this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
337 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16763 readers
2 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (10 children)

So, they've already won. They just haven't turned on the nuclear option yet.

They recently added what amounts to drm for the entire Internet to chrome, it is a way for them to disallow access to YouTube and other services via anything but an approved browser. This would include approved extensions.

So I'll use something that isn't chrome? Well, they will just block Firefox from YouTube. Making chrome and chrome derivatives via its Internet drm the only option.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A monopoly trying to lock in browsers isn't going to last in the EU.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Or even the US. Microsoft lost that one in the late 90s.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They killed Netscape and had to put in a toggle with the option of other browsers like 10 years later. They paid next to nothing in fines and legal battles, basically putting a stranglehold on the internet itself that took another 10 to kinda of undo.

Not sure if that’s a “loss.”

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Wrong decade. We’re talking about having internet explorer pre installed on windows 95 and 98. It was a really big antitrust thing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

microsoft is pulling all their dirty tricks from the 90s unchecked rn.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Ehh maybe, widevine exists for drm already. They will just claim its an extension of that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anti-trust lawsuit in 3... 2...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

I hope they get annihilated by that lawsuit.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They recently added what amounts to drm for the entire Internet to chrome

This will be legally challenged later, if it is not opt-in.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eh, probably. But it's for fighting those darned internet pirates, and the only body that seems to protect us anymore, the eu, seems to be all for that. So I'm.not expecting anything good

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What makes you think the EU is for internet monopolies after the DMA?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

They are all for copyright protection, the current copyright reform act proposes automatic scanners installed to prevent copywritten content from being displayed without authorization

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don‘t even worry. Some clever dudes will find a way to spoof Chrome with a Firefox extension

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a drm system, so we're talking end to end encryption from server to display, but for evil. It's not a spoof thing

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even in the US, a corporate monopoly trying to force people to use their browser will trigger an antitrust lawsuit from the government. Microsoft has already faced one for what they did with Edge, and they didn't even do DRM.

Besides, it's YouTube. If you can't use it anymore, it's not gonna be the end of the world.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not that simple, it's not forcing everyone to use chrome, it's denying access to copyrighted material to drmed browsers only. This is something that already happens and no one seems to want to break things up around that. Infaft they seem to legislate more for that.

And sure today it's youtube, but this is actually a form of drm for everything. Today youtube tomorrow everything else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

we're going to go back to needing "apps" for everything on desktops soon. desktop covered in shortcuts for every shitty service we need to use.

God this passes me off

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If they want their services to instantly die, sure.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Ah, you forget that the general population is perfectly OK with inconveniences.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Majority of people already use chrome

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

People are acting as if losing YouTube and other Google services is the end of the world. It is not. You don't need Google, even if you use Android.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That would be easy to challenge under the same reasoning as what's in the article, not to mention various anti-trust laws and ones covering anti-competitive business practices.

Doesn't mean it's guaranteed to stop them, but it's definitely not going to be as easy as them flipping a few switches and saying "watch ads on our browser with no addons or GTFO".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most importantly, such a move would kill YouTube as a platform. Removing other browsers from the picture would cut off a majority of their viewers

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Safari and chrome have the Web drm already. It's really just Firefox that gets cut off.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I stopped using Chrome about 3 weeks ago. Used Edge for a while but finding out that is Chromium, I landed back on Firefox after 10 years of not using it. Just moved all my bookmarks and plugins.

Why? Principles the moment people force me to use their software is the moment I leave.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So I'll use something that isn't chrome? Well, they will just block Firefox from YouTube.

Fast track to getting people to stop using YouTube. No service or company is immune to this.