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Google Proposes Changes To Chromium Browser That Will Break Content-Blocking Extensions, Including Various Ad Blockers
"Google engineers have proposed changes to the open-source Chromium browser that will break content-blocking extensions, including various ad blockers," reports The Register. "The drafted changes will also limit the capabilities available to extension developers, ostensibly for the sake of speed and safety. Chromium forms the central core of Google Chrome, and, soon, Microsoft Edge." From the report: In a note posted Tuesday to the Chromium bug tracker, Raymond Hill, the developer behind uBlock Origin and uMatrix, said the changes contemplated by the Manifest v3 proposal will ruin his ad and content blocking extensions, and take control of content away from users. Manifest v3 refers to the specification for browser extension manifest files, which enumerate the resources and capabilities available to browser extensions. Google's stated rationale for making the proposed changes is to improve security, privacy and performance, and supposedly to enhance user control.
But one way Google would like to achieve these goals involves replacing the webRequest API with a new one, declarativeNetRequest. The webRequest API allows extensions to intercept network requests, so they can be blocked, modified, or redirected. This can cause delays in web page loading because Chrome has to wait for the extension. In the future, webRequest will only be able to read network requests, not modify them. The declarativeNetRequest allows Chrome (rather than the extension itself) to decide how to handle network requests, thereby removing a possible source of bottlenecks and a potentially useful mechanism for changing browser behavior. The report notes that Adblock Plus "should still be available" since "Google and other internet advertising networks apparently pay Adblock Plus to whitelist their online adverts."
But one way Google would like to achieve these goals involves replacing the webRequest API with a new one, declarativeNetRequest. The webRequest API allows extensions to intercept network requests, so they can be blocked, modified, or redirected. This can cause delays in web page loading because Chrome has to wait for the extension. In the future, webRequest will only be able to read network requests, not modify them. The declarativeNetRequest allows Chrome (rather than the extension itself) to decide how to handle network requests, thereby removing a possible source of bottlenecks and a potentially useful mechanism for changing browser behavior. The report notes that Adblock Plus "should still be available" since "Google and other internet advertising networks apparently pay Adblock Plus to whitelist their online adverts."
The report notes that Adblock Plus "should still be available" since "Google and other internet advertising networks apparently pay Adblock Plus to whitelist their online adverts."
So there will still be an API that works, if you play their game..
Yeah, and plenty of people pointed that out years ago but mosr Slashdorks wouldn't listen because Google open sourced some token projects that were never money makers and they used Linux.
Google introduces a quasi-ad-blocker. . Shocking that they want all other ad blockers to die by breaking compatibility. Then, figure that 90% of users never seek out another blocker, and Google's ads get back through.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Firefox had a more function API for extensions to do content blocking. They dumped it so they could use the same crippled extension API as Chrome. I can't imagine Mozilla won't follow suit again. They are used to crippling Firefox to be like Chrome.
You might have missed the bits where Mozilla took time to collaborate with extension authors (such as NoScript) in order to add extra functionality, so that critical things which were possible in XUL extensions could be ported to FireFox' flavour of Web Extension.
The only extensions that didn't make the jump were either abandoned, or those whose authors preferred to loudly complain and join sone "anti-WebExtensions resistance" instead of trying to work out a solution.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I fully respect the disdain for all things Alphabet Soup (formerly known as Google Inc) but the specs to chrome.declarativeNetRequest appear to suggest a different extension programming model to accomplish the same thing.
Instead of loading a separate web document (as webRequest API does) the new API allows an extension to run through its rules at the onBeforeRequest stage -- in other words, instead of intercepting a separate network request mid-stream the API provides the means to evaluate the network request BEFORE going all the way through.
Another way to look at it is like a (network routing) proxy service. The proxy runs through client-side rules first (whereby the rules.json may have "block" and "allow" and "redirect" action types) and reacts accordingly all BEFORE dropping mid-stream packets.
As I ponder this a bit more, it seems that an ad-blocking extension that utilizes the new declarativeNetRequest API would actually DECREASE the amount of hits an ad-server would experience since the browser would never initiate a connection to the ad-server. To this end, the specs say that iframes and images blocked by the declarativeNetRequest API would collapse at the DOM (thus killing the html content within the iframe from ever being loaded).
Question: Did I understand the SPECS correctly? (Yes, I am ignoring the brouhaha otherwise as well as the claim that [oh no] ad blockers have a new API at their disposal...)
Since websites will assume if you are using firefox, you must be blocking ads. This will be a fom of drm and more websites will be going chrome only to ensure thir ads will be seen. Chrome has acheived the browser monopoly after we fought so hard to get rid of Internet Explorer.
You don't seem to grasp how much flexible Proxomitron and Privoxy are than something as simplistic as Pi-Hole. They don't just block advertising: they can REWORK PAGES to display information in a fashion that is effective for you, and NOT display page elements that distract from your goal, regardless whether those elements are advertising, site self-promotion, sidebars you don't need, and far more.
Don't you get sick of having a widescreen monitor yet so many Web pages are imprisoned by their designer in a narrow column that only benefits that designer's "vision"? Don't you ever find yourself wanting to overrule the stupid or selfish decisions that Web designers make? You could do that are more with Proxomitron, because it was designed specifically to be more generalized than just an ad-blocker. Before Proxomitron's sole author died and the software lapsed into obsolescence, I used it for all of the above, and my Web experience was dramatically improved, because it was MY OWN.
Instead of promoting Pi-Hole, you should be promoting a revived open-source community edition of Proxomitron.
It's open source. If enough people don't like it, they'll just fork Chromium and create a new ad-block-friendly browser without this "feature.".
Need I point out that Firefox is based on a version of Netscape that was made open source?
That was true prior to quantum. FF quantum, their much hailed "speed up" was essentially gimping things like noscript to levels similar to chromium, by basing it on the same webextensions model.
They tried to falsify that this wasn't the case by literally paying off the noscript author, who really tried to make noscript work on quantum like it did on pre-quantum firefox, and he had "official full help" from firefox team.
To surprise of no one with a clue, he failed. All we got was a gimped webextensions noscript with functionality much closer to that of chromium noscript than that of original FF one.