The only thing that surprises me about this announcement is that it took them that long.
Oh well, they'll just give me a reason to accelerate my full migration to Safari and Firefox and to only touch Chrome when testing a website.
Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
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Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#92I don't understand the technical details of this - could someone explain it to an idiot? - Is the change specifically to block ad blockers, or uBlock specifically? Or is it just a new extension API? - Could ad blockers adapt to the new version to work again? I am reminded of the new version of (Mac) Safari, which features a new extensions API. It took a while for them to appear but there are now good ad blocking exte…
I would defer to someone more knowledgeable, but here's my take:
1. Google is proposing to limit the API uBlock Origin uses, and replace it with a less capable one.
2. Google also plans to put artificial limits on the new API (30,000 rules or something), which will make it even more difficult to make an effective ad blocker. That's not even enough to implement current blocklists.
3. The new API is inflexible, so it will be difficult to impossible to create innovative ad blockers in the future.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#93I don't understand the technical details of this - could someone explain it to an idiot? - Is the change specifically to block ad blockers, or uBlock specifically? Or is it just a new extension API? - Could ad blockers adapt to the new version to work again? I am reminded of the new version of (Mac) Safari, which features a new extensions API. It took a while for them to appear but there are now good ad blocking exte…
The problem is with the limit on the number of filters. On desktop Firefox I have ~120,000 network filters active on uBlock. Safari on iOS limits the number of filters an adblocker can have active to 50,000 and Google are proposing limiting it to 30,000 on Chrome.
On iOS and macOS, blockers can have more filters than this "limit" by simply exposing more than one list, since the quota is per-list. I think AdGuard exposes four, for example.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#94Another reason to be glad that Firefox is still standing.
Someone correct me, but can’t ad blockers just be installed through the OS and not be dependent on the browser?
I recall this is what I had to do for Safari since there wasn’t a supported extension for the new browser yet.
This would lessen our dependency on a browser for ad blocking in this ongoing browser war.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#95I switched from Chrome back to Firefox last year and haven't looked back once.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#96Another 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.
I use Chromium on linux because Firefox doesn't have touch-screen support and smooth-scrolling feels a little rough. I wont hesitate to switch over if these changes are made though.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#97Please don't editorialize :| Suggested title: Chromium Extension Manifest v3 change would break uMatrix/uBlock Mods?
The current title ("Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin") is more reflective of linked comment. The essential quote from the linked comment is this: "If this ...[change to chromium is implemented]... [it] essentially means that two content blockers I have maintained for years, uBlock Origin ("uBO") and uMatrix, can no longer exist." "can no longer exist" is much closer to "disable" t…
The problem is I see a ton of people in the comments assuming this is a change made with the intent of disabling/breaking ublock. Clearly it's not, and it will affect more extensions than just that.
We should demand a LOT more evidence before claiming that Google intends to break adblockers before accusing them of that. If they are doing that, I want to be the first one raging against them, and I don't feel comfortable raging on something that deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#98I don't understand the technical details of this - could someone explain it to an idiot? - Is the change specifically to block ad blockers, or uBlock specifically? Or is it just a new extension API? - Could ad blockers adapt to the new version to work again? I am reminded of the new version of (Mac) Safari, which features a new extensions API. It took a while for them to appear but there are now good ad blocking exte…
From what I understand, there are currently events which gave you the ability to inspect, and also cancel a request if you want. This allows you to do things like cancel a request if it's trying to download a big video file.
But Google wants to remove the ability to cancel a request through the events, and they want to replace that with declarativeNetRequest[1]. If you look at the link, in the Rules section, it seems to be simple, kinda hardcoded (but configurable) filters.
You can also see there's a limit of only 30,000 rules[2], which is not enough for EasyList[3] (example used in the tracker), which seems to have ~74,000 rules.
This is not targeted to ad blockers specifically. It's a change that makes blocking requests less flexible. For example, uBlock and uMatrix rules can be overridden by more specific rules, something that declarativeNetRequest can't do.
1. https://developers.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReque...
2. https://developers.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReque...
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#99I don't understand the technical details of this - could someone explain it to an idiot? - Is the change specifically to block ad blockers, or uBlock specifically? Or is it just a new extension API? - Could ad blockers adapt to the new version to work again? I am reminded of the new version of (Mac) Safari, which features a new extensions API. It took a while for them to appear but there are now good ad blocking exte…
The problem is with the limit on the number of filters. On desktop Firefox I have ~120,000 network filters active on uBlock. Safari on iOS limits the number of filters an adblocker can have active to 50,000 and Google are proposing limiting it to 30,000 on Chrome.
1Blocker for iOS and Mac works around this limitation by segmenting it's blocker list into categories, and each category is a separate blocker extension but they are all shipped together in the same app.
This way they can have pretty much as many multiples of 50,000 rules as they need.
Re: Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really just don't understand the obsession with Chrome, especially in hacker communities. Sorry Google, I feel "icky & gross" when I use you.
It fast. That most important thing.
Firefox with uMatrix will smoke Chrome without it, in nearly any real world use-case.