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Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

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Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#331

Even if bigs exists to work around what Google is doing, that isn’t the right way forward. If people don’t agree with Google move, the only correct course of action is to ditch Chrome (and all Chromium browsers). Hit them where it hurts and take away their monopoly over the future direction of the web.

“Sorry, we don’t support any browsers other than Chrome” I agree exploiting a bug isn’t a sustainable solution. But it’s also unrealistic to think switching is viable.

Find who is responsible for such sites and send them strongly-worded emails. If it's a commerce site, tell them they just lost a potential customer. In my experience it's usually the trendchasing web developers who have drunk the Goog-Aid and are trying to convince the others in the organisation to use "modern" (read: controlled by Google) features and waste time implementing these changes --- instead of the "deprecated" feature that's been there for decades and will work in just about any browser, and the management is usually more driven by $$$ so anything that affects the bottom line is going to get their attention. I've even offered to "fix" their site for free to make it more accessible.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#332
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, there's little to no friction in switching to Firefox and I have never, not even once, noticed a difference with websites. The same is not true for Safari.

There are definitely website that do not support Firefox, especially in the US. Whole portions of the Verizon website, for example. Or the website of a well known kindergarden I was researching recently.

What part of the Verizon website doesn’t work on Firefox? I am curious if it’s actually the browser or its the aggressive privacy options.

> a well known kindergarden

I am baffled by the choice to include this laughably obscure example alongside a major telecom. Surely there are better options less likely to be the fault of a random lazy web developer.

Youtube, for example seems deliberately hampered on non-chrome browsers.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#333

> Adblockers basically need webRequestBlocking to function properly. Pretty convenient (cough cough) for a company that makes most of its revenue from ads to be removing that. Why does this keep getting repeated? It's not true. Anyone can use uBlock Origin Lite with Chrome, and manifest v3. It doesn't just work fine, it works great. I can't tell any difference from the old uBlock Origin in terms of blocking, but it's…

I believe that another change is that ad blockers cannot update as quickly now? If that is true, since ad blocking is a cat and mouse game, doesn't that make ad blocking with a delay less functional?

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#335
post #303

No judgement but I would love to hear from Google employees who worked on this. Do they believe they are improving the internet in any way?

There is also an argument to be made that adblocking is immoral. I think the idea is pervasive enough to fill a team of willing people, especially if you pay them 100k/year to at least go along with it for the time being I haven't made up my own mind about it yet, just that this might be a factor in why one would move the facilitating technology backwards in this way (and forwards in other ways, apparently: some peop…

I don't think ads are immoral but I think the way FAANG does ads and tracking is immoral. Google does not do enough to vet ads for malicious activity such as scams and viruses. The FBI in recent years has started recommending an adblocker for that reason.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#336

Even if bigs exists to work around what Google is doing, that isn’t the right way forward. If people don’t agree with Google move, the only correct course of action is to ditch Chrome (and all Chromium browsers). Hit them where it hurts and take away their monopoly over the future direction of the web.

Ditching Chromium for Firefox isn’t much better since Firefox sells user data.

Next would be Safari.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#337
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monopoly achieved thanks to everyone that forgot about IE lesson, and instead of learning Web standards, rather ships Chrome alongside their application.

IE was far less user-hostile than Chrome.

Only because Microsoft got slapped on the wrist way back when.

Google should get slapped too, and they might be headed that way...

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/20/nx-s1-5367750/google-breakup-...

Safari is also pretty user-hostile, which is why Apple is getting sued by the DOJ for purposely hobbling Safari while forbidding any other browser engine on IOS. They did this so that developers are forced to write native apps, which allows Apple to skim 30% off any purchase made through an app.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN comparison doesn’t really hold water. There are a lot of options for tech news and forums. Lots of platforms, self-hosting options, with many business models, or simply self-funded. That is very different than a world where every browser relies on Google for the core of their browser… and those who don’t rely on Google for funding (as they pay a lot of money to be the default search option in major browsers).…

Somewhat related - is Microsoft Edge a set of patches on top of the latest Chromium release or is Microsoft running a hard fork from a X years old version?

It's just a set of patches on top of Chromium, as any other Chromium rebuild.

They use the same numbering scheme and go in lockstep:

> The trigger for Beta and Stable major releases is an equivalent Chromium release.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-...

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#339
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has multiple, user-affecting, memory leaks related to Youtube (unconfirmed if just youtube), going back at least 7 years. Tab scrollbar as no option to be disabled, so I had to write CSS to get tabs into a form close to what I would like similar to chrome. Tab mute icon has no (working) option to disable the click event, so I had to write CSS to remove it. I made some other changes, but I forget what. At leas…

Just bite the bullet and use Tree Style Tabs or Sideberry. I didn't, for decades, but it was a mistake.

Firefox now has vertical tabs built in. Not as feature filled of course though tab groups and vertical tabs together replaces all the functionality I needed from Tree Style Tabs.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people seem to believe that switching to a de-Googled Chromium-based browser isn't good enough. I think that's a psyop promoted by Google themselves. Firefox is different enough from Chrome that it's a big jump for people who are used to Chrome. Brave, custom Chromium builds, Vivaldi, etc. are all very similar to Google Chrome, they just don't have Google spy features. The argument that "Google still control…

I once made a comment along these lines (de-Googled Chromium-based browser isn't good enough, as it supports the browser monoculture and inevitably makes Chrome as a browser better) and got a reply from from Brendan Eichner himself. His point was that there isn't enough time to again develop Firefox (or ladybird) as a competitive browser capable of breaking the Chrome "monopoly". I don't know if I really agree. Evide…

Though his brave is a relatively small company, they have enough resources to have developed, and continue maintaining their own low-level ad blocker, which IME has been just as effective as uBO, but is supposedly more efficient (since it's written in the R-word language and compiled into native code integrating deeply inside the browser):

I can't imagine what hoops Google would have to jump through to block third parties from integrating their own ad blockers. You don't need MV2 for that AFAIK.

https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust

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