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A browser extension that acted as an anti-censorship tool for 185,000 people has been kicked out of the Chrome store by Google. The open source Ahoy! tool facilitated access to more than 1,700 blocked sites but is now under threat. Despite several requests, Google has provided no reason for its decision.
Last December, TF reported on SitesBloqueados (Blocked Sites) a web portal run by Revolução dos Bytes (Bytes' Revolution), a group of anti-censorship activists in Portugal.
Internet censorship is common in the country, with more than 1,700 sites banned from regular Internet access for reasons ranging from copyright to gambling. The process does not require intervention from the courts so Revolução dos Bytes decided to keep an eye on things with its Ahoy! Chrome and Firefox extension.
"Ahoy! basically bypasses any traffic to a blocked site through our own proxies, allowing the users to navigate in a free, uncensored internet," team member Henrique Mouta previously told TF.
Not only is Ahoy! able to unblock sites, it can also detect newly blocked domains and feed information back, so that its unblocking abilities are always up to date.
Things had been going well. After servicing 100,000 users last December, Ahoy! grew to almost 185,000 users this year. However, progress and indeed the project itself is now under threat after arbitrary action by Google.
"Google decided to remove us from Chrome's Web Store without any justification", Henrique informs TF.
"We always make sure our code is high quality, secure and 100% free (as in beer and as in freedom). All the source code is open source. And we're pretty sure we never broke any of the Google's marketplace rules."
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 11 2018, @08:08PM (2 children)
Let's start with this obvious one. Is this fucking ELI5? Reads like a marketing blurb, how about some technical details? What information does it feed back, can the provider build a complete browsing history from the data? That would be a valid reason to ban the app for privacy reasons. How does it "detect" newly blocked domains? Are we to assume it leverages neural network-based AI on top of block-chain technology to provide synergetic effects to professional users?
Oh, those meanies. They're stomping the sand castle we built in their sandbox! Whaaa!
If people want or need the app, they can probably still download and install it from the provider's website. But even though it's not mentioned anywhere, the statement that a stagnation of growth is putting the project in danger suggests this a commercial undertaking, with the provider relying on the Chrome store for free advertising.
Commercial but "free as in beer" open source tool for censorship evasion? Something's wrong with this picture. There's not much left to monetize, we can all guess what's making them money: user data.
So maybe their code is not what's at issue. How about their TOS and privacy policy? I'm too lazy really to find out, the whole thing just reeks of some greedy startup that built their lame business in someone else's walled garden, fully aware what the risks are - and now whines that their faulty business model is failing. Tough shit.
Pro tip: just use Tor or pay for a decent VPN. "Ahoy!" is adding nothing of value, good riddance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 11 2018, @09:06PM (1 child)
Unless you live in a country where VPNs, Tor, et al, are illegal or blocked ... then there is some value here. YMMV
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 11 2018, @09:37PM
If you intend to browse websites that are declared illegal in your country, you likely do not care that the tools enabling such are too :)
Using Tor is by far the safest option. If you mustn't be seen using Tor or it is blocked, just disguise its traffic as Skype calls [schneier.com].
If Tor is not blocked but just illegal, you could also use Tails [boum.org] on a laptop with spoofed MAC addresses (on by default) from a public Wifi network, like a café (pr0 tip: pay in cash). This is your option for strong anonymity, good luck to the government trying to trace it back to you. If the area is public enough that people might glimpse your screen, you could activate Tails' built-in camouflage to disguise it as Windows. The casual observer (and common agent of the law) won't be able to tell you are using a Linux distribution designed for circumventing their shitty suppressive nanny state.