I don't see Firefox mentioned once in this whole article, so I assume it isn't meant for the sole browser I am using. Therefore this performance study is useless for me.
Adblockers Performance Study
91–100 of 126 posts
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#92FWIW, Chromium devs have just responded[1] to the massive amount of feedback they got on the mailing list, like [2] and [3]. One of the main pain points raised was the lack of any way to dynamically add rules, as well as the low maximum number of rules allowed (30k). Seems they've decided to support dynamic rule addition, as well as increasing the number of rules, though probably not by orders of magnitude by the sou…
Dynamic rule addition addresses a very small number of complaints with the proposal. Beyond the ability to block requests conditionally based on arbitrary logic (not just a few pre-decided qualifications like request size), one point I want to keep coming back to is that there are actually legitimate reasons why an extension might choose to slow down requests. I use Tampermonkey scripts on a couple of social networki…
>I use Tampermonkey scripts on a couple of social networking sites deliberately to slow them down so I'll that I'll be less likely to impulsively refresh them.
Could you use Chrome's simulated network throttling instead?
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#93FWIW, Chromium devs have just responded[1] to the massive amount of feedback they got on the mailing list, like [2] and [3]. One of the main pain points raised was the lack of any way to dynamically add rules, as well as the low maximum number of rules allowed (30k). Seems they've decided to support dynamic rule addition, as well as increasing the number of rules, though probably not by orders of magnitude by the sou…
Has Chromium's response been posted to HN yet? I haven't seen it as a headline.
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, dislaimer: I worked on this study. Thank you for your comment. To me this reaction from the Chromium devs is missing one of the most fundamental issues. I'm not fundamentally against the declarative API because of technical limitations; I am against it because it is a strong innovation lock. The current extension ecosystem is flexible enough to allow hundreds (maybe thousands) of people to actively work on priva…
I'm hoping that Firefox is once again seen as a viable alternative, that “power users” would consider switching to if Chrome falls behind.
I ditched Chrome 8 years ago, first for Opera and then Firefox once Opera became Chrome. It still has memory issues[1], but overall I'm very happy with it.
[1]: it's probably not plain old memory leaks anymore, but due to using a few long-lived content processes, pages/scripts that leak is an issue. But usually not a huge deal, once one of the processes start using 2-3GB I just kill it, and refresh the affected tabs (coughSlackcough).
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#95I'm curious how filtering proxies like Privoxy, Proxomitron, Proximodo/Proxydomo, etc. compare --- it's an extra (local) hop of network latency, but those are pure native code. I've been using one for a long time (ever since I heard of them) and it effectively works across all the browsers on the system, even those built-in to other apps (often only for the purpose of showing ads...) Even for those who don't routinel…
The problem with those external HTTP filtering proxies is that the usage of SSL/TLS is pervasive nowadays.
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Chrome devs are now playing nicely and get feedback and propose some improvements to the APIs but there is no warranty this will happen again, or that they will invest time/energy in the future improving this part of the browser. I think this is especially true. It is somewhat similar to many other Google products like Maps and Translate. They start as a good free product, but as soon as they gain enough traction t…
This is their long game. To me all the push Google did with https, and certificate pinning etc makes much more sense. I was wondering why they were pushing it so hard. I mean after they essentially blocked ways to use proxy to filter the content, next logical step is to restrict API.
If you want to proxy your HTTPS traffic you add a local CA, and Chrome does not apply certificate pinning. Pinning is only for certs that chain back to the default CAs, specifically so people who need to proxy can do so.
(Disclosure: I work for Google, though not on Chrome)
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as a user (and early developer) of Safari's content blockers; I have almost never run into an issue with them. What kind of development do you fear will be stifled by Apple and Google not having incentives to improve the blocking (which I find somewhat strange in the former case, anyways)?
The sites that display ads, wants to make sure ad blockers can't block them. Currently both sides adapt, if the way it works is locked down ad blockers quickly will become obsolete. For example a whole ago most sites were creating popups with ads, after it became bad, browsers started blocking popups, initially by only displaying then when user actively clicks. So sites started opening a popup when user made a first…
> And now with other changes that Google successfully pushed, such as https everywhere, http/2 and http/3 is nearly impossible to block ads through a proxy.
I agree with everything except this. First, http/2 and http/3 absolutely do not prevent blocking. If blocking proxies don't support them, then they're the ones lagging behind.
Secondly, most blocking software working on the network layer use DNS, which still works just fine and will likely continue to work forever.
Thirdly, you can still, for the most part, MITM https connection on devices you own. You just need to install your own root ssl certificate. The only thing that prevents this from working would be HSTS preloading.
EDIT: Actually, adding your own root cert bypasses HSTS preloading.
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#98FWIW, Chromium devs have just responded[1] to the massive amount of feedback they got on the mailing list, like [2] and [3]. One of the main pain points raised was the lack of any way to dynamically add rules, as well as the low maximum number of rules allowed (30k). Seems they've decided to support dynamic rule addition, as well as increasing the number of rules, though probably not by orders of magnitude by the sou…
"Seems they've decided to support dynamic rule addition"
I find it telling that it was left out in the first place. I can't think of any plausible reason to have omitted it, other than to purposely hobble adblockers.
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, dislaimer: I worked on this study. Thank you for your comment. To me this reaction from the Chromium devs is missing one of the most fundamental issues. I'm not fundamentally against the declarative API because of technical limitations; I am against it because it is a strong innovation lock. The current extension ecosystem is flexible enough to allow hundreds (maybe thousands) of people to actively work on priva…
Speaking as a user (and early developer) of Safari's content blockers; I have almost never run into an issue with them. What kind of development do you fear will be stifled by Apple and Google not having incentives to improve the blocking (which I find somewhat strange in the former case, anyways)?
Safari's content blockers supported adding rules dynamically from the start.
Google tried to roll this out initially without that obvious must have. It speaks to intent, and probably future prospects for the API.
And, of course, a declaritive API with pattern matching limits what you can do anyway. No heuristics, no behavior based blocking, etc. You are pretty much stuck with cataloging the patterns of a ton of websites as your only approach.
Re: Adblockers Performance Study
#100So Ghostery benchmarks and is the fastest? Fine. But Ghostery does not belong in that test at all. Of course it can be faster. It misses a lot of the most important features! Like custom lists. Totally an ad.
Scroll to the footer and you'll see that this is Ghostery's website. I wouldn't really call promoting their own product on their own webpage an ad.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Ghostery doesn't want their bias to be obvious to the non-discerning user because it's obviously an attempt to reclaim market share using dirty tactics.