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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

#561

Post by chopin »

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…

If I want privacy from an extension, I don't install it. I can't do that realistically with a website as I need to visit it to determine whether it violates my privacy.

Running an extension is running code I trust (mostly). Visiting a website is running code I (inherently) don't trust. Many websites even have no idea which code they run on my machine (advertizing networks).

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

#562

Post by threeseed »

michaelt wrote: post #559
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 explain the fact ad blockers on iOS Safari so much less effective than uBlock Origin?

Because Apple imposed a limit of 50,000 filters.

On my Mac I have lists which currently total 140,000 filters.

Easy to see the problem.

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

#563

Post by chopin »

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…

I never would trust Google to increase my privacy.

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

#564

Post by youwishboye »

MarsAscendant wrote: post #550
bad_user wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty to like about Firefox, like the Awesome Bar, has better bookmarking, is able to handle a huge number of tabs, has the "Multi-Account Containers" extension (with its offspring, e.g. "Facebook Container"), or the "Tree Style Tab" extension, just to name a few. Also that it's not Chrome or based on Chromium is reason alone to like Firefox, because we need diversity for healthy web standards. That Chromium…

...and that's why I don't take part in the discussion about browsers. It's gotten political. You advertise shit to me, when I didn't ask you to. I tried Firefox for a month. I didn't like it. I went back to a Chromium fork. Now go away.

wow, what a pretentious asshole

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

#565

Post by feanaro »

happybuy wrote: post #327
acrispino wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Extrem…

So is your proposal to impose an arbitrary rule on the maximum number of rules and simply have less efficient blocking (with regards to privacy and actual blocking, not performance) until some indefinite point in the future when someone will have potentially produced an equally efficient set of rules satisfying the arbitrary rule?

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

#566

Post by sridca »

Kodix wrote: post #538
sridca wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence? Or is it all just fear mongering?

Here is a recent article suggesting that that's at least somewhat true: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/4/18124718/google-search-re...

Somewhat true, but not actually true.

This is a flawed study by a Google's competitor (the for-profit organization called DuckDuckGo). FTA:

> Following the study’s publication this morning, Google told The Verge in a statement that it found the methodology flawed and the findings misleading. “This study’s methodology and conclusions are flawed since they are based on the assumption that any difference in search results are based on personalization. That is simply not true,” a Google spokesperson said. “In fact, there are a number of factors that can lead to slight differences, including time and location, which this study doesn’t appear to have controlled for effectively.”

and:

https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1070027261376491520

Facts won't change being facts no matter how many times you downvote them. :-P

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

#567

Post by lozenge »

8bitsrule wrote: post #146
xkapastel wrote: post #50

I don't think I can go back to the internet without uBO+uMatrix. On a related note, why doesn't Chrome for Android have extensions? I get the sense it's because it was more strategic to ban extensions entirely than to allow ad blocking on mobile.

Can't remember the site, but uBO reported blocking over 1100 requests when I landed there the other day. I can't imagine browsing without it.

(I hope) it was just a poorly written JS that retries on failure

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

#568

Post by chacham15 »

Sidnicious wrote: post #523
DanielRibeiro wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the point the uBlock maintainer's make: "Extensions act on behalf of users, they add capabilities to a user agent , and deprecating the blocking ability of the webRequest API will essentially decrease the level of user agency in Chromium, to the benefit of web sites which obviously would be happy to have the last word in what resources their pages can fetch/execute/render."

Extensions should act on behalf of users but, like websites, some don't. A questionable or poorly-maintained extension can do more damage than any single website, and browsers can support user agency by replacing APIs with better ones: an effective declarative API for content blocking would majorly speed up extensions like uBlock Origin and make it harder for other extensions to follow users around the web. That said…

If you create a superior api (esp w/regards to speed) people will naturally move to extensions which use that api. Then once usage of the old api has dropped significantly, you can deprecate the old api.

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

#569

Post by strokirk »

Solvitieg wrote: post #260
criddell wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus Chrome just works better for a lot of sites. That might be because the site isn't properly coded, but users don't care. They just want something that works and more often than not, that's Chrome. My main browser is Firefox, but I have to switch over to Chrome more often than I would like. Electron is also based on Chromium, isn't it? IMHO, the rise of Electron just reinforces Chromium's status and I think Micros…

I don't know about "a lot of sites". Very few, I'd say. Other web developers may want to chime in but I rarely have cross-browser problems between Firefox and Chrome. I can't recall the last one. The only time I encounter a problem with Firefox is looking at people's codepens where they're using webkit only prefixes or a draft API.

Youtube runs noticably slower on Firefox for me, regularly climbing up to 30-40% cpu and activating the fan, while Chrome handles it with 15-20 cpu.

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

#570

Post by gregknicholson »

sixothree wrote: post #33
metalliqaz wrote: post #4

Another reason to be glad that Firefox is still standing.

I really just don't understand the obsession with Chrome, especially in hacker communities. Sorry Google, I feel "icky & gross" when I use you.

Sorry Google, I feel "icky & gross" when you use me.
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