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Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

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Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#161

Post by duckmysick »

msla wrote: post #141
mises wrote: post #75

For what it's worth, I've had a great experience with firefox for the past year (since quantum convinced me to give it another chance). All though, it recently basically factory-reset itself. Signed out of sync, extensions gone, custom settings gone. Any one else have this happen? It's also got a weird memory leak, which I think is related to the pdf viewer. Never really checked in detail or tried to measure.

Firefox has been doing a few rather questionable things. They had the Mr Roboto add-on which was pushed out to advertise a TV show, they stuck ads in the "Recommendations" [1], they proactively destroyed peoples' bookmarks when they dropped support for RSS, they dropped support for RSS (because, apparently, a decentralized way to track website updates is anti-Google), and they destroyed a lot of useful add-ons. I bas…

Which browser do you recommend then?

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#162

Post by lone_haxx0r »

badloginagain wrote: post #20
jressey wrote: post #5

Here are browsers that aren't just 'not Chrome,' they are better. Brave: https://brave.com/ Firefox: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

The original creators of Opera have been building out Vivaldi for a while, which has the specific design goal of being a browser for power users https://vivaldi.com/

What's their business model?

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#163

Post by kunday »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #86
laminar_flow wrote: post #41

Definitely time to ditch Chrome, but also even more of a reason to set up a PiHole https://pi-hole.net/

Can you help a newbie understand why I'd want to use this instead of Firefox + uBlock Origin? Seems like a lot of extra maintenance overhead...

If you are keen to try out how it works, give https://www.nextdns.io/ a try.

I'm not the maker of the app not can vouch for its integrity but you get a sense of how much network bandwidth ad and tracking takes up on your network.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#164

Post by _dmurph »

I'm confused about the difference between what people are saying here, and what chromium is working on. Referring to the email discussion of the feature: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-exte...

" It's really unfortunate how many people seem to be commenting here without understanding what the proposed changes even are. To be clear:

1. This change _IS NOT INTENDED TO GIMP AD BLOCKERS_. Rather, it is designed to make them faster and more secure. (Yes, even despite the limitations that might impact uBlock.)

2. The new proposed content blocking API _is not final_ and can/will be changed.

3. Threatening to switching to Firefox is not helpful and _WILL NOT CHANGE GOOLE'S MIND ABOUT THIS_.

If you don't understand this, please refrain from commenting as you'll only be decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio in this thread and thus making it more likely that the entire thread (including those who are expressing actual legitimate concerns about the limitations of the new API) gets ignored.

If you want to help:

1. Explain a specific use case that the new API can't handle (including a technical explanation of _why_ it can't handle that use-case)

2. Suggest constructive changes to manifest V3's API that will improve its capabilities _while still adhering to the stated goals of manifest V3_

3. If you can't do any of the above, please refrain from commenting so you don't just make things worse

Sorry if I sound aggressive. It just really frustrates me when constructive technical discussions get hijacked by large volumes of unconstructive, uniformed comments. It makes it way harder to get real work done. "

I know the anti-google bandwagonning is strong, but seriously, I doubt most people actually tried to understand what is being changed here, and it's sad.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#165

Post by teh_klev »

For work stuff I rely on multiple profiles for different client work (I use about ten of them...so far) and so I stick with Chrome.

If Mozilla didn't have such a demented mechanism to operate with multiple profiles then I'd happily switch from Chrome. This is a feature that should be upfront in the UI, not hidden behind about:profiles and it's generally janky UI and behaviour. This needs to be a first class citizen, not what feels like some half baked afterthought.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#166

Post by AaronFriel »

OrangeManBad wrote: post #158
AaronFriel wrote: post #142

I think it's time for Microsoft to rethink their decision to base Edge on Chromium. It's a painful decision, to be sure, but the Microsoft team has to make a decision here: fork or adhere. The immediate benefit of forking and not following Chromium on this change is obvious. However, the cost of the fork will grow over time and it will be in Google's interest to deprecate and replace all of the infrastructure that su…

Why wouldn't they just patch that part of the code? I'm seriously surprised though Microsoft didn't build an adblock in IE much earlier, that would have stopped google in the tracks.

That part of the code doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's baked in at a rather low level in the browser. That's how it can block requests! In JavaScript!

Google will begin by deprecating the webRequest block API (that's in progress). Then they will begin deprecating the code that supports it.

Then they will begin removing and deleting the "unnecessary" code. Then, at some point in the future, they may make other breaking changes to the webRequest flow that assume that requests cannot be blocked. Each time Google writes new code that assumes webRequests cannot be blocked, Microsoft must patch that code too.

With each successive change, Microsoft will be forced to make a choice:

1. Support both Google's webRequest API and the Microsoft's, at increasing cost with every merge and rebase where Google has cut off or altered another piece of functionality

2. Adopt Google's API and break ad blockers

Google has a profit motive in shrinking the ad blocking market, and therefore they have a perverse incentive to make their browser worse for users, and more expensive for any forks that want to maintain ad blocking functionality.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#167

Post by marktangotango »

voldacar wrote: post #38
redwards510 wrote: post #13

Google is essentially saying that Chrome will still have the capability to block unwanted content, but this will be restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome. Never heard of a paid version of Chrome before! Can anyone elaborate on this? I gotta say I'm kind of glad Google is doing this. It will force me to finally abandon Chrome, something I should have done awhile ago.

Check out Ungoogled Chromium, it's pretty great.

Can you elaborate on what this is and why you think it’s so great?

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#168

Post by comboy »

o10449366 wrote: post #146
irrational wrote: post #85

I don't get it. I've used Firefox and Chrome for years. Firefox is easily as good and capable as Chrome. The barrier to switch from Chrome to Firefox is almost non-existent. Is Google counting on the majority of people not being knowledgeable enough or motivated enough to switch browsers?

It's not "as good." I've tried every release of Firefox for the past decade. On Linux and Mac the video performance is noticeably worse than Chrome with significant frame drops, lag, and tearing. Yes, I've tried enabling/disabling hardware acceleration, flash, and all sorts of other flags and options, but the two are still incomparable. Furthermore, even with the quantum update Firefox is still slower for general web…

Yup, let's not sugar coat it. Most HN says "switched to Firefox and haven't looked back" but Chrome does a lot of magic that makes everything faster (or at least seem faster - doesn't matter to me as a user). Firefox also still occasionally freezes even for a few seconds with some busy javascript, haven't had that experience on Chrome in a long time. I'm using FF for ideological reasons but currently Chrome is simply better in terms of user experience.

And sadly web became so dominated by Chrome that some pages simply don't work correctly under Firefox. I'm not going to switch bank or my mobile operator just because they suck at properly designing websites.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#169

Post by marktangotango »

estranhosidade wrote: post #114
tacosx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were predicting this as the Chrome endgame years ago. It's playing out exactly as everyone cynically expected. It's time to eliminate Google from your life as much as possible if you haven't already. Too many wake up calls. They are not a tech company, they are data monopolists. Stop giving them your data.

Funny how sometimes what everybody was waiting to happen just.... happens

Particularly satisfying for those of us who never left Firefox for this very reason!

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#170

Post by msla »

duckmysick wrote: post #161
msla wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has been doing a few rather questionable things. They had the Mr Roboto add-on which was pushed out to advertise a TV show, they stuck ads in the "Recommendations" [1], they proactively destroyed peoples' bookmarks when they dropped support for RSS, they dropped support for RSS (because, apparently, a decentralized way to track website updates is anti-Google), and they destroyed a lot of useful add-ons. I bas…

Which browser do you recommend then?

I use a few: qutebrowser, vimb, and w3m.
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