If I owned a browser company, I would just pull my browser from France. Much easier than having to make a separate version just for one country.

What kind of authoritarian power move is this? Lol

That’s not a very good solution from a technical standpoint. I mean, there are a bunch of ways to defeat that on the local computer, from modifying the client to disrupting or modifying its communication with the French governments censorship list, not to mention using a non-French browser.

If they’re serious about blocking access to content for French users, it should be happening at the network level, at the edge of the French network.

No one else read the article before commenting??

It’s a pretty typical government stuff-up. People with zero technical understanding thinking they can write legislation about technology to solve a tech related problem problem. These things are basically always scrapped or watered-down before they’re even voted on, once politicians start talking to the people in the government who actually have some technical understanding.

what prevents Microsoft, Google, Apple, Mozilla, etc from just ignoring French legislation? it’s not like any fines levied would affect their bottom line in any noticable way.

the French government could develop their own browser I suppose but I really don’t see how it’s be widely adopted, since you’d need a “noncompliant browser” to even download it in the first place.

tryhard bureaucrats need to lay off the koolaid