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Comment by hedora | Hacker News Reader

I didn’t install their browser.

Your users did decide to use it, though - and this particular feature is one of the reasons why that particular browser if popular. It was one of the major differentiators of the "better" browsers in the sad old IE days.

For all you "use Firefox [etc], don't use Chrome" pundits: it also uses Google Safe Browsing [0], and for that matter so does Safari, which may compound it by using Tencent version instead if you happen to be in China [1]

[0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210675

This is a weak take. Are we saying that any feature built into a web browser is desirable by virtue of the products popularity? 99% of chrome users use it because they recognize the interface from school laptops. Do you really want to live in this world where massive corporations can put whatever they want in their products and the justification is “yeah well people still downloaded it?”

No, we are saying that a site owner should not get to choose which features of the browser the users decide to use. It's the same reason why HN is dogpiling on any site that announces "Only works in Google Chrome", "Best viewed in Safari" or, for older users, "Designed for IE".

One of the reasons why users decided to jump ship to browsers implemneting more advanced security features (which invariably including some sort of malware/phishing actors filter) was the realisation that even a site that has been safe to visit before may serve you malicious content. PHP.net, for instance, was compromised in a way that is eerily similar to what the author here describes - JS files were variably serving malware depending on certain conditions [0], and the first warning anyone got was GSB blocking it. You can read and compare the outrage that 'it can't be true' that particular blocking has caused at your own convenience [1].

Whilst you can convince the users to jump ship to some fringe browser that does not use the technology (and I do invite you to try to find one which does not use either Google, Microsoft or Tencent filters and has at least 0.1% of global usage!), it is a losing proposition from the start. The take is: the vast majority of users is actually comfortable and happy to get this message, as long as they can trust that it is warranted.

Should filters be hosted and adjusted by a major technology company like Google? Probably not, and some indepdendent non-profit hosting them (for the sake of the argument, even StopBadware that kick-started the whole mess [2]) would be welcome to try to take that responsibility. But the filters are here to stay until we come up with something better as a solution.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6604251 [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/forum/AAAA2Jdx3sUpuLmv... [2] https://www.stopbadware.org/

The problem is that the process is opaque so you aren't even given a hint as to why the site is blacklisted. Security filters, fine, but at least tell the developers what the violation is so that it can be fixed. It's the same in the play store controversies, the developers aren't told what's wrong, the app is just taken down. This lack of transparency is the real issue.

> 99% of chrome users use it because they recognize the interface from school laptops.

The implication that less than 1% of Chrome users are old enough that Chrome didn't exist when they were in school is laughable.

Also, if that kind of familiarity rendered feature comparison irrelevant, Mosaic would still have a healthy share of the browser market.

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