This seems like a blow to accessibility too. Beyond impact adblockers, would this also make it difficult for me to use tools like DarkReader which dynamically overrides the site's styling to implement a less jarring one for my astigmatism?
uBlock and Darkreader are really important tools for making the web usable for me. I don't mind not using YT, but there are some websites I am obliged to use.
> would this also make it difficult for me to use tools like DarkReader which dynamically overrides the site's styling to implement a less jarring one for my astigmatism?
No, those don’t use blockingWebRequest. Absolutely no relation.
They know it's anti-consumer. They see that the YouTube push is actually causing people to install more, smarter ad blockers. I myself have finally got around to setting up pihole. "We're serious, by 2027 your adblocker will be toast" whatever, if you think we're still using the browser to block ads, you grossly misunderstood your userbase.
IMO the only question is one of magnitude. Based on a cursory search it appears that adblock addons are used by anywhere between 20-45% of users across all browsers. Based on this I wouldn't be wildly shocked if Chrome sheds anywhere between 5-10% of its userbase almost overnight.
I would also expect this to cause a modest-to-significant backlash against Google as a whole. This is a change that will be widely noticed among regular internet users, and rolled out at a time when Google's bread and butter (search) is at its weakest point in decades.
Moving into purely speculative territory here, but I also wonder what impact this might have on their business moving forward. Without having hard numbers to back this up, my anecdotally-backed hunch is that ad blocking is disproportionately popular among younger users. That's a risky demographic for any tech company to alienate in part or in whole.
From what I can tell from Facebook and Twitter threads, most people still do not use any kind of adblock. FAANG would love it for everyone to abandon desktop OSes and use locked down mobile devices forever.
Google clearly feels comfortable enough in their browser share market dominance to pull this rather user-hostile move, but I can't help but wonder if they're overplaying their hand. From my humble POV Chrome is only marginally superior to the alternatives. That margin has been sufficient to keep me around as a user - but crippling such a central feature easily outweighs all of Chrome's relative strengths and then some.
Is it? From TFA: "The new #Chrome manifest will prevent using custom filters and stops on demand updates of blocklist. Only #Google authorized updates to browser extension will be allowed in the future..."
If this is true, then ad blockers will, de facto, be disabled in Chrome.
It's really interesting to see the amount of misinformation being propagated lately.
Do people not bother to fact check anything?
The creator of ublock has made an ad blocker specifically for the new API and it's available to use right now. It's objectively incorrect to claim that ad blockers will not work after June 2024.
The ublock lite extension does have some limitations, such as not allowing you to create filters at runtime. This is the result of not allowing extensions to load code at runtime.
It's fair to criticize this limitation, but that's not what's happening here.
This information is available, it's not hidden, you can read the readme of the ublock lite github repo or something, but are not even attempting to do this for some reason.
I have used the ublock lite extensions to see for myself if it's totally broken, and it worked fine for me, the main limitation for me is not having the "element zapper", but it not blocking ads was not something that I experienced.
I am all for criticizing companies actions, and ad blockers are very important to me just as well as anyone else here, but the dishonestly is very off putting and disappointing.
The title claims that ad blockers such as ublock origin will be disabled, which is true.
Other things that don't and can't do the full job, yet have a name that claims "ad blocker", even "ublock origin lite", are something else and irrelevant.
Honestly, it was a bit shocking that big players allowed ad blocking to go on for so long. The next logical step is for google to pull funding from Firefox unless they implement it too. (They still pay a lot of money for google to be the default search engine, right?)
Between this and Reddit casually crushing third party clients out of existence, we’ve probably entered into a new era of the web.
Are we entering the period of the true 'dark web' like the dark ages where web innovation is stifled? If dark mode and other features are disabled, then chrome will go the way of navigator, long forgotten. Intelligence will reign victorious over greed, I guarantee that.
> Honestly, it was a bit shocking that big players allowed ad blocking to go on for so long. The next logical step is for google to pull funding from Firefox unless they implement it too. (They still pay a lot of money for google to be the default search engine, right?)
Isn't it a "Microsoft has shares in Apple so it has a competitor so they don't get sued/dismembered for being a monopoly" ? So, the next logical step for Google is to keep funding Moz/ff ?
yes it does, since Manifest v3 is being rolled out on Chromium (which Chrome is based on).
unless Brave and other forks (like Cromite, Vanadium, Ungoogled-Chromium) manage to disable MV3, which I think Google will make it impossible to do so, they are affected by this change.
Out of all the anti-trust cases, Google has the most obvious abuse of its monopoly position.
I feel for them. The make >80% of their profits from ads. Ads is everything to them. They need to sacrifice privacy and fuck over the users to satisfy their growth targets.
The world would be a better place if the ads division is split from the rest of org.
[+] [-] ImaCake|2 years ago|reply
uBlock and Darkreader are really important tools for making the web usable for me. I don't mind not using YT, but there are some websites I am obliged to use.
[+] [-] rafram|2 years ago|reply
No, those don’t use blockingWebRequest. Absolutely no relation.
[+] [-] coreyog|2 years ago|reply
They know it's anti-consumer. They see that the YouTube push is actually causing people to install more, smarter ad blockers. I myself have finally got around to setting up pihole. "We're serious, by 2027 your adblocker will be toast" whatever, if you think we're still using the browser to block ads, you grossly misunderstood your userbase.
[+] [-] PH95VuimJjqBqy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AniseAbyss|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] underseacables|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doktrin|2 years ago|reply
I would also expect this to cause a modest-to-significant backlash against Google as a whole. This is a change that will be widely noticed among regular internet users, and rolled out at a time when Google's bread and butter (search) is at its weakest point in decades.
Moving into purely speculative territory here, but I also wonder what impact this might have on their business moving forward. Without having hard numbers to back this up, my anecdotally-backed hunch is that ad blocking is disproportionately popular among younger users. That's a risky demographic for any tech company to alienate in part or in whole.
[+] [-] rchaud|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doktrin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsnell|2 years ago|reply
Also, news of the manifest v3 timeline discussed a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38292409
[+] [-] addandsubtract|2 years ago|reply
If this is true, then ad blockers will, de facto, be disabled in Chrome.
[+] [-] chlorion|2 years ago|reply
Do people not bother to fact check anything?
The creator of ublock has made an ad blocker specifically for the new API and it's available to use right now. It's objectively incorrect to claim that ad blockers will not work after June 2024.
The ublock lite extension does have some limitations, such as not allowing you to create filters at runtime. This is the result of not allowing extensions to load code at runtime.
It's fair to criticize this limitation, but that's not what's happening here.
This information is available, it's not hidden, you can read the readme of the ublock lite github repo or something, but are not even attempting to do this for some reason.
I have used the ublock lite extensions to see for myself if it's totally broken, and it worked fine for me, the main limitation for me is not having the "element zapper", but it not blocking ads was not something that I experienced.
I am all for criticizing companies actions, and ad blockers are very important to me just as well as anyone else here, but the dishonestly is very off putting and disappointing.
[+] [-] Brian_K_White|2 years ago|reply
Other things that don't and can't do the full job, yet have a name that claims "ad blocker", even "ublock origin lite", are something else and irrelevant.
[+] [-] xoac|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hilbert42|2 years ago|reply
This may advantage Google in the short-term, but it'll suffer in the long-term.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Alifatisk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackideiomat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Turskarama|2 years ago|reply
Firefox is the _only_ alternative unless you're on Mac and can use Safari.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nottorp|2 years ago|reply
Might be worth making a list of other alternative browsers that are not based on Chromium... if there are any.
Almost donated to mozilla.org too but they kept pushing the recurring donation so I ran away.
[+] [-] rabbits_2002|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sillysaurusx|2 years ago|reply
Between this and Reddit casually crushing third party clients out of existence, we’ve probably entered into a new era of the web.
[+] [-] ForOldHack|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yulker|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|2 years ago|reply
Isn't it a "Microsoft has shares in Apple so it has a competitor so they don't get sued/dismembered for being a monopoly" ? So, the next logical step for Google is to keep funding Moz/ff ?
[+] [-] hackideiomat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xinayder|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leke|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xinayder|2 years ago|reply
unless Brave and other forks (like Cromite, Vanadium, Ungoogled-Chromium) manage to disable MV3, which I think Google will make it impossible to do so, they are affected by this change.
Switch to Firefox.
[+] [-] sonicanatidae|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nojvek|2 years ago|reply
I feel for them. The make >80% of their profits from ads. Ads is everything to them. They need to sacrifice privacy and fuck over the users to satisfy their growth targets.
The world would be a better place if the ads division is split from the rest of org.
[+] [-] Kim_Bruning|2 years ago|reply
"Privacy firewall for your house, now just Eur 100".