[motbus3]

You can by not using Google products. Change the search for ddg or kagi. Change your email for proton. Use Dropbox instead. Remove Chrome, live with iceweasel or Firefox.

It is not like you'll be loosing much. This is the time to change, while we still have other players in the market.

[xg15]

No, you can't - not until you get a significant part of the world's population to join your protest.

The point is that if chrome implements this, netflix, amazon, facebook etc might decide they'll use this feature and only permit browsers who implement this to use this site.

Even if the only browser that does so is chrome, that's fine because chrome's market share is big enough that they can ignore the rest.

Have fun using Firefox if half of the web locks you out or treats you like a second class citizen.

[20after4]

It might be time to abandon that half of the web. Radical software freedom ideology is looking less radical and more rational by the day.

[marcthe12]

It may not be that easy as now that stuff like banks and government services have embrance it. If they or your work/school apps need it, you are screwed

[piaste]

I'm already using a separate device for "official" stuff. It's a fully Google/Microsoft managed phone that runs my professional life (work profile, LinkedIn, etc.) and accesses government and some financial services. It mostly sits in a drawer outside work hours and don't use it to browse or talk to anyone outside of work. It has SimpleX installed so it can send anything I need (eg. financial statements) to my personal phone, without even needing to store my personal phone number.

My personal phone, and my personal laptop and PC, run open source OSes and are as privacy-focused as I can make thrm. They're the ones I use to browse and talk to people, both on public and private platforms. They're the ones that have my photos, my books, my passwords, my movies and my music. (I don't use streaming services, except for YouTube via Newpipe.)

I do make sure that I always have at least one bank account with a bank that doesn't require SafetyNet or similar, and can therefore be accessed without needing the "official" phone. So far, all but one of my financial service providers work fine from my personal devices.

I think the dual-device approach will quickly become the only realistic one for individuals who want privacy in their computer use (which will remain a minority). I will even say that, although Google is doing this purely for the sake of ads and profits, it is not unreasonable to expect citizens to have an "official" online presence in the form of a highly standardised Internet client, without prejudicing their ability to use other ones. In the same way that you have an official residential address, without prejudicing your ability to have other mailboxes or live on the road.

[shadowgovt]

It'll be radical and minority.

Most users are more comfortable with computers that are toasters, not (hackable) general purpose machines.

The flexibility to hack implies the flexibility to be owned. Users don't want to get owned. They hate that so much they'd voluntary choose an owner

[dustyharddrive]

> Users don't want to get owned.

I can assure you most people don't think about their tech choices long enough to conclude anything like this.

[fauigerzigerk]

Now the question is going to be how the other half is funded.

[gochi]

Protests aren't convenient, that's the entire point of them.

What, you think taking down the ad industry on the web is going to be painless?

[rpcope1]

> netflix, amazon, facebook etc might ... lock you out

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? It's almost made to sound like surviving without them would be tantamount to starving, but frankly we might be better served without them.

[bruce511]

I see Facebook locking you out (no great loss there) but I'm less convinced about Amazon or Netflix. They're not advertising-based businesses, so are not suffering with bots-consuming-ads problem.

Put another way, my site is unappealing to bots, and frankly I don't care about bot traffic, because I don't have ads. So I don't feel the need to support this server-side.

Equally Amazon makes money selling goods, not ads. They don't need to know if its human or bot, they just need a credit card. [1] Netflix is subscription based, again doesn't care if its a "trusted device" or not. They want you make sure their content is available not blocked because my TV is "untrusted".

Sure, you'll end up using Chrome to use Google properties. But I don't really see the incentive for the non-ad-based Web to bother implementing this.

[1] it won't move the needle for fraud, fraud is easily done via trusted devices.

[fauigerzigerk]

>Equally Amazon makes money selling goods, not ads.

Amazon is one of the biggest ad networks on earth. They made $40bn from advertising last year using all the personal data they get from their paying customers.

>Netflix is subscription based, again doesn't care if its a "trusted device" or not.

Oh but they do care very much. Netflix requires DRM in desktop browsers and its own app on mobile platforms. And they launched and ad based plan recently.

It's a mistake to believe that advertising is the main problem and direct payments are the solution. Making a payment takes away more privacy than advertising alone ever could and hands personal data to payment schemes and banks on top of everything.

[Mindwipe]

Netflix hides it's app from the Google Play store if the device fails the system integrity check that this proposal is based on, they definitely care.

[shadowgovt]

Best of luck with that plan.

Almost no users want to be digital hermits. This protest approach has nobody following you up that mountain to the hermitage.

[andrepd]

It's not a bad thing to me, but for the average "normie" it's certainly a deal breaker.

And then there's stuff like banks, government services, school services. You might not even be able to escape those ones.

[chii]

> they'll use this feature and only permit browsers who implement this to use this site

we as tech early adopters and "leaders" in this space, we need to be telling family and friends to complain to those sites about such required support. If enough people complain to amazon that they don't want to use this google branded browser, i think there will be some pushback and the companies would be hesitant to drop support for firefox.

[nobody9999]

>The point is that if chrome implements this, netflix, amazon, facebook etc might decide they'll use this feature and only permit browsers who implement this to use this site.

Works for me. I don't need those sites/services. If they want to be actively hostile to me, I can vote with my feet/wallet.

I can't (nor do I wish to) control what other people do. Just what I do.

As it stands now, I block the bulk of scripts/ads/trackers/other spyware on my devices, and those who don't like that are free to block me from accessing their sites.

Maybe I'm missing something important here, but I don't need anything from Alphabet, Netflix, Meta or any other rapacious corporation. They can do what they like, and I will do the same.

>Have fun using Firefox if half of the web locks you out or treats you like a second class citizen.

If the above folks are who you consider "half the web" then, at least for me, nothing of value would be lost, as I don't use that garbage anyway.

[shadowgovt]

Changing away from Gmail would lose me access to an uncounted number of sites where my login is Oauth of some flavor or other.

[cube00]

You can move away now or wait until they lock you out (and thereby lock you out of all you OAuth sites) with no recourse. The endless cries for help in /r/GMail/ says it all.

OAuth sites will let you change your OAuth provider or even better switch to a local account on their site and use a password manager so you don't tie everything to an OAuth provider unless the site will accept a self hosted one.

[shadowgovt]

I avoid giving a password to random sites online for a reason: I trust Google's password databases to be a lot more airtight than joerandomsite.tld.

That includes password databases.

[BHSPitMonkey]

What's the harm in giving some sketchy site a unique, random password only used with that site? (In contrast to letting them have your Google profile and all that comes with it)

[shadowgovt]

The need to retain one unique random password per site (as opposed to having one extremely secure Gmail password with two factor authentication attached to it).

It's the old twin airplane principal from the hacker's dictionary: the virtue of putting all your eggs in one basket if the basket is built very well.

[cube00]

Something to consider when you save your passwords in Google, you can "forget" and reset your Google account password and all your passwords are still there. Compare that to a proper password manager where if you forget the master password (assuming sufficient complexity) nobody is getting those passwords back ever. So Google has full access to your passwords whenever it feels like it.

As the other commenter said, there's zero risk giving a dodgy site a randomly generated password used only for that site, the randomly generated password gives them no information or pathway to any other web site.

[shadowgovt]

That's a feature, not a bug. I don't want to lose all of my passwords if I have to reset my Google password.

[allarm]

You will lose them all when Google decides to lock your account.