Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

Post by 2Gkashmiri » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

rejectfinite wrote: post #298

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What... Is the appeal of brave ? I hear it has crypto and shit but why not install Firefox with ubo and be done with it? I feel the "cool" factor of brave is silly as they are just fueling chromium. Why don't these chromium forks base on Firefox instead and do some leg work with the benefit of helping the internet as a whole ? I hear someone said on hn a long time ago, building on ff is a pita. Well guess what, Firef…

On mobile it is really good because of the builtin adblocker + chromium engine makes it very fast. It also has background play on Youtube. On desktop it is less useful. But probably still better privacy vise than Edge or Chrome.

Post by rchaud » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #303

rchaud wrote: post #254

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I was driven back to Firefox the second I noticed that Chrome had started logging me into my Google account. Been using it happily ever since (FF on MacOS). The only time I open Chrome now is to test websites I'm working on.

That may be a deal breaker for you. But for others it's a necessary feature! Firefox added it as a feature and I love it! And I say that as a person with a very anti-Google stance. Perhaps it's an area that is ripe for disruption but without using the browser or Javascript.

Post by soylentcola » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

NoGravitas wrote: post #228

j-bos wrote: post #179

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Duckduckgo had been running similar ads on Texas billboards. Not specifically regarding ads, but about the value of not being tracked. Offline anti-ads may be the means to get around the FAANG wall. Edit for clarity

DDG is also doing heavy radio advertising. I don't normally listen to commercial radio, but my kids like these morning DJs for the ride to school, so I get to hear it.

Post by gerash » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #206

latexr wrote: post #156

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> and the ones that do are certainly not worth paying for because they don't even block YT ads AdGuard can[1] but it’s a cumbersome process. 1Blocker had to develop a bespoke solution but it works seamlessly[2]. [1]: https://adguard.com/en/article/how-to-block-ads-on-youtube.h... [2]: https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-s...

AdBlock Pro for Safari also blocks YT, but without much ado and without hacks. It just uses the old APIs for blocking video. The bulk of the blocking work, however, is still done by the recommended blocking API. So far Apple seems happy with that.

Post by a5aAqU » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

tomxor wrote: post #249

smaddock wrote: post #19

As someone who is intimately familiar with the Chrome extensions internals and is not employed by a big tech company, I believe most of the changes seem like a step in the right direction.* I've been working towards implementing greater support for Chrome extensions in Electron which has involved reading and interacting with Chromium code [0]. - Using service workers instead of a hidden background webpage is more idi…

> the changes seem like a step in the right direction [...] However, that optimization costs so much for innovative ad blocking. This is fair. For an ad-blocker to be effective today it needs to be invasive, and that doesn't apply to most extensions. It is too easy to grant invasive privileges to v2 extensions for those that do not understand the consequences. Downloading a whole new browser on the other hand is a fa…