Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by droppedTheBox » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

yborg wrote: post #316

maccolgan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Blink monoculture destroying "the web", like the one we almost already have.

The only thing preventing a Blink monoculture is Safari, thanks to iOS platform lock-in. Firefox has negligible market share, if that was all that was left, Gecko would have to become a Blink clone to survive, nobody would code exceptions for it.

IMO the Web was better in the Trident days, when IE6's dominance allowed a single defacto web-wide standard (vs today's WHATWG clusterfsk) but alternative browsers like NetCaptor could still provide all the shiny UI chrome, from tabs to integrated popup blocking.

Having a single renderer but multiple browsers on top of it would vastly simplify the web for users & developers, resulting in one consistent engine to develop, test, and fuzz against.

Rather than being the irrelevance it is today, Mozilla focusing on Blink development & governance would have way more impact for billions of users, rather than some obsolete and forgotten build of Firefox.

Then all it'd take is for something like the E.U. to cripple Apple's Webkit-on-iOS monopoly for Blink to take over there too.

Having multiple renderers is just a waste of everyone's time...

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

#342

Post by effingwewt » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

rejectfinite wrote: post #290

lazybreather wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make this happen and I am going to do my best to publicize this. On the other hand, chrome is making it increasingly tough to use any other browser by sheer intuitive and useful features. Grouping tabs for eg. I know other would do it one day. But there is a lag. I wonder why other browsers (OSS) do not straight up copy any good features and release. Assuming there is good enough dev resources. Or is it really that h…

>intuitive and useful features ??? Vivaldi is the king of features. Too bad it is so slow. Firefox has extensions for all you need. Vertical tabs, tab groups etc

Firefox used to have all the extensions I need.

There were thousands before and what, a handful now? Firefox jumped the shark years ago, and I loved it from day 1.

I use FF/brave but no browsers make me happy any longer.

I'd pay good money to have FF back before the bean counters killed it.

Now I just see FF as something google pays to make sure barely works so they can point and say there are other browsers.

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

#343

Post by zo1 » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

innocenat wrote: post #197

vlod wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe just dip your toe in? It's okay to use Chrome for X and FF for Y. i.e. Use it exclusively for HN (say for a few weeks) and see how it goes.

Not going to help when my session is 200+ tabs. Previously it's dead after moving my main session.

Start a new session then.

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

#344

Post by smaddock » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

ghostwords wrote: post #330

smaddock wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an extension developer, but have resigned from engaging with development in the ecosystem. One of my extensions has >300k subscribers on the Chrome Webstore which will be killed by MV3. Many ongoing changes are being made in extensions and the web in general to improve security while reducing capabilities in existing applications. At this point, for more complex use cases such as one of my own, the only hope is…

>Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support. Same, which is why I engage with browser representatives in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group. Unfortunately, the status quo is grim with Firefox seemingly uninterested in standing up to Chrome and citing compatibility as the main reason for following Chrome into mandatory Service…

I appreciate that yourself and other folks are engaging in the community to request improvements.

Prior to the group being formed, most discussion regarding MV3 occurred on the Chrome Extensions Google Group [0]. While feedback was accepted and open there, I hadn't seen the Chrome team acting on it to make changes. That's where most of my pessimism on the situation comes from.

I believe the Chrome team's main motivation is removing any functionality in MV3 which would have the possibility of reducing performance in normal browsing. I personally don't have much hope that they'll be backpedaling on any changes.

[0] https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensio...

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

#345

Post by Ginden » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

droppedTheBox wrote: post #341

yborg wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing preventing a Blink monoculture is Safari, thanks to iOS platform lock-in. Firefox has negligible market share, if that was all that was left, Gecko would have to become a Blink clone to survive, nobody would code exceptions for it.

IMO the Web was better in the Trident days, when IE6's dominance allowed a single defacto web-wide standard (vs today's WHATWG clusterfsk) but alternative browsers like NetCaptor could still provide all the shiny UI chrome, from tabs to integrated popup blocking. Having a single renderer but multiple browsers on top of it would vastly simplify the web for users & developers, resulting in one consistent engine to deve…

> Having multiple renderers is just a waste of everyone's time...

Unfortunately, Blink isn't openly governed. It's governed by Google, and if Google decides that they won't implement complex feature, maintaining that feature will be logistical nightmare. Imagine writing drivers for some exotic kernel, but kernel API or even very architecture isn't stable.

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

#346

Post by tomxor » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

a5aAqU wrote: post #339

tomxor wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't think that will work because Google controls Chromium. They will play a long game to sabotage the abilities of smaller Chromium browsers to block ads. Advertising is their business model and they have a lot of money to spend on crushing smaller browsers that have a different vision of what the Web should be.

Many browsers track chromium upstream with substantial changes, most significant of all would be Qt WebEngine.

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

#347

Post by gorhill » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

happybuy wrote: post #178

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember some people saying Safari's extension changes and specific content blocker API would be a good thing because ad blockers would use less resources. The change happened, uBlock Origin broke for Safari and here we are several years later and the Safari ad blocker ecosystem is an absolute joke and most of it barely works or demands subscription fees (and the ones that do are certainly not worth paying for beca…

That’s not true re the Safari ad blocker ecosystem. We develop a Safari ad blocker [1] that works on iOS and macOS which provides performant and private ad blocking. Unlike previous ad blockers using other extension mechanisms, it also can’t see which web pages you visit. We recently released best in class YouTube ad blocking features too. The mechanisms for doing this is different, but the ad blocking results are as…

> the ad blocking results are as good with better performance

I invite you to go through all daily commits made in uBlock Origin's specific filter lists to solve reported real-world issues[1], and find out if every single one of these issues can also be solved in a typical Safari content blocker, just as they are immediately solved in uBlock Origin.

For instance, it would be an interesting exercise to find out how many of the fixes committed between Sep. 21 and Sep. 27 inclusively can or cannot be also be fixed in a typical Safari content blocker.

* * *

[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/commits/master

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

#348

Post by a5aAqU » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

tomxor wrote: post #346

a5aAqU wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that will work because Google controls Chromium. They will play a long game to sabotage the abilities of smaller Chromium browsers to block ads. Advertising is their business model and they have a lot of money to spend on crushing smaller browsers that have a different vision of what the Web should be.

Many browsers track chromium upstream with substantial changes, most significant of all would be Qt WebEngine.

Google is full of smart people who get paid to deal with obstacles like that. If your goal is to block ads and tracking, it's extremely unwise to depend on software that is fundamentally controlled by an ad company. If someone threatens their business model, they will throw an overwhelming amount of money at the problem. They are boiling frogs, so most people won't notice. Killing uBlock Origin and disallowing browser extensions on mobile are just small steps in a long-term plan.

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

#349

Post by hutzlibu » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #264

hutzlibu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Firefox as a browser, especially dev tools, seems better in every day use than Chrome does. " Cannot confirm at all. I do not know any feature in ff dev tools I am missing in chrome, but the other way around lots of it. Mainly: editing and saving directly in the debugger! Could also be my ignorance, but I regulary do debugging in FF and it works, but way less efficient. Meaning I browse with FF, but work with chrome…

> Mainly: editing and saving directly in the debugger! Hum... Firefox does that. I know because every time I mistakenly start saving I ask what is the point of it. But well, looks like it's useful for somebody.

Erm, it can edit and save code live in a debbing session?

Also, how can I edit code? It is non editable for me.

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

#350

Post by freediver » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

From Google 2018 10-K, page 17 [1]

"New and existing technologies could affect our ability to customize ads and/or could block ads online, which would harm our business.

Technologies have been developed to make customizable ads more difficult or to block the display of ads altogether and some providers of online services have integrated technologies that could potentially impair the core functionality of third-party digital advertising. Most of our Google revenues are derived from fees paid to us in connection with the display of ads online. As a result, such technologies and tools could adversely affect our operating results."

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419...