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

Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

bugs.chromium.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 779 posts

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#161

Post by UnFleshedOne »

followbl wrote: post #46

Has anyone considered they are trying to do something good here? Publishers are dying left and right...ads support a lot of good businesses!

Ad-supported businesses are an example of tragedy of the commons. They cause users to be product rather than customers. They make it harder for any other monetization strategy to take off the ground (it is hard to compete with "free"). Ads, and marketing in general, is a zero sum game with your resources being spent simply not to fall behind, just because your competitors are spending them (they are like lawyers and military in that regard). Ads enable and encourage parasitic businesses, like content farms and the like.

For the marks, I mean, users, ads pollute visual field, occupy mental space, create and encourage unhealthy habits.

Ad industry can't go out of business fast enough.

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#162

Post by wongarsu »

kevindqc wrote: post #98
LeoPanthera wrote: post #40

I don't understand the technical details of this - could someone explain it to an idiot? - Is the change specifically to block ad blockers, or uBlock specifically? Or is it just a new extension API? - Could ad blockers adapt to the new version to work again? I am reminded of the new version of (Mac) Safari, which features a new extensions API. It took a while for them to appear but there are now good ad blocking exte…

From what I understand, there are currently events which gave you the ability to inspect, and also cancel a request if you want. This allows you to do things like cancel a request if it's trying to download a big video file. But Google wants to remove the ability to cancel a request through the events, and they want to replace that with declarativeNetRequest[1]. If you look at the link, in the Rules section, it seems…

>This is not targeted to ad blockers specifically.

At superficial inspection it's not obviously targeted at ad blockers. It might still be. Most of google's revenue comes from advertising, fighting against ad blockers wouldn't be unexpected for them.

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#163

Post by the_duke »

jchw wrote: post #17

Ouch, I understand why they want to not have a blocking webRequest API but I consider uBlock Origin to be a must-have extension. Hopefully this is relaxed somehow. I personally still use Firefox at home despite recent issues, but I honestly would prefer having both as an option, plus I always recommend uBlock Origin to everyone. (Disclaimer: I work at Google but not on Chrome, opinions are mine and not my employer's.…

Are you forced to use Chrome @ Google?

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#164

Post by beezischillin »

novaRom wrote: post #158
beezischillin wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, even with all the speed increases from the rewrite, Firefox still feels awkward and slow at times when compared to Safari and Chrome. Every time I decide to try and switch over from Safari, I get pages where scroll performance is a lot slower than what I'm used to and then I get bothered by it and switch back. It annoys me because I really want to use it. I'm very happy that we have it and I hope that the wider…

This is strange, because Firefox is much faster than Safari for me. Have you tried Firefox Nightly?

I haven't but I'll give it a shot, thank you!

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#166

Post by saagarjha »

abtinf wrote: post #130
scrollaway wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is I see a ton of people in the comments assuming this is a change made with the intent of disabling/breaking ublock. Clearly it's not, and it will affect more extensions than just that. We should demand a LOT more evidence before claiming that Google intends to break adblockers before accusing them of that. If they are doing that, I want to be the first one raging against them, and I don't feel comfortab…

> Clearly it's not What is your basis for this claim? I am not an expert on this topic, but Gorhill is and has a demonstrated history of technical/privacy judgement. Gorhill's comment makes it clear that impacting the functionality of blockers is an intentional change, as the proposal not only removes previous functionality, but also enshrines one particular and limited approach to blocking. Edit: I would also note t…

This seems very similar to the changes Safari made a while ago for their content blocking API, so there may be more to it than "Google wants to break adblockers".

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#167

Post by AYBABTME »

OptionX wrote: post #102
saagarjha wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox is really the only thing preventing a complete web browser monoculture WebKit?

Trading Google overlords for Apple overlords does not seem like an upgrade.

With Apple, you're the customer, not the product. For one, Apple defends and doesn't sell your data.

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#169

Post by mrbrowning »

sixothree wrote: post #33
metalliqaz wrote: post #4

Another reason to be glad that Firefox is still standing.

I really just don't understand the obsession with Chrome, especially in hacker communities. Sorry Google, I feel "icky & gross" when I use you.

I feel the same. I keep Chrome around, though, because it seems to be the new IE in the sense that I frequently encounter sites that simply don't work properly in either WebKit- or Gecko-based browsers. It's also the new IE in the sense that I get incessant reminders about how I should be using Chrome when I access Google-administrated services, which feels like a surprisingly blatant if still implicit admission on their part that an open web simply isn't a concern or interest of theirs. I never really believed otherwise, but still.

Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

#170

Post by darkpuma »

QML wrote: post #94
metalliqaz wrote: post #4

Another reason to be glad that Firefox is still standing.

Someone correct me, but can’t ad blockers just be installed through the OS and not be dependent on the browser? I recall this is what I had to do for Safari since there wasn’t a supported extension for the new browser yet. This would lessen our dependency on a browser for ad blocking in this ongoing browser war.

That doesn't get you close to what umatrix offers.

I can throw facebook's servers into my hosts file, but what if I want to permit connections to facebook servers if and only if I am on facebook.com? uMatrix makes that trivial.

Post reply on HN