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I'm not sure that's entirely true. I can imagine AdBlock, as well as other plugins that deal mainly with the DOM, as entirely possible. I mean, how much does A

by scotth 18y ago

I'm not sure that's entirely true. I can imagine AdBlock, as well as other plugins that deal mainly with the DOM, as entirely possible. I mean, how much does AdBlock really do? Grabs a list of blacklisted URLs (with wildcards), matches applicable elements in the DOM, and removes them. AdBlock may prevent these requests from being issued at all, but that isn't to say you can't implement something similar in a Greasemonkey-like environment.

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
The whole point of AdBlock is that it does block the actualy requests in the first place. Why should I have to download 800k of ads for a 200k webpage, and open myself to adware tracking cookies? Removing them from DOM after they've been downloaded is not a proper solution to me at all...
- scotth 18y ago
  I disagree. I have an internet plan with 100 gigs of allotted transfer. I don't care if a few kb here and there come down. I understand that your position may be different, but in my opinion most use Adblock the way I do -- to not see advertisements.
  - nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
    Transfer totals has no bearing on bandwidth speed. When I'm on wireless connections, or at work where I am forced to work from a connection shared with 400 other employees, the bandwidth required by ads actually takes up a significant amount of time. I don't even have any caps on my usable bandwidth, in any of the above situations or at home, but the speed can still be greatly affected by the number of ads being loaded that I don't even see. Even my cable internet provider still gives me only a measly 384kilobit upload speed, and that now has to be shared between even more outgoing connections? To top it all off, from an ad-provider's perspective, why should I be paying for ad impressions that the end user doesn't even get to see? At least with Adblock, my server bandwidth isn't used, and my impression statistics aren't being impacted by users who aren't actually getting the chance to view the content...
- statictype 18y ago
  I don't think there's anything adblock does that a chromium extension script (or a greasemonkey script) can't do. You can write a script that just looks for the html fragments that represent ads and nuke them before the page renders, right? - in the same way adblock does
andreyf 18y ago
You're assuming that Chrome extensions can do cross-domain XHR... which I'm not sure about.
- scotth 18y ago
  Yup...you're right. Maybe the URLs or even embedded within the script. An extension update mechanism (if any?) could bring in new versions. But now I'm way out into conjectureland. Just thinking out loud here.
  - catch23 18y ago
    In firefox, the only way to do cross domain xhr was to access a javascript object outside of the browser sandbox, make the call, then send the data back. I'd be pretty confident that google chrome's version would have the same security limitations.
    - andreyf 18y ago
      Greasemonkey lets you do it - with GM_xmlhttpRequest: http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/api/gm_xmlhttprequest.html http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/api/gm_xmlhttprequest.html
kaens 18y ago
The thing is that for browser extensions, I want hooks into the UI (even if fairly limited), not just modification of page content. Hopefully chrome moves in this direction. I realize that it's a really hard thing to get right, especially in a browser.

by scotth 18y ago

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago

The whole point of AdBlock is that it does block the actualy requests in the first place. Why should I have to download 800k of ads for a 200k webpage, and open myself to adware tracking cookies? Removing them from DOM after they've been downloaded is not a proper solution to me at all...

scotth 18y ago
I disagree. I have an internet plan with 100 gigs of allotted transfer. I don't care if a few kb here and there come down. I understand that your position may be different, but in my opinion most use Adblock the way I do -- to not see advertisements.
- nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
  Transfer totals has no bearing on bandwidth speed. When I'm on wireless connections, or at work where I am forced to work from a connection shared with 400 other employees, the bandwidth required by ads actually takes up a significant amount of time. I don't even have any caps on my usable bandwidth, in any of the above situations or at home, but the speed can still be greatly affected by the number of ads being loaded that I don't even see. Even my cable internet provider still gives me only a measly 384kilobit upload speed, and that now has to be shared between even more outgoing connections? To top it all off, from an ad-provider's perspective, why should I be paying for ad impressions that the end user doesn't even get to see? At least with Adblock, my server bandwidth isn't used, and my impression statistics aren't being impacted by users who aren't actually getting the chance to view the content...
statictype 18y ago
I don't think there's anything adblock does that a chromium extension script (or a greasemonkey script) can't do. You can write a script that just looks for the html fragments that represent ads and nuke them before the page renders, right? - in the same way adblock does

andreyf 18y ago

You're assuming that Chrome extensions can do cross-domain XHR... which I'm not sure about.

scotth 18y ago
Yup...you're right. Maybe the URLs or even embedded within the script. An extension update mechanism (if any?) could bring in new versions. But now I'm way out into conjectureland. Just thinking out loud here.
- catch23 18y ago
  In firefox, the only way to do cross domain xhr was to access a javascript object outside of the browser sandbox, make the call, then send the data back. I'd be pretty confident that google chrome's version would have the same security limitations.
  - andreyf 18y ago
    Greasemonkey lets you do it - with GM_xmlhttpRequest: http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/api/gm_xmlhttprequest.html http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/api/gm_xmlhttprequest.html

kaens 18y ago

The thing is that for browser extensions, I want hooks into the UI (even if fairly limited), not just modification of page content. Hopefully chrome moves in this direction. I realize that it's a really hard thing to get right, especially in a browser.