this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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and what kinda of thing does this protect?
Ads. To be precise this on it's own provides a way for servers to be certain of the environment the pages run (browser, plugins, os). Protecting ads or other functions come from servers refusing unattested configurations or configurations they don't like (i.e. running adblock, running firefox, running linux).
if chrome fully adapts this, this might well be a full blown commerical by chrome for people to switch to firefox. i have been only using chrome only to run our projects locally and test it out.
It should be noted that “being certain of the environment the pages run” requires controlling the client software being executed which requires preventing the user from modifying said executable which requires the browser to either be closed source or, more effectively, controlling the user's hardware via blackbox verification chips (e.g. TPM DRM). It's not just advertisers that would benefit but any website that wants to DRM content.
I'd guess it's first gonna be used for streaming TV shows and such. After that it'll probably be used for absurd things
I thought they were already being protected by DRM.
Kinda, but it doesn't work very well. Using video download manager you can download pretty much every video from the web
Can you recommend me one that can be used to download DRM protected content from OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Mubi? Might well as archive the content I watch.
Sadly I can't, netflix won't let me watch anything on Librewolf/Firefox on linux. I'd recommend looking into getting a good proxy, a Jellyfin server and also the *arr stack (Sonarr, etc...)
by proxy, do you mean a vpn?
Yes, personally I use ProtonVPN. Iirc they don't care about copyright laws because they don't really apply in their country, I might be wrong though
Also make sure your ip doesn't get leaked by your torrent client
I have been using PIA for sometime. Has port forwarding and have been liking it so far.
Don't know about that one, you can check for IP address leaks here https://ipleak.net/
Also https://browserleaks.com/ is pretty useful
And last but not least, inform yourself if PIA is trustworthy, some VPN providers gave information about their users to the police
Malware, malware encrypts its code so researchers cant crack into it and antivirus cant anilize it. Google is accedentally sponsoring malware