Google Backtracks on Chrome Modifications That Would Have Crippled Ad Blockers (zdnet.com)

Google has changed its stance on upcoming Chrome Manifest V3 changes as benchmark shows they lied about performance hit. Catalin Cimpanu, writing for ZDNet: A study analyzing the performance of Chrome ad blocker extensions published on Friday has proven wrong claims made by Google developers last month, when a controversy broke out surrounding their decision to modify the Chrome browser in such a way that would have eventually killed off ad blockers and many other extensions. The study, carried out by the team behind the Ghostery ad blocker, found that ad blockers had sub-millisecond impact on Chrome's network requests that could hardly be called a performance hit. Hours after the Ghostery team published its study and benchmark results, the Chrome team backtracked on their planned modifications. At the root of Ghostery's benchmark into ad blocker performance stands Manifest V3, a new standard for developing Chrome extensions that Google announced last October.

Comments

Even if the performance was bad

[fred6666]

I'd still want an ad blocker. It's optional anyways. Don't like the performance? Don't install the extension.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the performance was good, google still does not want you to use an adblocker (at least not one they dont control)...

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[olsmeister]

Why do we have a company whose main business is selling ads controlling the software that either allows the ads to be blocked or not be blocked? Seems like an enormous conflict of interest. This only will end one way if Google is in charge... ultimately ad blockers will go away, one way or another. They just need to figure out the way to accomplish it that causes the smallest uproar.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[cheesybagel]

Remember Doubleclick.com? The lovely people behind those "Punch the Monkey" animated ads a couple decades ago? Guess who bought them.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[fred6666]

If they banned ad blockers everybody would move to Firefox. They can't afford that. Somehow on Android, people don't move to Firefox so they still don't allow ad blockers in their browser.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Jahta]

I'd still want an ad blocker. It's optional anyways. Don't like the performance? Don't install the extension.

Well, given that ads typically increase page load time significantly (for example ~2.5 seconds for Wordpress WordAds), you are probably still coming out ahead by using a blocker.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I have done Google preventing ad-blockers on Chrome android has made me switch to Firefox on the PC as well as the tablet and phone.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd still want an ad blocker. It's optional anyways. Don't like the performance? Don't install the extension.

You're right, but you're missing the point.

Google makes 60+ Billion dollars a year. Nearly all of it from advertising. This is only the beginning. Google is not simply going to give up. They aren't just going to say "Oh, OK, we were wrong, performance isn't that bad after all. Never mind."

No, I guarantee they are hard at work trying to figure out a new excuse to kill off ad blocking.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we have a company whose main business is selling ads controlling the software that either allows the ads to be blocked or not be blocked?

So don't use Chrome. Problem solved.

Google only controls the Internet if you allow it.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[swillden]

I'd still want an ad blocker. It's optional anyways. Don't like the performance? Don't install the extension.

It should be pointed out that the new API being proposed will actually make adblocking more efficient. The new API allows extensions to configure Chrome with a set of rules that specify what URLs to block. These rules would be evaluated by Chrome, in native code. In contrast, the method currently used by adblockers is an API that simply calls a snippet of extension-provided Javascript on each network request. While this can be fast if the adblock extension author codes it well, it clearly will never be as efficient as matching rules implemented in native code.

The source of the controversy is that the new API has an upper bound on the number of rules that can be provided: 30K So an adblocker could not add more than 30K adblocking rules. The message from Devlin Cronin (lead engineer for the extensions team) implies that they think that should be enough for good adblocking, if rules are managed properly. He cites research which finds that 90% of the 60K EasyList rules aren't useful, which implies that the same adblocking benefit would be achieved with 6K rules. Clearly, huge rule lists will be slower than small rule lists. Cronin says the rule list size limit will be increased, though there will still be a limit.

For anyone interested in the technical details, here's the documentation of the new API: https://developer.chrome.com/e... and of the existing API: https://developer.chrome.com/e...

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[markdavis]

>"If they banned ad blockers everybody would move to Firefox. They can't afford that."

I was about to post the same thing.

THANK YOU, FIREFOX

Whether you use it or not, the fact that it exists most certainly prevents a complete takeover by Google and the resulting lack of freedom. And my suggestion is, if you value freedom, privacy, open standards, and choice, to use Firefox whenever possible, and encourage others to do so, also. The days of Chrome being "much faster" or "better" on the desktop [MS-Windows, Linux, MacOS] are long since gone.

>"Somehow on Android, people don't move to Firefox so they still don't allow ad blockers in their [Chrome] browser [on Android]."

I also use it on Android, even though on Google's platform it seems to have an unfair performance disadvantage (I wonder why that is).

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[ilsaloving]

But Microsoft said that Mozilla is wasting their time, and that they should give up their silly 'own browser' stuff and just reskin Chromium like Microsoft is doing!

I mean, if Microsoft said it, it can't be wrong!

(Wow, I can't believe I managed to type all that with a straight face...)

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[swillden]

Why do we have a company whose main business is selling ads controlling the software that either allows the ads to be blocked or not be blocked? Seems like an enormous conflict of interest. This only will end one way if Google is in charge... ultimately ad blockers will go away, one way or another.

Maybe someday, if Google starts struggling to grow revenues and profits. The situation now is what it's been for pretty much the whole life of the company, that Google has a money-printing machine so effective that the bottom line rarely figures in decisions made by most engineers building the products (and most of these decisions are made by the engineers, not by management)... and even from the upper management's perspective it's considered far more important to make products that people want to use than to exploit every angle to generate profit.

I don't actually know anyone on the Chrome extension team, but I'm sure their focus is on users, and that they barely ever even think about ad revenues. Performance, enabling interesting extensions and eliminating malware extensions are what they spend their time thinking about, I'm sure. In this case, they're adding a new API which seems to be perfectly adequate for adblocking, much faster (native code vs Javascript), and less prone to abuse (extensions can configure blocklists, but don't get to learn what URLs users actually visit). The controversy comes from the fact that they set an upper limit on the number of adblocking rules that can be added: 30K. They clearly thought this limit was high enough, but given the pushback have said that they'll raise it -- they want to provide a limit that's high enough to do the job, but low enough to make curators of adblocking pay attention to whether their rules are actually doing anything, and purge those that don't, to keep the lists small and fast.

Really, the goal here seems to be to make adblocking safer and more efficient, better for users, not to kill it.

(Note: I work for Google but I am not speaking for Google. And I use an adblocker, advise everyone I know to use adblockers, and would switch to a different browser if Chrome were to block adblockers.)

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time the drama was starting for this new standard (which OF COURSE would have removed backwards compatibility with ublock origin), firefox openly considered a similar step, to keep pace with google.

Firefox is a risk too, just a smaller one.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[drinkypoo]

Clearly, huge rule lists will be slower than small rule lists. Cronin says the rule list size limit will be increased, though there will still be a limit.

There's no technical reason why there has to be a limit that users will run into. It's their problem if the browser gets slower, not google's. I call shenanigans.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has been great for many parts of the Internet, but it is time to get them out of our browsers, *fork Chromium and make it truly independent*

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[FudRucker]

for the moment i am using chromium, but if a new version was released that broke adblocker extensions i would abandon chromium in a second, i already have all my bookmarks and passwords exported where i can use them in another browser, and i do have firefox kept updated and sitting on standby just in case chromium turns on me (dont keep your eggs in one basket)

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Ken_g6]

I use a browser called Adblock Browser on Android, which is based on Firefox. I'm using it to post this right now.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[AmiMoJo]

The other issue was that the Chrome native method was simpler than many ad-blockers allow for. It was a simple rule matching engine, where as something like uBlock is much more complex and has many other anti-ad and anti-tracking features. Even relatively simple stuff like "only block if matching a 3rd party object" is very useful for avoiding breakage.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Already been done. Get yourself some Brave Browser and enjoy.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox is predominately funded by Google. So yeah, Google's Ad revenue ties directly into Firefox's income, so of course Firefox is a bit leery of ad blocking tech.

Get Brave Browser, it's Chromium with ad blocking built right in. Works great even on my Android devices.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems reasonable, as you can block 90% of the ads by blacklisting googlesyndication.com. :)

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The source of the controversy is that the new API has an upper bound on the number of rules that can be provided: 30K So an adblocker could not add more than 30K adblocking rules. The message from Devlin Cronin (lead engineer for the extensions team) implies that they think that should be enough for good adblocking, if rules are managed properly.

What still hasn't been explained well, is that the above and all its iterations is a good reason to *add* the new API handler so it can be used for better performance, but not why the old/current API needs to be *removed* too.

API calls should never really be changed.
New ones are added as new, existing ones can be removed but shouldn't be modified otherwise.
When in conflict with layers further back, one of those two may end up becoming a compatibility layer as such, but specifically to keep the function working as it has.

The claim that extension authors will be lazy and never update to the new one is dubious at best.
Of course some will, but at that point there is an opportunity for a new extension to arise. Worst case the new extension provides the exact same functionality, but with the new API so performs much better.

All else being equal, the new extension will eventually dethrone the old one.
If the 30k limit means all else isn't equal, the old extension will remain king and that chrome devs mistaken assumptions won't cause any harm.

Changing an API is just wrong on top of wrong on top of more wrong. It should only even be considered with a good reason, and only enacted with an exceptionally good reason.

Performance is certainly *A* reason, but as has been demonstrated not even a good one let alone exceptional.
It boils down to taking away the ability to have more than 30k rules, in exchange for, giving back better performance.

Practically no one wants that exchange. We don't at all care there isn't a better performance from it. Many of us would happily and willingly even give up additional performance than we already have to keep this.

A bad analogy might be wanting to take away the API in exchange for paying a dollar less every day. Sure, paying less sounds nice, until it's made clear we would happily choose to "lose" that dollar, and in fact much more than a dollar, just to keep it.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. And Mozilla is primarily funded by Google, so they are not going to rock their master's boat.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Would have upvoted for content, downvoted for sig that supports cry-bully nazi behavior. Net zero.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[theweatherelectric]

Really, the goal here seems to be to make adblocking safer and more efficient, better for users, not to kill it.

That presupposes that adblockers are inefficient now. But, as linked to in the summary, simple measurements show that isn't true.

And I use an adblocker, advise everyone I know to use adblockers, and would switch to a different browser if Chrome were to block adblockers.

Adblockers work better in Firefox. You should advise everyone to switch to Firefox now instead of waiting. uBlock Origin uses WebAssembly in Firefox for better performance, but Chrome does not allow this yet.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I use firefox(fennec) in android to be able to use adblockers....

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[theweatherelectric]

It should be pointed out that the new API being proposed will actually make adblocking more efficient.

But adblockers aren't inefficient. If Chrome's interested in efficiency then it should enable WebAssembly for add-ons, like Firefox does.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[theweatherelectric]

i would abandon chromium in a second

Then you should abandon Chromium now. The fact that you use it (or any Chrome based browser) now is what emboldens Google to do this sort of thing in the first place.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[lister king of smeg]

Already been done. Get yourself some Brave Browser and enjoy.

Just because I want a independent browser does not mean I want one with associated shady micro transaction processor and cryptocurrency bolted on thank-you very much. I think I will stick with Firefox for a truly independent browser that at least tries to respect my privacy between ill-conceived attempts by their corporate overlords to shoot themselves in the foot.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'd still want an ad blocker. It's optional anyways. Don't like the performance? Don't install the extension.

Yup.

Frankly, until companies can prevent malicious ads from being broadcast over their networks, I'll use an ad blocker. Which means for that reason alone I'll be running an ad blocker forever.

But it's not just the potential for malicious adware to wreck your PC that I hate. Ads take up a lot of page space, they increase load times, they increase bandwidth usage, and they're a fucking distraction.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The guys who think it's very cool and very legal to solicit donations for people without even notifying the supposed target of the donation, much less receiving promising, and then confiscate the donations when the never-informed recipients don't claim then within 90 days?

Thanks but hell no.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

And you'd still be able to use one. The article is essentially sophistry - the change Google proposed would have broken existing ad blockers, because they rely upon API calls that were going kaboom. But... Google was proposing the use of another API instead, one that's more efficient and would have achieved the minimum necessary to make an adblocker work.

The whole thing's a storm in a teacup.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[sjames]

The rest of us can only go by what Google releases publicly. And what was released publicly was that they were removing an essential API for ad blockers and replacing it with nothing at all useful.

Now that the excuse has been publicly debunked with actual measurements, they are reversing that decision.

The size of the static list was never the point of controversy. Even an infinite static list would be less useful than the current API.

I agree that we can't prove a particular intent form what we see, we can only make good guesses. It COULD be some developer with a wild hair up their nether regions. It could be someone wanting to mark their territory (much as a dog does), or it could be because Google really isn't that fond of ad blockers.

But since this isn't a court of law, we're not obligated to use "beyond reasonable doubt" as our cutoff.

In general, let the users decide would be a better answer. Make the new API available concurrently. If the old API has security implications, state them clearly and make sure the user can easily see which API a given extension is using. Let them decide if something using the new API is doing an adequate job. Mark the new API as experimental to indicate that it might be pulled back out if it doesn't work out.

But also worth considering, people are tired of churn. I really don't give a crap if my favorite extension is so 30 seconds ago, it works for me and I have too many things to do to keep finding workarounds for the churn.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

even if adblockers were 100x slower than they are currently, that's still better than the alternative.. the ads and tracking bullshit is still way worse than that.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we have a company whose main business is selling ads controlling the software that either allows the ads to be blocked or not be blocked?

Because short-sited idiots used that company's browser when there was really no reason to do so. Now it's gotten to the point that some of us are being forced to use it as well due to short-sited idiots that we work for.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

That was just one idiots opinion.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Aighearach]

Some of my boxes still have them in the hosts file :)

Oh, doubleclick? I love them so much, I love them like localhost. ;)

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[sjames]

And of course, nobody could ever possibly want to use a general purpose API for a general purpose that may or may not be ad blocking.

The rule list size limit is a bit of a red herring, that's not the worst feature of the new API. The new API is a static list. Point out the error if I'm wrong, but it certainly looks like the rule list is loaded at browser startup and I see no API for updating it. No more "allow this for this site" or "don't allow this anymore" etc. No more OK for this but not with cookies. You can turn the filtering on or off for a particular group of pages but not modify it. We don't really need to return to the old Microsoft joke "you have moved your mouse, please reboot to make the change take effect"

Of course, the size of the list should be flexible. Nobody uses fixed size lists for things like this beyond programming 101 and I doubt the Google developers do either. That makes the size cutoff arbitrary.

It only took me a few minutes on a lazy Sunday afternoon to see the crippling limitations, surely you're not trying to tell me that nobody at Google noticed that the new API is in no way a proper replacement for the old API.

That's not to say that the new API has no uses, just that it doesn't actually replace the API it is claimed to replace. Sorry, we don't sell front loaders anymore, try this table spoon.

In the words of Judge Judy, "don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining".

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Their "argument" was presumably the infrastruture required for the API to exist took the overhead. I'm a bit sceptical.

But yeah, compared to the performance boost of not downloading the adverts - or on many sites, simply blocking all javascript - really, this overhead could never be consequental.

Hell, for us in NZ; it's incosequental compared to the speed of light crossing the pacific ocean. According to Wolfram Alpha, I'm looking at 0.0349 second latency, one way (so 0.0698 second round trip) minium due to speed of light. That's 35 milliseconds one way, 70 milliseconds round trip.

That's right, to go below 70 millisecond latency per request for me to a typical, west coast USA web server, Chrome will literally have to break physics.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[caseih]

I just use normal firefox on Android, with the ublock origin add-on. And also ghostery. Android on Firefox is actually really good.

And another essential add-on for mobile browsers is a tap to reflow column add-on. I have a simple one in firefox that works well enough. Many mobile sites are awful compared to the desktop sites (slashdot I'm looking at you), so being able to zoom in on some text for a normal website and reflow it is wonderful. I never quite figured out why Google removed that feature from chrome years ago.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[93 Escort Wagon]

This only will end one way if Google is in charge... ultimately ad blockers will go away, one way or another. They just need to figure out the way to accomplish it that causes the smallest uproar.

Per past experience, I expect we’ll see a series of small, under-the-radar moves over the next 18-24 months which will basically accomplish the same thing. They’ll (rightly) assume inertia will keep the vast majority of users on their platform.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome only blocks attempts to block google malware ...

Soon Chrome will also block attempts to block Microsoft malware ... it is part of the deal that Microsoft is making with Google.

Re: Even if the performance was bad

[apoc.famine]

I will stick with Firefox for a truly independent browser

Aaah, yes, the browser from the truly independent Mozilla organization.

In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation received US$66.8 million in revenues, of which US$61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties" from Google.

From 2004 to 2014, the foundation had a deal with Google to make Google Search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site was also made the default home page of Firefox. The original contract expired in November 2006. However, Google renewed the contract until November 2008 and again through 2011. On December 20, 2011, Mozilla announced that the contract was once again renewed for at least three years to November 2014, at three times the amount previously paid, or nearly US$300 million annually. Approximately 90% of Mozilla’s royalties revenue for 2014 was derived from this contract.

In November 2014, Mozilla signed a five-year partnership (effective December 2014) with Yahoo!, making Yahoo! Search the default search engine for Firefox in North America. The default search engine in Russia will be Yandex, and in China, Baidu. Due to Mozilla's financial release timetables, the results of the Yahoo! contract will not be public until November 2016.

In November 2017, however, Mozilla announced that it was switching back to Google as the default search engine. This represented an early termination of its Yahoo partnership.

If you want truly independent, 90% funded by google isn't what you want. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not Firefox.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[trawg]

Huh. This post kind of explains why Microsoft opted for Chrome for their next browser engine instead of Firefox. They're actually probably better off with a Chrome-lead monoculture for this reason.

The more resources they can starve from Mozilla, the more powerful a position they will be in in terms of being able to dictate the terms of the browser-based advertising market.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The proposed API only allows blocking or not; not intercepting into JavaScript. It doesn't allow for an add blocker to 'patch it out' of the HTML, for example, or perhaps putting in proxy entries or whatever. It only allows simplistic rule matching and only

Also, it appears that 'rules.json' is DECLARATIVE and part of the extension manifest. If I've reading this right, the only way to alter the block list is to update the extension itself (!). I honestly can't believe it, but it certainly looks like Google want to close the door on extensions configuring what they want to intercept themselves - or in response to user configuration.

Brilliant, its fooled everyone into thinking this is a replacement, but it isn't. You were suckered - because the new API does not seem to have "Allow the user to adjust the blocklist without updating the application". No whitelisting specific domains for YOU. (No, you cannot allow facebook.com to be accessed by scripts on facebook.com but not from scripts on someotherwebsite.example).

SO, yes, "efficient" in that it will be impossible to have configurable ad blocking. Hah.

Seriously, the negligible performance difference between javascript and native code is a joke. (95% of the damn website is probably javascript anyway.)

Where I live, there's a 70 millisecond round trip delay to west-coast USA as I posted on another comment. If the impact of this is below 70 milliseconds per request, it's irrelevant to me.

(To go lower than 70 ms would require rewriting the damn laws of physics - it take light that long to cross the pacific ocean and back!)

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[yes-but-no]

But why do they let it on youtube? Google could blend the ad seemlessly into the video. Not sure when they will do it; until then we can enjoy youtube ad free with ad-blocker. I"m sure even firefox or other software can't solve that problem that easily.

Re:Even if the performance was bad

[mattventura]

Not just that - even if adblockers and scriptblockers were quite a bit less performant, it would still provide a faster browsing experience than letting some advertising network’s 500kb of JavaScript run rampant.

Nice job

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job Ghostery team. I guess the Chrome teams alternative truth got got.

An ad company

[AHuxley]

has to ad.
The ads still get in.

Re:An ad company

[drinkypoo]

Remember when Google primarily had text ads? Not even pepperidge farms remembers, their products are pure garbage now. They cheaped them out so much in content without lowering the price, in pursuit of profit, that they're no longer worth buying.

Sadly, many people still make purchases without any consideration for whether they're getting anything for their money. The ad on heavy rotation right now on YouTube is for some shitty horror movie sequel. I see this ad because we use a fire tv stick, obviously I block such things on my PC. Some ads still sneak through occasionally, so if I actually want to watch something without interruption I YouTube-dl it first. But back to the ad. How much have they spent to ensure that I see their unskippable ad 20 times a day? That kind of entrainment might work on toddlers, but it's alienating to everyone else. Even horror movie devotees must get tired of it after the tenth time or so. I, for one, don't want to hear a woman screaming in terror right before I watch a comedy clip, or some daily show. That puts me off right quick.

Did an unskippable ad ever increase revenue?

Re:An ad company

[AmiMoJo]

Unskippable ads are at the discretion of the person who uploaded the video (or the company that stole it with a bogus copyright claim). Google offers it because some uploaders want it, but no-one is forced to use it.

Re:An ad company

[hjf]

As a user I can't choose if I want to see unskippable ads or not though.

Re:An ad company

[Anonymous Coward]

You can avoid the channels that use them but that is ultimately up to your preferences.

Re:An ad company

[Aighearach]

I'm a user, and I choose not to see any of the ads. They're not skipable because I never saw them in the first place.

Re:An ad company

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, in a thread about adblockers, is someone implying there are ads on YouTube?

Re:An ad company

[drinkypoo]

Why, in a thread about adblockers, is someone implying there are ads on YouTube?

If you could read, you'd know. Since you can't, why are you here?

Google fucks you good

[Anonymous Coward]

Google keeps fucking you but you cunt ass hoes beg for more. Suck on that Android dick, faggots. See where that gets you. Just like you suck that tRump dick.

What backtracking?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only commitment given by Google is to keep the observational API, but that's not the API adblockers care about! Adblockers need the blocking API, and there's no commitment to keep it by Google. Most likely Google will still remove it later, when the heat is off and people moved on to the next outrage.

We still need to fight against Chrome

[xack]

I have warned in several posts that the current browser monoculture is bad for the web. Mo$illa is too closely connected with Google and browsers like Pale Moon and Waterfox also have their own paid deals. Until we have a truly independent browser engine we will be at the mercy of ads which are a form of DRM.

Re:We still need to fight against Chrome

[AHuxley]

An ad company making the ad ready OS and the ad supporting crypto.
Its in the OS, crypto, browser. Extensions cant keep protecting at that level of support for ads.

Re:We still need to fight against Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

How much are you willing to pay, annually, for this kick ass independent browser?

Re:We still need to fight against Chrome

[swillden]

ads which are a form of DRM.

How so? This is a very interesting claim. I'm not saying it's false, just that I don't see the connection.

Re:We still need to fight against Chrome

[AmiMoJo]

Oops, triggered a Google-hater.

Re:We still need to fight against Chrome

[AHuxley]

Windows still lets a users browser run extensions that block ads, scripts and tracking.
Ad supporting crypto is crypto that gets an ad past any attempts to block an ad at the browser level.
The ad is full protected by the OS, browser and the user will find it hard work to block, removed, not display.
Windows still gives the user control over a users selected browser to block ads.
Other OS give the users even more control over their own OS to block ads, tracking.
Freedom and control over a real OS is great like that.
Not having to accept ads pushed down by an ad company.

Re:We still need to fight against Chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the OP, but I pay $60/year to Pale Moon for the express purpose of preventing the Google/Mozilla monoculture. (Yes, they are one and the same, philosophically. And increasingly, monetarily.)

Adblockers are performance enhancers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take that sub milisecond delay to prevent the ad that takes much longer.

Mistake

[Dan East]

I guess someone at Google made an honest mistake. Now if we lived in some alternate universe, one in which Google made, say, $116.3 billion dollars in 2018 selling ads primarily viewed through web browsers, then the skeptic in me might think shenanigans were afoot. But since we don't live in that universe, we can have peace of mind that this was purely an error by an overzealous software engineer trying to make browsers faster. Because, you know, there is absolutely no performance impact (CPU, rendering time, network bandwidth) caused by loading multiple advertisements on every web page that stream video. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would realize that blocking those ads in the first place would surely require far more resources than loading and rendering them. So I can totally see how this honest mistake was made.

Re:Mistake

[thegarbz]

The world is not black and white. Just because this wasn't some engineering mistake, doesn't automatically make it some huge conspiracy. The reality was probably somewhere in the middle:

Engineer proposes something, likely nothing to do with ads in the first place, something aligns well with Google's business model and how it would block adblockers so it gets fast tracked to production, someone realises the backlash may cost market share and they roll it all back.

Re:Mistake

[AmiMoJo]

Why does anything less than "google is teh evil" trigger people around here?

It's like they have turned hating google into some kind of religion, far stronger than the Microsoft hate from back in the day.

Re:Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time you whine about your downmods being from "snowflakes" or because someone is "triggered", I just imagine Seymour Skinner going "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong."

Google wants Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the ADVERTISMENT COMPANY. Fuck you slashdot, i'll scream as much as i want, cause they deserve it.

we can't use caps to convey what we mean ?? GO FUCK YOURSELF SLASHDOT.! !!!!!!!

Too late.

[Gravis Zero]

I already switched to Firefox.

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late. Firefox already switched to Chrome-like crippled extensions.

Re: Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I still use opera 12.18. 80 tabs open, 600mb total memory consumption

It was never an issue of performance

[Ecuador]

It was never an issue of performance. That was just an excuse that Google expected would be hard to prove otherwise. As you say, it is a very shaky excuse too, when add-ons are optional. Google is #1 in the ad space and they make their money from that, not from Chrome directly. Controlling the browser market does help them maximize their ad revenue and disallowing Ad-blockers they don't control it is one way. As they are trying to not alienate people too much, once this excuse was shot down they backtracked and will find another way later on.

Google relies on ad revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Google was considering doing this because of the ad blockers causing Google some revenue loss. But then realized that their excuse that ad blockers were slowing down the browser didn't pan out and ad blocker developers proved their extensions were not seriously affecting loading speed. I guess its up to Google to create another excuse to block the blockers.

misleading title - they are NOT backtacking!!!

[abc__cba]

Support Firefox

Re:misleading title - they are NOT backtacking!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They better not. Tacking other people's backs isn't a harmless prank.

Re:misleading title - they are NOT backtacking!!!

[citizenr]

I am in awe of how successful Google shills were in pushing this "google backtracks" message by citing article clearly stating V3 proposal is full steam ahead and NOTHING is being changed apart from maybe considering bigger static list ...

Technically correct; full of deceit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically correct; full of deceit.

This is about GREED.

Electron is Chromium

[tepples]

So don't use Chrome. Problem solved.

Good luck with that. Native applications built with Electron, such as Discord, Slack, Skype, Atom, and Visual Studio Code, all bundle a copy of Chromium. This is Google Chrome with a handful of non-free parts cut out, mostly related to video DRM and Adobe Flash Player. The use of Chromium in Electron encourages development of web applications that work only with Chromium. For example, the owner of a Discord server can upload images to that server for use as emoji, but clicking the upload button does absolutely nothing in Firefox. This encourages Firefox users to switch to Google Chrome (on Windows or macOS) or Chromium (on X11/Linux) to make web applications work again.

In addition, on a phone or tablet running Android 4 or later, Google Chrome has a RAM use advantage over Firefox because its HTML engine is always loaded. This is analogous to IE's advantage on Windows 98 through 8.1.

Re:Electron is Chromium

[Aighearach]

That's just silly nonsense technicality "gotcha" bullshit, though.

Who cares if skype embeds a sucky browser, or not? How does that affect users who are intentionally using a browser?

This isn't something that is harmful if it is hidden under the hood of another product, it is something that is harmful when it interferes with the choices the user would otherwise be making.

And, Firefox has a RAM advantage if you keep a lot of tabs open.

Re: Electron is Chromium

[Anonymous Coward]

Electron is cancer. Refuse to use apps built with it. Wasteful design by lazy programmers.

Re:Electron is Chromium

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a self solving problem. If some company of web design weenies wants to embedd chromium to make a "desktop" app, the resulting product is so shitty that nobody uses it unless they are forced to.

Re:Electron is Chromium

[tepples]

Who cares if skype embeds a sucky browser, or not? How does that affect users who are intentionally using a browser?

If the desktop version of Skype and the web version of Skype share code, the supermajority usage share of Chromium discourages Microsoft from making the web version of Skype compatible with anything but Chromium.

Re:Electron is Chromium

[tepples]

Is an app that doesn't work on your machine at all because it's made for a different OS superior to an Electron app? For example: If you use a Mac, is a Windows-only app superior to an Electron app? Or if you use a Windows PC or X11/Linux PC, is a Mac-only app superior to an Electron app?

Re:Electron is Chromium

[Aighearach]

Who cares?

That would reduce their customer base for the product. They wouldn't do that.

They support linux, and other popular operating systems anyways.

There is not anything about web dev that would actually push them to want to lock it to a browser. This isn't the 1990s when they were doing it to push people at their language and integration tools. And even if MS of all companies was going to "go there" on browsers, why would they do it to pimp out Chromium?!

Re:Electron is Chromium

[tepples]

That would reduce their customer base for the product. They wouldn't do that.

If a company makes a web application Chromium-only, users will do one of two things:

A. Quit
B. Install Opera, Vivaldi, Chrome, or an Electron-based desktop application in order to retain access to their contacts who use the service

If the cost reduction of no longer catering to Firefox exceeds the revenue reduction attributable to those who choose option A over option B, then going Chromium-only and recommending option B to Firefox users makes business sense.

They support linux, and other popular operating systems anyways.

Yet the Linux version of Skype, Slack, or Discord takes just as much RAM as running a second web browser: roughly 300 MB. In fact, it takes even more if you use more than one such Electron app, as each one has its own copy of Chromium, none of which share memory. People with multiple computers may toss GNU/Linux on a secondary machine that has already been maxed out at 2 GB or 4 GB of RAM, and on a machine with that little RAM, 300 MB here and 300 MB there add up quickly. A Raspberry Pi single-board computer has even less RAM than that.

There is not anything about web dev that would actually push them to want to lock it to a browser.

Other than not having to deal with A. things that work differently between Gecko and Blink or B. revenue loss and instability due to content blocking and modification extensions in Firefox Addons that Google has chosen not to carry in Chrome Web Store.

About Time For A Monopoly Investigation

[Greyfox]

The shit Microsoft and IBM did seems a lot less bad than what Google's been up to recently. Perhaps it's time for a FTC inquiry?

Re:About Time For A Monopoly Investigation

[bug_hunter]

Possibly, but I think you'll need to cite examples other than this.

This being Google trying to sandbox extensions a little more at the cost of ad-blockers, then backtracking.
While there was a report that showed blockers having little negative effect (and mostly overall positive effect) Google's announcement of winding their changes back happened only hours later. I doubt their internal technical strategy can pivot that quickly so I assume the strategy had already changed but this accelerated their announcement.

Who is going to develop it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously I've been pitching this for 6 years now. NOBODY wants to take up the reins of browser development without some sort of economic side deal. I have a modest overview of what needs to be done but neither the skills, talent, nor money to make it happen. Most people I know who raise this complaint are the same, and the few that aren't have other programming projects they would rather focus on.

Re:Who is going to develop it?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a great question. Sometimes I idly wonder what would it take, if I am asked to do something like this.

Unfortunately, I am guessing the amount of functionality even the most basic browser needs in order to display a "modern", popular website will be too much for anyone to code from scratch.

So there are 2 other options:

1. Create a simple HTML subset that would require a simpler browser, HTML-mini if you like

2. Start with an open-source browser like Mozilla and script the conversion to more privacy oriented one.

Re:kewl story bra

[Anonymous Coward]

dats nice, and you probably only frequent a handful of HTML1.0 sites too, because the rest deny you content due to your blocking. kewl story bra.

Are you serious? I use an adblocker on every device I use on a daily basis. It's extremely rare that I'm told to turn it off by the site I'm on, and I never do anyway. Just about anything of any value on the internet is on another site that is easily accessible without shitloads of ads.

I'm picturing you, being a dumbfuck, seeing ads all day long on all the sites you visit.
It must suck going through life as a dumbfuck.

Good! @ least I'll have INFERIOR competitors

[Anonymous Coward]

Good! @ least I'll have INFERIOR competitors in adblocker browser addons that do LESS & use MORE vs. hosts files, RoTfLmAo!

* Browser addon SLOW usermode crap only SLOWS BROWSERS in usermode DOWN even MORE w/ added messagepassing!

(Which is WHY multiple addons STACKED really shows this - hosts in FASTER more CPU serviced KERNELMODE also blow them away by OPERATING LONG BEFORE addons making them REDUNDANT also).

APK

P.S.=> For the best hosts file multiplatform:

APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p (remove spaces between chars & download)

APK Hosts File Engine 10++ SR-1 32/64-bit for Windows https://hosts-file.net/?s=Down... (DL link @ bottom)

Soon for MacOS too (I just got a NEW Mac-Mini to port it there)... apk

I want my tabs back & less white!

[Billly Gates]

I refuse to leave Chrome 70 and put in a hack to disable Google update until that happens.

Current Chrome is unusable and migraine inducing. They need to fire these kids with their flat phone interfaces. I can't even see which tab is which now on my monitors

religion bad

[Anonymous Coward]

religion bad, unless it's your satanic globalist religion, of course.

kill yourself, whore

Misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Google didn't backtrack on shit, they were about to see their market share disolve overnight from the backlash. For those who don't know their changes go way, way behond just adblockers, it would have affected ALL extensions . The changes themselves will still happen at a later time and burried in changelogs no one actually reads. It was a test to see how and more importanly who, would react. They aren't going away.

As for Firefox or Mozilla, they've done their own share of killing adblockers and aren't much different when it comes to being hostile toward them either.

Never take APK's inferior advise

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry retarded bitch Alexander Peter Kowalski, you are just a loser who is too dumb to realize you got stomped long ago.
Here is a chronicle of your bitch ass getting beaten on your port filtering statements.
Here is another one where your got beaten hard because you can't back up anything you say. This was about how you claim your shitware can block all hosts in a domain, which it can't.
Then there is your claim that the Chinese copied you but you admit that at best all you have is wild ass speculation and can't offer any real proof or even actual evidence to support yourself.
How about the list of experts you claim support your statements, none of which actually support your work and have been shown to actually be saying things different from what you stated they were.
Maybe instead you can tell us about your "success" where a project rejected your stupid simplistic idea or maybe threaten to sue someone again because you are a insecure little man who is washed up and never amounted to anything.
Better yet you can prove how defective you are by continuing to repeat your debunked BS some more.
Why don't you get your pretend friend to post some fake support and then throw a fit when you get caught.

Prove it

[Anonymous Coward]

[Citation needed]

There are no paid deals for Pale Moon.

Time to prove how INFERIOR you are

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: As you STALK me HIDING behind UNIDENTIFIABLE anon 1.) My program stops portfilter errs in hosts https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

2.) CHINA did hardcodes LONG AFTER I DID "Time is on MY SIDE" (Rolling Stones) https://theregister.co.uk/2017...

4.) /. users state the value of hosts for getting users more speed/security/reliability/anonymity listed here (enumerated as "Registered /.ers reviews") https://it.slashdot.org/commen...

5.) Security pros galore + /.ers praise the layered security efficacy of hosts quoted here https://it.slashdot.org/commen...

6.) I never had to sue Thor SCHMUCK - CA rescinded their FALSE POSITIVE error, sold off their shitty antivirus & I said I'd speak to an attorney & I did who advised I go thru their removal process & I won.

APK

P.S.=> You can't even STAND BEHIND YOUR WORDS (lies) you UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous STALKER of me... apk

And retarded bitch APK chose prove how defective

[Anonymous Coward]

I see that retarded bitch APK chose the option of showing how defective he is by repeating his previously disproved BS
1. This is just him trying to cover up for his previous BS and was already addressed in the original comment as he keep repeating this garbage.
2. He continues to admit that he has no actual support
3. Apparently he is too retarded to be able to count
4. A list of out of context quotes many of which have been shown to not actually support him when the full statement is examined
5. Again APK is trying to paper over his failure and just repeating a lie.
6. While he didn't have to sue him he did threaten it and acted like a spatistic retard until his lawyer probably to him to not be dumb because he would lose

Face it APK has nothing and like showing the world that he is a loser.

Yer so retarded ya can't remember yer name

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Aw, facts I used against your bs blew you away again? Yes. Facts are all the 'support' I need along w/ the fact I can show I did a decent program & A LOSER LIKE YOU that STALKS me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous like the JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" you ARE can't, lol!

APK

P.S.=> Facts are facts - & I stand BEHIND my words and facts they extoll - you can't because you're FULL OF SHIT, lol... apk

Retarded bitch APK is deluding himself

[Anonymous Coward]

I see that retarded bitch Alexander Peter Kowalski is deluding himself now. When someone tears apart every statement you made, you fail to refute anything that was said about you, and your work while failing to provide any new evidence contrary to what was said about you and your work it means you lost and you have nothing. This is where APK is now and all he can do is keep repeating his disproved BS. He lost and deep down knows it but just can't accept it.

Ok, tell us what you "tore apart"... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, tell us what you "tore apart" SPECIFICALLY (no links, just speak it directly here & I will cut you to pieces on your "so-called 'points'" easily as always)... ok?

* GO FOR IT!

(Besides - I already CUT YOU TO BITS here vs. your BS https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... easily...)

APK

P.S.=> I will cut you to pieces as usual - & YOU WON'T EVEN STAND BEHIND YOUR WORDS (lies) as always Mr. UNIDENTIFIABLE ANONYMOUS who STALKS me as you are now... apk