Live data from Hacker News

Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

9to5google.com

511–520 of 909 posts

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

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule-based ad blocking limited to 30k, as stated in the article. That's why people are upset.

Except that list really is just bloated with rules that don't do anything anymore. > We measure how EasyList affects web browsing by applying EasyList to a sample of 10,000 websites. We find that 90.16% of the resource blocking rules in EasyList provide no benefit to users in common browsing scenarios. [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.09160.pdf They've also mentioned the possibility of tweaking the 30k limit.

> in common browsing scenarios.

Part of the point of an adblocker is to protect you in uncommon browsing scenarios. This is almost like saying that a malware list is bloated because some of the hashes its storing are uncommonly downloaded. Having as close to full coverage as possible is important.

It also opens up an attack vector for advertisers that they absolutely will exploit. With unlimited rules, there's no reason for ad networks not to use a few domains and serve their ads from a few sources. With a hard limit, there's a strong incentive for networks to collectively try and flood the lists with tons of different domains until we run out of room to include all of them.

> the possibility of tweaking the 30k limit.

This has been the number one complaint about the proposal from day one. If at this point the Chrome team still hasn't decided to tweak the limit, I just don't see how there's not gonna be any new argument past this point that anyone can make to convince them.

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

#512
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Brendan, but if Google's browser domination concerns you, use Firefox or Safari. Using Chromium browsers leaves Google firmly in control.

I'm not an apple user, so sorry if this is way off but... ... isn't the direction Google's taking here the same as what Apple already did with Safari? Is Safari actually any better in this particular regard?

I seem to recall that the Safari content blocking API is like the proposed Chromium API, but that doesn't alarm people because a) Apple is less of an ad company than Google, so less of a perceived conflict of interest b) Google is perceived to break stuff that is already working c) Safari/Webkit aren't dominant outside of iOS where they're mandatory

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

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it doesn't work in Firefox I don't use it. I've been using Firefox for as long as I can remember, probably shortly after it was made and Netscape died. And would never use Chrome. Chrome users are now going to be betrayed and just didn't see it coming. I look forward to Firefox' upcoming rebound which I have every faith this news will spur on.

But doesn't Firefox require that godawful add-on signing?

Sadly yes, but the alternative is a browser that trackers you and that allows ads to also track you.

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

#515

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…

There's also non-performance issues to be wary of Firefox. The Mr Robot surprise extension installation is something Mozilla said will never happen again, but lost them some trust. Not that Chrome is much better in that regard

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

#516
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crack the DRM and do it in a country that does not care about DMCA and has lax copyright laws. You could create an "illegal browser", and judging by how effective all the other antipiracy efforts have been to date (i.e. not at all), I doubt you'll face too much opposition...

Or don't consume DRMed content?

So, all commercial video content on the web?

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

#517

I recently setup Pihole as the DNS server for my entire home network and said farewell to my Adblock extensions. It's glorious.

Sub-optimal for laptop users who might connect to various networks (home, office, the coffee shop) throughout a single day.

Depending on how powerful your laptop is, you could always install a lightweight version of Linux using Hyper V (assuming you're running Windows), and install a pihole server in that. It might be a bit of a pain changing the dns settings for every network, but maybe someone else knows a way to make that easier.

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

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he explicitly says "No donations sought", wouldn't it be kind of rude to throw money at him?

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-... Here is the official explanation of why donations are not accepted.

>I want to be free to move onto something else if ever I get tired working on these projects (no donations = no expectations).

Well this is exactly why we wanted to hive him money. Hopefully if he gets bored someone else will carry the torch.

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

#520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

Does it actually prevent that though? Is there no other mechanism that lets extensions know the URL of the current page?
Post reply on HN