{"id":8520,"date":"2019-12-16T09:52:39","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T14:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8520"},"modified":"2019-12-16T09:52:39","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T14:52:39","slug":"google-blocking-some-browsers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=8520","title":{"rendered":"Google Blocking Some Browsers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a mini-scandal roiling the Internet making the claim that Google is blocking some Linux browsers<\/a>. It apparently started when onedoer complained on the KDE subreddit that he could no longer log in to Google services with Falkon or Konqueror<\/a>. Since then, many others have taken up the story. There\u2019s been a bit of pushback, though. Many commenters have said they\u2019ve had no problems and, of course, Google hasn\u2019t commented or answered any questions.<\/p>\n

The thing I found interesting about the story is the reasons Google gives for not supporting a browser<\/a>. Google says these restrictions are for security and to protect users\u2019 accounts but the first reason given is that the browser doesn\u2019t support JavaScript or has it turned off. That seems odd. Since when is an enabled JavaScript a security benefit? It isn\u2019t, of course, because it allows the Web site to get into all sorts of mischief.<\/p>\n

Google, of course, isn\u2019t dealing malware in the traditional sense but it is<\/i> very interested in tracking our Internet habits for which it depends on JavaScript. One might be excused, therefore, for suspecting that the real reason to block these browsers is that they don\u2019t support tracking or at least not as much tracking as Google would like. No one outside of Google seems to know for sure and Google isn\u2019t talking.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, DHH claims that Google isn\u2019t a search engine, it\u2019s an ad engine<\/a>. He\u2019s definitely not a fan and says that \u201cGoogle is a tax on the internet.\u201d Who could disagree? As I\u2019ve said many times before, if you don\u2019t like being spied on get rid of as many Google services as you can. It\u2019s hard to be 100% Google-free but you can get rid of the most invasive apps\u2014like Gmail, Search, and Google Suite\u2014pretty easily. It\u2019s worth the effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a mini-scandal roiling the Internet making the claim that Google is blocking some Linux browsers. It apparently started when onedoer complained on the KDE subreddit that he could no longer log in to Google services with Falkon or Konqueror. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-8520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8521,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8520\/revisions\/8521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}