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The biggest advertising company in history tries to kill blocking advertisements in their browser? How am I not surprised. I bet this move is also to kill the

The biggest advertising company in history tries to kill blocking advertisements in their browser? How am I not surprised. I bet this move is also to kill the workings of extensions like DecentralEyes and others that try to protect users from being tracked. The whole changing of the API into a "sure we'll block that URL for ya, sometimes maybe" model reeks of increasing user tracking. They'll work out the kinks to let AdBlockers function again. But they'll have their tracking back.

treden 7y ago
This of course. Why is anyone in the least surprised that Google doesn't want the ads that fund Chrome (and everything else they do) to be blocked by the users of Chrome. Shall Google fund our nice things (like Firefox, Chrome, gmail, google maps, etc etc) with hopes and dreams in place of cold hard cash? The audacity. Clearly an unpopular opinion here, but anyway: I'm happy to let a few ads slip through (which I will happily ignore anyhow) in exchange for the possibility of a future where I dont have to drive a car to get places.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  It's not either/or, just like you can have a factory making cheap widgets without letting that factory pollute the local river with industrial waste. Ads are funding the Internet only because it's the easiest legal business model to pull off, so everyone gravitated to it. But it's not like there wouldn't be money for self-driving cars without adtech, and in reality, them being tied with advertising companies only ensures that the future will be shitty.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    To add to this, ads are currently the best way to collect micropayments from users online without requiring you (the website maintainer) to have a database or profile on each customer, or to handle complicated return processes, or to deal with merchant accounts. You just make an adwords account, serve content to people, and that's it. I'm convinced that in a world where collecting anonymous micropayments was as easy as serving ads, the web would look at lot different. People look at this as a choice between paying $5 a month for every website they visit, or getting it "free" with ads. But in a world with good micropayments, most websites wouldn't cost $5. Outside of the biggest players, most sites aren't currently making $5 a month per user via ads.
- pritambaral 7y ago
  > I'm happy to let a few ads slip through ... But should that mean letting the fox guard the henhouse though? The problem here is that the largest ad provider also controls the largest ad display platform (i.e., Chrome), and is using the latter to benefit the former.
  - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
    Ironically, developers helped create the henhouse they’re now worried the fox might get, by only using Chrome.
vbezhenar 7y ago
They are not trying to kill advertisements. They want to replace API to provide better performance. That's about it. ad blocking extensions won't disappear. May be some will, and new extensions emerge.
- blep-arsh 7y ago
  Incidentally these new declarative rulesets are useless against some very simple tricks. I know people who are working full time on defeating ad blockers and the new Manifest v3 seems to have made their lives so much easier.
  - blibble 7y ago
    this change is intended to move control over the blocking process from the extension author to Google once they're in total control of how the blockers can operate: I doubt they'll be responsive to what the developers of the blocking extensions want...
- pritambaral 7y ago
  > They want to replace API to provide better performance. The replacement API is incompatible with what it is replacing. The supposed gain in performance is not without loss in ability to block ads. > ad blocking extensions won't disappear. May be some will, and new extensions emerge. Some kinds of ad-blocking is simply impossible in the new API, without replacement or workaround. No extension can implement those methods.
- tragicpapercut 7y ago
  They are killing the functionality that has supported robust adblocking for a long, long time. Any extensions that replace the current model will be less effective.
- megous 7y ago
  They didn't need to replace the current API, adding a new API would have sufficed. If it was truly better, the major addons would have transitioned it voluntarily. No need to force it.
jefftk 7y ago
Would anyone like to make a bet on whether ad blocking will still work in Chrome in two years? Something like "if you visit the top ten publishers in the US in Chrome Desktop with the best ad blocker will you see more ads than if you use Firefox Desktop with the best ad blocker"? (Disclosure: I work at Google, not on Chrome, and don't have any inside information on this)
- dessant 7y ago
  Vanilla ad blocking will continue to work because companies that participate in Acceptable Ads [1] will be happy to implement restricted ad blocking, such as Eyeo with Adblock Plus, while advanced and effective ad blocking that is not funded by advertising companies, like what uBlock Origin offers, will become impossible in Chrome. Meanwhile a bunch of unrelated extensions will be killed, the ones that rely on modifying requests and which have nothing to do with ad blocking. Innovation around extensions that involves modifying requests will be halted, and everyone will suffer as a result, except Google. Crooks will have continued and easy access to user data, since Manifest v3 is not focused on protecting user privacy. I can bet on that. [1] https://acceptableads.com/en/ https://acceptableads.com/en/
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    The "acceptable ad" program is pointless, as it doesn't consider tracking to be "unacceptable".
- danShumway 7y ago
  Sure, I've been trying to make more tangible predictions about the future lately. I don't bet money, but if I'm wrong, you can come find me online and publicly tell me I'm wrong. I will make a public prediction that after one year of Manifest V3 actually shipping to users in mainline Chrome: - Assuming that Manifest V3's declarative API is not significantly changed from its current implementation. - If you visit each of the top 10 publishers in the US (including open publishing platforms like Twitter/Facebook/Youtube) - If you compare Chrome and Firefox, each with the most-recommended ad-blocking/tracker-blocking extensions on their equivalent web stores installed (currently Ublock Origin, but we'll leave it open. "Most recommended" means that among technical users, this extension is the most commonly recommended. There's a little ambiguity here, but not sure how to narrow it.). - Firefox will block more web trackers (65% likelyhood). - Firefox will block more visible ads and popups (55% likelyhood). There are a couple of reasons why I feel comfortable making those two predictions: - Twitter and Facebook both try really hard to get around adblockers, and Firefox will be more likely to be able to combat their strategies in the future. - Extensions like Privacy Badger will already have a more difficult time working in Manifest V3, so there's potential for new adblocking strategies to develop in Firefox that can't be ported. - Safari made similar changes, and it's already less effective than Firefox at adblocking, so it seems reasonable to guess that Chrome will follow the same path. - Properly configured, Firefox is already better than Chrome at blocking web-trackers, and I think Firefox will roll those changes out by default to ordinary users before Chrome does. There are a few reasons why I'm hedging my bets: - The advertising market is volatile, and might change significantly in the next year (privacy laws, etc...) This is unlikely, but not so unlikely that I can completely discount it. - Chrome has research teams working on some interesting privacy strategies. I think it's mostly just talk and they won't do much of significance in a year, but I can't completely discount it. - A mass exodus to Firefox could force Chrome to adapt Manifest V3 to be more open. This is also unlikely, but again, I can't completely discount it. - And just general uncertainty, because the longer out you predict the more uncertainty you should introduce. 55% and 65% seem like very low numbers, but I think they're a relatively bold prediction. If Firefox and Chrome are blocking basically identical numbers of trackers/ads, that doesn't count as a successful prediction. I'm not going to be pedantic about, "Chrome randomly saw one more ad on exactly one website." Right now, I consider Chrome and Firefox to be equal in terms of adblocking capabilities. So even a 50% guess would be saying, "there's a one-in-two chance that something changes and Firefox will just be an objectively better browser for adblocking."

treden 7y ago

This of course. Why is anyone in the least surprised that Google doesn't want the ads that fund Chrome (and everything else they do) to be blocked by the users of Chrome. Shall Google fund our nice things (like Firefox, Chrome, gmail, google maps, etc etc) with hopes and dreams in place of cold hard cash? The audacity. Clearly an unpopular opinion here, but anyway: I'm happy to let a few ads slip through (which I will happily ignore anyhow) in exchange for the possibility of a future where I dont have to drive a car to get places.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
It's not either/or, just like you can have a factory making cheap widgets without letting that factory pollute the local river with industrial waste. Ads are funding the Internet only because it's the easiest legal business model to pull off, so everyone gravitated to it. But it's not like there wouldn't be money for self-driving cars without adtech, and in reality, them being tied with advertising companies only ensures that the future will be shitty.
- danShumway 7y ago
  To add to this, ads are currently the best way to collect micropayments from users online without requiring you (the website maintainer) to have a database or profile on each customer, or to handle complicated return processes, or to deal with merchant accounts. You just make an adwords account, serve content to people, and that's it. I'm convinced that in a world where collecting anonymous micropayments was as easy as serving ads, the web would look at lot different. People look at this as a choice between paying $5 a month for every website they visit, or getting it "free" with ads. But in a world with good micropayments, most websites wouldn't cost $5. Outside of the biggest players, most sites aren't currently making $5 a month per user via ads.
pritambaral 7y ago
> I'm happy to let a few ads slip through ... But should that mean letting the fox guard the henhouse though? The problem here is that the largest ad provider also controls the largest ad display platform (i.e., Chrome), and is using the latter to benefit the former.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago
  Ironically, developers helped create the henhouse they’re now worried the fox might get, by only using Chrome.

vbezhenar 7y ago

They are not trying to kill advertisements. They want to replace API to provide better performance. That's about it. ad blocking extensions won't disappear. May be some will, and new extensions emerge.

blep-arsh 7y ago
Incidentally these new declarative rulesets are useless against some very simple tricks. I know people who are working full time on defeating ad blockers and the new Manifest v3 seems to have made their lives so much easier.
- blibble 7y ago
  this change is intended to move control over the blocking process from the extension author to Google once they're in total control of how the blockers can operate: I doubt they'll be responsive to what the developers of the blocking extensions want...
pritambaral 7y ago
> They want to replace API to provide better performance. The replacement API is incompatible with what it is replacing. The supposed gain in performance is not without loss in ability to block ads. > ad blocking extensions won't disappear. May be some will, and new extensions emerge. Some kinds of ad-blocking is simply impossible in the new API, without replacement or workaround. No extension can implement those methods.
tragicpapercut 7y ago
They are killing the functionality that has supported robust adblocking for a long, long time. Any extensions that replace the current model will be less effective.
megous 7y ago
They didn't need to replace the current API, adding a new API would have sufficed. If it was truly better, the major addons would have transitioned it voluntarily. No need to force it.

jefftk 7y ago

Would anyone like to make a bet on whether ad blocking will still work in Chrome in two years? Something like "if you visit the top ten publishers in the US in Chrome Desktop with the best ad blocker will you see more ads than if you use Firefox Desktop with the best ad blocker"? (Disclosure: I work at Google, not on Chrome, and don't have any inside information on this)

dessant 7y ago
Vanilla ad blocking will continue to work because companies that participate in Acceptable Ads [1] will be happy to implement restricted ad blocking, such as Eyeo with Adblock Plus, while advanced and effective ad blocking that is not funded by advertising companies, like what uBlock Origin offers, will become impossible in Chrome. Meanwhile a bunch of unrelated extensions will be killed, the ones that rely on modifying requests and which have nothing to do with ad blocking. Innovation around extensions that involves modifying requests will be halted, and everyone will suffer as a result, except Google. Crooks will have continued and easy access to user data, since Manifest v3 is not focused on protecting user privacy. I can bet on that. [1] https://acceptableads.com/en/ https://acceptableads.com/en/
- JohnFen 7y ago
  The "acceptable ad" program is pointless, as it doesn't consider tracking to be "unacceptable".
danShumway 7y ago
Sure, I've been trying to make more tangible predictions about the future lately. I don't bet money, but if I'm wrong, you can come find me online and publicly tell me I'm wrong. I will make a public prediction that after one year of Manifest V3 actually shipping to users in mainline Chrome: - Assuming that Manifest V3's declarative API is not significantly changed from its current implementation. - If you visit each of the top 10 publishers in the US (including open publishing platforms like Twitter/Facebook/Youtube) - If you compare Chrome and Firefox, each with the most-recommended ad-blocking/tracker-blocking extensions on their equivalent web stores installed (currently Ublock Origin, but we'll leave it open. "Most recommended" means that among technical users, this extension is the most commonly recommended. There's a little ambiguity here, but not sure how to narrow it.). - Firefox will block more web trackers (65% likelyhood). - Firefox will block more visible ads and popups (55% likelyhood). There are a couple of reasons why I feel comfortable making those two predictions: - Twitter and Facebook both try really hard to get around adblockers, and Firefox will be more likely to be able to combat their strategies in the future. - Extensions like Privacy Badger will already have a more difficult time working in Manifest V3, so there's potential for new adblocking strategies to develop in Firefox that can't be ported. - Safari made similar changes, and it's already less effective than Firefox at adblocking, so it seems reasonable to guess that Chrome will follow the same path. - Properly configured, Firefox is already better than Chrome at blocking web-trackers, and I think Firefox will roll those changes out by default to ordinary users before Chrome does. There are a few reasons why I'm hedging my bets: - The advertising market is volatile, and might change significantly in the next year (privacy laws, etc...) This is unlikely, but not so unlikely that I can completely discount it. - Chrome has research teams working on some interesting privacy strategies. I think it's mostly just talk and they won't do much of significance in a year, but I can't completely discount it. - A mass exodus to Firefox could force Chrome to adapt Manifest V3 to be more open. This is also unlikely, but again, I can't completely discount it. - And just general uncertainty, because the longer out you predict the more uncertainty you should introduce. 55% and 65% seem like very low numbers, but I think they're a relatively bold prediction. If Firefox and Chrome are blocking basically identical numbers of trackers/ads, that doesn't count as a successful prediction. I'm not going to be pedantic about, "Chrome randomly saw one more ad on exactly one website." Right now, I consider Chrome and Firefox to be equal in terms of adblocking capabilities. So even a 50% guess would be saying, "there's a one-in-two chance that something changes and Firefox will just be an objectively better browser for adblocking."