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That would be a good argument if using only the approved channels protected users, but a lot of extensions have malware that sell user data, including ones in s

That would be a good argument if using only the approved channels protected users, but a lot of extensions have malware that sell user data, including ones in stores. https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/the-browser-extensions-you-use-every-day-are-selling-your-personal-information-at-an-astonishing-rate.html https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/the-browser-extensions-you-us...

scarface74 7y ago
I’m the last person who is going to defend the security architecture of browser plugins. But, when Google tried to implement an ad blocking architecture that wouldn’t allow third parties access to your browsing history similar to that of Safari, geeks were up in arms.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  The ad blocking changes also prevented blocking the request to the ad servers, which is what people were upset about (or at least, why I was upset). I don't remember seeing anyone be upset about anything related to browsing history.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    No one was upset about a plug in not getting access to your browsing history. People were upset about the declarative ad blocking that took away some of the features that they ad blockers previously had and said Google was doing it to protect their business. I’m not going to defend Google’s overall business practices, but from what I understand, it’s the same type of architecture that Apple has had for four years and no one said Apple’s intentions were nefarious.
    - gildas 7y ago
      Some also claim that Google kills innovation. Synchronous interception of requests allows developers to program sophisticated rules to fight malicious resources. In the future, they will only have a regular expressions list to block domains. It will be much easier for malicious actors to bypass this feature.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        It also allows developers to intercept your entire browsing history. If you care about your privacy, why would you let a random third party intercept all of your browsing history?
        gildas 7y ago
        I consider everything to be a matter of risk in terms for example of privacy. By installing an extension like uBlock, I am indeed taking the risk you mentioned. However, I consider that the risk will be much higher when installing an extension that is based only on a list of regular expressions for the reason I mentioned. If uBlock did a bad thing, I'll know very quickly and all I'll have to do is install an alternative extension. I am also a developer. I would like to continue to have the right to code such extensions for myself.
        scarface74 7y ago
        So how many consumers would know if uBlock did something bad? Should we optimize security for the minority or the majority?
        gildas 7y ago
        Google would remove uBlock from my PC before I even know it and I would notice it very quickly (unfortunately). A personal computer has always been very complicated and using it has always been a risk in itself. I remember a time when a virus could damage the computer's hardware, and someone who knew how to program in BASIC (edit: or LOGO) was not considered as a "minority". My point of view is that we need to make users aware of the risks and make them more responsible because things will not get any easier. No need to optimize, I switched to Firefox, the browser for the minorities ;). I really liked Chrome though.
        scarface74 7y ago
        My point of view is that we need to make users aware of the risks and make them more responsible because things will not get any easier. How has that been working for the last 30 years? Why would it start now? Computers have been mainstream consumer appliances since the “multimedia PCs” were a thing in the mid 90s. Most people no more want to program computers than they want to fix their own cars.
    - bradknowles 7y ago
      With respect, Google is not Apple, and Apple is not Google. I think a lot of people would say that Google is a pretty evil company in many respects, whereas Apple isn't exactly 100% saintly, but at least their profit and business goals align more closely with what is generally considered to be good for customers.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        I’m definitely an Apple customer - our cell phone plan has 6 devices and we have two AppleTVs. But playing devil’s advocate, Apple’s business model only allows a small percentage of upper income people globally to be able to afford their products. Android and Google have done a lot more to bring computing to the masses than Apple. The cheapest iPhone that you can buy is $475 over $200 more than the average selling price of an Android phone.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        iPhone 7 is $449 on Apple's website.
        scarface74 7y ago
        $26 less. That really makes it a lot more affordable compared to a $200 Moto G.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Not sure if you're talking about the recent Chrome drama, but if so, "geeks were up in arms" because the new architecture essentially neutered ad blockers through the limits imposed on the block lists.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s worked well for Safari for four years.
    - chipperyman573 7y ago
      It's worked well on safari because most of its users are people who don't care about those limits. Traditionally safari has been a relatively closed ecosystem (I haven't used it in a long time but I remember an entire lack of support for extensions at one point), so the people who would care about these changes never used it to begin with. So now, when safari comes in with these changes that only add value compared to their previous offering (which again was substantially behind the competitors), users respond positively because the only users that remain don't know the difference between blocking the rendering of an ad and blocking the request to the ad server. So, when they hear "Ads are blocked", they don't understand the nuances that reveal to you that ads are not really blocked at all from a privacy perspective. The reason Chrome didn't have a similar response is because the people who cared about these changes were already using chrome. So, when chrome announced an update that removes these privacy-protecting features, the users were knowledgeable enough to realize what the changes actually meant from a privacy perspective, and so responded poorly. And even if the users were the same, safari added a feature (you can now kind of block ads in safari, compared to the zero adblocking you could do before), whereas chrome is removing a feature (you can no longer block requests to ad servers, something you could do for years). So of course the reaction to safari will be at worst lukewarm, because compared to the previous editions of safari it was an improvement.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Safari had plugins from day one. As far as I know. Here is an early plug in from 2010 ( https://www.cultofmac.com/47232/macheist-tweaks-gruber-with-safari-extension-adding-comments-to-daring-fireball/ https://www.cultofmac.com/47232/macheist-tweaks-gruber-with-...) But speaking of “closed”, where is the ad blocking extension for Chrome on Android and embedded web views?
- gpm 7y ago
  Google never did any such thing. The proposed change that would have made ad blocking impossible still allowed non blocking request interception, it would have absolutely 0 impact on people trying to sell your browsing data via an extension, and a huge net increase in people selling your browsing data by people selling your browsing data by website embedded trackers.

scarface74 7y ago

I’m the last person who is going to defend the security architecture of browser plugins. But, when Google tried to implement an ad blocking architecture that wouldn’t allow third parties access to your browsing history similar to that of Safari, geeks were up in arms.

chipperyman573 7y ago
The ad blocking changes also prevented blocking the request to the ad servers, which is what people were upset about (or at least, why I was upset). I don't remember seeing anyone be upset about anything related to browsing history.
- scarface74 7y ago
  No one was upset about a plug in not getting access to your browsing history. People were upset about the declarative ad blocking that took away some of the features that they ad blockers previously had and said Google was doing it to protect their business. I’m not going to defend Google’s overall business practices, but from what I understand, it’s the same type of architecture that Apple has had for four years and no one said Apple’s intentions were nefarious.
  - gildas 7y ago
    Some also claim that Google kills innovation. Synchronous interception of requests allows developers to program sophisticated rules to fight malicious resources. In the future, they will only have a regular expressions list to block domains. It will be much easier for malicious actors to bypass this feature.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      It also allows developers to intercept your entire browsing history. If you care about your privacy, why would you let a random third party intercept all of your browsing history?
      - gildas 7y ago
        I consider everything to be a matter of risk in terms for example of privacy. By installing an extension like uBlock, I am indeed taking the risk you mentioned. However, I consider that the risk will be much higher when installing an extension that is based only on a list of regular expressions for the reason I mentioned. If uBlock did a bad thing, I'll know very quickly and all I'll have to do is install an alternative extension. I am also a developer. I would like to continue to have the right to code such extensions for myself.
        scarface74 7y ago
        So how many consumers would know if uBlock did something bad? Should we optimize security for the minority or the majority?
        gildas 7y ago
        Google would remove uBlock from my PC before I even know it and I would notice it very quickly (unfortunately). A personal computer has always been very complicated and using it has always been a risk in itself. I remember a time when a virus could damage the computer's hardware, and someone who knew how to program in BASIC (edit: or LOGO) was not considered as a "minority". My point of view is that we need to make users aware of the risks and make them more responsible because things will not get any easier. No need to optimize, I switched to Firefox, the browser for the minorities ;). I really liked Chrome though.
        scarface74 7y ago
        My point of view is that we need to make users aware of the risks and make them more responsible because things will not get any easier. How has that been working for the last 30 years? Why would it start now? Computers have been mainstream consumer appliances since the “multimedia PCs” were a thing in the mid 90s. Most people no more want to program computers than they want to fix their own cars.
  - bradknowles 7y ago
    With respect, Google is not Apple, and Apple is not Google. I think a lot of people would say that Google is a pretty evil company in many respects, whereas Apple isn't exactly 100% saintly, but at least their profit and business goals align more closely with what is generally considered to be good for customers.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I’m definitely an Apple customer - our cell phone plan has 6 devices and we have two AppleTVs. But playing devil’s advocate, Apple’s business model only allows a small percentage of upper income people globally to be able to afford their products. Android and Google have done a lot more to bring computing to the masses than Apple. The cheapest iPhone that you can buy is $475 over $200 more than the average selling price of an Android phone.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        iPhone 7 is $449 on Apple's website.
        scarface74 7y ago
        $26 less. That really makes it a lot more affordable compared to a $200 Moto G.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Not sure if you're talking about the recent Chrome drama, but if so, "geeks were up in arms" because the new architecture essentially neutered ad blockers through the limits imposed on the block lists.
- scarface74 7y ago
  That’s worked well for Safari for four years.
  - chipperyman573 7y ago
    It's worked well on safari because most of its users are people who don't care about those limits. Traditionally safari has been a relatively closed ecosystem (I haven't used it in a long time but I remember an entire lack of support for extensions at one point), so the people who would care about these changes never used it to begin with. So now, when safari comes in with these changes that only add value compared to their previous offering (which again was substantially behind the competitors), users respond positively because the only users that remain don't know the difference between blocking the rendering of an ad and blocking the request to the ad server. So, when they hear "Ads are blocked", they don't understand the nuances that reveal to you that ads are not really blocked at all from a privacy perspective. The reason Chrome didn't have a similar response is because the people who cared about these changes were already using chrome. So, when chrome announced an update that removes these privacy-protecting features, the users were knowledgeable enough to realize what the changes actually meant from a privacy perspective, and so responded poorly. And even if the users were the same, safari added a feature (you can now kind of block ads in safari, compared to the zero adblocking you could do before), whereas chrome is removing a feature (you can no longer block requests to ad servers, something you could do for years). So of course the reaction to safari will be at worst lukewarm, because compared to the previous editions of safari it was an improvement.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Safari had plugins from day one. As far as I know. Here is an early plug in from 2010 ( https://www.cultofmac.com/47232/macheist-tweaks-gruber-with-safari-extension-adding-comments-to-daring-fireball/ https://www.cultofmac.com/47232/macheist-tweaks-gruber-with-...) But speaking of “closed”, where is the ad blocking extension for Chrome on Android and embedded web views?
gpm 7y ago
Google never did any such thing. The proposed change that would have made ad blocking impossible still allowed non blocking request interception, it would have absolutely 0 impact on people trying to sell your browsing data via an extension, and a huge net increase in people selling your browsing data by people selling your browsing data by website embedded trackers.