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BleepingComputer recently published an article which says:
Google is now banning the popular Linux browsers named Konqueror, Falkon, and Qutebrowser from logging into Google services because they may not be secure.
[...] In tests conducted by BleepingComputer, we can confirm that we were unable to log in with Konqueror or Falkon on multiple machines. When attempting to do so, we were told to try a different browser as Konqueror or Falkon may not be secure.
[...] Even stranger, some users have reported that they could still login with Falkon [1, 2].
This has led people to offer a variety of theories for why this is happening including it being an A/B test being done by Google, related to the version of QtWebEngine installed, or maybe even an account setting such as 2FA being enabled.
Google does have discriminating tastes, does it not?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @12:29AM (11 children)
The internet is meant to be open.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 14 2019, @12:34AM (10 children)
The internet is open. Google is not the internet.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:56AM (1 child)
It wants to be, though. More and more sites are being infected with Google's malware (recaptcha, googleapis, etc.) and many aren't functional if you block it. I've had to stop going to a number of sites because of that, but if the plague spreads too far, it will be difficult to avoid.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @03:13AM
The local Starbucks coffee seems to require a Google account to log onto their hotspot.
That may have changed though, but I would not know...I no longer go there. There is a Dunkin donuts that just lets me log on with no fuss.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:37AM (7 children)
It's also got nothing to do with security, it's whatever a bunch of unaccountable children at Google have decreed to be "secure" over their hot chocolate milk this morning. For example you'll see crap all over Google's web pages going on and on and on about Gmail and insecure apps, but what that really means is "doesn't use OAuth 2.0". That's their entire definition of "insecure". You could be running on an unpatched Windows 95 box from a public Internet cafe in Kazakhstan but as long as you can talk OAuth 2.0, you're "secure" as far as Google is concerned.
So for the "insecure" Linux browsers, all it may take is reverse-engineering whatever it is that the Google children have decreed as insecure, add token support for whatever they want to see to declare it "secure", and you're done.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:42AM (5 children)
What am I lacking to be 'secure?' Some fancy ssl/tls upgrade? Nah.
I need to let them run their apps in the browser. That'll be SOOOOO MUCH MORE SECURE!!!!!!
The chutzpah of these scam artists is only matched by their market cap.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday December 14 2019, @03:32AM
I read that as "market crap".
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:26PM
It's all just because QtWebEngine is based on Chrome, so it's always behind and playing catch-up. Chrome is the most popular browser so even a short period of exposure could be enough to leave you vulnerable to script-kiddies using last week's new tricks.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday December 14 2019, @11:37PM (2 children)
They are starting to push for apps being downloaded to your desktop. That way, there will always be access...
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Wednesday December 18 2019, @02:53AM (1 child)
Is that why I kept getting the yellow bar at the top of the google page telling me I need to enable DRM in firefox? I didn't and it went away after a week or so.
Serious question. The browser was telling that google.com needed drm enable for some reason and I could never find out why. IT worked fine without. Why?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday December 18 2019, @10:48PM
I can't tell you why but I can suggest using the NoScript or uMatrix add-ons (if you are not already doing so) and not allowing the Google scripts to even run unless you need them for some reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 15 2019, @09:51AM
cos OAuth 2.0 is insecurity by obnoxious design.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @12:38AM (12 children)
Konqueror identifies as Chrome, on Windows. Nyah!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday December 14 2019, @12:40AM (11 children)
Google doesn't give a shit how your browser self-identifies.
Same as they hate links/lynx. Anything that makes it harder to track you is verboten. Same as Facebook, etc.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:46AM (10 children)
Same as they hate links/lynx.
Does your iCloud account work?
I don't understand why people just don't use something else a bit more user friendly.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by barbara hudson on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:31AM (9 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:33PM (8 children)
Because the user-side clients all suck, even compared to webmail. Nobody competent is doing interfaces for open-source email software (only people who want to design their own local inbox storage standard), so Gmail is the best it gets for end users.
(Score: 2) by bart on Saturday December 14 2019, @04:50PM
Try fastmail its great
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Saturday December 14 2019, @05:57PM (3 children)
SeaMonkey [seamonkey-project.org] FTW. Discoverable, standards-compliant. It even has a message thread view. The only thing I think it's missing is automatic recognition of URLs.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 14 2019, @09:34PM
Yep, switched from Mosaic almost 25 years ago, never looked back...
I've tried the rest, and came back to the best.. Netscape is still second to none.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday December 14 2019, @11:47PM
Seamonkey is well worth checking out. I've been with if for so long I can't even remember when I switched. I think it was around seamonkey's version 1.4
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @07:15PM
I'm a SeaMonkey user since it was called Mozilla Suite and of course still recommend it whole-heartedly, but:
1. Google does check User-Agent on multiple sites, even though SM is FF 52's engine, you will get limited functionality on YouTube for example (I wouldn't know about GMail etc., but I'm sure it's the same there). Actually I much prefer the "old" YouTube page, so that's a nice feature, until they tell you you need to change your channel in Creator Studio, which straight up won't let you in because of your UA string ;)
2. Mozilla themselves really hate "forks" (even though this is the original Mozilla and technically, Firefox is the fork) and they make it their mission to block you from extensions. Some you can get in older versions and install fine (but the search will fail and if you find someone recommending an extension elsewhere and go find it on the portal, it just shows you that extension is incompatible instead of saying "oh, you're on SeaMonkey, sure I have a compatible version, here it is"), others you need to find elsewhere and pull from github.
SeaMonkey is maintained by a tiny team and while they want to get a better ecosystem around the suite, they can't catch up with Mozilla's speed of breaking things. Of course this is not limited to SeaMonkey - the same is true for FF LTS, Basilisk etc.
In other words, this is a perfect browser for a true power-user who can google for solutions and likes stuff that doesn't just work out of the box, like myself ;)
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday December 14 2019, @06:31PM (1 child)
So why does it have to be open source? Are you going to audit the code? There have been bugs in major open source projects that have been around for a decade in plain sight because nobody can be bothered to examine the source. The "many eyes make all bugs shallow" is a myth, and a large part of that is because people who are writing code for free would rather scratch their own itch than clean up somebody elses mess.
And who could blame them?
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @07:42PM
ohh shut the fuck up you goddamn whore.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Saturday December 14 2019, @07:26PM
I dunno, if you use Win, Thunderbird works pretty well. Better filtering capability than (web)Gmail, makes checking the headers easy, nowhere as frustrating as web Gmail. (Gmail on Android is even worse, it should be taken out behind the barn and shot, but most Android software is pretty crappy compared to its desktop cousin.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday December 14 2019, @12:54AM (6 children)
It's high time they got sued for antitrust violation and broken up. It's really starting to show that they're a monopoly, and that they bought the powers that be so they don't do a thing about it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:10AM (1 child)
Congress is too busy with witch hunts to worry about anticompetitive behavior by their friends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:00AM
They are too busy. Why not duck him and be sure? Quick and simple.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:41AM (2 children)
Instead of switching browsers, people should switch services to something other than Google, but that just starts the cycle all over again.The next service to become popular will invariably suffer the same fate. Guess we could just ride the waves, turn around and catch the next one.
There is no reason to regulate a content provider as long as service provision remains open.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Saturday December 14 2019, @03:51AM (1 child)
Google isn't a content provider, they are a surveillance operation. I don't want a single thing from them but I still can't avoid their shit unless I actively block it all through technical means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:39PM
lots of negative-balast money in googles war chest.
u either join the team w/ all shenigans or remain unemployed.
google is misery(tm).
with all the insight they can basically win any "virtual war" with one machine gun and a million false flags...
the polticians have "terrorists" and "climate change" and google has "security".
the horrible thing is that this very medium here we use to complain is where google is king.
google is probably where all the materialistic hacker with no ethics but mamons ethics have congregated with but one instrution set to respect/hack/abuse: the law.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:16AM
You don't sue monopolies. The Sherman act is criminal law, not tort law.
You need an executive branch that doesn't hate regular people to get it done. And I guess a supreme court who won't deem every monopolistic behavior "reasonable"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:31AM (2 children)
Time to start breaking all these megacorps up. It has been way too long that they have had power.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:36AM
Not going to happen, they already own Congress. You should have listened to Rupert Murdoch and stuck with MySpace.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @04:09AM
Sure, we'll call them Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, etc.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:05AM (2 children)
Isn't it time we started referring to google as goog£e?
Only half in jest but I'd guess linux users would be well represented amongst those most likely to have already shunned goog£e.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday December 14 2019, @04:17PM (1 child)
Depends on how you look at it. Arguably, the most popular distributions of Linux now are created by Google and are chock-full of Google's tracking.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 14 2019, @04:36PM
"technically" perhaps, but I think it's fair to say that Android users are the rectangles and Linux users are the squares. Or something like that. I'm still waking up. Anyway, nobody would think Linux Geek because a person uses Android.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:23AM (2 children)
What about Midori? Pale Moonies? Grixnacks?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @02:49AM (1 child)
anything that doesn't support google's shitty new javascript-based authentication token
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 14 2019, @03:06AM
So X browser with No-script installed? Wow, seems like more than just Forbes website may be broken soon! Bye-bye, what used to be the internet.
(Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Saturday December 14 2019, @03:37AM (3 children)
I had this happen on windows to firefox. Not sure what I turned on but it dumped me saying my browser was insecure. A quick refresh and it went away. It must be something in the header or user agent.
The incidents of captcha have also gone up. On google services, search and youtube. Both for logging in and viewing content.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @06:04AM (2 children)
Might want to check for viruses and whatnot on your network. I had a relative claim that they were getting that stuff. Numerous searches came up negative. Turns out that after I plugged it into a TAP for monitoring. Seems the actual router itself was spitting out all sorts of C&C garbage and mostly connecting to Facebook, Google, and something called VK (which I'd never heard of before).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @07:15AM
VK is VKontact a Russian based facebook and google I think.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @01:50PM
Not a virus... just lots of deception/privacy plugins. That's some google advice... "check you systems for viruses"... no you just don't like my vpn and blockers. The rouer is a linux machine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 14 2019, @10:23AM
That's funny. My browser block Google because it's deprecated.