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Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

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Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#231

Post by Animats »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #216
Animats wrote: post #155

Because of this, sometime in 2022 I will shut down Sitetruth, my fifteen year old ad blocking and site evaluation system. That offers add-ons for Chrome and Firefox, and puts a tag with company background info on each search result. Some search ads are removed, and some are de-emphasized. Some time next year, Google will probably force that add-on out of Chrome, as they tighten their grip over what browsers are allow…

I was working on a project about 15 years ago that could tie a website to a business address. The underlying assumption is that many/most legitimate businesses that sell products have registered trademarks. The main purpose of a mark is to enable traceability back to a legitimate, non-ephemeral source for a product. If the reader disagrees that reputable products would have associated trademarks, then stop reading he…

I used TLS certs, mailing addresses on web sites, purchased commercial business directories, Hoovers (before they were acquired by DNB), SEC filings, and Yahoo Directory (defunct). But not domain info, which was just too low-quality.

Snail mail addresses intended for humans were the most useful. Although they could be spoofed, that's very rare, and tends to attract legal attention.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#232

Post by [deleted] »

jefftk wrote: post #188
Qub3d wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safari change absolutely kneecapped content blockers. Ublock dropped it[0], and the remaining few providers, like AdGuard, have to do all sorts of trickery[1] to get even close to the same performance. If you're going to argue this is better, don't point us to such a clearly worse result. [0]: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 [1]: https://adguard.com/en/blog/safari-adblock-extensions.html

I'm not arguing that V3 is better -- I think that's a complicated question, and I was trying to describe some of the tradeoffs. What I am arguing is that V3 does, contra my parent, support request blocking.

[deleted]

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#233

Post by winternett »

AnonC wrote: post #229

A lot of comments here are wondering what Firefox will do and if uBlock Origin would be made useless in Firefox like it would be in Chrome (once Mv3 is implemented). Short answer: Firefox is adopting various parts of Mv3, but will continue to support blocking webrequest, which is used by extensions like uBlock Origin. So uBlock Origin would become useless in Chrome, possibly Edge and a few other browsers, but not on…

Chrome has just been getting worse and worse over time, but if you can recall, Firefox was also a slug when it was at a peak of market dominance and before that MSIE...

The problem is that orgs and companies stop caring once they gain the primary market share. They also start dictating standards to everyone and ignoring user feedback. It's symptomatic of our current software development driven economy.

I recall when as a web dev I had to ensure my code was best supported by 3-4 browsers and don't miss that era at all, but it would be much better if proper regulation, consumer protection, and ethical corporate behavior came into play before hostile competition, corruption, and monopoly-driven "dictatorware" do in software market dominance for a change.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#234

Post by chii »

dessant wrote: post #165
jefftk wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still "block request" functionality, the change is that it's now declarative. This is the same way it works in Safari, and is (a) more efficient because you don't need to execute JS to evaluate each request and (b) more private because an ad/content blocker doesn't need to be given such broad permissions. There are serious tradeoffs (no request time js makes it less flexible) but it's still very capable and…

This is just an attempt to rehash the same old arguments provided by Google that have been repeatedly debunked by developers and security researchers. > I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself I'm doubtful about a person's ability to speak for themselves, when they have been consistently defending their employer on HN for years, at every occasion they got.

"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It"

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#235

Post by ineedasername »

jefftk wrote: post #194
ineedasername wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been years since AMP went live. Disagreeing while pointing to information that's been withheld for years and does not (to my knowledge) have a timeline for release... that does not make a very compelling argument. It amounts to "trust us". But we don't-- that's kind of the point.

I interpreted coffeefirst as referring to the current antitrust action against Google, and saying that I expect more information will come out as it progresses.

Good point, that may be what they meant. Although I would not count on all of those details coming out: for years Google has been warning employees against using certain types of language that could in someway look bad from an antitrust/anticompetitive point of view. So I would expect that a lot of documentation, emails, etc will look anodine on the surface through self-censorship.

I don't expect anything that comes right out and says something like "we must implement AMP to as a strategy to remove competition from header bidding". Instead it will mostly be just the standard talking points about user experience and load times.

I could be wrong though: plenty of things have been revealed in things like text messages where people don't think of them as being part of an official record.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#236

Post by rektide »

pkulak wrote: post #28
rektide wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post carries a lot of water for user-hating user-blaming anti-extensions. I'm sorry that your family are... having such a hard time making reasonable choices for themselves. I have literally never seen this anywhere, or heard any coworker ever report their family rampantly adding shitty extensions. I tend to see pretty clear & obvious signals about what extensions are good & ok when I go to consume. Bad extensio…

> I'm sorry that your family are idiots. Stopped reading there, mate.

I very very quickly edited my words but thanks for sharing. Got flagged anyhow. I'm still absolutely mystified to hear about such huge sorry sad sappy stupid problems occuring with blitzing regularity. I cannot imagine how your people discover trouble so readily.

It doesn't sound like you think your family is at all educateable in any way, you seem to think this is a horrible lost cause & that we must withdraw power & good for the world to protect your vulnerable unfortunate hapless brood. That's how defenseless your post makes your people sound, that's the impression you're giving off. And you're using that as a weapon against the world, against good, against freedom, against capabilities. This is extremely menacing a position you've made, using your own family's purported victimization a weapon against good.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#237

Post by rektide »

pkulak wrote: post #11

If Google actually gave a crap about security, they would let you disable extensions. As it is, I have to routinely delete malicious extensions from every family member's Chromebook. Lord knows how they get there, but they always do. Since this new standard still lets extensions observe everything, I don't see what the point is.

This post carries a lot of water for user-hating user-blaming anti-extensions.

I'm sorry that your family are... having such a hard time making reasonable choices for themselves. I have literally never seen this anywhere, or heard any coworker ever report their family rampantly adding shitty extensions. I tend to see pretty clear & obvious signals about what extensions are good & ok when I go to consume. Bad extensions seem to be discovered fairly quickly & taken down. I'm trying to imagine how folks even get to the Chrome Web Store in the first place if they have no idea what they are doing. The world to me seems no where near as grimdark as you project.

Alas I think it requires a paid Google Enterprise account, but your family sounds like their need external management of their browsers. That they should, like a school computer, have an administrator & a denylist or perhaps even allowlist of what extensions they can use.

This post spreads so much Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Trying to justifying ending a good thing because some creative user keeps finding a way to misuse, to not listen to sense, to not make good judgement... I find it unfortunate that such heavy fearmongering, such terror at the world is allowed to sway us so heavily.

Ultimately I want 3rd party sites hosting extensions. Not Google. And I want moderation teams able to surface claims that some extensions are bad. We need more choice, more democracy, more ability to help each other. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Simply giving in to the bed-wetting terror of, oh no, freedom & denying ourselves user-agency is intellectual suicide for the web.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#238

Post by ineedasername »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #224
jefftk wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted coffeefirst as referring to the current antitrust action against Google, and saying that I expect more information will come out as it progresses.

There will never be a smoking gun because the people cooking up these dark pattern schemes are generally smart enough to not document them. The problem they want solved gets broken up into pieces that are given credible cover stories and then when it is all integrated together the intended outcome happens without it ever being explicitly written down in an incriminating email.

Yes-- while never on a criminal level, I have seen it happen in places where I have worked before.

Re: Chrome users beware: Manifest v3 is deceitful and threatening

#240

Post by rektide »

pkulak wrote: post #11

If Google actually gave a crap about security, they would let you disable extensions. As it is, I have to routinely delete malicious extensions from every family member's Chromebook. Lord knows how they get there, but they always do. Since this new standard still lets extensions observe everything, I don't see what the point is.

I'm absolutely mystified to hear about such huge sorry sad sappy stupid problems occuring with blitzing regularity in your tribe. I cannot imagine how your people discover trouble so readily.

It doesn't sound like you think your family is at all educateable in any way, you seem to think this is a horrible lost cause & that we must withdraw power & good for the world to protect your vulnerable unfortunate tribe. You're using that as a weapon against the world, against good, against freedom, against capabilities.

This is extremely menacing a position you've made, using your own family's purported victimization a weapon against good.

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