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Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

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Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#51

Post by sheept »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #16

Firefox is the only sane option. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the alternatives. Chromium forks are at the mercy of Google doing everything they can to stop ad blocking. Firefox forks are often maintain by just “some dude”. If they decide they don’t want to maintain it anymore, it’s done. If everyone switches to a fork and then Firefox goes away because nobody is using the browser anymore, it’s done.

As you alluded to, many Chromium forks (notable exception is Ungoogled) are backed by tech companies. There's already plenty of intentional changes they maintain in their forks, like Privacy Sandbox,[0] so I don't think preserving support for v2 is a large hurdle for them.

[0]: https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/10742158329613-W...

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#52

Post by 9999gold »

OptionOfT wrote: post #34
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #16

Firefox is the only sane option. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the alternatives. Chromium forks are at the mercy of Google doing everything they can to stop ad blocking. Firefox forks are often maintain by just “some dude”. If they decide they don’t want to maintain it anymore, it’s done. If everyone switches to a fork and then Firefox goes away because nobody is using the browser anymore, it’s done.

And sadly, Firefox on iOS is the only browser that doesn't have a the possibility to run an Adblocker. Safari can run uBlock Origin. Brave had one built-in. Hell, even Edge has Adblock Plus. Does Mozilla have a contract with Google to not build one in as part of the search contract?

They allow extensions on the Android version. But yeah, on iOS I had to switch to Orion. It seems FF for iOS doesn’t get much attention.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#53

Post by tbeseda »

abtinf wrote: post #37

Someone ought to build a browser that is designed from the ground up to treat the web for what it is: the most hostile ecosystem on the planet. uBlock/uMatrix functionality should be built into the core. Every domain and PSF should be sandboxed to its own profile. User agents and many js queries should return standard responses. Forcing display of video controls should be trivial. Manipulating pages to show/hide elem…

Vivaldi (not affiliated) kinda aims to do this. At least they build the blocker in. It uses the Blink engine, too. I don't think this move by Google will adversely affect Vivaldi in the same way it does Chrome.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#55

Post by summarybot »

kyrra wrote: post #45

Googler, opinions are my own. My understanding is they're doing this in the name of security, though it obviously has some benefit to ads. this policy more closely aligns with what Safari does today. And it prevents add-ons from scraping information since they have to put in the block list ahead of time. I've been using manifest v3 version of Adblock and it's worked just fine for me. But obviously is not perfect, but…

Eh, Google controls the add-ons marketplace though. They control what add-ons are allowed, and they could even audit the add-ons for malicious code/behavior. Google, being a company that collects 75% of its revenue from ads, is being disingenuous by claiming this is a security-centered position. If security were the priority then the add-ons themselves should be inspected thoroughly, that much is obvious.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#56

Post by GeekyBear »

whitepoplar wrote: post #18

A lot of people have been very vocal about this. I use uBlock Origin Lite and haven't noticed a difference between it and uBlock Origin. Am I missing something?

> For uBlock Origin users on Chrome, there’s uBlock Origin Lite. However, the Lite version “allows some tracking, its blocklist is a fraction of what the original blocked, and it can't perform the dynamic filtering that made the original effective,”

https://www.pcmag.com/news/googles-next-chrome-update-will-f...

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#58

Post by rpdillon »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #16

Firefox is the only sane option. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the alternatives. Chromium forks are at the mercy of Google doing everything they can to stop ad blocking. Firefox forks are often maintain by just “some dude”. If they decide they don’t want to maintain it anymore, it’s done. If everyone switches to a fork and then Firefox goes away because nobody is using the browser anymore, it’s done.

Brave has an interesting approach where they have added core support for four key MV2 extensions to the core of the browser engine, bypassing MV3 entirely.

> Update: As of v1.81, we host the following Manifest V2 (MV2) extensions on Brave’s backend: AdGuard, uBO, uMatrix, NoScript. These extensions operate independently from the equivalent versions that are currently present on the Chrome Web Store, and have to be downloaded separately. Users can download and enable these 4 extensions from the brave://settings/extensions/v2 page.

https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#59

Post by 9dev »

kyrra wrote: post #45

Googler, opinions are my own. My understanding is they're doing this in the name of security, though it obviously has some benefit to ads. this policy more closely aligns with what Safari does today. And it prevents add-ons from scraping information since they have to put in the block list ahead of time. I've been using manifest v3 version of Adblock and it's worked just fine for me. But obviously is not perfect, but…

I primarily use Safari, and only switch to Chrome if a site misbehaves; every time I do so, I'm aghast by the ads and popups I suddenly get everywhere - despite having uBlock installed. I refuse to take that as an acceptable state of browsing the internet.
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