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Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin

bugs.chromium.org

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

#321

Post by zcid »

Hippocrates wrote: post #203
sridca wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm invested in the Google ecosystem, and have recently got myself a Pixel Slate that I carry everywhere as my primary computing/ media device (no more separate laptop and tablet). It would now be silly of me to use Firefox in place of Chrome. Moreover I have got nothing to hide, so all these privacy-fears don't concern me; in fact I often feel like they are being overblown.

People who feel that they have “nothing to hide” don’t quite understand the extent to which they’re being mined for personal data. Google offers all of this amazingly polished software for free so naive people like you will feed them your browsing history, email, location and search queries. They will then monetize that data by targeting ads to you, which generates over 80% of their revenue. If you are ok with that a…

I did a factory reset on my Android phone today and was depressed when I realized the vast number of settings I have to change in order to get even a small semblance of privacy. App permissions, location history, disabling of default apps; the list goes on.

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

#322

Post by BLKNSLVR »

dominotw wrote: post #274
darkpuma wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any abuse of a monopoly is harmful to the public. Correct me if I'm misrepresenting your position, but I vaguely recall a discussion some time ago in which you compared adblocking to theft. If I'm remembering that correctly, you and I have no common ground upon which to have a civil discussion.

> Any abuse of a monopoly is harmful to the public. So you disagree with google deplatforming alex jones?

His primary website is still online. Me might not be allowed on YouTube anymore, but his primary platform still exists.

Additionally, I thought his removal from YouTube was as a result of pressure from the Government on hate speech and fake news etc. All the stuff Facebook is also attempting to crack down on.

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

#323

Post by paavoova »

jaxn wrote: post #235
cheez wrote: post #195

If uBlock stops working... I stop using Chrome. Simple as that.

Pi-hole covers you regardless of browser.

So this only blocks/matches known domains? That isn't nearly as useful as to what uMatrix/uBlock allow, such as filtering by resource type. E.g. you may want to disable all JS by default, which uBlock allows.

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

#324

Post by jchw »

the_duke wrote: post #163
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?

No, but I use extensions that are written for Chrome at work, which is probably not surprising.

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

#325

Post by needle0 »

coffeedrinker wrote: post #39

People who have grown to know and love ad blocking will move en masse to Firefox. That would be a good thing. The attempt to force users into a system they don't want when there are other options available results in a loss of users.

I’m not so sure about that. From a nontechnical users’s point of view, they aren’t entirely shutting down adblockers outright, but merely slightly inconveniencing them - most users will probably migrate to a different, less powerful ad blocker and just keep using Chrome. We’re all frogs in water while Google keeps raising the temperature just ever so slightly higher.

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

#326

Post by davb »

jaxn wrote: post #235
cheez wrote: post #195

If uBlock stops working... I stop using Chrome. Simple as that.

Pi-hole covers you regardless of browser.

One of my concerns is that DNS over HTTP(s) is really just a way to obfuscate DNS queries from the oversight of network level ad blockers like Pi Hole, AdBloka et al.

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

#327

Post by happybuy »

acrispino wrote: post #308
happybuy wrote: post #244

To defend Google a bit, it looks like the change is being put in place so that users would have more privacy – by stopping extensions accessing all active URLs. In essence they are copying what Apple did with Safari and their content blocking APIs. In this model, content blockers provide the browser with a set of blocking rules and the browser executes them against pages during render & load. Ad blocking can occur an…

How do you respond to the comment (#23) from the author of uBlock Origin & uMatrix describing the filtering capabilities that will be lost under the proposed declarativeNetRequest API?

Many similar concerns were raised when the Safari API changed, in this case some of the specific limitations and concerns re the declarativeNetRequest approach may be valid – if so, I'd hope that the Chromium team take them on board and improve.

I think the concern re the 30,000 rule limit is misguided. Many of these adblock rule lists are extremely inefficient and should probably be pruned to have less rules.

Extremely good and effective adblocking across most websites can be achieved with significantly less rules.

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

#328

Post by zeroxfe »

maverick2007 wrote: post #314
jlarocco wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network level ad-blocking doesn't work very well. Privoxy (and Proxomitron before it) were doing it 20 years ago, but never caught on because they're a PITA to setup and can't handle inline adverts. Pi-hole is new, but it's even more work to setup, and suffers the same limitations. And as ad-blocking has become more popular the problems only gotten worse. It's unusual that I see any ads any more, but when I do it's a…

Why doesn't it? (Not a leading question, I just don't understand why it doesn't) Isn't the way uBlock and the like work is that they see network requests from a blacklist and not load those resources? Isn't network level blocking just moving that from the local device up a level?

They do (well partly), but with network level blocking you end up with broken DOM elements (like images, videos, etc.) The good think about the browser extensions is that they clean up the DOM and in many cases you wouldn't even know if the pages had ads.

Then there's also Javascript trickery loaded with the page that do hostile things if ad servers aren't reachable, and extensions know how to detect and replace them.

I think the closer the blocker is to the user, the higher the fidelity of the blocking.

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

#330

Post by chx »

driverdan wrote: post #277
cheez wrote: post #195

If uBlock stops working... I stop using Chrome. Simple as that.

Don't threaten, don't wait, do it now.

I have written this a few times here already, I can repeat it again: Firefox wiped their extension store semi-recently and the long tail didn't recover yet. I actually just checked my usual roster and it is better than last time but not yet.
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