Rather than fixing the broken quiz, they’ve chosen to restrict access to a web browser feature with limitless educational value.<p>Perhaps if the creators of the web service had spent more time with the view-source tool during their own schooling they would have designed a better quiz system, one that was less vulnerable to this “exploit”.<p>The layers of incompetence are hilarious. Incompetent web developers restrict access to a valuable resource, which will inevitably lead to more incompetent web developers.
This whole story is a shock to me: I wrote my first online quizzes and problem sets in the 20th century. Submissions were always graded on the server side and answers were never available to the browser.<p>I was involved in a lot of crappy testing software people wanted to sell our university. That was the first criterion I insisted on these publishers satisfied.<p>By the mid-aughts, everyone seemed to have understood it. ... WTF happened that now we are talking about disabling view-source in browsers as a security measure?!<p>I wasn't even aware that was a thing (even though I've had to use Chrome in many enterprise settings). Is this just the `npm install` automatons not understanding the distinction between the client and server in client/server applications?
If I were in charge of Google, anyone who approved this change instead of saying something like "WONTFIX, this is ridiculous, fix your app to not put answers in the page source instead" would be fired.
It is the equivalent of using heavy marble blocks instead of paper to prevent flipping the page because answers are written on the back of the exam: it tries to hide the symptom of the problem instead of fixing the real problem.
Y’all need to chill out with the hyperbole. Eric Lawrence, who I’ve worked with and wrote FIDDLER btw, which does the opposite of what anyone down here is proportions he’s intending, specifically noted that he was fixing a bug in the Blocklist policy. Basically the policy works for all schemes except view-source. He fixed the policy so that it does what it should do, which is work for all schemes. There are uncountable other ways to look at the source of webpages, many of which can also be blocked by enterprises, but it’s completely silly to imply that this change is causing a closed or evil ecosystem. Jeeeesus people need to think critically.
So they embed answers in page source, blame students with basic common sense skills for viewing page source, and trying to "fix" _that_ instead of fixing the whatever quiz system they are using to not send the answers to the client?<p>Great move /s
Recent and related:<p><i>Chromium: Permit blocking of view-source: with URLBlocklist</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29170886" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29170886</a> - Nov 2021 (126 comments)<p><i>View-Source in Chromium</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29193561" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29193561</a> - Nov 2021 (1 comment)
Just another reason to use/advocate/support Firefox, and alternative browsers. Ultimately this is good for Google. Just like with hiding the url, as far as they're concerned, the less people look under the covers, the better.
Seems to be a useful feature also when you want to use Chromium as Kiosk software.<p>I honestly don't get why so many commentators are upset. They are using Google Forms for tests. And these tests leak answers through the source code. Schools are not well funded and this setup itself is not very professional. When you can fix this by giving admins such possibilities, why not?<p>It's not like your Chrome will prevent you from viewing any sources. As you can also read in the article the restriction can be limited to certain URLs. IT ONLY AFFECTS MANAGED ENVIRONMENTS WHERE ADMINS CAN DO MUCH MORE RESTRICITNG THINGS ANYWAY.
Can the HN post title be changed to the article title? The post title is inaccurate and misleading. No functionality was removed, just a fix added for Chromium not respecting `view-source` URLs in the URL blocklist.
Good god, organisations/enterprises really have too much control over the browser. I believe that only top secret organisations like... The NSA need such a locked down browser for employees/students. I also believe that locking down internet access only limits ones ability to work and be happy, ultimately being detrimental to efficiency. While there are plenty of outlets for distraction, workers have managers and the work that's been done can be seen. Team chats exist.
There are plenty of people out there who would <i>love</i> to see this feature more widespread. See all the fuss about making sure end users can't look under the carpet, like disabling copying, obfuscating JS, and DRM.
This is sickening. The person who landed this "fix" posted about it couple days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29171599" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29171599</a>