47 ms·

Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

423 points by Nephx 4y ago

Users are reporting banner ads such as "New! Track your health and fitness with the..." below the search box on both google.com and chrome://newtab. Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now?

cantSpellSober 4y ago
uBlock filter for ads on
cantSpellSober 4y ago
uBlock filter for some ads on google.com: ##[class*=slot-promo]
nipperkinfeet 4y ago
I've seen widgets on the bottom of Google search home page. I used uBlock to hide them.
graderjs 4y ago
Come on, man. Go easy on them. They're in a downturn. They're suffering. They're going to suffer more. Facebook is just ahead of the curve. What's happening there will probably happen to many more jumbo tech corps over the next 12 mnths...
rkagerer 4y ago
In the early 2000's I used to love Google. Now I daily find myself saying "Fuck You, Google".
not_enoch_wise 4y ago
Inflation means the blood boy’s rates go up, too. Are you going to tell the plutocrat they have to live a normal life span??? Now shut up and watch the ads.
pcsalad 4y ago
Have you seen this banner by yourself? Tried from a few different locations with no luck
- Nephx 4y ago
  Yep, Fitbit smartwatch ad for us in Sweden, no Chrome plugins (even shows up in incognito). Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations.
  - N19PEDL2 4y ago
    > Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations. Probably they are testing on a selected range of users.
  - brettdong 4y ago
    Also see the Fitbit ad from Singapore.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    www.fitbit.com - add it to your hostsfile.
yonghoord 4y ago
boltzmann-brain 4y ago
- rany_ 4y ago
  But add-ons cannot run on pages in chrome:// namespace
- Nephx 4y ago
  No addons, same behaviour in incognito.
- zinekeller 4y ago
  Nope, it's really there: https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png
rany_ 4y ago
I've had something similar happen to me before. Google showed me an advert for Pixel 6a on the bottom of the search bar in both the new tab and Google.com main page
exikyut 4y ago
I think I've been seeing ads for things like the Nest and Pixel phones in AU for a few months now.
TheAlchemist 4y ago
Seen it too ! It's strange how our brains work - I actually never look there, but somehow I did notice it.
zinekeller 4y ago
Can confirm (https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png). It actually reminds me of old Google announcing "New! You can now search for images" or such except repurposed for things outside of Search. The first one is reasonable (there are people that do want to search for images or research papers), but the current incarnation reminds me of a corporation solely running on inertia.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
It was inevitable, you gotta get the infite growth from somewhere. Ane the next move will +1 this and so on, until google becomes less attractive than leaner competition. Because of inertia, legacy and people benefitting from the status quo, they won't be able to correct course. This is textbook "how empire falls" and why things that seem indestructible eventually dies like anything else. This will be the mile stone people will remember as the first sign of google decline.
- glcheetham 4y ago
  If this harms their business then why would they keep doing it
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Because it helps in the short term, and Wall Street doesn’t mind destroying companies over the long.
    - Bootvis 4y ago
      Why blame this on Wall Street? This idea is the idea of someone at Google, it was implemented by someone at Google, the decision to go ahead was approved by someone at Google.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        The someones at Google are compensated significantly by shares of the company, traded on Wall Street, and some of them are compensated with even more shares if those shares do well. Pretending the two are at arms length is a bit silly.
        Bootvis 4y ago
        Seems to me that the individuals involved would care more about getting extra shares than the expected increase in share price from this change. The bonus might be significant, the increase in share price might be a percent or 2. Google dishes out this bonus, not Wall Street.
glcheetham 4y ago
They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media photos and video content will be prioritised on search results, it is going to be released in America first this month I believe They are also seeing the results will be far more varied and scrolling down will likely give you a result that you are looking for, and the traditional way of looking with the top result, being the one that you wanted may not be the case anymore I think they are maybe trying to replicate the TikTok experience when looking for a result, you will end up scrolling different content relative to your search keyword All of this will benefit content creators. If you have an ability to create video content, this will give you a competitive edge.
- mysterydip 4y ago
  > All of this will benefit content creators. Could they do something to benefit the users instead?
  - fxtentacle 4y ago
    Rest assured, it'll hurt both equally. Or do you think Google would treat content creators as equals?
    - LoganDark 4y ago
      Here's a reminder to everyone in the thread that Google owns YouTube. Content creators are, literally, the product. YouTube would not exist without them. They are not equals.
- avian 4y ago
  I hope this means that all the SEO bullshit will move to videos and the textual web will become usable again.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  > They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media photos and video content I’ve been unfortunate enough to see this, it’s absolute hot garbage and made it way harder to find what I wanted. Is this a knee jerk response to TikTok kids using TikTok as their generations google? I don’t think many understand how much Google land is up for grabs right now. Google Images is right there for the taking if you just supply the same experience as 10 years ago Google Images.
senko 4y ago
Notably, this is not Google showing random search/display ads. Those look like ads for Google's own product. I don't think this is the first time. IIRC, Google used to show an ad for Chrome if you used the search from any other browser.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I'm surprised they advertise their own product in those places... It's such an obvious thing for the EU to go after. "Google has a monopoly position in Browsers/Search, and (ab)used their homepage to advertise their entry into a new field of business, immediately giving it free advertising the competitors could never access." If I were Googles legal team, I would immediately put an end to such cross-product advertising (at least from Search/Chrome/Android).
  - Euphorbium 4y ago
    Google does not have a monopoly in browsers or search.
    - eckza 4y ago
      We've always been at war with Eastaisa.
    - throwaway09223 4y ago
      The poster above you said "monopoly position," which is defined in the EU as more than 25% of the market. Google unquestionably has a monopoly position in both areas. The US similarly defines monopoly as having significant control over a market, not as a literal 100% stake.
    - infinityio 4y ago
      To my knowledge, Google has 90% of search engine traffic in some regions, and Chrome makes up the majority of Web browsers, even disregarding Chromium
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
ForHackernews 4y ago
_xivi 4y ago
It looks like they're testing it on a small portion, but not sure what's the pattern
netsharc 4y ago
Google on Android has already been stupid for a long time. You can swipe right from the home screen of a Pixel phone to get to Google search, which is a Yahoo!-style portal with news, etc under the search bar. And then you click on the search input field, and you get suggestions based on trending searches (a week or 2 ago one of them was something about King Charles). Luckily both idiocies can still be disabled, and I use DDG for my searches anyway.
bertman 4y ago
This is not "unprecedented" at all, see e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/lf9egy/comment/iivz2db/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/lf9egy/comment/iivz...
- spoiler 4y ago
  I am not sure why you're being downvoted. Both the newtab (at the bottom of the page) and the search page have had subtle "ads" for google's new product launches. I remember seeing it for Stadia, and I remember seeing it for "Google One"
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    They also use it for non-google products. For example the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II had a hyperlink to "See todays events" on both places.
  - inerte 4y ago
    I believe* the first ad ever under the search bar at google.com was to download Firefox. They've been doing it for that long... * I think I read that in some book about Marissa Mayer and her decisions around the homepage.
- kuschku 4y ago
  Wasn't the Nexus 7 (2012) the first such ad? Aside from chrome itself bring advertised this way, that is.
  - jonas21 4y ago
    A decade before that they had an ad for the Google Search Appliance, which was the first physical product Google sold: https://web.archive.org/web/20020703150514/http://www.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20020703150514/http://www.google...
  - hgsgm 4y ago
omgmajk 4y ago
That thing on the google.com page is really annoying. Google is probably trying this out but I am really hoping that this is some behind the scenes look at the fact that google might be a dying company and are grasping for straws. Not that I think that is really real, but because it would be glorious.
cr3ative 4y ago
Annoyingly, the new tab page used to have an exclusion for these "announcements". The flag was removed. I've ended up installing one of those "inspirational new tab page" extensions, just so I don't see an ad. I am sure that means someone else is siphoning my data.
- ecuaflo 4y ago
  I like the earth view one [0] and you get to keep your data with goog [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-google-ea/bhloflhklmhfpedakmangadcdofhnnoh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-go...
- sensanaty 4y ago
  I use one that just lets me use some custom HTML, I just have some plaintext bookmark type links
- LoganDark 4y ago
  Both in Chrome and Firefox, I always set my new tab page to `about:blank`, or in other words, absolutely nothing. Why? Because the address bar is all I need to get where I'm going. I type faster than I click.
  - okasaki 4y ago
    There's no setting to set the new tab page in Chrome - not even in the policies json.
    - tyingq 4y ago
      There is a setting for what the home icon does, and it defaults to new tab...but is settable. Maybe that's what was meant? Edit: See https://imgur.com/a/wQhvFF9 https://imgur.com/a/wQhvFF9
      - Olphs 4y ago
        There is no home icon in Chrome, at least I don't see it. Or is that also some setting?
bla3 4y ago
It's not unprecedented, they did that when Google+ launched too.
sjaak 4y ago
Stop using Chrome
- monlockandkey 4y ago
  The entire internet discourse is filled with "Chrome evil, use Firefox". Go to any browser discussion on the internet and 99% of the thread is "just use Firefox or Firefox is the best". You would think that everyone uses Firefox. The internet is a bubble. Reality is Firefox usage is pathetic. 32 MILLION people have *STOPPED* using Firefox in the past 4 years. The browser only has a 3.16% market share. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share Chrome is a good browser. Can be considered objectively better than Firefox given its superior performance, equivalent if not slightly better resource usage, web compatibility and integration with the Google ecosystem (which the vast majority of internet population use (excluding niche tech circles)). I have no vendetta against Firefox. At the end of the day, it is just a browser and that is a personal preference. But people act like it is some sort of saviour that will bring them to the light. There is such an aggressive tribal mentality with browsers. It makes no sense as all browsers look the same, feel the same and have the same functionality. Just a matter of preference given your needs, and for 70% of the population, Chromium delivers.
  - sjaak 4y ago
    I know that everything you say here is true. The niche tech circle you speak of /is/ the audience here on HN. If we can’t be bothered to stop using Chrome then all is lost.
    - monlockandkey 4y ago
      All is indeed lost! Browsers are incredibly expensive technologies to produce. If Microsoft of all companies could not find success with Edge classic, a browser that they wrote from scratch. Added with the ability to advertise and bundle with the worlds most popular OS, then Firefox has no chance to be the bastion against Chromium. One part of me is curious what a realistic web landscape would look like if it was all Chromium (including Firefox). I guess at first it would be great to see cool new browser APIs, but then something will be added would cause an uproar.
mort96 4y ago
I woke up to ads in my new tab page in Firefox yesterday; sponsored links to Amazon and Nike. Browsers don't seem to serve users anymore. They, like everything else, are mostly ad delivery mechanisms.
- sophrocyne 4y ago
  Annoying, yes. But you can turn them off in the settings page.
  - mort96 4y ago
    You can, but it's not about that. Ads don't belong in browser UI, full stop.
    - laundermaf 4y ago
      Browsers used to be paid software.
      - hk__2 4y ago
        > Browsers used to be paid software. AFAIK the big ones have always been free, except for Netscape between 1995 and 1998.
        laundermaf 4y ago
        IE 1.0 was included in a "Windows 95 Plus!" which was sold for $50 in 1994; However it was short-lived and it was included in later releases of Windows [1] Netscape was sold for $50 [2] Opera was sold (can't find the price) [3] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Plus!#Microsoft_Plus!_for_Windows_95 [2]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netscape-navigator-2-0-hits-the-streets/ [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20081013235150/http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/2006/02/15/rendering-engines-and-code-names
        4y ago
dsign 4y ago
I see the ad, and I'm not amused. I would be more at ease if the line said "You know what? We need money after all this browser-making. Give us yours and we will let you go on with your day."
hownottowrite 4y ago
Don’t equate precedent with morals.
atesti 4y ago
It's notoriously difficult to have a new tab page without ads/Google connections, but still keep the 8 thumbnails. One can change the search engine and then an alternate new tab page appears which is the right one: Only thumbnails. Unfortunately there is code in chrome to detect the search engine one confiured and activate the matching new tab page. I think they have one for ddg? Even creating a custom search engine in chrome settings, pointing at google does not work, they detect the google url. I have yet to create my own "search engine" url which would redirect to google, to put this search engine in the chrome settings! It's very annoying, because despite it being Chrome from google, chrome is quite reasonable with data protection and settings in many areas and can be tamed with group policies. In our company GPO we have to turn off the new tab page, but my goal is to have one without ads.
- RektBoy 4y ago
  Or don't use Chrome? Lol
  - ama5322 4y ago
    Firefox had/has "snippets" for a while. You can turn them off, but the point still stands.
- vehemenz 4y ago
  There has been a blank new tab extension in Chrome for ages.
  - atesti 4y ago
    But I like the 8 thumbnails, I only want to get rid of the "new tab promo". Chrome contains a complete new tab page which is adfree, but it's only enabled for obscure search engines
traveler01 4y ago
It's their own product ads though... It's not very problematic, you're using their product and they're announcing they have more products for you.
hulitu 4y ago
Stupidity is contagious. If MS does it, why should't Google ?
- twawaaay 4y ago
  I wouldn't say it is stupidity. MS seems to have stopped innovating and exploit as much of their business before it dies. Possibly Google realised the same?
  - b112 4y ago
    If IBM is any indication, it takes decades for big corp to die.
Jemm 4y ago
Proves the saying, "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product"
- freediver 4y ago
  Not much choice with browsers! As far as I know, Orion browser is the only browser on the market today that you can pay for with your wallet instead of your data.
- andrewinardeer 4y ago
  Not true for self hosted open source software.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Not necessarily. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/1701068 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/17...
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  You're still the product for a whole bunch of paid services. The line has blurred significantly since that saying became commonplace.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Logic 101: "If A, Then B" does NOT imply "If not-A, Then not-B".
    - account42 4y ago
      Human speech is not formal logic. The only point of saying ((bad thing)) is a consequence of an action (using free services) is to imply that not doing that (using non-free services since you can assume that not using anything is not a realistic opton) would have avoided ((bad thing)).
- charcircuit 4y ago
urthor 4y ago
Vivaldi time!
kgbcia 4y ago
pulling for Firefox
JakkDTrent 4y ago
I can't believe how many people here still use Google search and Chrome browser.
- monlockandkey 4y ago
  I can't believe people don't use Google search and Chromium. Google search does the job well. Chromium browsers are faster than Firefox, equivalent if not better resource usage, excellent web compatibility and ecosystem integration. People want to get stuff done. Yes Firefox and DDG will not handicap you, but for the general population, search and Chromium do an excellent job over competition.
- hetspookjee 4y ago
  Unfortunately quite some things only work entirely on Chrome. My default is still Firefox but it’s no getting around it at times.
  - lukas099 4y ago
    I use brave browser for those sites. Alas, it is still chrome underneath...
- insightcheck 4y ago
  Why is this so surprising? Google search gives me better results than DuckDuckGo for my purposes (especially when using the "site:" search syntax). Some web apps and websites are buggy on non-Chrome browsers or a lot faster on Chrome (e.g. Google Workspace apps like Google Sheets are often a lot faster). If I want to submit high quality work on time, it makes sense to use the best (most performant) tool for the job. Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and other alternative tools are helpful for personal use, but I have less to worry about when using Google and Chrome for work.
- scarface74 4y ago
  I also don’t understand “why people still watch TV. I haven’t watch TV in 20 years” (tm Slashdot 2002)
- 4y ago
quyleanh 4y ago
Lol, the advantage of domination? Tbh, I really want Apple do something innovation for browser. However, looking back to Webkit on both iOS and macOS, I can see no hope...
tinyhouse 4y ago
Did you see what they did to YouTube? It's now like watching the Superbowl. Ads ads ads. I guess they are trying to convert as many people as they can to premium. But I think it's also because they don't know how to grow their revenue besides displaying more and more ads.
- LoganDark 4y ago
  The more ads they put in, the more people get an ad blocker, so they have to add more ads to compensate.
perihelions 4y ago
Not entirely unprecedented: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175 ("Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment" (2019)) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608022 ("Why am I seeing this adorable red panda?") (2022)
chatterhead 4y ago
anvic 4y ago
I've already seen ads like those, some even pushing their political stuff. https://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Chrome-dismiss-new-tab-promo-close-button-no-flag-needed.jpg https://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Chrome-dismi...
chatterhead 4y ago
The internet doesn't work without advertising. Almost as if the money to build all this infrastructure has to come from somewhere. If only we could create a digital token that would be in such demand it would generate its own network and infrastructure effect. Oh wait... they ruined that, too.
- falcor84 4y ago
  >Oh wait... they ruined that, too. I lost you there, who is "they" referring to?
  - chatterhead 4y ago
    Wall Street and it's need for gross revenue to justify unearned bonuses. Advertising is a direct feed into projected values which dictates which stocks can be manipulated with the most justification. And, often the largest fallout later.
- beej71 4y ago
  In the good old days, the money came from your job. And you used that money to create free content out of the kindness of your heart.
  - noodles_nomore 4y ago
    This stopped working when people realized that they can replace giving kindness with taking money and quit their jobs.
  - chatterhead 4y ago
    In the good ol'days when profit drove value not perceived market dominance based on shoddy short-term user data created by a generation of graphic designers.
- noodles_nomore 4y ago
  > Almost as if the money to build all this infrastructure has to come from somewhere. Yes, things need funding to survive. That's the core of the problem. I bookmarked an interesting older HN comment to that effect. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231960
exabrial 4y ago
Who still using chrome? Use safari, brave, or Firefox.
- worldmerge 4y ago
  It would be cool if Firefox supported modern browser APIs like Chrome does, but they’ve decided not to (web serial).
- misnome 4y ago
  Firefox has had ads on its "new tab" page by default for ages now.
  - thejackgoode 4y ago
    you can remove them though
  - Daffodils 4y ago
    By ads you mean the popular articles from Pocket? That is an ad for Pocket ?
    - thesuitonym 4y ago
      Not sure if this is what the GP was referring to, but I constantly find Google and Amazon (two sites I almost never use) pinned to my frequently accessed sites in Firefox. I unpin them, then check all settings for any kind of advertising opt, and yet, some month later, they're back.
      - bentcorner 4y ago
        Are you installing Firefox and signing into them on new machines? I don't have hard evidence but I feel like when I install FF on a new box and sign in, the pinned sites sometimes show up on other machines when everything is synced.
    - dmonitor 4y ago
thih9 4y ago
> Users are reporting banner ads such as "New! Track your health and fitness with the..." below the search box on both google.com and chrome://newtab. Do we know more? E.g. do we know if this is an A/B test or a rollout in progress? Where are the users reporting this? Are there any screenshots?
thih9 4y ago
I suspect ungoogled-chromium[1] is not affected by google's changes to chrome://newtab . If anyone wants to stop using Chrome but isn't drawn to any of the alternatives, perhaps you'll like ungoogled-chromium. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium
- Caboose8685 4y ago
  It's worth noting that UGC has some significant security regressions https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/
  - account42 4y ago
    > Security Updates > The component updater, responsible for delivering out-of-band security updates to the various components of the browser, is disabled within ungoogled-chromium. It’s responsible for updating Chrome’s CRLSets, which are necessary for meaningful certificate revocation. Most of the components are delivered via the component updater because they have a need for out-of-band security updates, and it’s not helpful nor necessary to disable them. > Furthermore, the extensions that users rely on aren’t updated automatically, posing an additional risk to users of the browser. Not connecting to google services unles you explicitly request it is almost the entire point of ungoogled-chromium, so this is really misplaced criticism. Especially for the CRLs, giving Google the power to take third party websites offline is not something everyone agrees with. The missing hardening is also not something to be summed up as "significant security regressions". Ironically it might even improve your security if it means that attacks depending on Chromes upstream toolchain configuration won't work - no one is realistically going to specifically target a niche project like ungoogled-chromium.
  - 2kwatts 4y ago
    When I need to use a Chrome-like browser, I just use Chromium or Brave.
    - fulafel 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
the100rabh 4y ago
shultays 4y ago
Unprecedented how? I am sure most browsers do such crap on their home page. Even firefox had its "experiments" and pocket
aliqot 4y ago
Stop hitting yourself. Get Lynx.
zagrebian 4y ago
> Google has added ads on both its search page Google Search has had ads since the beginning. What do you mean?
huijzer 4y ago
> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now? Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year timescale. What surprises me the most actually is how quickly Google can adapt to the situation. Basically, they have been giving out candy for free when there was lots of money coming and now that they expect less, they quickly put on extra income streams and cut out money losers. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33022768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33022768 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927848
- bushbaba 4y ago
  I’m not sure I’d call that quick. Quick would be a single deep cut and return to normal operations.
- arnaudsm 4y ago
  I don't buy the SP500 graph argument, economies tend to behave on a log scale.
- skrowl 4y ago
  It's not really a matter of opinion or what people think. We're already in a recession here in the United States, as we've had two negative GDP growth quarters in a row. Anyone who says otherwise is likely just doing so for political reasons, as it's also an election year here in the United States, but to do so they'd have to literally change the definition of recession (they're trying but it's not working).
  - v0idzer0 4y ago
    I’d argue that anyone using such confident language to declare a clear definition of one of the most subjective and abstract concepts known to man clearly has some ulterior motive. Political or otherwise.
vannevar 4y ago
Google has drifted gradually from helping you find things, supported by ads, to actively steering you away from what you're trying to find in order to sell you to advertisers.
tech-historian 4y ago
Google has had house ads for its own products on the search homepage since at least 2010. I'd like to see a screenshot of the "banner ad" claimed by OP. Text ads on Google's homepage are nothing new. I don't see a banner ad on the homepage at the moment, I see a text ad for "Learn about the latest innovations coming to Google Search" Anyone have a screenshot of said banner ad?
princevegeta89 4y ago
Don't know why it's so surprising. Google has had ads for Pixel phones right below the search box. I remember Stadia ads that showed up there too. The newtab on Chrome is not even considered a web page so you can see those ads that show up there as a part of Chrome which is not so surprising either
bborud 4y ago
Another incentive to switch to Firefox.
shadowgovt 4y ago
What's the full text of the ad? Google hasn't been above self-promotion via those channels for approximately a half-decade. On my newtab and on google.com, I'm seeing an ad for Google's new search features.

423 points by Nephx 4y ago

cantSpellSober 4y ago

uBlock filter for ads on

cantSpellSober 4y ago

uBlock filter for some ads on google.com: ##[class*=slot-promo]

nipperkinfeet 4y ago

I've seen widgets on the bottom of Google search home page. I used uBlock to hide them.

graderjs 4y ago

Come on, man. Go easy on them. They're in a downturn. They're suffering. They're going to suffer more. Facebook is just ahead of the curve. What's happening there will probably happen to many more jumbo tech corps over the next 12 mnths...

rkagerer 4y ago

In the early 2000's I used to love Google. Now I daily find myself saying "Fuck You, Google".

not_enoch_wise 4y ago

Inflation means the blood boy’s rates go up, too. Are you going to tell the plutocrat they have to live a normal life span??? Now shut up and watch the ads.

pcsalad 4y ago

Have you seen this banner by yourself? Tried from a few different locations with no luck

Nephx 4y ago
Yep, Fitbit smartwatch ad for us in Sweden, no Chrome plugins (even shows up in incognito). Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations.
- N19PEDL2 4y ago
  > Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations. Probably they are testing on a selected range of users.
- brettdong 4y ago
  Also see the Fitbit ad from Singapore.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  www.fitbit.com - add it to your hostsfile.

yonghoord 4y ago

boltzmann-brain 4y ago

rany_ 4y ago
But add-ons cannot run on pages in chrome:// namespace
Nephx 4y ago
No addons, same behaviour in incognito.
zinekeller 4y ago
Nope, it's really there: https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png

rany_ 4y ago

I've had something similar happen to me before. Google showed me an advert for Pixel 6a on the bottom of the search bar in both the new tab and Google.com main page

exikyut 4y ago

I think I've been seeing ads for things like the Nest and Pixel phones in AU for a few months now.

TheAlchemist 4y ago

Seen it too ! It's strange how our brains work - I actually never look there, but somehow I did notice it.

zinekeller 4y ago

Can confirm (https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png). It actually reminds me of old Google announcing "New! You can now search for images" or such except repurposed for things outside of Search. The first one is reasonable (there are people that do want to search for images or research papers), but the current incarnation reminds me of a corporation solely running on inertia.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

It was inevitable, you gotta get the infite growth from somewhere. Ane the next move will +1 this and so on, until google becomes less attractive than leaner competition. Because of inertia, legacy and people benefitting from the status quo, they won't be able to correct course. This is textbook "how empire falls" and why things that seem indestructible eventually dies like anything else. This will be the mile stone people will remember as the first sign of google decline.

glcheetham 4y ago
If this harms their business then why would they keep doing it
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Because it helps in the short term, and Wall Street doesn’t mind destroying companies over the long.
  - Bootvis 4y ago
    Why blame this on Wall Street? This idea is the idea of someone at Google, it was implemented by someone at Google, the decision to go ahead was approved by someone at Google.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      The someones at Google are compensated significantly by shares of the company, traded on Wall Street, and some of them are compensated with even more shares if those shares do well. Pretending the two are at arms length is a bit silly.
      - Bootvis 4y ago
        Seems to me that the individuals involved would care more about getting extra shares than the expected increase in share price from this change. The bonus might be significant, the increase in share price might be a percent or 2. Google dishes out this bonus, not Wall Street.

glcheetham 4y ago

They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media photos and video content will be prioritised on search results, it is going to be released in America first this month I believe They are also seeing the results will be far more varied and scrolling down will likely give you a result that you are looking for, and the traditional way of looking with the top result, being the one that you wanted may not be the case anymore I think they are maybe trying to replicate the TikTok experience when looking for a result, you will end up scrolling different content relative to your search keyword All of this will benefit content creators. If you have an ability to create video content, this will give you a competitive edge.

mysterydip 4y ago
> All of this will benefit content creators. Could they do something to benefit the users instead?
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  Rest assured, it'll hurt both equally. Or do you think Google would treat content creators as equals?
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    Here's a reminder to everyone in the thread that Google owns YouTube. Content creators are, literally, the product. YouTube would not exist without them. They are not equals.
avian 4y ago
I hope this means that all the SEO bullshit will move to videos and the textual web will become usable again.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
> They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media photos and video content I’ve been unfortunate enough to see this, it’s absolute hot garbage and made it way harder to find what I wanted. Is this a knee jerk response to TikTok kids using TikTok as their generations google? I don’t think many understand how much Google land is up for grabs right now. Google Images is right there for the taking if you just supply the same experience as 10 years ago Google Images.

senko 4y ago

Notably, this is not Google showing random search/display ads. Those look like ads for Google's own product. I don't think this is the first time. IIRC, Google used to show an ad for Chrome if you used the search from any other browser.

londons_explore 4y ago
I'm surprised they advertise their own product in those places... It's such an obvious thing for the EU to go after. "Google has a monopoly position in Browsers/Search, and (ab)used their homepage to advertise their entry into a new field of business, immediately giving it free advertising the competitors could never access." If I were Googles legal team, I would immediately put an end to such cross-product advertising (at least from Search/Chrome/Android).
- Euphorbium 4y ago
  Google does not have a monopoly in browsers or search.
  - eckza 4y ago
    We've always been at war with Eastaisa.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    The poster above you said "monopoly position," which is defined in the EU as more than 25% of the market. Google unquestionably has a monopoly position in both areas. The US similarly defines monopoly as having significant control over a market, not as a literal 100% stake.
  - infinityio 4y ago
    To my knowledge, Google has 90% of search engine traffic in some regions, and Chrome makes up the majority of Web browsers, even disregarding Chromium
  - colinmhayes 4y ago

ForHackernews 4y ago

_xivi 4y ago

It looks like they're testing it on a small portion, but not sure what's the pattern

netsharc 4y ago

Google on Android has already been stupid for a long time. You can swipe right from the home screen of a Pixel phone to get to Google search, which is a Yahoo!-style portal with news, etc under the search bar. And then you click on the search input field, and you get suggestions based on trending searches (a week or 2 ago one of them was something about King Charles). Luckily both idiocies can still be disabled, and I use DDG for my searches anyway.

bertman 4y ago

This is not "unprecedented" at all, see e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/lf9egy/comment/iivz2db/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/lf9egy/comment/iivz...

spoiler 4y ago
I am not sure why you're being downvoted. Both the newtab (at the bottom of the page) and the search page have had subtle "ads" for google's new product launches. I remember seeing it for Stadia, and I remember seeing it for "Google One"
- londons_explore 4y ago
  They also use it for non-google products. For example the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II had a hyperlink to "See todays events" on both places.
- inerte 4y ago
  I believe* the first ad ever under the search bar at google.com was to download Firefox. They've been doing it for that long... * I think I read that in some book about Marissa Mayer and her decisions around the homepage.
kuschku 4y ago
Wasn't the Nexus 7 (2012) the first such ad? Aside from chrome itself bring advertised this way, that is.
- jonas21 4y ago
  A decade before that they had an ad for the Google Search Appliance, which was the first physical product Google sold: https://web.archive.org/web/20020703150514/http://www.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20020703150514/http://www.google...
- hgsgm 4y ago

omgmajk 4y ago

That thing on the google.com page is really annoying. Google is probably trying this out but I am really hoping that this is some behind the scenes look at the fact that google might be a dying company and are grasping for straws. Not that I think that is really real, but because it would be glorious.

cr3ative 4y ago

Annoyingly, the new tab page used to have an exclusion for these "announcements". The flag was removed. I've ended up installing one of those "inspirational new tab page" extensions, just so I don't see an ad. I am sure that means someone else is siphoning my data.

ecuaflo 4y ago
I like the earth view one [0] and you get to keep your data with goog [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-google-ea/bhloflhklmhfpedakmangadcdofhnnoh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-go...
sensanaty 4y ago
I use one that just lets me use some custom HTML, I just have some plaintext bookmark type links
LoganDark 4y ago
Both in Chrome and Firefox, I always set my new tab page to `about:blank`, or in other words, absolutely nothing. Why? Because the address bar is all I need to get where I'm going. I type faster than I click.
- okasaki 4y ago
  There's no setting to set the new tab page in Chrome - not even in the policies json.
  - tyingq 4y ago
    There is a setting for what the home icon does, and it defaults to new tab...but is settable. Maybe that's what was meant? Edit: See https://imgur.com/a/wQhvFF9 https://imgur.com/a/wQhvFF9
    - Olphs 4y ago
      There is no home icon in Chrome, at least I don't see it. Or is that also some setting?

bla3 4y ago

It's not unprecedented, they did that when Google+ launched too.

sjaak 4y ago

Stop using Chrome

monlockandkey 4y ago
The entire internet discourse is filled with "Chrome evil, use Firefox". Go to any browser discussion on the internet and 99% of the thread is "just use Firefox or Firefox is the best". You would think that everyone uses Firefox. The internet is a bubble. Reality is Firefox usage is pathetic. 32 MILLION people have *STOPPED* using Firefox in the past 4 years. The browser only has a 3.16% market share. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share Chrome is a good browser. Can be considered objectively better than Firefox given its superior performance, equivalent if not slightly better resource usage, web compatibility and integration with the Google ecosystem (which the vast majority of internet population use (excluding niche tech circles)). I have no vendetta against Firefox. At the end of the day, it is just a browser and that is a personal preference. But people act like it is some sort of saviour that will bring them to the light. There is such an aggressive tribal mentality with browsers. It makes no sense as all browsers look the same, feel the same and have the same functionality. Just a matter of preference given your needs, and for 70% of the population, Chromium delivers.
- sjaak 4y ago
  I know that everything you say here is true. The niche tech circle you speak of /is/ the audience here on HN. If we can’t be bothered to stop using Chrome then all is lost.
  - monlockandkey 4y ago
    All is indeed lost! Browsers are incredibly expensive technologies to produce. If Microsoft of all companies could not find success with Edge classic, a browser that they wrote from scratch. Added with the ability to advertise and bundle with the worlds most popular OS, then Firefox has no chance to be the bastion against Chromium. One part of me is curious what a realistic web landscape would look like if it was all Chromium (including Firefox). I guess at first it would be great to see cool new browser APIs, but then something will be added would cause an uproar.

mort96 4y ago

I woke up to ads in my new tab page in Firefox yesterday; sponsored links to Amazon and Nike. Browsers don't seem to serve users anymore. They, like everything else, are mostly ad delivery mechanisms.

sophrocyne 4y ago
Annoying, yes. But you can turn them off in the settings page.
- mort96 4y ago
  You can, but it's not about that. Ads don't belong in browser UI, full stop.
  - laundermaf 4y ago
    Browsers used to be paid software.
    - hk__2 4y ago
      > Browsers used to be paid software. AFAIK the big ones have always been free, except for Netscape between 1995 and 1998.
      - laundermaf 4y ago
        IE 1.0 was included in a "Windows 95 Plus!" which was sold for $50 in 1994; However it was short-lived and it was included in later releases of Windows [1] Netscape was sold for $50 [2] Opera was sold (can't find the price) [3] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Plus!#Microsoft_Plus!_for_Windows_95 [2]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netscape-navigator-2-0-hits-the-streets/ [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20081013235150/http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/2006/02/15/rendering-engines-and-code-names
        4y ago

dsign 4y ago

I see the ad, and I'm not amused. I would be more at ease if the line said "You know what? We need money after all this browser-making. Give us yours and we will let you go on with your day."

hownottowrite 4y ago

Don’t equate precedent with morals.

atesti 4y ago

It's notoriously difficult to have a new tab page without ads/Google connections, but still keep the 8 thumbnails. One can change the search engine and then an alternate new tab page appears which is the right one: Only thumbnails. Unfortunately there is code in chrome to detect the search engine one confiured and activate the matching new tab page. I think they have one for ddg? Even creating a custom search engine in chrome settings, pointing at google does not work, they detect the google url. I have yet to create my own "search engine" url which would redirect to google, to put this search engine in the chrome settings! It's very annoying, because despite it being Chrome from google, chrome is quite reasonable with data protection and settings in many areas and can be tamed with group policies. In our company GPO we have to turn off the new tab page, but my goal is to have one without ads.

RektBoy 4y ago
Or don't use Chrome? Lol
- ama5322 4y ago
  Firefox had/has "snippets" for a while. You can turn them off, but the point still stands.
vehemenz 4y ago
There has been a blank new tab extension in Chrome for ages.
- atesti 4y ago
  But I like the 8 thumbnails, I only want to get rid of the "new tab promo". Chrome contains a complete new tab page which is adfree, but it's only enabled for obscure search engines

traveler01 4y ago

It's their own product ads though... It's not very problematic, you're using their product and they're announcing they have more products for you.

hulitu 4y ago

Stupidity is contagious. If MS does it, why should't Google ?

twawaaay 4y ago
I wouldn't say it is stupidity. MS seems to have stopped innovating and exploit as much of their business before it dies. Possibly Google realised the same?
- b112 4y ago
  If IBM is any indication, it takes decades for big corp to die.

Jemm 4y ago

Proves the saying, "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product"

freediver 4y ago
Not much choice with browsers! As far as I know, Orion browser is the only browser on the market today that you can pay for with your wallet instead of your data.
andrewinardeer 4y ago
Not true for self hosted open source software.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Not necessarily. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/1701068 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/17...
ceejayoz 4y ago
You're still the product for a whole bunch of paid services. The line has blurred significantly since that saying became commonplace.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Logic 101: "If A, Then B" does NOT imply "If not-A, Then not-B".
  - account42 4y ago
    Human speech is not formal logic. The only point of saying ((bad thing)) is a consequence of an action (using free services) is to imply that not doing that (using non-free services since you can assume that not using anything is not a realistic opton) would have avoided ((bad thing)).
charcircuit 4y ago

urthor 4y ago

Vivaldi time!

kgbcia 4y ago

pulling for Firefox

JakkDTrent 4y ago

I can't believe how many people here still use Google search and Chrome browser.

monlockandkey 4y ago
I can't believe people don't use Google search and Chromium. Google search does the job well. Chromium browsers are faster than Firefox, equivalent if not better resource usage, excellent web compatibility and ecosystem integration. People want to get stuff done. Yes Firefox and DDG will not handicap you, but for the general population, search and Chromium do an excellent job over competition.
hetspookjee 4y ago
Unfortunately quite some things only work entirely on Chrome. My default is still Firefox but it’s no getting around it at times.
- lukas099 4y ago
  I use brave browser for those sites. Alas, it is still chrome underneath...
insightcheck 4y ago
Why is this so surprising? Google search gives me better results than DuckDuckGo for my purposes (especially when using the "site:" search syntax). Some web apps and websites are buggy on non-Chrome browsers or a lot faster on Chrome (e.g. Google Workspace apps like Google Sheets are often a lot faster). If I want to submit high quality work on time, it makes sense to use the best (most performant) tool for the job. Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and other alternative tools are helpful for personal use, but I have less to worry about when using Google and Chrome for work.
scarface74 4y ago
I also don’t understand “why people still watch TV. I haven’t watch TV in 20 years” (tm Slashdot 2002)
4y ago

quyleanh 4y ago

Lol, the advantage of domination? Tbh, I really want Apple do something innovation for browser. However, looking back to Webkit on both iOS and macOS, I can see no hope...

tinyhouse 4y ago

Did you see what they did to YouTube? It's now like watching the Superbowl. Ads ads ads. I guess they are trying to convert as many people as they can to premium. But I think it's also because they don't know how to grow their revenue besides displaying more and more ads.

LoganDark 4y ago
The more ads they put in, the more people get an ad blocker, so they have to add more ads to compensate.

perihelions 4y ago

Not entirely unprecedented: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175 ("Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment" (2019)) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608022 ("Why am I seeing this adorable red panda?") (2022)

chatterhead 4y ago

anvic 4y ago

I've already seen ads like those, some even pushing their political stuff. https://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Chrome-dismiss-new-tab-promo-close-button-no-flag-needed.jpg https://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Chrome-dismi...

chatterhead 4y ago

The internet doesn't work without advertising. Almost as if the money to build all this infrastructure has to come from somewhere. If only we could create a digital token that would be in such demand it would generate its own network and infrastructure effect. Oh wait... they ruined that, too.

falcor84 4y ago
>Oh wait... they ruined that, too. I lost you there, who is "they" referring to?
- chatterhead 4y ago
  Wall Street and it's need for gross revenue to justify unearned bonuses. Advertising is a direct feed into projected values which dictates which stocks can be manipulated with the most justification. And, often the largest fallout later.
beej71 4y ago
In the good old days, the money came from your job. And you used that money to create free content out of the kindness of your heart.
- noodles_nomore 4y ago
  This stopped working when people realized that they can replace giving kindness with taking money and quit their jobs.
- chatterhead 4y ago
  In the good ol'days when profit drove value not perceived market dominance based on shoddy short-term user data created by a generation of graphic designers.
noodles_nomore 4y ago
> Almost as if the money to build all this infrastructure has to come from somewhere. Yes, things need funding to survive. That's the core of the problem. I bookmarked an interesting older HN comment to that effect. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231960

exabrial 4y ago

Who still using chrome? Use safari, brave, or Firefox.

worldmerge 4y ago
It would be cool if Firefox supported modern browser APIs like Chrome does, but they’ve decided not to (web serial).
misnome 4y ago
Firefox has had ads on its "new tab" page by default for ages now.
- thejackgoode 4y ago
  you can remove them though
- Daffodils 4y ago
  By ads you mean the popular articles from Pocket? That is an ad for Pocket ?
  - thesuitonym 4y ago
    Not sure if this is what the GP was referring to, but I constantly find Google and Amazon (two sites I almost never use) pinned to my frequently accessed sites in Firefox. I unpin them, then check all settings for any kind of advertising opt, and yet, some month later, they're back.
    - bentcorner 4y ago
      Are you installing Firefox and signing into them on new machines? I don't have hard evidence but I feel like when I install FF on a new box and sign in, the pinned sites sometimes show up on other machines when everything is synced.
  - dmonitor 4y ago

thih9 4y ago

> Users are reporting banner ads such as "New! Track your health and fitness with the..." below the search box on both google.com and chrome://newtab. Do we know more? E.g. do we know if this is an A/B test or a rollout in progress? Where are the users reporting this? Are there any screenshots?

thih9 4y ago

I suspect ungoogled-chromium[1] is not affected by google's changes to chrome://newtab . If anyone wants to stop using Chrome but isn't drawn to any of the alternatives, perhaps you'll like ungoogled-chromium. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium

Caboose8685 4y ago
It's worth noting that UGC has some significant security regressions https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/
- account42 4y ago
  > Security Updates > The component updater, responsible for delivering out-of-band security updates to the various components of the browser, is disabled within ungoogled-chromium. It’s responsible for updating Chrome’s CRLSets, which are necessary for meaningful certificate revocation. Most of the components are delivered via the component updater because they have a need for out-of-band security updates, and it’s not helpful nor necessary to disable them. > Furthermore, the extensions that users rely on aren’t updated automatically, posing an additional risk to users of the browser. Not connecting to google services unles you explicitly request it is almost the entire point of ungoogled-chromium, so this is really misplaced criticism. Especially for the CRLs, giving Google the power to take third party websites offline is not something everyone agrees with. The missing hardening is also not something to be summed up as "significant security regressions". Ironically it might even improve your security if it means that attacks depending on Chromes upstream toolchain configuration won't work - no one is realistically going to specifically target a niche project like ungoogled-chromium.
- 2kwatts 4y ago
  When I need to use a Chrome-like browser, I just use Chromium or Brave.
  - fulafel 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

the100rabh 4y ago

shultays 4y ago

Unprecedented how? I am sure most browsers do such crap on their home page. Even firefox had its "experiments" and pocket

aliqot 4y ago

Stop hitting yourself. Get Lynx.

zagrebian 4y ago

> Google has added ads on both its search page Google Search has had ads since the beginning. What do you mean?

huijzer 4y ago

> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now? Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year timescale. What surprises me the most actually is how quickly Google can adapt to the situation. Basically, they have been giving out candy for free when there was lots of money coming and now that they expect less, they quickly put on extra income streams and cut out money losers. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33022768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33022768 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927848

bushbaba 4y ago
I’m not sure I’d call that quick. Quick would be a single deep cut and return to normal operations.
arnaudsm 4y ago
I don't buy the SP500 graph argument, economies tend to behave on a log scale.
skrowl 4y ago
It's not really a matter of opinion or what people think. We're already in a recession here in the United States, as we've had two negative GDP growth quarters in a row. Anyone who says otherwise is likely just doing so for political reasons, as it's also an election year here in the United States, but to do so they'd have to literally change the definition of recession (they're trying but it's not working).
- v0idzer0 4y ago
  I’d argue that anyone using such confident language to declare a clear definition of one of the most subjective and abstract concepts known to man clearly has some ulterior motive. Political or otherwise.

vannevar 4y ago

Google has drifted gradually from helping you find things, supported by ads, to actively steering you away from what you're trying to find in order to sell you to advertisers.

tech-historian 4y ago

Google has had house ads for its own products on the search homepage since at least 2010. I'd like to see a screenshot of the "banner ad" claimed by OP. Text ads on Google's homepage are nothing new. I don't see a banner ad on the homepage at the moment, I see a text ad for "Learn about the latest innovations coming to Google Search" Anyone have a screenshot of said banner ad?

princevegeta89 4y ago

Don't know why it's so surprising. Google has had ads for Pixel phones right below the search box. I remember Stadia ads that showed up there too. The newtab on Chrome is not even considered a web page so you can see those ads that show up there as a part of Chrome which is not so surprising either

bborud 4y ago

Another incentive to switch to Firefox.

shadowgovt 4y ago

What's the full text of the ad? Google hasn't been above self-promotion via those channels for approximately a half-decade. On my newtab and on google.com, I'm seeing an ad for Google's new search features.