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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

#481

Post by newscracker »

sergiotapia wrote: post #328
ravenstine wrote: post #269

Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problem…

I did give Firefox a _serious_ exclusive try for the past two months. It's terrible for heavy websites. Clickup, PivotalTracker, JIRA, Zeplin - the browser just chokes on these sites and get janky. On Chrome they are butter smooth. I don't know what to do. I want to use anything other than Chrome, but I also want a sane workday and not have the browser jank my day up constantly. I would use Brave but they don't have…

I'd suggest you try creating a new profile (after saving your bookmarks elsewhere) and start from there, installing your favorite extensions one by one. An uninstall and a fresh install could also be combined with this. Check the Firefox knowledge base for instructions on creating a new profile.

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

#482

Post by ehsankia »

seangrant wrote: post #331
SquareWheel wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manifest V3 still supports ad blocking. I don't know why so many in this thread think it doesn't.

Rule-based ad blocking limited to 30k, as stated in the article. That's why people are upset.

Except that list really is just bloated with rules that don't do anything anymore.

> We measure how EasyList affects web browsing by applying EasyList to a sample of 10,000 websites. We find that 90.16% of the resource blocking rules in EasyList provide no benefit to users in common browsing scenarios.

[0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.09160.pdf

They've also mentioned the possibility of tweaking the 30k limit.

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

#483

Post by kkarakk »

junar wrote: post #23

I found this post highly editorialized. Here's the actual response if you want to understand the context, instead of simply seeing bits and pieces with a journalist's spin. https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chrom... Also, the headline seems mostly incorrect. The gist of it, as I understand, is that Chrome is enforcing a migration from the webRequest API to a new declarativeNetRequest API. The lat…

I'm tired of major corps doing this with their APIs, either the new API is a drop in replacement for the old API or you're doing shady shit in the guise of "it's coming! soonish~"

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

#484

Post by arpa »

btown wrote: post #197
user17843 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the only way to combat Google in this regards would be for smaller players to come together and form an open-source working group based on a chromium fork. (The train has already left the station for anything besides WebKit or Blink, since the lack of accessibility of Gecko means it will never be adopted by anyone else.) But most of them are directly financed by Google and have almost no common ground…

> smaller players to come together and form an open-source working group based on a chromium fork Google can and does use DRM to block even this from happening: https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked... Even Mozilla needed to license Widevine from Google to support modern video: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm Based on the policy evidenced in Maddock's post, it seems impossible t…

Well maybe we don't really need DRM? I mean, there are other sources of entertainment which do not threaten the FOSS

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

#485

Post by danShumway »

amelius wrote: post #289
ljm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it’s so unfortunate and frustrating that people are depending so much on Chromium/Blink. Electron, various browsers that are just skins over the embedded framework... We were still dealing with legacy IE6 (and IE 7/8 by that point also) in 2013! Almost a decade since we got Firefox and the first version of Chrome. The web has empirically suffered through homogeneity and the lack of strong competitors in t…

> “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept. Can't we, developers, do the opposite? Like introduce a small annoyance, like showing a pop-up, when visitors use Chrome? It could say something like "today is free web day, upgrade your browser to Firefox or any other libre browser"

I'm still working out the details, but when I get to the point where I'm selling software on my site, I plan to offer small discounts (maybe a dollar) to anyone I detect on a Firefox browser. I'm considering doing the same thing for Ad Blockers.

I know I can't convince normal people to care about the web ecosystem, and yelling at users about behavior is just another way to annoy them. I like the idea of having a small (likely secret) list of browser behaviors that reward users, rather than punishing them. It makes it feel more like a game or a cheat code or easter egg to me than a heavy handed lecture.

If someone is visiting on an unconfigured browser, or something I don't recognize, they won't get an error message or performance hit or any notification at all. But if someone visits and they're doing the right thing, maybe they get a "good job" and a discount or extra download. And then hopefully if they recommend my software to a friend they'll also let them know about the "secret."

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

#486

Post by arpa »

userbinator wrote: post #425
btown wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> smaller players to come together and form an open-source working group based on a chromium fork Google can and does use DRM to block even this from happening: https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked... Even Mozilla needed to license Widevine from Google to support modern video: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm Based on the policy evidenced in Maddock's post, it seems impossible t…

Crack the DRM and do it in a country that does not care about DMCA and has lax copyright laws. You could create an "illegal browser", and judging by how effective all the other antipiracy efforts have been to date (i.e. not at all), I doubt you'll face too much opposition...

Or don't consume DRMed content?

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

#487

Post by roywiggins »

ravenstine wrote: post #269

Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problem…

The first Firefox Quantum version broke on my work laptop and I never managed to work out what it was. It probably interacted badly with some corporateware, I don't know, but it would just crash on start.

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

#488

Post by csdreamer7 »

nh2 wrote: post #440
ravenstine wrote: post #269

Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problem…

Firefox has significant performance and correctness problems. * Multi-second UI jank/freeze ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1546847 ) * HTTP2 is broken, infinite-stalls and internal errors surface if you upload enough files ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1540574 ) * WebGL is very slow on Linux ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1010527 ) * High CPU on Linux even when in the…

Thank you for your work in helping profile FF's issues.

The first issue was really enjoyable to read. A high quality bug report and the devs giving feedback.

Why did you reference that last issue? I haven't had that CPU usage issue since Quantum was released.

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

#489

Post by zdragnar »

roca wrote: post #67
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/

I love Brendan, but if Google's browser domination concerns you, use Firefox or Safari. Using Chromium browsers leaves Google firmly in control.

I'm not an apple user, so sorry if this is way off but...

... isn't the direction Google's taking here the same as what Apple already did with Safari? Is Safari actually any better in this particular regard?

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

#490

Post by pizza »

plaguuuuuu wrote: post #469
amelius wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, then it could be played a little harder, for example by introducing a (small) performance penality for visitors that use chrome.

Well, apparently, all you'll need to do is put ads on your site and people will probably start switching ;)

I really do appreciate the kind of symmetry behind the idea of "Google ads for Google Chrome users, freedom from ads for free software users"
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