back to article Google: We're not killing ad blockers. Translation: We made them too powerful, we'll cram this genie back in its bottle

Google on Wednesday defended its pending work-in-progress updates to Chrome that will change the way extensions filter out web adverts and other content. The US tech titan insisted that its still-hazy browser extension API revision, known as Manifest v3, won't kill ad blockers, and that it will make them safer... albeit …

  1. Dr.Flay
    Big Brother

    Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

    "42 per cent of malicious extensions use the Web Request API."

    Of course they do, it is a common function. I bet they all use another common API just as much if not more.

    100% of them use chrome and the google store.

    Most of the malware use google adverts, so how about we restrict the functionality of adverts ?

    Anyone else fancy slapping some random Venn diagrams on this ?

    1. Dr.Flay
      Megaphone

      Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

      ...and another thing...

      They are in a no-win situation. If it comes down to it we will just see the same level of accelerated interest in using HOSTS and Pi-hole blocking as we did with tracker and advert blocking extensions.

      They are just pushing a bubble around the wallpaper. They cannot stop it, just make it less convenient.

      1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

        They are just pushing a bubble around the wallpaper.

        Oooh, I like that one. Mind if I borrow it?

        1. Dr.Flay

          Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

          Feel free. You will soon realise how often it fits.

          Think of most politician and management meetings where the results leave everyone under them scratching their heads wondering why they feel like they just got scammed.

      2. whitepines
        Boffin

        Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

        we will just see the same level of accelerated interest in using HOSTS and Pi-hole blocking

        Hate to break it to you, but DNS over HTTP basically breaks this by design. Would be worth seeing who the largest champions of DoH were, given the relative timing of DoH and this.

        I'm afraid were fighting a losing battle here. The Internet is now just a commercial pay per view content channel for the most part, and HTML5 has the DRM hooks to enforce it the hard way at some point if certain large companies revenue falls enough.

        No idea how to do a decentralized Internet v2 though -- politicians won't let that happen easily as they like the ability to slurp from the slurpers and censor dissenting opinion.

        1. JohnFen

          Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

          "but DNS over HTTP basically breaks this by design"

          This is true, but it's not an insurmountable problem.

          The easiest (but incomplete) solution is what Pi-Hole has already done: include a DoH server, so it's the one doing DNS lookups.

          The complete solution, really only possible for people who are into this sort of thing right now (but could be made into a normal-person-friendly product) is what I've done: install a proxy that acts as a man-in-the-middle for all HTTPS traffic and drops undesirable DoH requests.

          1. whitepines

            Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

            The easiest (but incomplete) solution is what Pi-Hole has already done: include a DoH server, so it's the one doing DNS lookups.

            How does it cope with hardcoded DoH addresses (e.g. to Google or Cloudflare slurp) and/or pinned certificate checks on the same?

            And MITMing SSL is almost always a really REALLY bad idea!

            1. JohnFen

              Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

              "How does it cope with hardcoded DoH addresses"

              It doesn't, that's why it's an incomplete solution. But, in practice and if you're using Firefox (where you can specify what DoH server it will use), it will cover the majority of lookups. But that only covers the web, and only for lookups made by Firefox itself. It wouldn't cover hardcoded lookups by client-side scripts, for instance.

              "And MITMing SSL is almost always a really REALLY bad idea!"

              Yeah, I did that reluctantly. I put a lot of thought into it, balancing the pros and cons for my situation, and doing that was the least-bad alternative that I saw. If anyone can come up with a better solution, I'm extremely eager to hear it. I'd love to be able to remove the MITM.

              I don't think I'll ever really forgive Mozilla for its energetic support of DoH.

              1. whitepines

                Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

                Yeah, I did that reluctantly. I put a lot of thought into it, balancing the pros and cons for my situation, and doing that was the least-bad alternative that I saw.

                Unfortunately it puts the Raspberry Pi, which is a device relying heavily on closed source firmware and software, in a position to spy on and modify all traffic leaving and entering your network. At the very least, if MITM is the least bad option, invest in something actually secure in that role -- something with open firmware running a BSD or similar is my recommendation. Otherwise you're just asking for silent intrusion.

                1. eldakka

                  Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

                  The Pi-Hole software doesn't have to run on a Pi. It can run on pretty much anything that has the right libraries available. Can even run it in a VM on Windows box if you want to have it available on, say, a windows laptop so you can use it even when on the go and connecting to other people's networks.

                  1. whitepines

                    Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

                    The Pi-Hole software doesn't have to run on a Pi.

                    Today I learned something new. Apologies for that, too long in the enterprise sphere I guess, using larger machines to do basically the same thing (no MITM, but public DoH addresses completely sinkholed etc.)

                2. JohnFen

                  Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

                  "Unfortunately it puts the Raspberry Pi, which is a device relying heavily on closed source firmware and software, in a position to spy on and modify all traffic leaving and entering your network."

                  I don't use Pi-hole, and I wasn't suggesting that this be used in conjunction with Pi-hole. If you've installed a proxy to MITM HTTPS connections, then the proxy itself can do what Pi-hole does. Or, you can set it up like I did -- have the proxy do the lookup using your normal resolver (even through a Pi-hole) that doesn't have access to the decrypted datastream.

                  That said, you don't have to actually use a Raspberry Pi to run Pi-hole. You can do it entirely with OSS software and platforms.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              MITMing SSL is almost always a really REALLY bad idea!

              That may be so but almost every medium sized or bigger company does it now by adding their own cert to the trust store of all the PCs on their LAN. Which they own of course so its their right to do so, but I wonder how many really understand the implications of doing so. If you are an employee of such a company then don't do anything on a company PC that you wouldn't be happy to do over plain old HTTP.

        2. Dr.Flay

          Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

          Not so true thankfully.

          Install DNSCrypt which has DoH and DoT support, then import your block list into that.

          DNSCrypt is also available for Rasbery Pi, Routers and Android, so those same block lists can be used where you need them.

          Simply changing the OS to a resolver with DNSSec and DoH does not give you any way to authenticate the resolver.

          No browsers test or display DNS validation errors so even if you think you are using the DoH resolver you set, you may not be.

          1. JohnFen

            Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

            The problem DoH presents is that it means that no software has to use your system's resolver to do it. A program or script can do lookups using any DoH resolver it wishes, regardless of how you've set your system up, and because the lookup uses HTTPS, you won't even be able to detect that your resolver is being bypassed, let alone prevent it. That's why a MITM proxy is the only way to protect yourself against it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

      "Most of the malware use google adverts..."

      Exactly!

      (Oh, and Facebook's HTML5 ads too)

      Many malicious sites also use Google's CAPTCHA to try and thwart researchers and keep track of it all with Google Analytics.

      (P.S. I won't use any web browser that does not support uMatrix.)

      * googletagservices.com * block

      * doubleclick.net * block

      * graph.facebook.com * block

      etc, etc

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

        Captcha is plain denial of service. Putting the accessibility problems aside, with Chrome it lets you straight through after one try and might even let you get it wrong, with anything else you run the risk of three or four tries.

        I have no idea why any business would choose to use it except for their webmonkeys not being able to do anything harder than load offsite JavaScript from Google.

        1. stiine Silver badge
          Megaphone

          Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

          3 or 4? Sometimes I just give up. What counts as a storefront in the 3rd world? Does the pole count as a traffic light? do pickup trucks count as cars?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Meh

            Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

            3 or 4? Sometimes I just give up. What counts as a storefront in the 3rd world? Does the pole count as a traffic light? do pickup trucks count as cars?

            I am still trying to work out what a "crosswalk" is. It seems to be a bit like a zebra crossing without the zig-zag lines or the Belisha beacons. Not everyone lives in the United States.

            1. JohnFen

              Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

              To make the "crosswalk" thing even worse for American pedants is that legally in most states, the corners of every city block are a "crosswalk", whether they're marked as such or not.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Executives are allowed to ignore anything they want because they deserve it.

                Sometimes a tiny bit of the "cross walk" / store front / whatever IS visible on another square. Just a tiny bit but it's there. I click that square and always seem to get another picture. Garbage.

  2. ToFab

    Microsoft Edge Chromium

    What a huge opportunity for Microsoft. The could easily? keep this APi in egde chrome and make their browser the most effective in blocking ads and trackers and get tons of people to move away from Google Chrome.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge

      Re: Microsoft Edge Chromium

      Why would they do that? If they decided to only re-brand someone else's browser they most certainly won't want to keep messing with code. After all the whole point was to be able to fire all developers, keep just one guy to change the logo (aka "increase shareholder value").

      1. sabroni Silver badge

        Re: Why would they do that?

        Because if you control the world's browser you control the internet?

    2. Dr.Flay

      Re: Microsoft Edge Chromium

      That is what Vivaldi will do if push comes to shove.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They just don't like that they were caught

    They can't back down or everyone will know what it was all about, so they only have weak defenses to offer. Hopefully news of this makes it outside the tech press into the general public so there's a large exodus from Chrome. We thought Microsoft being in charge of the defacto "standard" browser was bad, having Google in charge of it would be 10x worse!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'enable users to limit the sensitive data they share with third-parties'

    Said by Google, the hugest third party data slurper = and this is made exactly to keep on slurping as much as possible. Sure, you send a list of filters, and who ensures Google abide to it and doesn't ignore filters that would block its own services?

    Just hope people will switch to other browsers, but I'm afraid too many have been brainwashed into thinking you need Chrome., and Google is your friend....

  5. Claptrap314 Silver badge

    Hold..Oink!...Still...Oink!...While I...Oink! Oink! Oink!...Put this...Squeeeal!...Lipstick..Oink! Oink!...on you...Oink! Oink! Oink! Oink!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No need for flash/java!

    Why not block any ads that were not just a single image. No flashy code, no cute animations, just a single jpg/png.

    The main reason I install an ad blocker is when I notice my machine running like a dog when I have a couple of tabs open.

    I’m fine with a single image I can ignore, but as soon as things start to slow down the shutters come down.

    Google could easily make this happen.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: No need for flash/java!

      Why not block any ads that were not just a single image plain text.

      FTFY

      After all the "simple image" can be an animated GIF. In fact, it was a particularly annoying animated GIF as whch made me installan ad-blocker years ago.

    2. ThatOne Silver badge

      Re: No need for flash/java!

      > Google could easily make this happen.

      Sure, but why on earth would they?

      They need to sell ads, and to sell ads they need to make them sound convincingly appealing to their true customers, companies needing to sell stuff. "Hey, buy our 4k Dolby Surround™ all-singing & dancing ad, which takes over the whole screen and any adjacent screens too" sounds more appealing than "We will display a smallish, mute and inert picture without any (inter)activity in a corner".

      There is a fundamental discrepancy between what Google and Chrome users want, and since it's Google who pays, Chrome users will always lose.

  7. Insert

    Firefox's change to WebExtensions kills adblockers?

    I suppose this was more or less inevitable when the major competitor folded and started using Google's extension structure.

    It's not like changing browser will help now. You WILL have a bloated ad-laden 'experience', the advertisers control all the browser customisation.

    Maybe Mozilla and Microsoft together will have the clout to fork it?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Firefox's change to WebExtensions kills adblockers?

      No I will not. I'll just keep using a mixture of Mozilla derivatives.

      1. Insert

        Re: Firefox's change to WebExtensions kills adblockers?

        As will I, but if Firefox is to keep functioning adblockers with WebExtensions as their basis, surely a WebExtension fork is required?

        Alternately they could revert to the way they did extensions previously and seemed to be working fine 'til they killed it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Firefox's change to WebExtensions kills adblockers?

          WebExtensions aren’t the same as Chrome extensions, so there’s no reason to fork anything. They can simply not adopt this change.

    2. Reg Reader 1

      Re: Firefox's change to WebExtensions kills adblockers?

      This looks like an interesting alternative, https://www.brow.sh/

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The art of misleading with numbers

    "we’ve increased the size of the engineering teams that work on extension abuse by over 300 per cent and the number of reviewers by over 400 per cent."

    Ah, the smell of a fresh, beautifully-crafted deliberately misleading statement.

    The snippet above could mean that the extension-abuse team, which used to consist of Joan (a really cute intern sitting in the second sub-basement of the branch office in Porto) now also includes Peter, Eva, and Marek (the new summer students at the recently-opened Krakow branch). (To bring it over 300%, Joan was allowed to bring in her favorite cactus to keep her company, since we still haven't gotten around to install any network or power sockets in the sub-basement area.)

    Of course, it could also mean that the 1000-strong extension-abuuse team have grown to 4500, forcing construction of a campus annex at the headquarters to make them comfortable and productive. However, it is much harder to show impressive growth figures when you start in a strong position already.

    It would be very nice if the Reg could use its inside line to Google to tell us which version of 300%+ is closer to the truth.

    1. Joe W Silver badge

      Re: The art of misleading with numbers

      This. Exactly my first thought.

      1. Wellyboot Silver badge

        Re: The art of misleading with numbers

        ditto:

        With age and experience comes Cynicism

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The art of misleading with numbers

      Couldn't agree more, it was the first thing I thought when I read that statement.

    3. teebie

      Re: The art of misleading with numbers

      They have replaced Joan, who was tiny, with Overtall Pete and Severely Obese Geoffrey, leading to an increase of 327% (measured by biomass).

      1. Fungus Bob

        Re: The art of misleading with numbers

        Ooooh, compost them!

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. OlaM

    Firefox

    Just switch to Firefox. It doesn't suck now! You can be a tab hygienic swine, and it's still snappy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Firefox

      So, eh, has FireFox resurrected the "Clear Downloads On Exit" functionality, or is that still something that the big-brains at Mozilla insist that nobody in their right mind would ever want? That was when I bailed off of the FF ship (having been a happy user since Phoenix) - not just because of the loss of functionality in the software, but also the condescending attitude taken by the developers to those of us who asked to have it back. Have been happy with Pale Moon for several years now, even though it doesn't have that functionality either.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Firefox

          But my reading of that is that it nukes both the downloads list (what we used to get to with Ctrl-J), as well as the browsing history list (Ctrl-H). Whereas in days of olde, there was a setting to only clear the Downloads list on exit, without touching the browsing history itself. Kinda like clicking the "clear downloads" button when looking at the Ctrl-J Downloads list, but doing it automagically when Firefox is closing. For whatever reason, Mozilla planted their flag in the sand and said those two couldn't be cleared separately during shutdown, although it's perfectly possible to do it manually before then.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Firefox

        @AC

        Hate to break it to you but FF or any free browser doesn't owe you a thing.

        Despite your belief that you know you are always right, you're the one with the bad attitude.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Firefox

          Hi Zuk!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Firefox

          "Despite your belief that you know you are always right, you're the one with the bad attitude."

          You must be a Mozilla senior developer, nobody else would say such an asinine thing to a user asking for a reinstatement of previously available functionality. Good day, sir!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Firefox

            I'm not.

            I was just objecting to your use of the phrase "condescending attitude". It's generally used by someone who thinks they're entitled to something. In this case you're not - developers of free open source software are like politicians - when they and you agree on something, it's either by chance or you have a common goal, not because they're working for you.

            And the bad attitude accusation is because I didn't expect you to admit you're wrong, when you clearly are here.

            Feel free to explain why you think OSS developers owe you anything.

            1. Kiwi

              Re: Firefox

              Feel free to explain why you think OSS developers owe you anything.

              Moz gets some of their money from people wishing to pay for FF (or perhaps one or two other programs), and some from 'partnership' (eg search engine) deals associated with their products, correct?

              The more people wishing to use it the more potential they have for income, correct?

              The more Moz pisses users off and drives us away to other products, the less their market share - and the less their market share the less likely they will find people willing to give them money, correct?

              They owe me nothing, I owe them nothing. If they show me loyalty and provide a product I am willing to use, I'll show them loyalty and use their product. OTOH, if they decide I really don't know how I use the product and I'm to dumb to know I really hate using it as it is (even when I say I love it just as it is), and they claim my productivity tools really aren't helping me and remove them (even though said tools might save me a considerable amount of time each day) - well, I'm going to ask them politely to leave such stuff alone. When they decide they know better than their users and remove functionality I'm going to ask them to restore it. When the iterate they know better I'm not going to bother any more.

              From about FF V2 until somewhere IIRC in the mid 50s I was a loyal and staunch Mozilla supporter. I would try and sometimes use other browsers, but only to prove how lame they were in relation to FF. I now only have FF on my computer because. Um.. Lemme think.. Actually, do I even have FF installed now or did I quietly take it out behind the chemical shed? Maybe it's the old machine that has it? Some VM I haven't spun up in ages?

              Whatever revenue could've been generated through me - that now goes elsewhere. Whatever support Moz could've had through me - that goes elsewhere. When someone has a FF problem, I 'fix' it by installing Waterfox or Pale Moon (same fix I do for IE and Chrome - yes Moz, FF now rates alongside IE!).

              I show Moz the same loyalty and respect they show their users. I gave them many chances, was insulted for my efforts, so went elsewhere.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Firefox

              "Feel free to explain why you think OSS developers owe you anything."

              LOL. I don't think I need to because you just proved my point.

              Condescending :showing or characterized by a patronizing or superior attitude toward others. (Merriam-Webster)

              I don't believe that mentions anything about "entitlement" or being "owed" anything, but it does seem to jibe with my original use of the word in reference to the Mozilla developers. Why are you dragging "entitlement" into this, it has no place. You are correct, the Moz folks don't "owe" me (or any other user of their software) a damn thing. They are free to enjoy the bubble of rarified gas that they live in, and continue to churn out software that scratches whatever itches it is that they have, without regard to how the "lusers" feel about the changes they make to the software. And should those lusers ever get uppity and ASK FOR SOME FUNCTIONALITY that the collective mind at Mozilla deems to be unworthy, there is naught to do but ignore their pitiful pleas, and possibly, POSSIBLY, insinuate that they really don't know what they are asking for (even if it is something they had before, and have lost). They are just lusers, after all, not something to worry about while finding new ways to fuck-up what used to be the best browser on the Internet.

              So let me ask you, what is your skin in the game? I've already shown mine - a desire to have the "Clear Downloads on Exit" functionality returned. That was literally the sum total of all I wanted. But why do you feel the need to defend the developers at Mozilla and launch an attack against my judgement as a "bad attitude"? That seems, hmm, almost condescending.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Have been happy with Pale Moon for several years now...

        ...even though it doesn't have that functionality either.

        Nice of you to prove your opinion is worthless!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Have been happy with Pale Moon for several years now...

          Lol. Seems that way, doesn't it? Except I can at least view Firefox through the veneer of civility that PaleMoon brings to it, and not increase their download counter.

  10. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "There’s been a lot of confusion and misconception around both the motivations and implications"

    Translation: Shit, they spotted it.

  11. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge
    Pint

    In not one but two blog posts, Devlin Cronin, of the Chrome Extensions team, and Simeon Vincent, developer advocate for Chrome Extensions, pushed back against press reports – which El Reg may have had something to do with – that Manifest v3 as initially proposed would significantly hamper content-blocking extensions among others.

    Yay and kudos to El Reg.

    'ere, 'ave one on us.

  12. DownUndaRob

    Pay for my traffic

    Will Google pay for the extra traffic I will end up using, parts of the world still live on a quota internet model.

  13. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    we’ve increased the size of the engineering teams that work on extension abuse by over 300 per cent and the number of reviewers by over 400 per cent.

    In other words, the work experience boy on 3 hours a week now does 2 days a week on "extension abuse", and the gibbon that used to work only on Wednesdays now 'reviews' things all week (by flinging its shit at them).

    Those are some nice context-free weasel words right there...

  14. steelpillow Silver badge
    Devil

    Safer ad-blocking

    Who is the revised ad-blocking going to be safer for? Google's bean-counters?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Safer ad-blocking

      probably for Google's customers...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Safer ad-blocking

      Latka, in Zagreb. The only human on Earth not using the internet.

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. trev101

    Firefox works fine in blocking ads.

    Google is currently the dominate browser of choice but if I no longer have ad blocking capability then I will be using Firefox or Opera, the former being independent works fine with ad blocking extensions.

  17. JohnFen

    I don't believe them

    I don't believe them. I mean, yes, I think they value an increase in safety and performance, but it seems clear to me that those aren't the primary reasons for this change. If they were, then Google's response to the complaints would have been very different (and, as the article mentions, they would have been talking with extension developers about this from day 1).

  18. Swampie

    Time to use dan pollock's hosts file... plus a rasp pi pie hole... 2 can lay at this game! Fark goggles and ad boiz... we want clean, fast intertubiez... just say no to spam, bloat, auto play videos, and tracking!

  19. IGnatius T Foobar !

    Google is the new Microsoft

    The gloves are off. Whatever it takes to bypass Google, go ahead and do it. Firefox is now mandatory. DuckDuckGo is a perfectly usable search engine now. Gmail has never been a good idea.

  20. shawnfromnh

    The only sinking ship that pumps water into the ship. Faster boys we need the sink world record. We need tax writeoffs. I need to keep using waterfox.

    1. Fungus Bob

      It wasn't sinking before they pumped water into it.

  21. Palpy

    Ah, browser wars, with ads as the current skirmish.

    Meself, I'm not married to any browser's feature set. Or perceived development philosophy, or whatever. I am dead set on having at least one browser set up to block ads, tracking, and Javascript.

    So Firefox it is, with half a dozen extensions for those purposes. Chromium is used for paying a few bills, and -- well, posting this inane comment. Vivaldi is a third horse for me, with Javascript enabled but a simple popup blocker and a couple of privacy extensions added.

    OK, choose the horse for the course. 95% of the time it's shields-up Firefox.

    The larger issue: as long as the software offerings remain varied and competitive, users can vote with the mouse -- leave Chrome in droves, use Libre instead of MS Office, GIMP around instead of Photoshopping themselves. At least, that approach is possible if users are sufficiently flexible, and tasks are not absolutely chained to one single application or application suite. I tend to consider whether it would be more trouble to learn a different GUI and workflow than I am used to, or to put up with the inconvenience, insecurity, or monetary penalty of continuing with one particular application. Usually, change then wafts in upon the breezes, freshly.

    All just ill-considered personal opinions, of course. IMHO, YMMV, etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ah, browser wars, with ads as the current skirmish.

      I use firejail with firefox in privacy mode to pay bills. I don't know for sure that it's any safer, but I read good things. If any of you have any info to the contrary I'd appreciate hearing it :)

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Firefox = Browser! Chrome = Little Snitch!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I for one feel safer already /s off

    Glad in knowledge that Google will, as a result of its greed, be superseded.

  24. Kiwi
    Happy

    I hope Google does make it hard to implement those evil ad-blockers.

    That way, as more and more people see how bad the net is without ad blockers, they come to me.

    And I tell them that unfortunately Chrome, being owned by Google, no longer allows ad-blocking as that makes it harder for them to collect and sell your personal data.

    Then I give them Waterfox or Pale Moon. Charge them a tenner for the privilege, half of which I donate to whichever browser they got.

    All of a sudden WF/PM get more support, Chrome sinks below the horizon of obscurity where it belongs, people are happier and less of their data is being pilfered by scumbag thieves so I too am happier.. The world is a better place and I don't need my rose-coloured spectacles so often.

    So please Google, go the whole way and ban all adblocking on Chrome. Force an update that can't be rolled back while you're at it, so Chrome users have no choice but to use a slower ad and associated malware infested more secure and 'better performingtm' Chrome, or switch browser.

    Please.

    I am looking forward to a better world, where Google et al are holding bake sales just to keep the lights on another week.

    (El Reg - a rose-tinted spectacles icon?)

  25. Nick Kew

    Dual-purpose APIs

    How does this story relate to another face of the story, as reported here?

    It's not [guns|cars|bombs|apis] that kill, it's their users. If we accept that Google's APIs have problems, the kneejerk reaction to Google's changes might be uncomfortably close to that of the NRA or the AA/RAC when restrictions on their respective weapons are suggested. Perhaps the story is best summed up by Claburn's final paragraph in the linked article:

    "It's a controversial modification because Google failed to get buy-in before previewing changes that affect its developer community. Also, it raises eyebrows when an ad company proposes changes that break ad blockers and privacy extensions without any commitment that these apps can be adapted to the new regime."

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    mobile

    I started using duckduckgo on my mobile as browser, because Chrome shows an ridiculous amount of adds all in the form of irritating clickbaits. On the desktop adblockers still do their usefull job.

  27. gnarlymarley

    timeframe?

    The Chrome Web Store currently blocks about 1,800 malicious extension uploads a month. However, Cronin says the review process can't catch all the abuse.......

    I am curious how old these blocks might be. Is it an immediate block, or does it take more than a month to block.

  28. fredesmite

    IF I HAVE TO TURN OFF AD-BLOCKS

    I LEAVE THE WEB URL

  29. Crisp
    Coat

    If they want users to view advertisements

    Why not pay them to do so?

    I'd be quite happy to view a few thousand adverts a month if I got a couple of pounds for each one.

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