Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

9to5google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 400 posts

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

#141

Post by water-data-dude »

polairscience wrote: post #40

And I won't even notice. Firefox is probably the most divisive topic on this website. Mozilla gets ripped to shreds any time they're discussed, but they keep the open internet alive. I don't see how any self-respecting Hacker could choose anything else. I'm a big fan of critique, critiquing the scaffolding of our lives is the best thing we can do. That said...... we have nearly lost the browser wars and if we do it w…

I'm a big fan of WaterFox! I switched when Firefox decided to add a ton of AI crap without providing a "turn this crap off" button (you could force it, but I don't want to fight my tools). Really good experience, been recommending it to all my friends.

Librewolf is also good, and I use that on one of my other machines. I like Waterfox a bit more, but that's probably just personal taste. Both are solid and both cut the mold off the tasty cheese that is Firefox

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

#142

Post by OkayPhysicist »

tapoxi wrote: post #120
polairscience wrote: post #40

And I won't even notice. Firefox is probably the most divisive topic on this website. Mozilla gets ripped to shreds any time they're discussed, but they keep the open internet alive. I don't see how any self-respecting Hacker could choose anything else. I'm a big fan of critique, critiquing the scaffolding of our lives is the best thing we can do. That said...... we have nearly lost the browser wars and if we do it w…

Firefox already lost the browser wars. It's about 2%. Saying "you can use uBlock Origin instead of uBlock Origin Lite!" won't change this.

As long as Firefox keeps up with the standards treadmill, I could be the only person using it, and it really wouldn't affect me any. As of right now, there are vanishingly few sites that earnestly work differently on Firefox than on Chrome. Significantly more sites arbitrarily block non-Chrome User Agents, but that's trivially avoided by just serving a Chrome UA on Firefox.

Which makes it trivial to switch. There's really no justification for sticking with Chrome. Switching to Firefox takes about a minute, you can import all your saved logins and bookmarks, and then maybe spend a whole whopping 30 seconds adding Ublock Origin. Complaints about Chrome amount to "I am too inconceivably lazy to spend 90s switching to a browser that doesn't hate me".

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

#143

Post by advisedwang »

siren2026 wrote: post #100

Google revealing how evil they really are. That was always the plan with Chrome. Put B$ of engineering efforts into creating a nice browser and pushing people to switch over. Once everyone is addicted and forgot about the competition, start to quietly make it more and more of a Spyware. Chrome has always and will always be an attempt at controlling the client side of the funnel to be in charge of how much ads they ca…

> That was always the plan with Chrome

No. The original plan for Chrome was to save money on "traffic acquisition cost" (The cash they give to Mozilla and Apple to be the default search engine) by moving users away those company's browsers.

Buuuuut, once Chrome turned out to dominate the browser market, the temptation to abuse that dominance was too much.

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

#144

Post by tartoran »

nicce wrote: post #122
Legend2440 wrote: post #92

Bad headline. Popular ad blockers have already switched to MV3, and MV2 has already been disabled for all users.

Most would not consider MV3 versions as ”adblockers” anymore.

Do they block ads though? I am now only using Firefox because I can install Ublock origin and that works out for me.

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

#145

Post by drnick1 »

muvlon wrote: post #19
xienze wrote: post #14

It's obviously not perfect but DNS-level ad blockers like Pihole or Adguard Home still make a dramatic difference, so all is not lost.

If Google ever decides to "close the door" on these too, all they need to do is make Chrome always use DoH instead of classic DNS.

Do you mean that that Chrome would force users to use 8.8.8.8 as DNS provider? I don't think this would be acceptable or accepted.

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

#146

Post by curt15 »

spankalee wrote: post #124
nicce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most would not consider MV3 versions as ”adblockers” anymore.

Yeah, I think calling the Mv3 versions "secure adblockers" would be more accurate.

How about "nerfed adblockers"? Do any of the MV3 versions replicate the full power of ublock origin on Firefox? (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...)

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

#148

Post by dang »

GeekyBear wrote: post #3
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #2

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48471970

"Chrome is looking to permanently drop MV2 extension" really doesn't tell a general audience what is happening here. No wonder it gained little notice.

There have been quite a few threads about it recently - unfortunately I don't have time to dig up links at the moment.

(also, 450+ comments is not little notice!)

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

#149

Post by meatmanek »

xerox13ster wrote: post #97
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…

Also, not affiliated with Vivaldi. Just been loyally using them since the alpha bc they posted here about being The Real Opera’s Phoenix, aka its spiritual successor made by a band of Opera employees that Jerry McGuire’d. I watched the movie for the first time because of this browser. They do built in Adblock that keeps up in the YT arms race. If they’re losing and I get an ad I restart the browser and we’re winning…

> speed dial options. That doesn’t happen if you don’t click on them directly.

It also seems to happen if you type the domain name in the address bar but hit enter when the suggested URL autofills. For me, typing out aliexpress.com fully will send me directly to AE, but typing aliexpress.c and hitting enter (with the autofill completing "om") redirects through vivaldi.com/bk/aliexpresscom-us

Post reply on HN