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New Warning Issued Over Google's Chrome Ad-Blocking Plans

posted by martyb on Friday August 02 2019, @06:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-the-new-shiny-is-not-always-better dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/08/01/warning-issued-over-google-chrome-ad-blocking-plans/#75c4a925219a

Google's plans to limit ad blockers in Chrome have already led many users to consider switching browsers. People's anger was made worse by the confirmation that the only people who will avoid the changes to the way ad blockers work in Chrome will be Google's enterprise users. Advertising is at the heart of Google's business model and so unsurprisingly, users have been questioning the software giant's motives.

And now, another prominent voice has entered the debate. Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says the move will not help security and in fact, will probably hinder it.

The plans, dubbed Manifest V3, represent a major transformation to Chrome extensions including a revamp of the permissions system. As a result, modern ad blockers such as uBlock Origin—which uses Chrome's webRequest API to block ads before they're downloaded–won't work. This is because Manifest V3 sees Google halt the webRequest API's ability to block a particular request before it's loaded. The plans are earmarked for release into the Google Canary channel around now.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:56AM (#874951)

    Privoxy, and non-browser blockers, are simply not as powerful as in-browser blockers. They are close currently, but with anti-adblocking getting more common, you need the additional power that browser-based blockers have. For example, blocking Google Analytics breaks all sorts of web pages. That is the reason why NoScript, uBlock, ABP, etc. don't actually block Google Analytics, but replace it with their own version. The same goes for dozens of other scripts as well.

    Simply put, Google is smart enough to know the need for browser-based blockers and how to get around other filtering techniques. Plus, it is much easier to just download an addon, compared to downloading some sort of proxy, or buying a Pi Hole, or the other alternatives. I'm honestly surprised this move didn't come earlier, but maybe they were waiting for some critical mass of Chromebook usage or their establishment as THE low-end alternative for most people.