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Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

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Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#181
post #85
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is news to me; when and how does Google own Firefox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation

If you have a customer who pays more than 50% of your income that’s not a customer that’s a controlling interest. Track record shows the relationship looks the way google wants it to look and behaves the way google wants it to behave.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#182
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Edge. I think Edge is a realistically viable competitor, especially with Bing chat sidebar. It's also faster than Safari on MacOS

I think the person you are responding to would say that edge is just another chromium skin. It doesn't exactly relieve Google's monopoly on browser technology

It should fairly simple for MS to block this API (if they wish to).

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate to say it, but if you used Chrome to read this, then you're part of the problem. Victim blaming BS. Let's see who else is the problem. How about all those engineers who decided not to contribute to Firefox? Or all those website developers who didn't test their site in Firefox? Or hell, why not all those Mozilla engineers who didn't fix Firefox hard enough? Let's put the blame where it actually is. Google is…

Victim blaming is absolutely the correct approach here. Of course you shouldn't blame your grandma for using Chrome, but people on HN are a completely different audience. HN readers should be well aware of the damage Google is causing to the open internet, using Chrome is tantamount to supporting this effort.

What should HN readers do that are forced to work within these ecosystems? Ex. Work, school.

It’s not always so easy to walk away from an entire platform. People’s entire livelihoods could be based around Google.

I don’t see any issue with Google owning some of this responsibility.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#184
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get paid lots of money.

But surely those folks can walk away and put in their CV that they quit because they were in charge of implementing one of the worst ideas the history of internet has seen so far. Wouldn't you hire someone that puts that in their resume?

People don't work for the dignity, they work for the paycheck. As long as people are willing to pay others more for doing this than saving the internet, it will continue the trend. Lashings will continue until morale improves.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#185
>Google ensures that the tokens will not include unique identifiers

Let me get this straight, so they want to establish "personhood" without attesting a unique ID to also preserve privacy.

Then how will they prevent a single secure element attesting an entire FSB worth of fake internet users? I feel like these two goals are mutually exclusive.

This is of course the least of my concerns. The whole thing should've been uprooted ages ago.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#186
some cognitive dissonance from that explainer github

> "Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in."

Nope, websites depend on the advertisers trusting them. WEI is solving a website vendor problem, not a user problem.

> "The web page executing in a user's web browser"

From a user perspective web pages "render" in the browser, not "execute". Vendors that want "execution" on a client machine should distribute a rich client app, where many OS platforms already support environment attestation. WEI is web page vendors wanting to have their cake and eat it.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#187

I hate to say it, but if you used Chrome to read this, then you're part of the problem. Awful stuff like this wouldn't stand a chance if Google didn't have such a near-monopoly position. For the sake of the open internet, please switch to a different browser. IMO, Firefox is best*, but even something chromium based is probably fine. Just not Google Chrome. * On desktop - Firefox is a bit weaker on Android, with an ex…

> I hate to say it, but if you used Chrome to read this, then you're part of the problem. Victim blaming BS. Let's see who else is the problem. How about all those engineers who decided not to contribute to Firefox? Or all those website developers who didn't test their site in Firefox? Or hell, why not all those Mozilla engineers who didn't fix Firefox hard enough? Let's put the blame where it actually is. Google is…

> an unlimited marketing budget for.

I never seen a single chrome add. I'm sure we're in different part of the world and in different add segments, but seems to me chrome marketing in not that widespread, is it ?

As a retired FE engineer, the top reason I used chrome and test with it was the powerful yet light devtools.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually use more extensions on Android. It's just more involved than it should be. The trick is to create an "extension collection" from your Mozilla account. Then you can use any extension, and a lot of them just work.

I know but it never worked for me. I followed the procedure twice, two different years, two different installs. I'm always doing something wrong. On Mozilla's side, why are they even doing that to us on Nightly?

It works for me on the Beta. No need to go to nightly. Mozilla was even gracious enough to allow us to go to about:config!

I don't know what you're doing wrong (all I can say is that the name of the collection is case sensitive) but I haven't had any trouble adding the custom collection settings to my Firefox installs.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#189
post #154

Google engineers or Google managers/business units? I don't think regular engineers have the voice to drive these kind of things. Sure, engineers are the ones implementing it, but at the end of the day it needs the approval of management.

That's cheap argument to try to remove responsibility. Everyone who is part of this is responsible because they have a choice. It's like saying nuclear scientists is not responsible for making bombs that kills so many people, govt is responsible only who makes those decisions.

Re: Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

#190
post #23
post #8

It will be hard to beat any AR level ad filtering. Ultimately AI will make ad avoidance easier rather than harder.

I don't understand what AR has to do with this

Analog gap. An AR headset that classifies ads in its field of view and filters them in real-time. Adversary model being, the evil Googleborg fully control your web browser and the locked OS it's running on – but you still control the gap between the display screen and your eyeballs.
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