 1y ago

Honestly the post tries to frame it under the banner of the open web, and offers some justifications for Omarchy that I think could all also apply to a project like Bluefin, so it feels a bit flimsy. My guess would be that it's just that someone with access to the purse strings got excited about both projects and decided to fund them, without necessarily a larger play in mind.

pepoluan 1y ago

> Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web CloudFlare is in the CDN business. If CloudFlare gatekeeps who can access their CDN, then people will move to a different CDN. Because people want their websites to be accessed by as many people as possible. Your statement does not compute.