People shouldn’t be using chrome anymore. Not even the technologically illiterate. I’d go so far as to say even safari is possibly more private.
Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
651–660 of 962 posts
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#652Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once made a comment along these lines (de-Googled Chromium-based browser isn't good enough, as it supports the browser monoculture and inevitably makes Chrome as a browser better) and got a reply from from Brendan Eichner himself. His point was that there isn't enough time to again develop Firefox (or ladybird) as a competitive browser capable of breaking the Chrome "monopoly". I don't know if I really agree. Evide…
Though his brave is a relatively small company, they have enough resources to have developed, and continue maintaining their own low-level ad blocker, which IME has been just as effective as uBO, but is supposedly more efficient (since it's written in the R-word language and compiled into native code integrating deeply inside the browser): I can't imagine what hoops Google would have to jump through to block third pa…
I also installed Brave on my partner's iPhone and I agree there are no big qualitative differences in the blocking.
Probably for Google the easiest way to keep 3rd-parties from integrating native ad blockers is through licensing agreements for new code/modules in chromium. At this point there will be a fork of chromium, taking the latest non-adblockerblocker-licensed version and the two versions will start to diverge with time.
My point however was not that Google might one day block 3rd-parties from integrating ad-blockers in their own chromium variant. My point was that building on the chromium-base will improve the chromium-base, which will improve Chrome and additionally allow them to claim they haven't monopolized the browser market.
Genuine incompatible-by-time forks of chromium are not in Google's interest and thus Google needs to balance their competing interests of maximizing ad revenue, but also keeping Chrome a high-quality product and not being seen as a browser monopolist.
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#653> I don't know how to make an adblocker, so I decided to report the issue to Google in August 2023.
> It was patched in Chrome 118 by checking whether extensions using opt_webViewInstanceId actually had WebView permissions.
> For the report, I netted a massive reward of $0.
Snitches get stitches, not rewards.
FWIW, on Windows Google relies on the registry to determine weather to use V2 or V3, and it can be reenabled: https://gist.github.com/MuTLY/71849b71e6391c51cd93bdea36137d...
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#654I suppose that switching to Brave will be one of the best solutions after all. They have already comment this in June: https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3
What makes Brave trustworthy enough for us to run our entire life through it? For me it's irreparably forever tainted by crypto grifting.
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#655Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is antitrust. The FTC / DOJ should strip Google of Chrome. Honestly, they should split Google into four or five "baby Bell"-type companies. They're ensnaring the public and web commerce in so many ways: - Chrome URL bar is a "search bar" - You have to pay to maintain your trademark even if you own the .com, because other parties can place ads in front of you with Google Search. (Same on Google Play Store.)…
Yes to everything except the first statement: > The answer is antitrust. Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly, I agree But another answer is "Firefox"
> Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly
No it isn't. If you want your capitalism to be liberal, you need antitrust, true. If you only want capitalism, and don't really care about the 'liberty' part, you can check the mercantile capitalism of old. It worked quite well for people with power.
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#656Even if bigs exists to work around what Google is doing, that isn’t the right way forward. If people don’t agree with Google move, the only correct course of action is to ditch Chrome (and all Chromium browsers). Hit them where it hurts and take away their monopoly over the future direction of the web.
We need webmasters to nudge people away from Chrome. E.g. show an annoying popup on opening the page or add a small delay.
Better yet, include some piece of code in your webpage that is dynamically loaded from e.g. EFF.org or mozilla.org.
That way, you give these organizations the power to nuke Chrome, one day.
This can also be seen as a kind of mutually assured destruction approach, to keep Google in check.
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#657Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before shipping any web site/app, make sure it works in Apple Safari Mobile is usually the one that is dragging it is foot in Web Standards.
Even in portugal/spain se have to worry about this. Safari mobile users are a minority here but they usually spend or have more money to spend
Those stupid rich people don't know what's good for them and keep buying iPhones. I wonder why?
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes to everything except the first statement: > The answer is antitrust. Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly, I agree But another answer is "Firefox"
> Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly No it isn't. If you want your capitalism to be liberal, you need antitrust, true. If you only want capitalism, and don't really care about the 'liberty' part, you can check the mercantile capitalism of old. It worked quite well for people with power.
> If you only want capitalism
Yeah, I prefer not to die in a coal mine at ripe age of 14, so a coal baron can increase their wealth by 0.001%.
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not accurate. Safari had webRequestBlocking functionality from 2010 to 2019 and indeed a version of uBlock Origin for Safari. What is true is that Safari was the first browser to ditch webRequestBlocking, replaced by its Apple-specific static rule content blocker API. Otherwise, though, Safari still supports MV2. Everyone seems to think webRequestBlocking is the only relevant change in MV3, but it's not. Equa…
There must be ways of injecting custom non static js because mv3 version of tampermonkey works https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgff...
After dragging their feet for literally years, Google finally implemented a specific userscripts API. However, the implementation was initially just statically declared rules like DeclarativeNetRequest, which sucked, and it also required that the user enable developer mode.
In Chrome 135, which is very recent—the public is currently on Chrome 138—Google added an execute() method to run an individual script. However, the API is not available from the extension content script, so if it needs to be triggered from the content script, you have to make an async call to the background script (or more accurately, the background service worker, which is a whole other nightmare of MV3). Moreover, the API accepts only a string for JS code or a filename; you still can't use a Function() constructor for example.
In Chrome 138, the current version, Google switched from developer mode to a dedicated userscripts permission toggle in the extension details, which is disabled by default. I think Google is still working on but has not finished a permissions request API. Remember this is almost SEVEN YEARS after Google first announced Manifest V3. The entire time, Google has been stalling, foot dragging, practically getting dragged kicking and screaming into doing the least possible work here.
Re: Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update
#660Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the "cons" column, Brave is still a for-profit and has a bunch of features that continue to give some people the ick. In the "pros" column, there's a bunch of "how to debloat Brave" content showing how to improve the default kitchen-sink confifguration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6cKFliWW6Q
I do turn off the wallet, VPN, AI and other bloat, but it's a minor inconvenience for a better browser.
That's an absurd amount of tuning to make a browser acceptable to use. What you're saying is that it's unusable as is out of the box.