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Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

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Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#481

Post by aspenmayer »

userbinator wrote: post #464
leptons wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think Microsoft is doing mass surveillance? They own Outlook and Teams, and Windows 11 is quickly turning into a platform for training AI on your data. I doubt Edge is going to be much different. It's the reason I'm switching to Linux.

They started going down that route many years ago now (Windows 10 "telemetry" being a critical inflection point), but the Microsoft of the 80s and 90s and even early 2000s was not about mass surveillance but selling software.

Perhaps you’re right, but by the time Microsoft acquired Hotmail in 1997, MSN was already two years old and had its own dialup service. Microsoft knew what they were doing.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#482

Post by fakedang »

cbeley wrote: post #154
fakedang wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks be adopting all sorts of irrational arguments just so they can defend their habits. Do you also prefer having middlemen in other areas such as healthcare and education? Creators can just as easily pop a Patreon or BuyMeACoffee these days in a few clicks. In fact, most creators constantly admit that Google pays them peanuts for their view counts. But support the leviathan for reasons unknown I guess.

I also back people on patreon. Isn't it irrational to expect something for free? If you don't like the service or it doesn't align with your values, simply don't use it. Also, isn't patreon also a middleman by your definition?

There's a difference between a middleman that simply ensures that you're paid for your work on a fixed commission-based model, and a middleman who basically controls the entire platform you use to reach your audience. A better analogy would be OnlyFans vs a pimp.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#483

Post by fakedang »

WrongAssumption wrote: post #207
fakedang wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks be adopting all sorts of irrational arguments just so they can defend their habits. Do you also prefer having middlemen in other areas such as healthcare and education? Creators can just as easily pop a Patreon or BuyMeACoffee these days in a few clicks. In fact, most creators constantly admit that Google pays them peanuts for their view counts. But support the leviathan for reasons unknown I guess.

Patreon and BuyMeACoffee are middlemen...

There's a difference between a middleman that simply ensures that you're paid for your work on a fixed commission-based model, and a middleman who basically controls the entire platform you use to reach your audience. A better analogy would be OnlyFans vs a pimp.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#484

Post by scotty79 »

I switched away from Chrome years ago. Not because of their weird anit-adblock moves. Just because the quality of their software dropped. Because of various UI bugs of their tabs that didn't get fixed with updates. I remembers that when Chrome came out it was rock solid and fast so it's a huge disappointment.

I tried out Firefox again and nowadays it is as fast and as solid as Chrome used to be. Never looked back. I still keep Chrome for cases when somebody YOLOed their website, but I use it the way I used to use IE, briefly and with distaste. With the next upgrade I might just start using builtin Edge for that and not bother to install Chrome at all.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#485

Post by wongarsu »

chmod775 wrote: post #473
whatshisface wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't know how to make an adblocker, so I decided to report the issue to Google in August 2023. It was patched in Chrome 118 by checking whether extensions using opt_webViewInstanceId actually had WebView permissions. For the report, I netted a massive reward of $0. They decided it wasn't a security issue, and honestly, I agree, because it didn't give extensions access to data they didn't already have. The ef…

It was never going to last long enough anyways, being sure to get patched as soon as any adblocker uses it. It's however still interesting in the sense that it might be fairly trivial to change, so chances are the next adblockers are going to ship executable that wrap chrome, modifying something like that at launch, allowing their extension to make use of it. Obviously Google is going to hate it when random popular e…

Once the legitimate adblock extensions have made the tech news cycle by switching to an executable, all the sketchy adblock extensions will follow, and after them the downright malicious but heavily advertised adblock extensions. Before long Google will have plenty of examples to point to of adblockers shipping malware, allowing them to scare off all the tech-illiterate people (who are the vast majority of users)

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#487

Post by fakedang »

j45 wrote: post #412
fakedang wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks be adopting all sorts of irrational arguments just so they can defend their habits. Do you also prefer having middlemen in other areas such as healthcare and education? Creators can just as easily pop a Patreon or BuyMeACoffee these days in a few clicks. In fact, most creators constantly admit that Google pays them peanuts for their view counts. But support the leviathan for reasons unknown I guess.

It’s a personal choice. Once someone reaches a level of individual support that’s fine. YouTube remains a place for discovering channels and people and some people especially the majority who are not technical, can outwit a simple family fee. I use YouTube premium more than I ever used for paying Netflix for far longer. Value (and proven convenience) is in the eyes of the user.

I agree about YouTube being a platform for discovering new content, and even great content. I've even bought Premium for my parents and brother just so they wouldn't need to go through all sorts of ads on YouTube.

I would have bought the argument of the commenter if they talked about buying Premium to support the platform. But buying Premium to support the content creators? That's a bunch of horse manure.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#489

Post by qwertox »

Neywiny wrote: post #21
krackers wrote: post #4

>They decided it wasn't a security issue, and honestly, I agree, because it didn't give extensions access to data they didn't already have. So they admit that MV3 isn't actually any more secure than MV2?

I'd be shocked if anyone actually believes them. This article starts with the obvious conflict of interest. Of course letting an extension know what websites you visit and what requests are made is an insecure lifestyle. But I still do it because I trust uBO more than I trust the ad companies and their data harvesters.

What I don't understand is why Google doesn't offer users the ability to add some extension ids into some whitelist to allow them using very sensitive permissions.

Force those extensions to have an prominent icon on the UI with a clear tooltip asking "did you install this yourself [No]" for easy removal, in case someone else did install it without you knowing.

There are so many ways to make this work, but they have zero interest in it.

Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update

#490

Post by deryilz »

userbinator wrote: post #427
deryilz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here, sorry. I don't think any open-source extension (especially large adblockers with millions of users) could actually get away with using this bug, because Google is paying close attention to them. It would've been patched immediately either way.

[flagged]

Also, dude, from your other comments: "What a selfish dickhead, helping them make better nooses to put around everyone's necks (including his own)."

And "People like this are enemies of freedom and should be called out publicly."

What the ?

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