[HN Gopher] Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024
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Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024
Author : AlexandrB
Score : 174 points
Date : 2023-11-21 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| edrxty wrote:
| Wouldn't this be a pretty obvious anti trust violation?
| missedthecue wrote:
| What is the angle you're thinking of?
| fsckboy wrote:
| "bundling"
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Google owns web browser with monopoly market share. Google
| uses product with monopoly market share to limit tools that
| allow a user to block ads that harms their other half...of
| which they are also a monopoly in. There is a strong argument
| that they are using a monopoly to control and prevent users
| from choice to display or not display content, removing their
| choice to not see Google ads.
|
| I'm not sure that any of this would ever have weight in the
| US...but it does feel off.
| rurp wrote:
| Google used billions of dollars from its online ad dominance
| to gain a monopoly in a different market via Chrome. Google
| is now using the latter monopoly to juice profits in the
| former, to the detriment of users.
| wolpoli wrote:
| I am thinking "A pattern of anti-competitive actions
| leveraging Google's control in multiple parts of the web
| ecosystem to limit competition." Will this fly in the US?
| philprx wrote:
| Last or first nail in the coffin for Google?
|
| Definitely ground for breakup IMHO.
| pianoben wrote:
| I'd be off of Chrome in a heartbeat if it weren't for all the
| Google properties required by my work, which themselves cripple
| non-Chromium browsers. (Looking at _you_ , Meet!)
|
| Firefox, for all of Mozilla's faults, stands head-and-shoulders
| over Chrome in terms of good and respectful user experience.
| marak830 wrote:
| Generally isn't a user agent change enough?
| fsckboy wrote:
| you can use different browsers for Meet and for browsing. I
| use different browsers for basically everything, tech stuff,
| reddit and everything more salacious, banking, email
| conradludgate wrote:
| I use Google meet just fine on Firefox at work. Even video
| filters work. The only thing I can imagine not being 100% is
| tab-only sharing
| LesZedCB wrote:
| woah, filters work now! i am 100% firefox at home and 95%
| at work, i keep (kept, yay!) chrome for meet so i could
| blur. thanks for mentioning this!
| matsemann wrote:
| I use Fx as my daily browser, and for meetings I just open
| Meet in Chrome.
| ssijak wrote:
| Just use something that lives outside of the browser and covers
| blocking at the computer level (or router for the whole home),
| but I prefer at the computer level if you are up to the blocker
| being proxy for all https traffic.
|
| But a very small number of people will do that. I was surprised
| how small is the number of people running any adblocker at all.
| Clamchop wrote:
| For web browsing, these solutions necessarily cannot be as
| sophisticated as software running in the browser. They're also
| much less convenient to install and use.
|
| DNS filters and firewall rules are crude tools by comparison
| but you can't install uBO on random apps or your TV.
| SCHiM wrote:
| Not to mention this is an attack on multiple fronts: do you
| _really_ believe DoH is about privacy?
| kbenson wrote:
| It both is and it isn't. It moves people from different
| threat models to a middle ground, and for some people
| that's worse and for some people it's significantly better.
|
| If you live in the U.S. for most major ISP users it's
| probably a wash and you're just letting a different party
| have your info. If you live in a nation that desires to
| control what you consume online then it probably is a net
| gain.
| attentive wrote:
| dnscrypt.org will shuffle between multiple encrypted
| resolvers. So no single party has your info.
| ssijak wrote:
| Having adblocker that can monitor all https traffic is very
| effective, and works on the level of the whole machine.
| babypuncher wrote:
| DNS adblockers like PiHole are certainly useful, but they don't
| provide as clean or comprehensive of an experience as a proper
| ad-blocking extension. For example, bypassing adblock
| detectors, cleaning up pages that get mangled by the removal of
| ads, removing ads hosted by the same domain as the desired
| content, and other things that could never really be
| accomplished with a domain blocklist.
| city41 wrote:
| On the flip side they are largely set and forget for all your
| devices. They also do things like blocking a Roku device from
| phoning home.
|
| Oh it also does dns over https which is a nice bonus.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| Squid proxy with SSL bumping however does solve all those
| issues.
| rplnt wrote:
| That option will be gone too. They already tried to go that way
| this year. They will succeed next time, unless people finally
| stop using browser made by an advertising company.
| Clubber wrote:
| Time to limit using Google Chrome.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| Unfortunately Firefox is just as caught up in enforcing
| unsolicited web advertising. I have sponsored urlbar suggestions
| off, but still Firefox enrolled me in a "Weather Suggestions
| Follow On" "study" which puts sponsored AccuWeather results ahead
| of normal URL bar autocomplete results.
| danShumway wrote:
| I get the critique, but "just as"? Really?
|
| It is possible for two things to be bad without pretending that
| they're equivalent.
|
| And in any case, if you're worried about Firefox, use
| Librewolf; it will not have sponsored search suggestions. But
| either option is better than Chrome if you're trying to avoid
| advertisements.
| frfl wrote:
| Kind of a stretch to equate these two things.
|
| But honestly it comes down to this: in one you have an option
| to disable stuff you dont like, in the other you hope there
| will an option. You can guess which is which.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| If they change settings at their discretion to enable
| sponsored results, do I really have an option?
| frfl wrote:
| Most stuff in Firefox is configurable. So unless you're
| saying you have found no way to opt-out of what you're
| describing you don't have a point.
|
| You mention "study", in Firefox's settings
| (about:preferences#privacy) I can see "Allow Firefox to
| install and run studies" checkbox.
|
| So yeah, I think you do have an option.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I would like to be able to leave studies on to
| participate without having my trust violated. Part of me
| is willing to chalk this up to an error, but it feels bad
| faith and there is a definite pattern of Mozilla adding
| new intrusions that they know are not welcome without
| asking.
| danShumway wrote:
| Comparatively, yes.
|
| Yes, it's annoying to disable Firefox suggestions. The
| company shouldn't be doing it, it is a violation of trust.
| Yes, it is hypocritical for Mozilla to talk about privacy
| and then to run these experiments. But you won't be able to
| run uBO _at all_ in Chrome.
|
| Even if the settings were getting constantly unchecked over
| and over, and even if the end result was that you had to
| check your Firefox settings every single day, that's still
| a better position to be in than not being able to do
| anything about the advertising even on a short-term basis.
|
| If I have to constantly remind someone over and over again
| not to slap me in the face, I am going to be annoyed at
| that person. That person's behavior is bad. But it's still
| going to be easier to deal that person than with someone
| who just starts slapping me and refuses to even temporarily
| stop no matter what I say or do. I still have more agency
| when dealing with the first person than I have when dealing
| with the second.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| This doesn't feel temporary if I routinely have to study
| the Firefox settings to find out what new ways they have
| found to violate my trust.
|
| And actually, I don't really like the idea of ad
| blockers, they do seem rather bad faith to me. I don't
| like ads, but Google is ad supported, I do a search, I go
| to Google, I accept the ads, they're part of the deal.
|
| Firefox though, they get plenty of money from Google when
| I search via the Firefox search box. If they were having
| cashflow problems I would understand, but they're going
| to look for alternative revenue streams from AccuWeather?
| As if being in bed with Google weren't bad enough they're
| like "how can we work with more companies that solely
| exist to gatekeep access to public data." But being in
| bed with Google at least makes sense, I don't see a
| better way to provide the service. And similarly for
| Google, I don't see how they could run YouTube without
| ads, I get their motivation here.
| danShumway wrote:
| > This doesn't feel temporary if I routinely have to
| study the Firefox settings to find out what new ways they
| have found to violate my trust.
|
| I mentioned this already:
|
| > If I have to constantly remind someone over and over
| again not to slap me in the face, I am going to be
| annoyed at that person. That person's behavior is bad.
| But it's still going to be easier to deal that person
| than with someone who just starts slapping me and refuses
| to even temporarily stop no matter what I say or do. I
| still have more agency when dealing with the first person
| than I have when dealing with the second.
|
| ---
|
| > And actually, I don't really like the idea of ad
| blockers, they do seem rather bad faith to me.
|
| Then just say that :) Why come on here and trying to
| create an equivalence if your actual point is that you
| don't mind what Chrome is doing? From a privacy and
| unsolicited advertising point of view, Chrome is worse
| than Firefox.
|
| If you don't mind unsolicited advertising, then sure, use
| whatever you want. But it feels vaguely disingenuous to
| phrase "I'm OK with Google advertising to me" as "there's
| no point switching to Firefox if you don't want ads."
|
| > Firefox though, they get plenty of money from Google
| when I search via the Firefox search box.
|
| If your position is that Firefox is flush with cash and
| doesn't require any additional revenue streams, but you
| worry that Google is a struggling business that will kill
| Youtube if you install uBlock Origin, then I have very
| good news for you about Google's annual profits.
|
| I don't understand someone complaining about Firefox
| being in bed with Google if they don't have an issue with
| Google's advertising. The reason we don't like that
| Firefox is in bed with Google is because _we don 't like
| Google._ If we liked Google, we might even want the
| companies to be in bed together.
|
| Similarly, if your view of Mozilla showing unsolicited
| sponsored content is that they're "getting in bed" with
| AccuWeather, then I have really bad news about how the
| entirety of Google Ads as a platform works. If you're
| morally offended that Firefox is working with one closed
| down weather forecaster, just wait until you find out
| that Google is currently taking money from _all_ of the
| closed down weather forecasters. That is how Google Ads
| works, Google "gets in bed" with those companies and
| shows you sponsored content from those companies whenever
| you do a web search.
|
| And I understand being upset that Mozilla would do the
| same thing, but Mozilla is still strictly speaking doing
| a lot less of this stuff than Google is.
| rurp wrote:
| I have plenty of complaints about Firefox but equating this to
| what Google is doing is absurd. Mozilla running an ocassional
| annoying ad is thousands of times less bad than permanently
| crippling all content blockers forever.
| ymir_e wrote:
| How's firefox these days?
|
| On a serious note - I've seen a lot of browser startups lately.
|
| Are there any of them that really stand out?
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I prefer it over Chrome. It's a (mostly) de-botnetted browser
| that allows deep customization and control.
| LightHugger wrote:
| I can recommend librewolf, firefox with all the mozilla crap
| stripped out and good default privacy settings. Can tweak the
| options easily too if there's anything too annoying.
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Quoting another HN user regarding librewolf:
|
| > Binaries are unsigned, third party update service, Google
| safe browsing disabled unless you build from source, running
| unusual browser setups can actually make you more distinctive
| online, unencrypted DNS by default, speed of security patches
| is slower than base Firefox, etc.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Yeah I like what LibreWolf is doing, but it seems more
| reasonable to just disable the Firefox features you don't
| like.
| oynqr wrote:
| All of those except the last one are positives.
| chikenf00t wrote:
| Librewolf is great, but an easy way to lock down regular
| Firefox is to generate a profile on something like
| ffprofile.com and replace the default config.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Better than chrome, like always. Customizable and better at ram
| consumption.
|
| It's always good to have a backup besides chrome/Firefox, in
| case Mozilla decides to commit yet another absurd move due to
| weird political trends.
| jonathanlb wrote:
| It's my daily driver, but it's energy inefficient on my Macbook
| Pro compared to Safari.
| bearjaws wrote:
| Been my daily driver since 2021 and its rock solid, performance
| is maybe 5-10% slower.
|
| Theres only one site I know of that doesn't 100% work in it,
| thankfully its not one I use all the time.
| irrational wrote:
| It's been my browser for both web development and personal
| browsing for more years than I can remember. It is terrific. I
| don't even have chrome installed on any of my computers.
| criswell wrote:
| I really like Arc. Takes some getting used to but worth the
| adjustment I think.
| mooooooooooooo wrote:
| Arc had terrible adblocking out of the gate, I tried it out
| and immediately went back to Brave
| e2le wrote:
| >How's firefox these days?
|
| Surviving but continues to bleed users.
|
| https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
| robswc wrote:
| I would use Firefox, if not for Mozilla.
| kbenson wrote:
| And instead you use what? And why is that better or worse
| in specific ways?
| robswc wrote:
| I just don't like Mozilla, as a company, for many
| reasons.
|
| The main ones being:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_sal
| ary...
|
| The pay wouldn't be so egregious if it wasn't a constant
| pattern of pay raises, despite by their own stats, losing
| MAU and revenue. They also laid off 250 people (which is
| much more than $5MM, any way you cut it) but it seems in
| bad taste to give the CEO a raise in the same year.
|
| And:
|
| https://blog.mozilla.org/en/
|
| The fact that they're leaning so much into political
| activism.
|
| On their homepage they're promoting a journalist involved
| in some misinformation controversy:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220928230910/https://www.wa
| shi...
|
| The journalist has blamed all this on "editors" -- so
| we'll never know _who_ exactly did the stealth edits and
| lied about contacting for comment. In any case, it is
| pretty ironic, given the CEO of Mozilla seems to think we
| need more than de-platforming to combat "misinformation":
|
| https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-
| deplat...
|
| Not a fan of statements that creep into invasions of
| privacy from a supposedly privacy focused browser.
|
| So, to sum it up;
|
| Wild executive pay for poor performance and too much
| political activism (that I tend to not agree with) for a
| web browser.
| kbenson wrote:
| Those are all valid reasons for not liking Mozilla. What
| do you use instead then?
| robswc wrote:
| Safari and Brave
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| How is Mozilla worse than Google?
| robswc wrote:
| I don't use Chrome. I just don't agree with the political
| activism and business decisions of Mozilla.
| kbenson wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is user aging out of active usage
| for one reason or another (retirement, switching to a tablet
| from a desktop, etc) and how much of it is people switching
| (and how much of that switching is to something newer and
| small (e.g. not Safari, Edge, etc).
| smusamashah wrote:
| It is definitely going to go back up in June. I don't use
| Firefox now, it's now a good experience when compared to
| Chrome but will definitely switch if that's how I get my
| clean web browsing back.
| neilv wrote:
| Firefox is my main browser for many years, and it's still good.
|
| (The only main thing I don't use it for is for the DRM that my
| main streaming service wants right now. I dedicate Chromium to
| that, to keep the nastiness away from my main browser.)
|
| With Firefox, you probably do want to change a lot of settings
| from the default, for privacy&security reasons.
|
| Firefox is absolutely not holistically security&privacy-
| friendly overall -- there's a long history, of often behaving
| like a for-profit tech company, to grow out of -- but it's the
| closest I'm aware of that we have right now.
|
| Not helping is that browser standards were captured and turned
| into both serving the needs of particular kinds of businesses,
| and as massive market moats for dominant players.
|
| I don't know what to think of all the browser startups and open
| source forks. I know at least one person at Brave, and that
| person is a 100% straight-shooter true-believer in
| privacy&security (and intellectually formidable), but some
| things leadership has done are too trust-me and bad optics.
| Regarding the rest of the efforts, there might be gold in
| there, but we have to skeptical of each one by default, for two
| reasons: (1) our field is bad at what we do, and that's now
| reflected deep in our technology stacks, as well as in
| practices for new development; (2) our field has normalized a
| lot of sociopathic behavior in the last 25 years, so it's easy
| for even well-intentioned people to inadvertently do bad
| things, and there are also a lot people with not as admirable
| of intentions.
| shpx wrote:
| If you want to use uBlock Origin on iOS, there's Orion browser.
| Enabling extensions and installing uBlock Origin on it requires
| a tedious step and the app is noticeably slower to respond and
| just overall worse and buggier than Safari, but the ad blocking
| works.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449...
|
| https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/ios-ipados-ex...
| peoplenotbots wrote:
| If you're a duel monitor nerd it feels required if you want to
| do something besides internet surf on one monitor and stream
| something on other.
|
| I dont have the most powerful computer but if I want to play
| baldurs gate 3 on one monitor while stream something on the
| other monitor it has to be in firefox over chrome.
| vacuity wrote:
| Why is this? Memory usage?
| koyote wrote:
| I've been using it for the last 5 or so years with no real
| issues (Linux, Windows and Android).
|
| I'd say the Android one is probably the weakest link but still
| usable and of course having ad-block on mobile is a huge
| quality of life improvement.
|
| Other than that I don't notice any slowdowns compared to
| Chrome, the UI is very similar anyhow and the addon ecosystem
| is decent too.
| infamouscow wrote:
| Base salary cuts are coming next for employees. It's all but a
| forgone conclusion at this point.
| hooo wrote:
| You mean at Google?
| BizarreByte wrote:
| HN vastly over estimates how many people use adblockers every
| time this comes up and it is getting tiring.
|
| Google will likely not see any noticeable reduction in user count
| from the upcoming addon changes. If you value your software
| freedom you shouldn't have been on Chrome in the first place for
| _any_ reason.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Is there a demographic skew to consider? There are billions
| online, but the most desirable eyeballs on ads are Western and
| young. I would _guess_ that population uses ad-blockers at a
| much higher rate than the background population, but I won 't
| venture to guess how much higher.
| 4death4 wrote:
| According to a random Google search, something like 40% of
| internet users use an ad blocker.
| burkaman wrote:
| 35-45% of users worldwide use ad blockers, depending on the
| source. It is extremely common, otherwise Google wouldn't be
| doing this. The top few ad blockers in the Chrome store
| (uBlock, AdBlock, AdGuard, etc.) have tens of millions of users
| each.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| And this is the path towards paywalled-everything, sadly.
| irrational wrote:
| As long as the paywalls have zero ads, I'm fine with that.
| If it is paywall + ads? No. Either charge enough that you
| don't need ads, or only use ads. Never both.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| No, of course there will be no ads. But yeah, I'm sure
| HNers will be ok with a paywall, considering they're
| probably in the top 10% (if not 5% or 1%) of their
| respective countries. What's a few more bucks on top of
| their dozen monthly subscriptions.
|
| Now go ask someone with the median income in a developing
| country how they feel about getting pretty much all
| relevant content in the Internet paywalled in the next 10
| years or so due to the ever increasing use of ad-
| blockers.
|
| Don't get me wrong, content creators/owners are as much,
| if not more, to blame than ad blocker users.
| oblio wrote:
| He he. The screws have only started to tighten.
|
| Cable used to cost $100 per month AND had ads.
|
| The enshittification will continue. Especially since the
| low hanging fruit of the internet are becoming rarer.
| danShumway wrote:
| HN vastly over estimates adblocker usage, yes. But also if
| adblocker usage was completely trivial and could be completely
| ignored, then Google would not be wasting resources trying to
| shut it down on sites like Youtube.
|
| I don't think this is going to create a large change in browser
| stats, but I'm also not sure _anything_ short of antitrust is
| going to create a large change in browser stats. The pickings
| are very slim for issues that are worth campaigning on to
| change general user behavior, and adblocking might as well be
| one of the ones we use, because while it 's a minuscule
| percentage at least it's not nothing. It's at least a large
| enough percentage for Google to care about targeting it.
|
| And at the very least, adblocking is an easier issue to
| campaign on for user rights than privacy or abstract notions
| like software freedom are. We shouldn't be so quick to throw
| away talking points around one of the very few user rights
| where exercising that right has an obvious benefit and doesn't
| just make the user's life more complicated or difficult in the
| short term.
|
| I am not going to get many people to switch to Firefox over an
| adblocker. But I'll get more people to switch for adblocking
| than I would by telling them to care about privacy or web
| ecosystem health.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Chrome won because the won over the influencers, that is the
| developers and people who provide support to others. Those
| influencers recommended Chrome to friends and family. As soon
| as those influencers shift to another browser, everyone else
| will gradually follow.
|
| The problem that will prevent this from happening is the
| browser engine monoculture that might result it websites
| blocking anything but Chrome or a Chromium browser.
| wmf wrote:
| UBOL on Manifest V3 still blocks 99% of ads or more. Advanced
| functionality will be lost but I'm not sure how many people will
| notice.
| hu3 wrote:
| I had to search UBOL and it is "uBlock Origin Lite" [0] from
| the same author of uBlock Origin. uBO Lite
| (uBOL) is a *permission-less* MV3-based content blocker.
| The default ruleset corresponds to uBlock Origin's default
| filterset: - uBlock Origin's built-in filter lists
| - EasyList - EasyPrivacy - Peter Lowe's Ad and
| tracking server list
|
| [0] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-
| lite/...
| masto wrote:
| It's mentioned at the very bottom of the article,
| dismissively. (Despite the fact that the FAQ linked to
| doesn't make it seem nearly as limited as the author of this
| article wants you to believe)
| zb3 wrote:
| But afterwards, companies like "adrecover" will surely exploit
| these MV3 limitations for profit.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| Can it block YouTube ads?
| eco wrote:
| Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe YouTube's new
| strategy requires frequent filter list updates but with MV3
| the filter list is embedded in the extension so the extension
| itself would need to be updated (and Google controls the
| speed at which extensions can be updated).
|
| For a long time I assumed Google's approach to hampering
| AdBlockers with MV3 was going to be the rule count limits
| imposed by MV3 but I think now it's more about controlling
| the speed that filter lists can be updated.
| endisneigh wrote:
| If chrome limits ad blockers and provides some way to
| unambiguously determine whether or not you're chrome that cannot
| be spoofed, i wonder if sites will explicitly start blocking
| Firefox and other browsers.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Yes. That's very likely actually.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| This site works exclusively with IE6.
| ryeights wrote:
| That would seem to fall afoul of antitrust regulation.
| lstamour wrote:
| Right now, Safari being the only game in town on iOS is
| basically the only reason why websites don't exclude non-
| Chrome browsers already. Now if Apple ever supported this in
| a way that broke or deprecated adblocking, I'd probably
| seriously consider switching to an un-Googled Android phone.
| Until then, though, I've switched to Firefox on my desktop
| computers and use Safari on mobile and am pretty darn happy
| with the adblocking of both.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Probably you could always be able to install an adblocker as an
| "unpacked extension" if they're banned in the official chrome
| extension store.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I thought it was a matter of chrome not allowing manifest v2
| extensions anymore, which wouldn't resolve this.
| josefx wrote:
| Didn't browsers decide to block unsigned extensions back when
| Microsoft decided to automatically add the silver light
| extension to every browser on the system? I think at least
| for Firefox you have to download the nightly build to bypass
| the signing process. Side loading extensions Google doesn't
| want you to have will probably be as painful as possible.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| I was already working my way off of chrome but without a suitable
| adblocking extension I'm going to move to whatever I have to.
| I've been using firefox off and on and it seems great and I see
| someone in the comments recommending Librewolf. Going to have to
| check that out.
|
| I have been planning for a while to setup a pihole but hadn't yet
| bothered because I have sufficient ad blockers but definitely
| going to be doing that now as well.
|
| Well done Google, you succeeded in making at least one person up
| their adblocking game.
| ggpsv wrote:
| You can use nextdns [0] pretty much to the same effect of a
| pihole, yet you can get up and running in minutes. You can then
| configure wherever you please: your browser, your laptop, your
| phone, or even your router.
|
| [0]: https://nextdns.io
| shujito wrote:
| Are there any self-hosted options or similar?
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Like PiHole?
| ggpsv wrote:
| pihole or adguard home[0]
|
| [0]: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome#getting-
| started
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| NextDNS does not help you with ads served from the same
| domain as the website itself, like Google ads.
| greggsy wrote:
| It can help with subdomains like adservice.google.com
| ggpsv wrote:
| Agreed. At the end of the day there is no one tool that
| will fend off all of it. However, NextDNS/Pihole + uBlock
| Origin gets you most of the way there. uBlock Origin is
| particularly helpful for blocking first-party ads.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Thank you for this! I had tried OpenDNS setup through my
| router but it blocked some stuff I didn't want it to and
| wouldn't, for anything, release the block so I moved back off
| of it. I'm definitely going to give nextdns a shot!
| Volundr wrote:
| I use NextDNS in my network and I'd say it's well worth the
| price. I could of course accomplish it with PiHole, but
| NextDNS just works, and covers my phone when I'm not at home.
| magicalist wrote:
| Switching browsers is good but pihole is a pretty bad
| alternative to just using uBlock Origin Lite which is quite
| good.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I can see a sort of 'defense in depth' argument, especially
| for sending traffic from TVs etc. through your pihole. But in
| the browser (FF esp.), uBlock origin is excellent.
| darrylb42 wrote:
| Pihole blocks stuff for everything on your network. No need
| to train your family or do anything to machines are devices.
| While it does not block everything, and sometimes too much.
| It does block a lot.
|
| By blocking too much, for one of the banks I use blocking
| their app telemetry causes the app to crash. And sometimes I
| do want to click on an ad Google serves up when it matches my
| search and I am buying something.
| geysersam wrote:
| Switched to Firefox recently and it was surprisingly painless.
| They've really catched up to Chrome in regards to usability,
| and of course surpass them in terms of privacy and integrity.
| cm2187 wrote:
| And less user hostile features. Like if you press shift, the
| website can't hijack your contextual menu.
| kirenida wrote:
| Firefox caught up to Chrome on usability?
|
| In what way was it behind?
| intothemild wrote:
| Profiles, there's a couple real simple UI changes Firefox
| could make that would bring profiles on par with chrome.
| But won't.
|
| And before someone comes here saying container tabs, it's
| not the same thing.
| ls612 wrote:
| As soon as they get Nvidia Video Super Resolution working
| consistently in Firefox I'll switch, hopefully that happens
| before June of next year.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I do that: well, not pihole but I run _unbound_ on a Pi and I
| 've got my Firefox set to never use the "trusted resolver"
| (i.e. network trr set to 5... I think the default is still
| 0/off but you never know).
|
| That way I'm preventing DNS over HTTPS and known ads (and known
| telemetry) domains cannot resolve sneakily through HTTPS.
|
| I can still, if I want to, have unbound use DoH so that my ISP
| doesn't spy on me.
|
| But on my LAN there's no DNS over HTTPS.
|
| And _unbound_ accepts wildcards to prevent domains from
| resolving, which is really sweet.
|
| I wrote my own tiny script (in Clojure / Babashka) which
| combines several huge DNS blocklists, allows certain domains
| I'm okay with, merge what can be merged into a single line
| using wildcards, etc.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This is how you get the DoJ to sue you for antitrust violations.
|
| It starts with blocking ad blockers on Chrome. Then, to prop up
| Chrome usage you deliberately slow down other browsers, something
| that's arguably already happening [1] and has arguably already
| happened [2].
|
| At some point the government takes the same actions they did with
| Microsoft over Internet Explorer: abuse of market power to
| require your browsers for the supposedly open Web.
|
| [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-reportedly-
| slowing-...
|
| [2]: https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/google-denies-
| alte...
| mcwiggin2 wrote:
| What bugs me most about this stuff is the dishonestly.
|
| This is about AdBlockers.
|
| It's okay to say it's bad for your business and you don't want
| them. To make up all these other excuses is what is painful and
| just feels so patronizing.
| babypuncher wrote:
| It may not actually be OK to say that, since admitting it
| publicly could make antitrust regulators jobs easier when
| investigating how Google uses its stranglehold over the browser
| and search markets to enforce its stranglehold over the online
| advertising market.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| Search engines have shown over and over that they'll talk all
| the money but hide behind the 'we're just the market' cover
| when one of their ads serves you with a virus.
|
| That's why I run an AdBlocker.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| More over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361758
| butterfi wrote:
| My impression is that security people already consider Chrome a
| "virus" application. This is just one more nail the coffin for
| anyone who cares about such things. (To be clear, people should
| care)
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| Seems like an appropriate time to shamelessly plug my tiny Chrome
| extension, JS Toggle. It's just a low key button that makes it
| easy to toggle javascript that I made for myself, and use pretty
| much every day. It does refresh all open pages after toggling, so
| be mindful of toggling it when dealing with forms, etc.
|
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/js-toggle/bnhjfamol...
| dottjt wrote:
| I'm surprised more people don't use Firefox, even from a
| practical point of view.
|
| The main reason I use it as my main driver is because I use
| Chrome for all my work stuff. I then use Firefox for all my
| personal stuff, so it separates the two, especially on my work
| laptop.
| quesera wrote:
| You can use Firefox for both work and personal stuff, with a
| couple options: - Multi-Account Containers
| segregates cookies (i.e. enables multiple simultaneous logins
| to Gmail, GitHub, etc, any service, in different tabs of the
| same browser window) - Firefox Profiles segregates
| everything (cookies, preferences, bookmarks, history), by
| running a separate browser instance.
|
| Containers are more convenient for simple separation. Profiles
| are 100% separation.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| Profiles for the lazy: firefox -P --no-remote
| namuol wrote:
| Friendly reminder that Mozilla receives the majority of their
| funding in exchange for defaulting their search engine to
| Google's.
|
| That could always change, but it's probably safe to say a mass
| exodus to Firefox would only cement Google's interested in
| continued "investment".
| pkaye wrote:
| I'd be more open to using Firefox is there is a browser theme
| that makes it look close to that of Chrome. Does something like
| that exist?
| gardenhedge wrote:
| I don't even have Google Chrome installed. I have Firefox, Edge
| and Vivaldi. I pretty much switch between them throughout the day
| and it's unnoticeable really.
| apienx wrote:
| The market for 1-click DNS sinkholes is about to get heated. ;)
| DeIlliad wrote:
| This goes beyond Youtube. Most ads are absolutely malicious and
| the web is unsafe and unusable without an adblocker. The FBI
| themselves recommend using an adblocker to stay safe online
| https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| > Most ads are absolutely malicious and the web is unsafe and
| unusable without an adblocker.
|
| I haven't used an ad blocker in a decade. The web is perfectly
| safe and usable. What do you believe makes it unsafe and
| unusable?
| Dayshine wrote:
| The few times I turned it off I started getting fullscreen
| highjacking adverts: one was convincing enough that unless I
| knew to tap F11/esc I wouldn't have noticed.
| styxfrix wrote:
| > The FBI themselves recommend using an adblocker to stay
| safe online
| https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624
| r2_pilot wrote:
| I was going to use my authority as a front line tech in a
| past life but I'll just link to Wikipedia :
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I haven't seen any ads actually try to exploit browser
| vulnerabilities (although I do believe many are engaging in
| illegal fingerprinting attempts - see how some web sites
| suddenly pop up a video DRM prompt if you aren't allowing DRM
| by default, even though they contain no DRMed video content).
|
| But the amount of social engineering (trying to trick users
| into installing malware), scams, and obvious misinfo (the
| "you won't believe what car Greta is driving" ads for
| example) is mind-blowing. Even shopping ads often turn out to
| be worse-than-Temu "sell the worst piece of undersized crap
| China can crank out, promising a money-back guarantee that
| turns out to be worthless" scams.
|
| Making sure tech-inexperienced friends and relatives have an
| ad blocker makes a night-and-day difference in the amount of
| damage control and cleanup you'll have to deal with.
| yogthos wrote:
| LMFAO I refuse to believe this comment was written by an
| actual human
| hermitdev wrote:
| Nah, the GP probably just forgot that it's polite to
| disclose that they're a googler working on ads.
|
| I've personally been hit by malicious ad(s) at work.
| Definitely embarrassing as an engineer, especially when I
| wasn't looking at anything work-inappropriate (it's been
| ages, don't recall what I was looking for).
|
| Google can spin this however they like, but this is
| blatantly anti-consumer behavior only enabled by their
| monopoly position. The FTC should already be investigating
| over this, but, alas, they seem distracted by other issues.
|
| I've not tried Firefox in years, but this will likely be
| the catalyst to me switching. I assume Edge follow will
| follow suit (and I've no reason to see why they won't since
| it's chromium based).
| quotemstr wrote:
| > Enterprise users with the "ExtensionManifestV2Availability"
| policy turned on will get an extra year of Manifest V2
| compatibility.
|
| FWIW, anyone can enable this policy. All you have to do is drop
| some files in /etc. See
| https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9027408?hl=en
|
| Chrome doesn't look in your home directory for enterprise policy
| manifest files, sadly.
| quotemstr wrote:
| In the long run, as long we have general-purpose computers, ad-
| blockers will win. Suppose a ManifestV4 completely cuts off
| network filtering: so what? Run a GPU driver that uses an AI
| model to block out anything that looks like an ad. Sure, you
| won't stop ads distorting page layout or causing unnecessary
| network traffic, but as long as you control your computer a
| whole, you don't have to see them.
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| If this comes to pass, does it affect Brave?
| martin1b wrote:
| Hope not. I like Brave
| gridder wrote:
| Chrome today is worse than IE6 in 07.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Seems like having a browser monopoly is bad no matter who's in
| charge. It's also interesting to see how each company used its
| power. Microsoft wanted to keep people in the Microsoft
| ecosystem, so they crippled the web. Meanwhile Google wants you
| to use the web, just not modify it in any way to maintain the
| profitability of its ad business - so we get a feature-rich
| rendering engine and proposals like "Web Environment
| Integrity".
| The_Colonel wrote:
| It's much better than IE6 in 07, but that also makes it much
| more dangerous. MS stopping IE development was a major
| strategic mistake (and unintended gift to free internet).
| peoplenotbots wrote:
| Business wise makes sense google's cashflow is based on shoveling
| mostly shitty ads at people and youtube allows people to self
| select for more profitable ads.
|
| Longterm will continue to harm google's product of search and
| youtube media products as it will motivate some people to figure
| out more ways that are more costly to google to dodge ads.
|
| Human side wise this is starting to feel like the strangest form
| of corporate bullying. I want to believe that the motivation is
| to push up the demand for the strange mix products that is
| youtube premieum.
| namuol wrote:
| Conflicts of interest abound in most major browser vendors.
| Firefox gets most of its funding from Google for defaulting the
| search engine to theirs. Apple gets a huge amount of revenue
| sharing from Google for doing the same in Safari, as was recently
| leaked. It's perhaps a fabulous irony that Microsoft's browser
| has the fewest conflicts of interest as very little of their
| revenue comes from Bing, and Google hasn't been able to convince
| them to take a bribe.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Ad blockers will limit Google Chrome starting ... err a decade
| ago.
|
| Thanks for the all the fish.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| Wouldn't be the first time Google flailing with a user-hostile
| decision back and forth, only to gather bad publicity and further
| animosity towards their brand at the end with nothing of value
| gained for themselves. Google shutting down legacy accounts comes
| first to my mind.
|
| So I still think it may or may not happen. If it happens, it
| better be worth it to them, as it'll repel many of the power
| users, making it the next unsexy browser after IE.
| sowbug wrote:
| I've never used an ad blocker. I accept that today's web largely
| depends on advertising, so it feels like the right thing to do. I
| also think that using an ad blocker is like wanting to attend a
| concert, deciding the price is too high, and sneaking in anyway.
| It feels like stealing.
|
| That said, I don't like ads any more than anyone else does. I
| rarely click on them, and I avoid sites that overdo them.
|
| It makes me sad that the web is in a death spiral. The more
| people use ad blockers, the more intrusive ads need to be for the
| remainder of us who don't, which further encourages the self-
| interested to use ad blockers. The only ways I see to end the
| death spiral are to successfully reset the ad-vs-ad-blocker
| dynamic (which I suppose Google is trying to do with this move),
| or for another revenue model to take hold. I don't think either
| will happen. It's too bad, because I grew up with the web, and I
| don't want it to die.
| peoplenotbots wrote:
| Its do depressing how much better everything runs ad free
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