Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
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.
[0]: https://nextdns.io
I wonder if the apple configuration generator would work better?
I don't expect everyone to pay for a service like this, but I think that paying for a service like this is reasonable if you can afford it. There's always a modicum of trust that you must confer on the provider (they're resolving all your DNS queries, and you can view logs if choose to), but paying for it does better in aligning incentives. Otherwise self-hosting is the most privacy-friendly option of all.
[0]: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome#getting-started
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.
In what way was it behind?
And before someone comes here saying container tabs, it's not the same thing.
Funny how MS is pushing edge and Firefox is the best option to manage their services.
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.
1. Its built-in Ad block still works on Youtube - before Google catches up, too small a browser competitor Doesn't work in laptop browser.
2. Tab sync: port tabs from Edge from phone to laptop & vice-versa, regardless of OS version. This used to work on Safari from iPhone SE (1st gen) but now it doesn't with new iPhone/iOS
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?
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.
I understand there are people who need safety rails (or shouldn't be using computers at all), but that doesn't really negate my point.
Most ads are not malicious, and the web is perfectly usable and safe without an ad blocker, providing you use common sense.
From the Wikipedia page you linked, it's clear all vectors for automatic intrusion and traditional pop-up fakery are well blocked. Even malicious spoof sites are being blocked at record speeds on the browser level.
In addition, ads are not the only (or even the primary) method of malware delivery. At best if you think an ad-blocker makes you "safe", this is a false sense of security.
If you apply common sense, there's no scenario where normal web browsing is "unsafe".
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).
I'm not sure why I need to be to think that the web is not "unsafe and unusable" without an adblocker.
1: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit...
I remember when I was young thinking it would be impossible to out-asshole Microsoft. Ah, the innocent days.
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.
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.
- 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.
Profile switching is the usual app switching, handled by the desktop environment. Just like Firefox-to-Chrome would be.
Container switching is just tab switching, which Firefox handles well enough. If you need to go deeper in your tab history, you might need to scroll/click, but for the most-recent 9 tabs, it's right there.
Truthfully, I don't think that Firefox and Chromium look all that different, to me it seems like it's the same layout just different margins/colors/tab styles? So I'm not sure what the biggest issues would be to change.
Notably, Firefox also has userChrome.css (https://www.userchrome.org/), so if themes aren't able to get you where you want, it's possible that there's a more extensive change that someone has compiled in a user style. https://firefoxcss-store.github.io/index.html, https://github.com/muckSponge/MaterialFox might be good places to start looking, although I don't have personal experience with either source so this isn't a recommendation.
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”.
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...
The data are for sale.
This is how Trump got elected and the UK got Brexit. Microtargeted political messages to persuade a proportion of the population to vote the way the very rich wanted them to vote.
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.
DNS filters and firewall rules are crude tools by comparison but you can't install uBO on random apps or your TV.
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.
That makes me think of the reason Tor has Entry Guards where the first hop is limited to just a few selected nodes instead of random: https://support.torproject.org/about/entry-guards/
Oh it also does dns over https which is a nice bonus.
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
"The media is exaggerating Gorhill's opposition to Google's Manifest V3 changes" is just about the wildest take I've seen on Manifest V3 yet.
----
Just to be clear, here's the author of that FAQ describing how the FAQ has been covered: https://nitter.privacydev.net/gorhill/status/172563316907064...
> I've seen mentions that uBO Lite (uBOL) is proof that MV3-based blockers are as capable as MV2 ones. I can't speak for other blockers but this is not the case for uBOL vs. uBO
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.
I use a lot of custom filters to reduce many sites I visit to a list of headlines similar to HN. Too many of them have attention grabbing crap like huge pictures.
But I'm on Firefox so this isn't a worry for me luckily.
Definitely ground for breakup IMHO.
Firefox, for all of Mozilla's faults, stands head-and-shoulders over Chrome in terms of good and respectful user experience.
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.
But advertisers don't stop there. Distracting animations, flyovers which block the page content, tiny impossible buttons to close such flyovers, malicious crap which tries to trick you by looking like an OS window, downloaded apps which full your OS with junk, auto-play audio and videos, cross-site tracking of your personal life and building a "profile" on you to target ads which appeal to your innermost desires or problems or vulnerabilities.
Give an inch and advertisers take 100 miles and then take some more.
Fuck ads and fuck companies whose business model is based on advertising. I'd rather they just vanished off the internet.
It's like flipping the channel on the TV when the ad comes on.
Don't tell me you just sit there and rawdog brainwash yourself with a blank stare when an ad comes on the TV.
There's nothing wrong with traditional advertising. That's not the world and surveillanace economy we now live in, where you don't have to click on anything.
And you should be as or more worried about democracy than the web. We managed without the web. Living without democracy would be far worse, imo.
On a serious note - I’ve seen a lot of browser startups lately.
Are there any of them that really stand out?
Surviving but continues to bleed users.
The main ones being:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary...
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:
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.washi...
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.
For me, one of the most important reasons to use Firefox is to support one of the few remaining alternate browser implementations. Sure, Chrome and Safari and Edge have all likely diverged to a degree since their shared ancestry (which really wasn't that long ago), but I suspect they're far more similar underneath than different. I would prefer they not be political (but I can see how they get mixed up, as leaning in heavy on privacy is necessarily political in some ways, such as when it involves opinions of nations that disagree, and then there are probably some at he org that want to push in what they see as a similar direction on other topics), but I don't really care about the pay of the CEO in comparison to the vital importance I think heterogeneity in the actual engines browsers use is for many reasons.
I also don't care about the CEO's comp either _unless_ the business is just... sucking... for lack of a better word. When they let go of 250 people and then bump the CEO's salary by nearly 50%, it just looks a little self-serving.
If Brave or Safari end up sucking enough I look into trying another browser again, I'll give FF a shot. I used it from about 2008 to 2020.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controver...
As for the CEO's donations, I couldn't care less. I don't care who the CEO of Mozilla donates to. I used Firefox for years, even when they (individuals at Mozilla) donated exclusively to democrats: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/mozilla-foundation/recipien...
Mozilla (as an organization) has chosen to participate in political activism and pay their executives ridiculous wages. I don't agree with a lot of the decisions they've made, so I don't use their browser. Simple as that.
Perhaps if the browser was just so good, it was impossible to live without, their MAU wouldn't be dropping... but that's not the case.
Nor their bedrooms. The gall of people to judge others by their consensual love is something I'll never understand.
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.
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449...
https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/ios-ipados-ex...
> 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.
Why?
Theres only one site I know of that doesn't 100% work in it, thankfully its not one I use all the time.
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.
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.
(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.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/js-toggle/bnhjfamol...
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.
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.
Well, at least ad blocking works on services not controlled by them? Even this is under threat if they get their way with their "genuine web client" tech.
Do not underestimate how far Google has gone and will go to create an inescapable ad viewing network.
More over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361758
Chrome in a sandbox with devtools is the only thing i miss and need occasionally but they have really shifted from the original Chromium branch.
LOL.
This "cooling off period" tactic is amusing.
Apparently, Web Environment Integrity will return as Android WebView Media Integrity API in early 2024.
This will kill accessing YouTube with (many) 3rd party apps to bypass ads, right? 2024 will be interesting.
Thanks for the all the fish.
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.
That's why I run an AdBlocker.
I'm not sure that any of this would ever have weight in the US...but it does feel off.
This isn't standard oil where you either buy oil from them or freeze.
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.
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.
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.
sure streaming the <current year> blockbuster costs money, but then again somehow nobody ever complained they had to pay for a movie ticket. Private market pop culture isn't some sort of good that one ought to expect to be free.
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.
Google's ad empire is almost 20 years old. The same level of enshittification should be expected.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is still factually false:
> Unfortunately Firefox is just as caught up in enforcing unsolicited web advertising.
And sticking with a browser that is worse on the issue of advertising just because the better browser is a bit hypocritical is cutting off your own nose to spite your face. You can be mad at Mozilla, that's fine. Just don't tell people that Chrome and Firefox are the same when they're not.
Look, the reason why people get angry at Mozilla about this and why they shrug at Google is because Mozilla is not as caught up in advertising as Google is. If Mozilla was actually equivalent to Google, then we wouldn't hold Mozilla to a higher standard than Google. We treat the two companies differently because they are different.
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.