In recent news, Google has put forth a proposal known as the "Web Environment Integrity Explainer", authored by four of its engineers. On the surface, it
I don’t understand how this will make ad blockers unusable. This new API might tell the site the user is using an ad blocker, but that tech seems to exist already…?
No, it can do more than that. For example it can tell the site whether the user is using a browser that is based on Chromium, which they can then use to deny you access if you don’t. Since Manifest V3 has killed adblockers in Chromium-based browsers, this will mean if you need access to a site that does this, you will need to use a Chromium-based browser and see ads.
Looking at the proposal, it will also tell them which OS you use, making it even worse.
Seems like to trying to lock out any other browsers from being able to access content would be an Anti-Trust issue. If I were one of the others I would sue them.
Right now websites can only make an educated guess because the ads don’t load, they don’t know whether you’re running a blocker or if you’re human.
Combine a more reliable mechanism with the guise of making the web safer and it might be more widely adopted; sites might refuse to load entirely until the check passes. This might mandate having any extensions disabled that can interfere with the content loaded by the site, this goes beyond ad blockers - could also be accessibility or other UI related enhancements.
I don’t understand how this will make ad blockers unusable. This new API might tell the site the user is using an ad blocker, but that tech seems to exist already…?
No, it can do more than that. For example it can tell the site whether the user is using a browser that is based on Chromium, which they can then use to deny you access if you don’t. Since Manifest V3 has killed adblockers in Chromium-based browsers, this will mean if you need access to a site that does this, you will need to use a Chromium-based browser and see ads. Looking at the proposal, it will also tell them which OS you use, making it even worse.
Seems like to trying to lock out any other browsers from being able to access content would be an Anti-Trust issue. If I were one of the others I would sue them.
Didn’t Microsoft try this back in the IE6 days? Like sites wouldn’t load if it wasn’t IE6?
Right now websites can only make an educated guess because the ads don’t load, they don’t know whether you’re running a blocker or if you’re human.
Combine a more reliable mechanism with the guise of making the web safer and it might be more widely adopted; sites might refuse to load entirely until the check passes. This might mandate having any extensions disabled that can interfere with the content loaded by the site, this goes beyond ad blockers - could also be accessibility or other UI related enhancements.