Hi,
Today I received a Google Developers email with subject "[Action
Required] Starting January 4, 2021, we will block all sign-ins to
Google accounts from embedded browser frameworks." It linked to this
Google blog post:
https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/guidance-for-our-effort-to-block-less-secure-browser-and-apps.html
Summary: Google will attempt to block logins from "CEF-based apps and
other non-supported browsers." Presumably "non-supported browsers"
likely includes non-Safari WebKit, considering how much time I spend
trying to develop user agent quirks to suppress Google's unsupported
browser warnings on Gmail, Google Docs, etc. I guess we will find out
on January 4.
Google says: "The browser must identify itself clearly in the
User-Agent. The browser must not try to impersonate another browser
like Chrome or Firefox." We cannot comply with this because user agent
spoofing is required for compatibility with various Google websites. I
am continually fighting to maintain our user agent quirks for Google
domains, see e.g. [1] or [2]. Even if we were to remove all user agent
quirks, it would still be impossible for Google to distinguish between
a desktop browser and an embedded browser framework, since the user
agent header is going to be the same: Epiphany doesn't even append
"Epiphany" anymore, in order to maximize the chances that websites will
treat us like Safari. Even if we did, there are many other WebKit-based
browsers that would be impacted (off the top of my head: eolie, surf,
etc.)
So we'll see what happens on January 4. If our users get locked out of
google.com, I'll try to come up with new quirks if possible, but if
Google is really determined to block non-Safari WebKit, it will win.
E.g. it's easy to do JS feature detection (scary) or TLS handshake
fingerprinting (extremely scary) and see we are not really the browser
that our user agent quirk claims to be. We are largely toothless here,
unfortunately. If Google continues to discriminate solely on the basis
of the user agent header, and doesn't adopt any more advanced
discrimination mechanisms, then we will survive, although it would help
if Apple is willing to take a hard stance and adopt the same set of
cross-platform quirks in Safari, which would "work" by causing Safari
to break in the same way as non-Safari WebKit... probably not very
palatable, but if adopted well in advance of this Jan 4 flag date, it
would at least make it *harder* for Google to hurt non-Safari WebKit.
(Adopting the quirks *after* the flag date would likely just
immediately break Safari.)
But if Google does this properly and uses more sophisticated browser
fingerprinting techniques, Epiphany is done for. This could be an
existential threat for non-Safari WebKit browsers. Nobody is going to
be interested in using a browser that doesn't support Google websites.
Google's expressly-stated goal is to block embedded browser frameworks
and non-supported browsers from signing into Google accounts. The blog
post says: "This block affects CEF-based apps and other non-supported
browsers." It says: "We do not allow sign-in from browsers based on
frameworks like CEF or Embedded Internet Explorer." Clearly CEF is the
main target, but I guess WebKit (and likely also QtWebEngine) is at
risk too; even if we're not mentioned directly, it seems pretty clear
that WebKitGTK, WPE, PlayStation and WinCairo ports, etc. are all
likely non-grata.
So what should WebKit do about this? I don't know. Nothing has happened
yet, so I guess we could wait and see what happens on January 4. Maybe
this won't affect us at all. But my fear is that January 4 will arrive,
we will be blocked, and more user agent quirks may or may not work.
Even if WebKit is not blocked, we can be confident January 4 will be a
sad day for browser diversity. I wonder if this is something that
WebKit as a project could push back against... somehow. Maybe publish a
statement supporting browsers based on embedded frameworks (WebKit,
CEF, QtWebEngine)? Or some new WebKit project policy? Any suggestions?
Michael
[1]
https://trac.webkit.org/browser/webkit/trunk/Source/WebCore/platform/UserAgentQuirks.cpp?rev=269908
[2] https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=215845
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