this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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The French government is considering a law that would require web browsers – like Mozilla's Firefox – to block websites chosen by the government.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Why forcing the browsers? Couldn't they just make a law for ISPs to block specific domains?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This is already possible (and is actively used, mainly for piracy related websites) with the current laws.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Aand it's never enough

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Too easy to bypass that with a VPN, proxy, or alternative DNS.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Either way it's still a software restriction that can be bypassed with other software.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Librewolf is going to get very popular...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Never heard of that one, I was telling somebody the other day about IceWeasel. So there definitely are FF clones. Or I guess you could just compile Firefox yourself and remove the denylist portion of the code. Would be extra funny if they compiled a version specific for France (because why block sites for everybody else?) and put it next to the regular one on their website with text that said oh BTW if you're in France definitely only download this version, wink wink.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Meanwhile Linux distros will just package the non-blocklist version and French citizens will end up bypassing the restriction by accident!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Librewolf is designed to be private and secure and is basicly hardened Firefox without telemetry

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It's not basically Firefox, it's a fork with the settings already configured for privacy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Eh there's really only 2 players in the browser game right now

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

and the source code for both of them is available.

Could just compile yourself without the filtering

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

But like, can't they just download the non France version of Firefox? Isn't it open source? People can just build their own, right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yes but 90% of the people using Firefox won't bother or notice. I already struggle trying to make all my relatives switch to Firefox, I can't imagine getting them to download a specific version or build it themselves...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

But the same applies for the other workarounds mentioned doesn't it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You should just build one yourself, put it on a disc or flash drive and install it for them.