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Google Chrome Now Has Resource-Blocking Adblock
MackieChan writes "It seems to have slipped under the radar, but Google Chrome now has resource-blocking abilities, and may have had the ability for some time. Using the 'beforeload' event on the document, an extension can now intercept resources from loading. Adblock for Chrome has already added it, and I expect the other 'ad-blocking' extensions have as well. Before you start praising Google, however, it's the WebKit team that deserves your credit; one Chromium developer responded to praise by stating '... thank Apple — they added it to WebKit, we just inherited it.' Firefox vs. Chrome just got a bit more exciting."
Well, you have to admire that the biggest online advertising corporation on the internet didn't pull out the ad blocking feature on it's own brand of webkit browser. Yes, Google is a corporation like any other, but at least they have a little respect for not pissing it's costumers off. I think a lot of companies in the same position would have made it so their browser ADDED ads.
You say it does say something about Google, but we don't agree on what it says.
I can almost hear Steve Jobs discussing this with his colleagues at Apple "let's add adblocking hooks to Safari. If Chrome exclude them, attack them so they lose customer goodwill, if they don't exclude them, it'll help erode their advertising business."
Safari has exactly $0 to lose from adblocking plugins, while Google has everything to lose. But Google would lose everything if they don't have the goodwill of their users to sell their data mining products with no significant uproar.
Good one from the WebKit team.
..., the gentle genius behind Opera, loved and cared about almost all the users of the net. And, in turn, was beloved by the net, except in 2000 when they where criticized for the controversial browser, "Superbanners Are Our Financial Saviours".
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
More greedy than the creator of ads.