Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#291

Post by thrower123 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:31 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #289

ljm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it’s so unfortunate and frustrating that people are depending so much on Chromium/Blink. Electron, various browsers that are just skins over the embedded framework... We were still dealing with legacy IE6 (and IE 7/8 by that point also) in 2013! Almost a decade since we got Firefox and the first version of Chrome. The web has empirically suffered through homogeneity and the lack of strong competitors in t…

> “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept. Can't we, developers, do the opposite? Like introduce a small annoyance, like showing a pop-up, when visitors use Chrome? It could say something like "today is free web day, upgrade your browser to Firefox or any other libre browser"

It's largely proven by decades of experience at this point that you cannot make the average software user care about ideological concerns. Especially if you use terms like libre that don't makes any sense to people that haven't drunk the FOSS koolaid.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#292

Post by galangalalgol » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #252

o10449366 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "as good." I've tried every release of Firefox for the past decade. On Linux and Mac the video performance is noticeably worse than Chrome with significant frame drops, lag, and tearing. Yes, I've tried enabling/disabling hardware acceleration, flash, and all sorts of other flags and options, but the two are still incomparable. Furthermore, even with the quantum update Firefox is still slower for general web…

Uh, that's not my experience at all...I use FF normally, and Chrome not uncommonly (sometimes it's handy to have an entirely separate browser, plus compatibility testing), and I find no noticeable difference.

I agree in windows, but in Linux and android FF has some issues. I still use it but sometimes if a page is being super slow I'll open it in chrome instead.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#293

Post by oefrha » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

bradstewart wrote: post #93

irrational wrote: post #85

I don't get it. I've used Firefox and Chrome for years. Firefox is easily as good and capable as Chrome. The barrier to switch from Chrome to Firefox is almost non-existent. Is Google counting on the majority of people not being knowledgeable enough or motivated enough to switch browsers?

I've been using Firefox for the last two weeks or so. It's fine, but noticeably slower (on a 2018 MacBook Pro) when opening new tabs and especially dragging tabs into new windows. It also seems to get stuck resolving DNS sometimes, which is probably an artifact of the corporate network, but Chrome doesn't have that problem.

Agree with the performance problem (initial rendering). Mid-2015 MBP 15'' ("the best laptop ever made").

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#294

Post by jasonhansel » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

phiresky wrote: post #39

From the author of uBlock on this: What we see are the public statements, for public consumption, they are designed to "sell" the changes to the wider public. What we do not see is what is being said in private meetings by officers who get to decide how to optimize the business. So we have to judge not by what is said for public consumption purpose, but by what in effect is being done, or what they plan to do. This i…

uBlock should really just instruct users to "switch to firefox for a fast, up-to-date ad-blocking experience"

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#295

Post by amelius » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #291

amelius wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept. Can't we, developers, do the opposite? Like introduce a small annoyance, like showing a pop-up, when visitors use Chrome? It could say something like "today is free web day, upgrade your browser to Firefox or any other libre browser"

It's largely proven by decades of experience at this point that you cannot make the average software user care about ideological concerns. Especially if you use terms like libre that don't makes any sense to people that haven't drunk the FOSS koolaid.

Ok, then it could be played a little harder, for example by introducing a (small) performance penality for visitors that use chrome.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#296

Post by russdpale » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

ljm wrote: post #255

ronsor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People depend on Chromium/Blink because there's no other options. You can't really embed Gecko, and WebKit (Safari) can sometimes lack desirable web platform features.

Yet still, we have Rust (a phenomenally innovative programming language) that was conceived, as far as I understand it, to build a new rendering engine. I've not checked in on Servo for some time but they were going for full on ACID2 compliance with CSS, meeting the specs for HTML...A lot of that work became Electrolysis and then Quantum. Mozilla has been a serious lab for innovation without the conflict of interest…

I've been really liking rust thus far, its pretty awesome and I like the community. I didn't know it was made for a rednering engine. It would be nice to have something built by someone other than Mozilla though, just purely for more competition. I could care less that IE sold out, they made their bed in the 2000's and there was no escaping it. As a corporate programmer I am glad they a

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#297

Post by russdpale » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

ljm wrote: post #255

ronsor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People depend on Chromium/Blink because there's no other options. You can't really embed Gecko, and WebKit (Safari) can sometimes lack desirable web platform features.

Yet still, we have Rust (a phenomenally innovative programming language) that was conceived, as far as I understand it, to build a new rendering engine. I've not checked in on Servo for some time but they were going for full on ACID2 compliance with CSS, meeting the specs for HTML...A lot of that work became Electrolysis and then Quantum. Mozilla has been a serious lab for innovation without the conflict of interest…

I've been really liking rust thus far, its pretty awesome and I like the community. I didn't know it was made for a rednering engine. It would be nice to have something built by someone other than Mozilla though, just purely for more competition. I could care less that IE sold out, they made their bed in the 2000's and there was no escaping it.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#298

Post by scarface74 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #271

scarface74 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And without privacy invasion implications. Apple introduced content blocking 4 versions ago implemented nearly the same way. No one would accuse Apple of trying to help Google make more money.

Every application has privacy implications, and it isn't difficult to manage this one. Having a giant warning around installing extensions with this level of access would be a good way to protect people while also allowing them to make their own decisions.

Because warning people has historically worked well with PCs not to mention Android.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#299

Post by userbinator » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #273

Why exactly would anyone use the "enterprise" version of Chrome over the regular one, or vice versa? As far as I can tell, it's the same browser... https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download/

With this news it seems Google just gave everyone a reason to use the enterprise version...

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#300

Post by KirinDave » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

Well, now is as good a time as any to switch back to Firefox. They've managed to come out of a long stretch of mismanagement, technical debt and security issues to a much better place.