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How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

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Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#191

Post by ams6110 »

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #175
mderazon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get how it's different from ublock or what's the benefits of umatrix

Does ublock allow to block all javascript and cookies by default, and manually whitelist javascript or cookies domain by domain?

In "advanced user" mode it can do this. You can even say things like "yes allow from foo.com but only when I'm visiting bar.com"

I did this for a while but it all got to be too much trouble honestly. Now I just run uBlock in default configuration and also have an /etc/hosts file, and browser set to clear all history and cookies when closed.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#193

Post by bitmapbrother »

arielm wrote: post #29

To have an ad network control so much of web traffic and then decide which ads to block is just absurd. If the chrome team and google’s ad teams were not controlled by the same unit that primarily makes money from ads it would have been ok, but given that they do, what incentive will they have to block their own ads and how much more powerful is it making their own network? Sadly, chrome is still the easiest browser…

>To have an ad network control so much of web traffic and then decide which ads to block is just absurd.

Google doesn't determine what ads are blocked. That's done by the coalition that's composed of the following members and affiliate:

https://www.betterads.org/members/

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#194

Post by budu3 »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #190
budu3 wrote: post #181

I don't think that browser should be in the business of blocking Ads. That's the job of 3rd party tools and extensions. A browsers job is to display a webpage as is not to alter it. At most it should scream if a man in the middle altered my page anything more is crossing the line.

Should a browser also not be in the business of alerting a user that they're about to visit a site serving malware and using zero day exploits or is that also the job for 3rd party tools and extensions?

Alerting is fine. Altering the page is not.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#195

Post by the_duke »

drngdds wrote: post #103
mabbo wrote: post #89

I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive. Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait. Step 2: Google declares the given t…

I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions': 1. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and they don't like that. 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* 3. By building in an adblocker that blocks annoying ads, people will stop installing full adblockers that also block Google's ads. *There are real issues with non-annoying…

I personally find the ads on Google search really annoying.

I'd never use Google if Ublock didn't hide them.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#196

Post by bitmapbrother »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #11
marktangotango wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought as well, google/alphabet has a real PR problem here.

And potentially an antitrust problem.

Does Facebook also have an antitrust problem? They're one of the many board members.

https://www.betterads.org/members/

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#197

Post by tgtweak »

drngdds wrote: post #103
mabbo wrote: post #89

I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive. Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait. Step 2: Google declares the given t…

I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions': 1. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and they don't like that. 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* 3. By building in an adblocker that blocks annoying ads, people will stop installing full adblockers that also block Google's ads. *There are real issues with non-annoying…

Bingo.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#198

Post by bitmapbrother »

krisives wrote: post #151

When I interviewed at Facebook almost every person I talked to said "if Google blocks ads by default Facebook will sue them" so I expect to see a lawsuit eventually

I would like to see that lawsuit. Imagine Facebook, a board member of the Coalition for Better Ads, suing Google for blocking Facebook ads that do not conform to the standards that Facebook, a board member, helped establish.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#200

Post by visarga »

hinkley wrote: post #168
rahoulb wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, but I don't think most people know or care very much about that. I speak to a lot of people who find "retargeting" deeply creepy. The awareness of the problem is there. However, they don't understand what causes it, how it works or that it's even possible to stop it.

Its also just bad salesmanship. There was an electronics store called CompUSA. I didn’t always shop there but I did buy Christmas presents there. Then one year they started using transparent shopping bags. Which means you can’t shop for anybody that is on the trip with you, or lives with you. It made it a hassle to keep a secret and I just gave up. So now if I am looking at jewelry for my partner, ads for the exact t…

The behaviour you described is a bug. The "throw everything at the wall" advertising technique - also known as the contextual multi-armed bandit problem - should adapt to changes in the context, such as when an expensive TV set has been bought. It's part of the reinforcement learning subfield, which is the spearhead of AI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit#Contextual_...

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