10 ms·
The 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers
- clouddrover 3y agoThere's really no point staying in an abusive relationship with Chrome. Just use Firefox. uBlock Origin works best in Firefox: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
- FreezerburnV 3y agoSorry I like the battery in my laptop, and I like my browser not consuming 1GB RAM per process, tabs not taking multiple seconds to close if I have the browser open for a while without restarting it, etc. I try it every so often and it’s always exactly this bad. I’ll just stick to something like Brave if I’m not using Chrome directly.
- nathanaldensr 3y agoEnjoy your Chrome prison, then.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoNever had that problem even at FF’s worst. Try deleting your profile and starting over.
- FreezerburnV 3y agoI guess I could give it a try. I see this kind of thing across both macOS and Windows though, but I do have sync on so theoretically there could be something there causing extreme issues across multiple computers and 2 OSes, generally despite me trying to even follow stuff like FasterFox to make it work better.
- pcwalton 3y agoDon't use Fasterfox. It tweaks many settings that frequently result in performance regressions. The default networking-related settings are set the way they are for a reason.
- FreezerburnV 3y agoPerformance has not been a complaint of mine, especially network-related. It's everything else. Almost like Firefox is optimizing for just shoveling as much CPU power and RAM as possible into it's gaping, bloated maw, not caring about anything else. Kinda like an old mail application from a startup I worked at. Nothing has ever matched how amazingly good it was at certain things it did (or even have similar features), but hot DANG did it just drink battery like its going out of style.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoUse a fork like Librewolf, and look into having a customized user.js for performance tweaks. There is a lot you can do. For me, currently, my setup is the best browser I've ever used.
- pcwalton 3y agoDon't use a fork and don't customize your user.js. It is exceedingly unlikely that excess power consumption is caused by anything you can easily tweak. Instead report issues to Mozilla.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoVery bad advice. Some forks have clear advantages, are well maintained and trustworthy. There are numerous reasons to maintain a user.js file also, not just performance reasons. Indeed, report issues to Mozilla directly, but that isn't inconsistent with using a fork and maintaining a user.js
- pcwalton 3y ago
- clouddrover 3y ago> Sorry I like the battery in my laptop, and I like my browser not consuming 1GB RAM per process With more effective ad blocking in Firefox you'll process less and load less. And since Firefox lets uBlock Origin use WebAssembly the blocking runs faster and more efficiently too.
- FreezerburnV 3y agoI don’t use browsers unless I have uBlock Origin installed. Despite Firefox getting better features from it, it’s a crazy resource hog. And that’s in comparison to Chrome! Let alone all the other issues I have which I have no hope of going away either. (Well, no hope isn’t quite accurate since like I said I give it a spin occasionally only to walk away disappointed)
- clouddrover 3y ago> it’s a crazy resource hog It isn't. Chrome and Firefox have similar memory usage these days. Actual measurements are better than anecdotes. Here are some actual measurements: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/chrome-firefox-edge-ram-comparison https://www.tomsguide.com/news/chrome-firefox-edge-ram-compa...
- FreezerburnV 3y agoFunnily enough, responding to someone saying "I literally saw multiple processes eating 1GB+ of RAM" with "This website over here did some measurements and says you're wrong" isn't going to come across as well as you think it is. I've had Chrome open for some number of days and when I check Activity Monitor, the most RAM-expensive process is currently sitting at <500MB, a few others at 100-300MB, and the rest at under 100MB. The "energy impact" of it is at 160-ish. Whereas, again, Firefox was taking up 1GB+ of RAM in multiple processes and the energy impact was more like 260-ish, my battery was dying way faster, I would see CPU usage of double Chrome regularly, and macOS was always saying that Firefox was using a lot of power. The RAM usage is something I've seen on Windows as well, along with issues with the browser just behaving poorly over time. I just don't see these issues on Chrome or (most of) its derivative browsers. (I've used Brave a lot as well) Guess I'm just objectively wrong though, because Toms Guide disagrees with what I'm seeing.
- tyingq 3y agoChrome will catch up on energy use once non-heuristic / dumb ad blockers are the only option for non-tech people. Once manifest v3 is in place, the other shoe drops, and you start getting ads that you can't block. And ads add page bloat, unneeded data transfer, etc. E.g, my boring Chevy starts to looks pretty performant next to your Ferrari once you have to tote around 2 tons of bricks and I don't :)
- extragood 3y agoI have to say that is precisely the opposite of my experience. I held on to a 2012 4 GB MacBook Air until fairly recently as my casual web browsing machine. With such low system memory, I had to be extremely economical with my open tabs; no more than 3 or 4 at a time. The great suspender plugin helped until it became malware infested, and with that no longer an option, I moved to Firefox. The resource utlization improvement was immediately apparent and I haven't looked back, even after I finally updated my machine.
- candiddevmike 3y agoFirefox and Pocket are abusive too though
- shoeb00m 3y agoYou can disable pocket though. Even if you don’t it doesn’t do anything other than take space on your search bar
- clouddrover 3y agoAnd you can take it off the search bar. Right click on the toolbar -> Customize Toolbar... and then set it up the way you want.
- clouddrover 3y agoHow? If you don't want to use Firefox Sync then don't use it. If you don't want to use Pocket then don't use it. It's not hard to not use them. I don't use either one.
- VancouverMan 3y agoFirefox's users shouldn't have to ignore or disable them. That kind of extraneous functionality just shouldn't be bundled with Firefox to begin with. If a user does want such functionality, then an extension could be voluntarily installed to provide it.
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- throwaway525142 3y agoI agree that this could be viewed as bad. However, this is way less of an issue than Google taking choice away, which is what the great-grandparent comment was about.
- Krssst 3y ago
- chx 3y agoIs there a tool which helps migrating? I have tons of extensions and just iterating over them name-by-name and installing or offering to install what matches would clear a huge obstacle. I see there's a new option to directly import the Chrome extension but I suspect that's not the best.
- beej71 3y agoI think they just added something to auto migrate your extensions when possible.
- clouddrover 3y agoYes. It looks at what extensions you have in Chrome and downloads the equivalent Firefox version from Mozilla's add-ons for supported extensions: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-data-another-browser https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-data-another-bro...
- chx 3y agoFound 4 out of 34. It does not do what I asked for. I believe it works from a fixed list of extensions. Here's a pair it doesn't find: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/better-pathofexile-tradin/fhlinfpmdlijegjlpgedcmglkakaghnk https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/better-pathofexile-... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/better-pathofexile-trading/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/better-pathof...
- Sunspark 3y agoI use Firefox, but I'll point out that MS Edge has its own extension store that isn't run by Google. Google can make things as slow as they like in their store and it won't affect Microsoft unless Microsoft goes along with it.
- dboreham 3y agoMS pulls other crap though such as conveniently disabling the extension you need to install to prevent their ADD-inducing news-page from being displayed on every new tab.
- davesmylie 3y agoI could be mistaken here, but as far as I know Microsoft Edge is still based on chromium. Yup, they may still allow extension updates without going through review, but they'll still have to either fork or go along with manifest v3.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoThat doesn't matter. Both browsers will have Manifest v3 but Chrome will take much longer to approve extensions in the Chrome web store.
- insin 3y agoWhen you submit an updated version to the Edge extension store they say they'll get back to you in 7 working days; sometimes it gets approved sooner than that, but they're usually not joking. If your extension requires frequent changes due to its target site(s) changing underneath it, the Edge version can end up being weeks behind. At least they do let you cancel pending versions and resubmit, unlike the Chrome web store where you're just stuck until the review is done.
- egberts1 3y agoBest weapon against Google's Chrome encroachment upon your privacy is other web browsers. Notably Firefox, Onion Browser, DuckDuckGo, Brave and even Safari: cannot go wrong with these alternate browsers.
- nathanaldensr 3y agoExactly. There was a time that Chrome was the spunky upstart, challenging Internet Explorer's dominance. Now, Google has ossified and it's the slow, anti-competitive behemoth. Time to switch, folks.
- mrd3v0 3y ago> Brave You absolutely can, and will go wrong when you pick a Chromium browser. Picking a Chromium supports Google much more than any developer who decides to redistribute Chromium with a theme and a few addons. It also makes the case for funding other web browsers that aren't controlled by Google much weaker.
- egberts1 3y agoSo, Brave is receiving funding from Google, no? I didn't think so. The only lock-in solution is the faulty-designed HTTP3 protocol, security-wise and privacy-wise. https://fourweekmba.com/how-does-brave-make-money/ https://fourweekmba.com/how-does-brave-make-money/
- egberts1 3y agoOoops, HTTP/2, not HTTP3.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoShake the cushions! https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883680/us-google-antitrust-trial-amit-mehta-doj-exhibit-documents https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883680/us-google-antitr...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Tommstein 3y agoAnyone continuing to use Chrome at this point despite all of Google's shenanigans (outside of forced situations like work) deserves what they get.
- karaterobot 3y agoAt what point does Google open itself up to some legal risk as a result of this? I mean that it's probably possible to demonstrate that Google have made these changes in order to target a single developer whose product (they claim) threatens their ad-based revenue model. Obviously, Google controls its extension platform, but they must have some obligation to the third-party developers who supply an ecosystem of products which provide value to their Chrome users, right? And speaking of those users—forget users of uBlock for the moment, I mean everyone else—who may miss out on timely security updates to browser extensions as a result of this, doesn't Google's decision potentially harm them?
- aussieguy1234 3y agoPerhaps uBlock origin and the like should implement a banner that says something like "If you're having issues, switch to Firefox for the best ad blocking experience".
- dang 3y agoUrl changed from https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-in-the-war-on-ad-blockers-slower-extension-updates/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-i..., which points to this. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- r721 3y agoLater discussion of the same Ars Technica article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38495559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38495559
- jacquesm 3y agoGoogle is getting so desperate for their list $50 in ad revenue that they would rather you switch to FireFox, nothing says 'we care' more than ramming advertising down your throat. Especially when that advertising is tacked on to videos that you don't have much choice to watch, such as government communications, videos embedded in your news feed, videos that explain how the product that you just bought but that no longer has a manual works etc. Nothing like a captive audience. It also helps them in their upcoming anti-trust case where the EU will mandate their break up into an advertising company, a browser vendor, a search company and something called 'the bin', which in time may become further subdivided.
- kmeisthax 3y ago"The bin" already exists, it's called Alphabet.
- jacquesm 3y agoI'm aware of that. But I call it the bin. For a reason.
- NikkiA 3y agoI'd say it's not that they want you to switch to firefox, but that they don't care about the type of user that cares about ad blocking and web features. They want Joe average, who just uses chrome and whatever is thrown at the display by it. They might not even care about home PC users at all, office users use whatever they're told to use, and probably cannot get browser extensions past IT anyway, and certainly won't switch to firefox if management doesn't authorise IT to install it. Basically, the people that care, are in the long tail of browser users.
- epgui 3y agoI don't understand why people don't have a fundamental right to refuse ad exposure in their private life (eg.: obviously you can't refuse to see a billboard on the highway, but you should be able to refuse ads in your home or on your devices). It's very similar to having a right to refuse to eat something you think is unhealthy or that you're simply not interested in. If you feed your brain enough garbage (and ads have a very high "information noise" content) then your thinking will eventually become garbage as well. In this respect, we're no different than any other AI model. I hear you objecting and saying that ads create value. Suit yourself and watch all the ads you want. But oh, boy.
- ajross 3y ago> I don't understand why people don't have a fundamental right to refuse ad exposure. They do. You do, I do, we all do. No one has to watch any ad they don't want to. I think your complaint is that people don't have a fundamental right to download video for free from someone else's web site? And, no, they don't.
- epgui 3y agoWell that's a heck of a rephrasing.
- ajross 3y agoCan you phrase it more formally then? If you wanted to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing this putative right for posterity, how would you write it? Again, the right you demanded clearly exists. You seem to me to be just asking for free stuff. Am I wrong?
- epgui 3y ago> Again, the right you demanded clearly exists. Where is this written?
- canjobear 3y agoYou have a right to reject watching ads. And Youtube has a right to not serve you videos.
- sys_64738 3y agoI’ve been using Brave recently when YouTube ads started showing in Vivaldi. I don’t do ads. Ever.
- Dah00n 3y agoThat is still being a boiling frog in Google's water. Just with a label slapped on top of the logo.
- dylan604 3y agoObviously, YT feels like there are enough people blocking ads that they feel this is worth it. Has anyone seen numbers? I'm curious how much Streisand effect all of this causes. We know that there are large numbers of people not using blockers. Is there are risk that YT is causing new people to learn about blockers from the news this stuff generates? I'm assuming that the braniacs at YT have crunched the numbers and come out with it's worth it.
- jacquesm 3y agoThe fact that so many people are blocking their ads should cause them to back off with the ads, it's beyond ridiculous, percentage wise, intrusion wise and content wise. It's also bait-and-switch: youtube got big on being a free-for-all videosite and in the beginning that included massive copyright violation which was all A-Ok when Google bought it for an astronomical sum. That gives them the right to 'monetize' but it doesn't give them the right to my attention. It's like billboard but it comes with a guy that forces your head to be aimed at the billboard while you pass it. Joe Jackson in 'TV-Age' joked that pretty soon you won't be able to turn your TV off at all. Well, he missed out on the internet but your computer screen might as well be your TV in terms of media delivery and what a ridiculous situation we've created: a protocol designed to give people access to each other and to knowledge has been inverted to give companies access to your eyeballs, your brain and your wallet.
- dylan604 3y agoIf there were no ads, there'd be no money to offer creators. If there's no money, the creators would not be very enticed to even bother. So, what's your suggestion for that?
- Martinussen 3y agoThe creators I watch aren't making their income from YouTube, even when that is their only main platform. Patreon and video sponsorships through direct deals/ad networks are the bulk of it, in a lot of cases.
- pixxel 3y agoAll comments here are so far are in the spirit of HN (fuck ads and fuck google). San Francisco is currently asleep…
- renegat0x0 3y agoYouTube Has been a free platform, for the people to upload short videos. Now it became this company that needs to serve big companies, and pays some money to authors. I did not endorse the second. I was interested in the YouTube for the people, not the YouTube for the companies. YouTube is like cable, tv. It is less like a social platform. It is not a place for Passion, but it is a place for monetization and artists as employees
- effingwewt 3y agoAlways the same accounts shilling for ads/companies. As always you can tell who makes on ads by how fervently they defend the bullshit. Mental gymnastics dont even change they dont bother to learn new dismounts. Trying to escuse this bullshit is what's going to lead us to the black mirror episode '15 million merits'. In their future you have to watch ads. Advertisers and businesses have the rights, not the people. That future can get fucked.
- peddling-brink 3y agoNot allowing remote code execution seems like a reasonable step. There’s no simple, generalizable way to ensure remote data being loaded isn’t code, that isn’t easily circumvented. That being said, the other changes are clearly anti-adblock.
- yetanother12345 3y ago> The 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers Strictly speaking it's between Alphabet, the company popularly known as "Google" (and subdivisions - here's another from the same family[0]), and ad blockers. That each product line is a singular actor that has no bonds to the rest is a fake image to convey. But then for the company behind this campaign having many different hands in the game makes it seem like there are really more parties opposed to ad blockers than reality would have it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38495559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38495559