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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.

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?

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?