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My gut feeling is that Google won't pull this stunt with chrome, this is some kind of scare mongering or a PR tactic, I dunno. It doesn't make a logical sense

My gut feeling is that Google won't pull this stunt with chrome, this is some kind of scare mongering or a PR tactic, I dunno. It doesn't make a logical sense because if they are banning the ad-blockers, it means they accept that chrome is largely used by power users who can install these blockers (otherwise, what's the need?). But they should realize that a power user who installs an addon can just as easily move to another browser like firefox/brave. And the PR repercussions will ensure that a lot of newbies will leave too (because they usually follow the power users on youtube) which will essentially kill the advertising income that they wanted in the first place?

user17843 7y ago
Maybe think about it in a different way. Right now, there is a kill-switch within googles primary product that could essentially destroy their business model. This is not about google wanting to harm the current power users. It is probably the idea that someone could come along and destroy their business. If such an extensions goes mainstream that could seriously harm them. They may also want to get rid of paying Adblock Plus money for their highway robbery. Now that I think about it, getting rid of ABP may be the primary reason for this move. They have to basically pay a third party to get access to their own users. Either way, the battle is not over the power user minority, but over the average user. The idea is to make the API just powerful enough for the most annoying ads to disappear. Most users would probably be content with this. They will probably make it so they won't lose all of their power users. I think what they really want is increasing the amount of works it takes to have full adblocking functionality to the point where the average user has no access to it.
- chongli 7y ago
  The idea is to make the API just powerful enough for the most annoying ads to disappear. In other words, to block ads on third party networks but leave Google ads alone. That's a bold move these days, when antitrust regulators are putting big tech under the microscope.
  - user17843 7y ago
    yes, thats probably the plan. well, anti-trust these days is just a buzzword, in a legal sense it is defined in a very strict way, and the cost for companies to anticipate an anti-trust ruling is way higher than just pushing their own interests. With 66% market share and countless other browsers available, the only question for antitrust when it comes to browsers is if users have equal access to browsers, not whether google supports ad blocking. I think they will make sure that the ad blocking capability does not explicicly favor google ads.
    - verisimilitudes 7y ago
      >countless other browsers available You know that's wrong. There's Chrome, Safari, and Firefox that support most things and which most people actually use; Internet Explorer is dead and Edge is becoming Chromium; and Brave, Midori, and Vivaldi are also Chromium. There's also Lynx, Links, w3m, Dillo, and Netsurf, but very few people use those and ad-blocking isn't much of a concern there, because they don't enable JavaScript necessary.
      - user17843 7y ago
        There are around 10 more prominent browsers and lots of smaller forks, which is enough choice in the context of anti-trust.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Isinlor 7y ago
  ABP is compatible with the new API and will not be affected. See: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetRequest#type-Rule https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReques... This is API that ABP can use. But with the new API the rules list will be limited to 30 000 rules vs. for example 42 000 EasyList is using, and an update to the rules will require a full update of the plugin. See also comments from gorhill: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456171375 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss...
  - tyingq 7y ago
    You do link the comments, so just to point out "will not be affected" isn't true for many reasons...not just the reduced ruleset. Details are in those comments. It will be a lesser product all around.
  - user17843 7y ago
    ABP released a statement to german news site golem.de, saying that they "prepare for the worst case". This means they anticipate Google to target the Acceptable Ads program. Originally I thought 30,000 rules wouldn't be enough to cover things, but according to this research, only a couple hundred rules are enough to block >90% of the ads: https://brave.com/the-mounting-cost-of-stale-ad-blocking-rules/ https://brave.com/the-mounting-cost-of-stale-ad-blocking-rul... So maybe there's another limiting aspect of the declarativeNetRequest API I don't know of.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      90% of the ads right now, but its trivial to design adtech so its only possible to block a tiny percentage of everything with only 50k rules. (register 50k domains, use 50k different subpath/subdomains and mix content+ads on something like youtube where you cant wholesale block youtube, etc)
  - hungryfoolish 7y ago
    >ABP is compatible with the new API and will not be affected. Thats just false. Every adblocker using webrequest will be affected, including ABP.
- gorhill 7y ago
  > getting rid of ABP may be the primary reason for this move This makes no sense to me. ABP is already publishing a version using a declarativeNetRequest-like API, it's in the Mac App Store[1], so clearly it's not going to "get rid of ABP". Google benefits from ABP and AdBlock[2] being the most used content blockers, as they do not block Google ads by default, and do not block trackers/data miners out of the box. If Google (rightly) deems content blockers as unavoidable, it sure would want people to install the ones which are not blocking its ads and trackers by default. * * * [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-plus-for-safari/id1432731683 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-plus-for-safari/id14... [2] The two most-used content blockers as per Chrome Web Store.
  - user17843 7y ago
    You are probably right, although a low number of rules will also affect them as their acceptable ads program is based on the fact that they block everything else. I still wonder if they can continue to offer that program with 30,000 rules only. My idea that they target ABP came from their arbitrary 30,000 rules limit. As I have written elsewhere I consider ABP and AdBlock as "infiltrated" by Google, so they definitely want to see the rigorous blockers disappear first. Should have made that clearer in the comment.
    - gorhill 7y ago
      The Safari version supports "Acceptable Ads". I counted ~17,000 rules[1] which includes exception rules. Also, keep in mind cosmetic exception filters are not implemented through the declarativeNetRequest API. (Edited for accuracy regarding rule count) * * * [1] https://gitlab.com/eyeo/adblockplus/adblockplussafarimacos/tree/master/Adblock%20Plus/Resources https://gitlab.com/eyeo/adblockplus/adblockplussafarimacos/t...
      - SquareWheel 7y ago
        It's been my assumption that with a little bit of scripting, EasyList could be pruned to land within the 30K without too much trouble. As you have more experience in this fields though, do you have any thoughts on how viable this approach would be, and if the 30K limit will be a problem in the end?
mtgx 7y ago
> it means they accept that chrome is largely used by power users who can install these You're making a very big assumption here. Last I checked people who blocked ads counted in the hundreds of millions and the number was growing rapidly. Some old stats I found with a quick search: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ > 615 million devices now use adblock 11% of the global internet population is blocking ads on the web Adblock usage grew 30% globally in 2016 Mobile adblock usage grew by 108 million to reach 380 million devices Desktop adblock usage grew by 34 million to reach 236 million devices
ben_jones 7y ago
I think its gotten to the point where power users go around to all their non-power-user friends and install ad blockers for them, at least I do in our office. The reason this is so successful is because it takes 5 seconds to go the the chrome store and add ublock origin. Convincing my non-power-user friends to move to firefox would be significantly harder. Google's goal is to remove the severity (and effectively the ease) of ad blocking for non-power-users.
- r00fus 7y ago
  This had been happening for a decade or more based on anecdotal evidence - so much so that I had to double-check then change my intranet app at a previous smaller company (2008). The new thing is Google valuing their profits over the wishes of a large population of their users.
  - josh2600 7y ago
    This hits the nail on the head. This is how big companies lose their way and get eaten by smaller companies. We all think Google is invincible because of their technological monopoly, but the problem of having to grow forever due to the way public markets work necessitates product evolution or squeezing blood from the stone. The real monopoly is philosophy, not technology, and it's so, so, so easy to lose the logos/pathos/eros high ground (and thus the philosophical war). In Google's case, their innovation has never been able to eclipse their original sin: advertising. As long as your god is ads, you will make compromised product decisions that are not in alignment with your users. This is part of why I actually hope FB's currency takes off because maybe they can stop worshipping at the altar of click revenue. Who am I kidding, it's just another revenue line-item on the 10K.
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      ...logos/pathos/eros... Did you perhaps mean ethos?
      - josh2600 7y ago
SquareWheel 7y ago
>It doesn't make a logical sense because if they are banning the ad-blockers... To be clear, you can still block ads under Manifest v3. I don't know where this idea that you suddenly won't be able to block ads came from, but somebody is being dishonest about it.
- varenc 7y ago
  Ad blocking capabilities are limited and there's no API to implement advanced rules like media size limiting. For example manifest v3 has no way to implement the full EasyList.
  - SquareWheel 7y ago
    That's true on both counts, but less of a concern than you might be thinking. EasyList can be slimmed down significantly without losing any blocking. Media size limiting is a more interesting use case, but probably not why most installed adblockers in the first place.
taneq 7y ago
Chrome isn't "largely used by power users", it's used by 60+% of all web users[1] which means it's largely used by nontechnical users. Power users will block ads somehow, whether by changing fork or changing browser or running a PiHole. However, over 300 million users run adblockers[2][3] and it's probably a fair assumption that most of those users are relatively nontechnical and only run them because they're very easy to install. I think this push is just to add a tiny bit of friction into the process so that 'casual' adblockers stop bothering. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_tables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su... [2] https://whybytes.com/ublock-origin-vs-adblock-plus/477/ https://whybytes.com/ublock-origin-vs-adblock-plus/477/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin

user17843 7y ago

Maybe think about it in a different way. Right now, there is a kill-switch within googles primary product that could essentially destroy their business model. This is not about google wanting to harm the current power users. It is probably the idea that someone could come along and destroy their business. If such an extensions goes mainstream that could seriously harm them. They may also want to get rid of paying Adblock Plus money for their highway robbery. Now that I think about it, getting rid of ABP may be the primary reason for this move. They have to basically pay a third party to get access to their own users. Either way, the battle is not over the power user minority, but over the average user. The idea is to make the API just powerful enough for the most annoying ads to disappear. Most users would probably be content with this. They will probably make it so they won't lose all of their power users. I think what they really want is increasing the amount of works it takes to have full adblocking functionality to the point where the average user has no access to it.

chongli 7y ago
The idea is to make the API just powerful enough for the most annoying ads to disappear. In other words, to block ads on third party networks but leave Google ads alone. That's a bold move these days, when antitrust regulators are putting big tech under the microscope.
- user17843 7y ago
  yes, thats probably the plan. well, anti-trust these days is just a buzzword, in a legal sense it is defined in a very strict way, and the cost for companies to anticipate an anti-trust ruling is way higher than just pushing their own interests. With 66% market share and countless other browsers available, the only question for antitrust when it comes to browsers is if users have equal access to browsers, not whether google supports ad blocking. I think they will make sure that the ad blocking capability does not explicicly favor google ads.
  - verisimilitudes 7y ago
    >countless other browsers available You know that's wrong. There's Chrome, Safari, and Firefox that support most things and which most people actually use; Internet Explorer is dead and Edge is becoming Chromium; and Brave, Midori, and Vivaldi are also Chromium. There's also Lynx, Links, w3m, Dillo, and Netsurf, but very few people use those and ad-blocking isn't much of a concern there, because they don't enable JavaScript necessary.
    - user17843 7y ago
      There are around 10 more prominent browsers and lots of smaller forks, which is enough choice in the context of anti-trust.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Isinlor 7y ago
ABP is compatible with the new API and will not be affected. See: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetRequest#type-Rule https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReques... This is API that ABP can use. But with the new API the rules list will be limited to 30 000 rules vs. for example 42 000 EasyList is using, and an update to the rules will require a full update of the plugin. See also comments from gorhill: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456171375 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss...
- tyingq 7y ago
  You do link the comments, so just to point out "will not be affected" isn't true for many reasons...not just the reduced ruleset. Details are in those comments. It will be a lesser product all around.
- user17843 7y ago
  ABP released a statement to german news site golem.de, saying that they "prepare for the worst case". This means they anticipate Google to target the Acceptable Ads program. Originally I thought 30,000 rules wouldn't be enough to cover things, but according to this research, only a couple hundred rules are enough to block >90% of the ads: https://brave.com/the-mounting-cost-of-stale-ad-blocking-rules/ https://brave.com/the-mounting-cost-of-stale-ad-blocking-rul... So maybe there's another limiting aspect of the declarativeNetRequest API I don't know of.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    90% of the ads right now, but its trivial to design adtech so its only possible to block a tiny percentage of everything with only 50k rules. (register 50k domains, use 50k different subpath/subdomains and mix content+ads on something like youtube where you cant wholesale block youtube, etc)
- hungryfoolish 7y ago
  >ABP is compatible with the new API and will not be affected. Thats just false. Every adblocker using webrequest will be affected, including ABP.
gorhill 7y ago
> getting rid of ABP may be the primary reason for this move This makes no sense to me. ABP is already publishing a version using a declarativeNetRequest-like API, it's in the Mac App Store[1], so clearly it's not going to "get rid of ABP". Google benefits from ABP and AdBlock[2] being the most used content blockers, as they do not block Google ads by default, and do not block trackers/data miners out of the box. If Google (rightly) deems content blockers as unavoidable, it sure would want people to install the ones which are not blocking its ads and trackers by default. * * * [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-plus-for-safari/id1432731683 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adblock-plus-for-safari/id14... [2] The two most-used content blockers as per Chrome Web Store.
- user17843 7y ago
  You are probably right, although a low number of rules will also affect them as their acceptable ads program is based on the fact that they block everything else. I still wonder if they can continue to offer that program with 30,000 rules only. My idea that they target ABP came from their arbitrary 30,000 rules limit. As I have written elsewhere I consider ABP and AdBlock as "infiltrated" by Google, so they definitely want to see the rigorous blockers disappear first. Should have made that clearer in the comment.
  - gorhill 7y ago
    The Safari version supports "Acceptable Ads". I counted ~17,000 rules[1] which includes exception rules. Also, keep in mind cosmetic exception filters are not implemented through the declarativeNetRequest API. (Edited for accuracy regarding rule count) * * * [1] https://gitlab.com/eyeo/adblockplus/adblockplussafarimacos/tree/master/Adblock%20Plus/Resources https://gitlab.com/eyeo/adblockplus/adblockplussafarimacos/t...
    - SquareWheel 7y ago
      It's been my assumption that with a little bit of scripting, EasyList could be pruned to land within the 30K without too much trouble. As you have more experience in this fields though, do you have any thoughts on how viable this approach would be, and if the 30K limit will be a problem in the end?

mtgx 7y ago

> it means they accept that chrome is largely used by power users who can install these You're making a very big assumption here. Last I checked people who blocked ads counted in the hundreds of millions and the number was growing rapidly. Some old stats I found with a quick search: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ > 615 million devices now use adblock 11% of the global internet population is blocking ads on the web Adblock usage grew 30% globally in 2016 Mobile adblock usage grew by 108 million to reach 380 million devices Desktop adblock usage grew by 34 million to reach 236 million devices

ben_jones 7y ago

I think its gotten to the point where power users go around to all their non-power-user friends and install ad blockers for them, at least I do in our office. The reason this is so successful is because it takes 5 seconds to go the the chrome store and add ublock origin. Convincing my non-power-user friends to move to firefox would be significantly harder. Google's goal is to remove the severity (and effectively the ease) of ad blocking for non-power-users.

r00fus 7y ago
This had been happening for a decade or more based on anecdotal evidence - so much so that I had to double-check then change my intranet app at a previous smaller company (2008). The new thing is Google valuing their profits over the wishes of a large population of their users.
- josh2600 7y ago
  This hits the nail on the head. This is how big companies lose their way and get eaten by smaller companies. We all think Google is invincible because of their technological monopoly, but the problem of having to grow forever due to the way public markets work necessitates product evolution or squeezing blood from the stone. The real monopoly is philosophy, not technology, and it's so, so, so easy to lose the logos/pathos/eros high ground (and thus the philosophical war). In Google's case, their innovation has never been able to eclipse their original sin: advertising. As long as your god is ads, you will make compromised product decisions that are not in alignment with your users. This is part of why I actually hope FB's currency takes off because maybe they can stop worshipping at the altar of click revenue. Who am I kidding, it's just another revenue line-item on the 10K.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    ...logos/pathos/eros... Did you perhaps mean ethos?
    - josh2600 7y ago

SquareWheel 7y ago

>It doesn't make a logical sense because if they are banning the ad-blockers... To be clear, you can still block ads under Manifest v3. I don't know where this idea that you suddenly won't be able to block ads came from, but somebody is being dishonest about it.

varenc 7y ago
Ad blocking capabilities are limited and there's no API to implement advanced rules like media size limiting. For example manifest v3 has no way to implement the full EasyList.
- SquareWheel 7y ago
  That's true on both counts, but less of a concern than you might be thinking. EasyList can be slimmed down significantly without losing any blocking. Media size limiting is a more interesting use case, but probably not why most installed adblockers in the first place.

taneq 7y ago

Chrome isn't "largely used by power users", it's used by 60+% of all web users[1] which means it's largely used by nontechnical users. Power users will block ads somehow, whether by changing fork or changing browser or running a PiHole. However, over 300 million users run adblockers[2][3] and it's probably a fair assumption that most of those users are relatively nontechnical and only run them because they're very easy to install. I think this push is just to add a tiny bit of friction into the process so that 'casual' adblockers stop bothering. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_tables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su... [2] https://whybytes.com/ublock-origin-vs-adblock-plus/477/ https://whybytes.com/ublock-origin-vs-adblock-plus/477/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin