SoylentNews

hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

When ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game, make the mouse slower [arstechnica.com]:

Google's war on ad blockers is just gearing up, with YouTube doing its best to detect and block [arstechnica.com] ad blockers and Chrome aiming to roll out the ad block-limiting Manifest V3 extension platform [arstechnica.com] in June 2024. A new article from Engadget [engadget.com] detailing the "arms race" over ad blocking brings up an interesting point regarding the power that YouTube and Chrome have in this battle: a dramatic update advantage over the ad blockers.

In addition to hamstringing Chrome's extension platform with no real user-centric justifications, Manifest V3 will also put roadblocks up before extension updates, which will delay an extension developer's ability to quickly respond to changes. YouTube can instantly switch up its ad delivery system, but once Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, that won't be true for extension developers. If ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game of updates and counter-updates, then Google will force the mouse to slow down.

[...] We've covered this already. But we haven't talked about the other side of the equation: Ad block rules can't be updated quickly anymore. Today, ad blockers and privacy apps can ship filter list updates themselves, often using giant open-source community lists. Manifest V3 will stop this by limiting what Google describes "remotely hosted code." All updates, even to benign things like a filtering list, will need to happen through full extension updates through the Chrome Web Store. They will all be subject to Chrome Web Store reviews process, and that comes with a significant time delay.

Engadget's Anthony Ha interviewed some developers in the filtering extension community, and they described a constant cat-and-mouse game with YouTube. Ghostery's director of product and engineering, Krzysztof Modras, said that YouTube is "adapting [its] methods more frequently than ever before. To counteract its changes to ad delivery and ad blocker detection, block lists have to be updated at minimum on a daily basis, and sometimes even more often. While all players in the space are innovating, some ad blockers are simply unable to keep up with these changes."

[...] When Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, those updates that need to arrive "at minimum on a daily basis" will no longer be an option. Limiting remotely hosted code sounds like a totally reasonable limitation until you realize that. like most Manifest V3 changes, it seems carefully crafted to cripple ad blockers more than other extensions. Is a filtering list update, which is essentially just a list of websites, really something that needs to be limited by the "no remotely hosted code" policy?

[...] Google claims [chrome.com] that Manifest V3 will improve browser "privacy, security, and performance," but every comment we can find from groups that aren't giant ad companies disputes this description. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has called Google's Manifest V3 communication "deceitful and threatening [eff.org]," and both the EFF and Mozilla have critiqued most of Google's user-focused justifications for the project. Both groups [youtube.com] agree that Manifest V3 won't do much for security [eff.org], since it doesn't stop what extensions usually get caught doing [arstechnica.com]: spying on a user's browser history. Manifest V3 extensions have access to just as much data as before. Ghostery has a page [ghostery.com] on Manifest V3 warning that "nothing Manifest V3 introduces in its current state can help protect privacy" and calling the project "ultimately user hostile."

Original Submission