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

#401

Post by fl0wenol » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

teh_klev wrote: post #205

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?

Firefox isn't quite there. How about a sane Profile manager? This is something I use heavily on Chrome. The "about:profiles" UI doesn't cut it. Also when I use Firefox on my non-work Fedora machines (and this is going from Fedora 21 to 29) it seriously chews up memory and CPU. Facebook (yeah, I know) is rendered unusable after about 30 mins. And as other post(s) have pointed out, video playback can be a bit janky. Th…

I've always used the -ProfileManager command line option in the past and shortcuts to "-P " when wanting to launch/send actions to sessions. (didn't know of about:profiles UI, neat)

I haven't played with MAC (Multi-account Containers) yet but I understand they're a lightweight version of Profiles that can co-exist in a single browser session and have a bunch of neat features (like auto-binding certain sites to certain containers when visited). Would recommend trying out if you've been dissatisfied with the previous approach.

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

#402

Post by frenchy » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:02 AM UTC

btown wrote: post #197

user17843 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the only way to combat Google in this regards would be for smaller players to come together and form an open-source working group based on a chromium fork. (The train has already left the station for anything besides WebKit or Blink, since the lack of accessibility of Gecko means it will never be adopted by anyone else.) But most of them are directly financed by Google and have almost no common ground…

> smaller players to come together and form an open-source working group based on a chromium fork Google can and does use DRM to block even this from happening: https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked... Even Mozilla needed to license Widevine from Google to support modern video: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm Based on the policy evidenced in Maddock's post, it seems impossible t…

> support modern video

There's nothing particularly modern about DRM.

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

#403

Post by pvg » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:05 AM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #269

Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problem…

People who have different experiences or preferences than yours are not 'disingenuous'. You're hardly going to convince anyone to try FF by calling them liars.

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

#404

Post by cortesoft » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:05 AM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #351

SquareWheel wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manifest V3 still supports ad blocking. I don't know why so many in this thread think it doesn't.

The article says that current ad blocking extensions stops the request from even being made to the ad server, while the new version of Chrome will remove the ability for a plug in to stop a web request. Seems like a pretty major change to me.

No, I don't think that is correct. You can still stop a web request, but you can only stop it by providing chrome with a list of url patterns to block. The current method passes the url being requested to the extension, which can then decide to block it or not.

The new way has the extension give a list of patterns to block to chrome, and from there it will block any request that matches.

The stated reason is that this is for privacy, to prevent extensions from being able to gather data about every request a browser makes. Currently, a malicious extension could send every url a user visits to some central collection server. The new way prevents that.

Is the trade off worth it? I personally think no, but I do think many people don't realize that as blockers have the capability to collect every url you visit if they wanted.

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

#405

Post by needle0 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #269

Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problem…

Yep, this. If you the reader are using a Chrome-based browser and find Google's behavior disconcerting, you need to switch away, now.

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

#406

Post by darklajid » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:07 AM UTC

I've been a Firefox user throughout - never made the switch to Chrome.

But here's what worries me, what I'm wondering now: As far as I'm aware, Mozilla/Firefox tried to follow Google for extensions, deprecated their own API for Google's/Chrome's instead.

How likely is it that Mozilla will further "follow the spec" so to speak, doing a change like this for compatibility or whatever?

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

#407

Post by josephorjoe » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:07 AM UTC

move-on-by wrote: post #321

josephorjoe wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, once the web pages in chrome are bloated with ads that you can block in firefox, its apparent performance edge will fade.

Seriously, when is the tipping point? Mine was a couple years ago. Recently with Chrome, there is forced login to the browser when you sign into your google account. Also, when you clear all cookies- it keeps the google cookies. Now it’s crippling ad blockers. Chrome is no longer a user agent, it’s spyware. But I guess as long as that crappy page overloaded with ads and trackers doesn’t freeze for 2 seconds, then it’…

I only use chrome on my work computer now, and even there I use firefox for logging in to my personal gmail.

My son just got his first computer -- a windows pc. He has edge and firefox installed, but no chrome. I told him he cannot trust google :( and should avoid their software as much a possible.

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

#408

Post by jimmaswell » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:08 AM UTC

redwards510 wrote: post #13

Google is essentially saying that Chrome will still have the capability to block unwanted content, but this will be restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome. Never heard of a paid version of Chrome before! Can anyone elaborate on this? I gotta say I'm kind of glad Google is doing this. It will force me to finally abandon Chrome, something I should have done awhile ago.

Perhaps the elusive Google Ultron.

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

#409

Post by flukus » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:08 AM UTC

ronsor wrote: post #121

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…

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.

Mozilla had XUL, which was basically electron a decade before electron.

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

#410

Post by ori_b » Thu, May 30, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #396

ori_b wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web standards were also much simpler then. It was difficult but tractable for a small team of volunteers to implement and keep up with them. That ship has sailed.

Standards often shift be a substantial reconsolidation, in which numerous side features are discarded. HTML itself emerged from such a consolidation (from SGML) and went through this process a few times. There are numerous other examples of technical recapitulation.

HTML and the menagerie of related standards has never, as far as I'm aware, become simpler. And the old versions have never been removed from a browser.