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Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

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Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#11

Post by will_pseudonym »

nicoburns wrote: post #2

It might sound dramatic, but if they do block or cripple ad blockers, then I think that could represent a turning point in Chrome's popularity. Even my non-technical friends use an ad blocker, and it's also one of the best defenses from viruses on the modern web, so people who do family tech support are likely to be pretty proactive in ensuring that the computers they look after are running browsers with ads blocked.

Blocking ads for non-savvy/elderly users is definitely a security issue. It's reducing the chance that they inadvertently install malware or fall into a social engineering scam because "Microsoft Support" needs their credit card number to secure their computer.

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#12

Post by strict9 »

Even if this is chalked up to something inadvertent, it's only a matter of time before it happens for good. Google will likely win this arms race, at least within Chrome.

The browser from the mega company that gets nearly all revenue from ads will eventually close that hole.

I switched to Firefox about a year ago in anticipation of this specific change, and haven't missed a thing.

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#13

Post by rohan1024 »

nicoburns wrote: post #2

It might sound dramatic, but if they do block or cripple ad blockers, then I think that could represent a turning point in Chrome's popularity. Even my non-technical friends use an ad blocker, and it's also one of the best defenses from viruses on the modern web, so people who do family tech support are likely to be pretty proactive in ensuring that the computers they look after are running browsers with ads blocked.

This could backfire since websites will be benefit from Chrome's move. They can subtly start supporting chrome more over other browsers. Asking users to switch to Chrome. And there are enough people who won't give second thought while making the switch.

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#14

Post by jsjohnst »

simcop2387 wrote: post #7
satokema wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate Mozilla pushing their own things almost as much as Google (a screenshot service? I have a keybinding for that, thank you) but this will probably be the straw that makes me jump ship. There's always IceCat I guess. Websites get away with loading files from a ridiculous number of third-party servers and it's pretty frightening when you look at the uMatrix tab for it.

Firefox's built in screenshot system provides one things that others don't. You can screenshot the entire page as a single unit, without having to resize the window beyond your own screen size.

Most plugins I’ve seen for doing screenshots provide that functionality. Admittedly I’ve not looked much, but any screenshot utility that can’t do that is pretty much useless to me, so maybe I’ve only looked at ones that had it.

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#15

Post by dmortin »

nicoburns wrote: post #2

It might sound dramatic, but if they do block or cripple ad blockers, then I think that could represent a turning point in Chrome's popularity. Even my non-technical friends use an ad blocker, and it's also one of the best defenses from viruses on the modern web, so people who do family tech support are likely to be pretty proactive in ensuring that the computers they look after are running browsers with ads blocked.

The majority of people don't use an adblocker (otherwise the ad based ecosystem would not work) and if you ask them if they want to pay for the sites they visit instead of seeing ads then most of them choose free with ads.

One visits lots of sites while browsing and paying for each of them is simply not feasible. The solution would be some kind of universal micropayment scheme, but it's unclear how such a sytem could be adopted universally, because making the users setting up multiple micropayment providers in their browsers will not work.

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#16

Post by dmortin »

satokema wrote: post #5
nicoburns wrote: post #2

It might sound dramatic, but if they do block or cripple ad blockers, then I think that could represent a turning point in Chrome's popularity. Even my non-technical friends use an ad blocker, and it's also one of the best defenses from viruses on the modern web, so people who do family tech support are likely to be pretty proactive in ensuring that the computers they look after are running browsers with ads blocked.

I hate Mozilla pushing their own things almost as much as Google (a screenshot service? I have a keybinding for that, thank you) but this will probably be the straw that makes me jump ship. There's always IceCat I guess. Websites get away with loading files from a ridiculous number of third-party servers and it's pretty frightening when you look at the uMatrix tab for it.

> I hate Mozilla pushing their own things almost as much as Google (a screenshot service? I have a keybinding for that, thank you)

The screenshot feature is quite handy, because it lets you capture only a certain element on the page which is more cumbersome using the OS' builting screen capture, because then you need to edit the captured image.

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#19

Post by svat »

jviide wrote: post #6
nicoburns wrote: post #2

It might sound dramatic, but if they do block or cripple ad blockers, then I think that could represent a turning point in Chrome's popularity. Even my non-technical friends use an ad blocker, and it's also one of the best defenses from viruses on the modern web, so people who do family tech support are likely to be pretty proactive in ensuring that the computers they look after are running browsers with ads blocked.

(Original tweeter here.) It seems that this is already fixed in Chrome 73 beta: https://twitter.com/jviide/status/1097199686849581057 Also setting "Enable network service" to disabled in chrome://flags appears to fix it: https://twitter.com/jviide/status/1097202611806261248

Direct link to the (fixed) bug: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=931588

Re: Web page service workers bypass ad-blockers after Chrome 72 upgrade?

#20

Post by coffekaesque »

In the past few months several services I (used to) use, one of them being paid Spotify, started to crack down on adblockers and anti-adblockers killers. I don't feel this is just a coincidence, together with Chrome changes.

I'm pretty happy about this as I want the ad companies to start getting desperate and throwing punches. It's like people won't see how bad the situation is until you they get shit almost literally thrown in their faces. Tracking, data collection and malware are too invisible for people to care.

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