Chromium derivatives like Vivaldi and Brave decried the Google Web Environment Integrity… um, ‘feature’, at varying volumes, back in the summer when it became widely known.
But can any Chromium-based browser actually avoid implementing this? Have there been more recent statements?
You, personally, may not use those websites, but of course you realise that you’re a small minority. Browsers find it hard enough to earn market share as it is, reducing their available market by 99.9% is going to make them non-viable.
So while you might not use those sites they’re very relevant to a browser’s choice of whether to support WEI.
Yes, theoretically it’s possible, but it’s not likely to help. Along with Firefox users, you’ll slowly find yourself locked out of more and more websites over time, unless you agree to their DRM.
Using Firefox sends a different use agent that shows websites that if they implement this, it’ll break their site for X% of the market. If X is 5%, they’ll do it. If X is 50%, they probably won’t.
If this happens, we’ll be one large step closer to “Please drink a verification can.”
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