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Google Struggles To Justify Why It's Restricting Ad Blockers In Chrome (vice.com) 178

Posted by BeauHD from the beating-around-the-bush dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vice News: Google has found itself under fire for plans to limit the effectiveness of popular ad blocking extensions in Chrome. While Google says the changes are necessary to protect the "user experience" and improve extension security, developers and consumer advocates say the company's real motive is money and control. In the wake of ongoing backlash to the proposal, Chrome software security engineer Chris Palmer took to Twitter this week to claim the move was intended to help improve the end-user browsing experience, and paid enterprise users would be exempt from the changes.

Chrome security leader Justin Schuh also said the changes were driven by privacy and security concerns. Adblock developers, however, aren't buying it. uBlock Origin developer Raymond Hill, for example, argued this week that if user experience was the goal, there were other solutions that wouldn't hamstring existing extensions. "Web pages load slow because of bloat, not because of the blocking ability of the webRequest API -- at least for well crafted extensions," Hill said. Hill said that Google's motivation here had little to do with the end user experience, and far more to do with protecting advertising revenues from the rising popularity of adblock extensions. The team behind the EFF's Privacy Badger ad-blocking extension also spoke out against the changes. "Google's claim that these new limitations are needed to improve performance is at odds with the state of the internet," the organization said. "Sites today are bloated with trackers that consume data and slow down the user experience. Tracker blockers have improved the performance and user experience of many sites and the user experience. Why not let independent developers innovate where the Chrome team isn't?"
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Google Struggles To Justify Why It's Restricting Ad Blockers In Chrome More

Google Struggles To Justify Why It's Restricting Ad Blockers In Chrome

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  • If you watch Mozilla backwards, it turns out Firefox hotter than a fresh fracked fox in a forest fire.

  • Oh, they can justify it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:22PM (#58688634)

    Google doesn't want anyone blocking their ads.

    • Yup and the _reason_ for this can be traced to Google eating the Poison Pill that was Doubleclick instead of letting it die.

      The execs of Doubleclick are now the execs of Alphabet and the ethics of Doubleclick are now the ethics of Google.

      If anyone's seen B-grade science fiction movie "The Stuff", you'll know about things that eat you from the inside, leaving an empty, controlled husk.

  • This is another example of software developers ignoring what their users actually want and giving them what they think the users want.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is another example of software developers ignoring what their users actually want and giving them what they think the users want.

      No, it's nothing of the sort.

      Google is not a technology company. They are an ADVERTISING company. More than $100 Billion a year. Google cannot allow anything that reduces, or potentially reduces, the number of Shekels they take in.

      • "Google is not a technology company. They are an ADVERTISING company."

        Exactly.

        And the EU regulators _have_ taken notice of these antics. They tend to do so when any browser has reached critical mass

    • As a programmer for over 20 years let me assure you that we don't often get to make all the design, feature, and workflow decisions for software we work on. In many (most?) situations it's a team or *teams* of people who all get their pissy little say-so. I'm quite sure Google is one such place. So, I'd say design-by-committee trying to stuff their borg-collective "ideas" down your runtime gullet is just even more toxic. It's funny... I've also heard folks argue the exact opposite of what you are saying. S

      • As a developer I know that the people telling me what the software should do are wrong and that I should do what I believe to be the right solution to the problem instead.

        The hard part is just tricking the people so that they think the software does what they said or to make them believe that your ideas were theirs all along.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          You've clearly never developed software for any real business if you believe you could get away with that crap.

          • Let me elaborate. I was being facetious with the tricking part, though liaising with users' input can be tricky.

            The only way to define what a system should do under any set of circumstances is to use a formal language, aka code. People that don't actually write software are not able to use sufficiently formal language, don't realize that the devil lies in the details and are overly optimistic that simple solutions are enough to describe how to solve problems with multi-dimensional concerns and constraints.
            T

    • Re:Software developers ignoring users (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @08:04PM (#58688772) Homepage Journal

      No, Google is being like Microsoft. They aren't giving the users what the users want. They aren't giving the users what they think the users want. They are giving the users what _they_, the companies, want.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dddux ( 3656447 )
        You could also say it like this: in the beginning when the software is fresh, they would do anything to make it appealing to as many users, and then when the number of users is big enough and they "grabbed them by the balls" [G.Carlin], they feel like they can do whatever is needed to make more profit and make the shareholders happy. Yes I'm talking Microsoft and Apple, too. Power is overpowering. Never give too much power to any one company, the least a corporation. That's why I'm a firm believer in Open S
    • They are ignoring what their users want and giving their customers what they want. Their users are mostly the product (to use the jargon of the industry, customers are "supply").

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The engineering just does what their management wants them to do. Google's business model is based on selling advertisements and user data, so they really do not want to implement something which harms their own business.

      Of course all the explanations on user experience are just blatant lies written by a bunch of MBAs and parroted now by the engineers. If they really had any respect against users, they would not even try to lie.

      • "they really do not want to implement something which harms their own business."

        Which is backfiring horribly as those who are savvy enough to install adblockers are also the ones who will start taking action if the company starts being asshats.

        They've already pulled this on Android - about the only way you can block ads now is to have root - or so they think and they've gone out of their way to make it hard for joe average user to do that and block things.

        Fortunately there's also Blockada - but I kind of ex

  • Because they sell ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:23PM (#58688638)

    Why is Google doing this? Because they sell ads, that's why.

    Was that some big mystery or something?

  • "move to help end-user browsing experience" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:24PM (#58688640)
    "and paid enterprise users would be exempt from the changes."

    You see, Google wants to help the little guy, while sticking it to corporate bigwigs with a subpar browsing experience. It's a modern-day Robinhood story. So heartwarming.
    • And that's why everyone should be calling B.S. If Google is arguing they are doing this to increase security, why exempt paid enterprise users? Don't they deserve increased security, too? Heck, they're paying for this and would expect better security. So, it's obvious "increased security" is just B.S. spin.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's because there are corporate apps that use that API and corporations hate anything being deprecated because it costs them money and the only "benefit" is their employees are less frustrated by slow computers. To them lack of frustration adds zero value to this quarter's profits.

      It's the same reason they are still using Windows 7 and Microsoft offers them a special version of Windows 10 that doesn't update as much.

      Consumers in general want the latest, the fastest and the most secure, hence the popularity

      • >"Note: I'm not defending Google, if they do this I'll switch to Firefox, I'm just explaining what is happening to move the debate on."

        You should switch ANYWAY. There really is no reason to wait, but lots of reasons to switch now (other than the normal pain of any type of switch). Every user that continues to use Chrome or Chromeish browsers is promoting Google's control and sending a signal to web developers that they only need to program their sites to a single, proprietary browser, instead of open s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Mozilla have done enough douchbagy stuff too, so there needs to be a reason to switch to them beyond some kind of activism.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dddux ( 3656447 )
      LOL. Must love sarcasm. :P

  • Rocket Science... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vanyel ( 28049 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:25PM (#58688650) Journal

    ...this is not: a company that makes its money off ads limiting the effectiveness of ad blockers. Gee, what a concept...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I don't buy this because the new API will still allow all Google ads to be very effectively blocked.

      And before you come at me with conspiracy theories about it being a prelude to whitelisting Google ads, if they wanted to do that they could have done long ago with the current API.

  • If Google is at a loss for words... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@@@tedata...net...eg> on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:25PM (#58688652) Journal

    ...then perhaps I can help.

    "We at Alphabet make 86% of our revenue by selling online ads [wikipedia.org]. Sanctioning ad blocking software inside the very browser responsible for facilitating the delivery of said ads would significantly reduce this revenue. Therefore, we will not permit it."

    That wasn't too hard now, was it?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That's what DNS over HTTP is for. Don't worry, you'll get your ads, one way or another. //Greetings, Google.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        PiHole and DNS blocking in general is not very effective.

        For example, YouTube ads are served from the same servers as the videos. So if you block the ad servers, you can't watch and videos either. There is a long thread over on the PiHole discussion forums about this and there is no solution.

        Browser based blocking really is the best way to block ads completely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Spot on. Now if google really wanted to help the end user, they'd actually be currating the ads that are going into the system. Instead of simply going "YEP dats good." And watching as a swath of NBC and ABC website visitors pick up some randomware or a cryptominer.

  • ...Chris Palmer took to Twitter this week to claim the move was intended to help improve the end-user browsing experience , and paid enterprise users would be exempt from the changes...

    [bold mine]

    So, Google is the one determining what kind of end user browsing experience I need to get? Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

    But this experience apparently, isn't deserved by enterprise users?

    No wonder Google's Google+ failed and its Messaging efforts are anemic - limping for lack of a better word.

  • So, the solution is... Don't use Chrome? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Or, if you insist, use somebody else's version?

    I could mention other options, but people just get mad.

    Damned if it isn't just like your politics. You limit yourselves to two choices for some reason.

  • Sigh (Score:3)

    by jimbrooking ( 1909170 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:43PM (#58688702)
    Back to Firefox.

    • Yeah, I’ve done my best to avoid getting too tangled and in google. Most of their stuff looks promising, then is gone in year or two. Then things like Chrome puzzlingly hung around with no obvious revenue generation. Now that their market share is solidly #1 they have moved to turn it into an improved revenue generator. I will stick with Firefox and continue not looking back.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Chrome generates revenue by making the whole web faster. Try downloading an old version of Firefox from when Chrome 1.0 was released, and you will be amazed by how slow and clunky it is. Modern web apps chug away and are basically unusable.

        So Google needed make to Chrome to make the web faster, so they could build products like Google Maps which run like crap on old browsers.

        There was also the security issue - back then Firefox was a mess, no sandbox, single shared process for everything... Google's platfor

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Firefox will eventually follow suit though, if they want to keep their own revenue from Google. Which they will, and their excuse for killing ad blockers will be even worse than Google's.

      The days of ad blocking are coming to a close, between unblockable ads and now Google just trying to kill it off in one fell swoop. I'm sure that some Firefox fork or whatever that will allow them to work as usual, but nobody besides some power users will use it (or even know of it)... and as most forks end up being, it'll

    • Before you do, try Waterfox [waterfoxproject.org] instead. Very similar to Firefox with extension compatibility, but no locked down about:config and it supports legacy extensions (which are easily searchable and installable with this extension [github.com].)

      Firefox has the resources to be a serious Chrome competitor (hundreds of millions of bucks in yearly revenue!), but they are hellbent on creating a Chrome *clone*, with the concerns of power users and the health of the extension ecosystem totally off their radar. Using Waterfox sends a

      • >" Before you do, try Waterfox [waterfoxproject.org] instead. Very similar to Firefox with extension compatibility, but no locked down about:config and it supports legacy extensions (which are easily searchable and installable with this extension [github.com].)"

        It really doesn't matter to me which browser, as long as it is not Chromium based. Same effect- denies Google control. But you don't have to use "Weaterfox" or "Pale Moon" if it is about the UI.

        Most of the popular addons/extensions ARE already por

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      ...as if you could even tell the difference anymore, since Firefox has been steadily making its UI more and more Chrome-like?

  • Microsoft pounces! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:53PM (#58688730)

    Would love it if Microsoft kept the API as is in their Chromium-based Edge allowing ad-blockers an thus stripping Google of revenue. They could even advertise it as a feature. They won't do it, but it would be a way for Edge to reclaim market share.

  • Stop the intrusive ads (Score:5, Interesting)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @07:57PM (#58688750)
    The in your face pop up/under/over ads. The ones that start blaring video/audio after you have scrolled down the page, forcing your go find out where the NOISE is coming from. If ads were STATIC, like they are in print media, I wouldn't use a blocker. But, with the amount of GARBAGE ads, THAT is why. Not to mention the DATA savings on a smartphone. Adguard pro, on my new phone has only been running 6 months, but, in that time, and, I'm not a 24/7 phone user, has SAVED 12GB of data, blocked 275,019 ads and 39721 trackers!

    • Google gets it, they just don't care. Money > everything else. Greed is why everything eventually gets fucked up.

      Looking at my Pi-Hole stats, ~21k queries went out in the past 24 hours and 13% of those were blocked. Those that made it through Pi-Hole got picked off by uBlock Origin on clients that support it.

      Hell, I even force my mobile cellular traffic back home through an OpenVPN server so it can be white-washed of ads as well.

      I don't think Big Advertising understands quite how much we fucking hate

    • Ads make me, as consumer who buys products, to spread lies into the world.
      Ads are principally wrong, any company that lives from them, is living from lies, and thus is evil.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Google actually does that.

      Chrome has a built in ad-blocker that blocks the worst, most annoying ads. It's enabled by default.

  • when users set browers to not load images to save bandwidth. Now that we have excessive bandwith loading a resource to obtain useful textual content is impossible. From autoloading video content and ads, to various tracking servers, simple text content of 2k takes 4mb to render. It's fucking ridiculous.

    Loading current referred content today is unbearable without having the ability to block certain domains (ad blockers). On the mobile platform, considering user costs, it's criminal. Too much noise

  • For Whom The Bell Chromes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kackle ( 910159 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @08:41PM (#58688896)
    Anyone who's been on the web for decades sees that this is the end of Chrome's popularity. It goes like this: We nerds get upset about something. We eventually inform/recommend/install other software (browsers in this case) at our work and on our loved ones' machines. Over time, the DOMinant (ha!) is destroyed.

    I only hope the next browser king will be kind enough to support older machines (OSes) so that so many don't have to end up as landfill just because of a sluggish browser.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Waccoon ( 1186667 )

      The industry has been trying to kill desktops for a decade, and mobile devices revolving around media consumption are now the norm. Recent OS updates have been turning computers more into black boxes than ever, constantly taking away control to the point where you can't do advanced diagnostics. Task managers now outright lie about what tasks are running and how much CPU time is being used.

      Hell, people are PAYING to have Echo and Alexa in their homes.

      What makes you think geek rage still matters? Computers

    • Except that's not what will happen. Nerds like to think consumers come to them for all the answers, but the reality is consumers only accept the answers that impact them (ever tried to convince someone who's never lost something of a good backup strategy?).

      Chrome will change to ensure that ads load, but based on what has been written so far they won't actually block adblockers from making the result invisible to the user. The end result is nerds will come to the unwashed masses with a solution for something

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        I see your point. I wonder whether the sluggishness will be enough for the average person to notice. Probably not - they'll blame the hardware. Do you think Google/Chrome will legally get away with such shenanigans (loading ads, but not really showing ads)?

  • But I take care of my own user experience. If necessary, against you.

    I care about your revenue model about as much as you care about my privacy from your advertisers.

  • Solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @08:57PM (#58688956)

    STOP USING CHROME. By doing so, you are enabling a huge corporation to behave badly, to brute-force their "standards" and agenda, and to and sacrifice your privacy. If things keep the current trend, Google will have 100% control over the majority of the entire Internet.

    Here is your solution: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/... [mozilla.org]

    >"Hill said that Google's motivation here had little to do with the end user experience, and far more to do with protecting advertising revenues from the rising popularity of adblock extensions."

    DUH. This shouldn't be a revelation to anyone.

    >"Why not let independent developers innovate where the Chrome team isn't?"

    Because Chrome is a proprietary binary blob, and Chromium isn't community-driven and likely never will be, either.

    • STOP USING CHROME. By doing so, you are enabling a huge corporation to behave badly, to brute-force their "standards" and agenda, and to and sacrifice your privacy. If things keep the current trend, Google will have 100% control over the majority of the entire Internet.

      Yeah but they provide good products that work well. So why shouldn't they have control over the internet? It has only gotten better since they took over from Microsoft.

      Signed
      Consumers everywhere who don't understand.

      • >"Yeah but they provide good products that work well."

        That is questionable on the standards, privacy, and control issues.

        >" So why shouldn't they have control over the internet?

        No company should have control over the internet.

        >" It has only gotten better since they took over from Microsoft."

        Firefox was responsible for ending MS's control over the web. Then Google stepped in. Competition is good and makes things better. Proprietary "standards" and single-company control isn't.

      • If you remember IE 6 was the better browser over Netscape. Ask any old web developer and they will tell you the quirks mode of Netscape made IE 6 look lean mean standards compliance machine.

        We all know how far that went (ignoring my silly sig). Problem I have now is standards are different than webkit and it is easier to tell developers to just support webkit/blink and ignore w3c as they are no longer relevant in making up standards. This is great for business scary for users and is 2002 all over again.

        Fire

  • Now that Chrome is the dominant browser, it's reached the tipping point where Google can leverage it to its own benefit, users be damned.

    This is the 90's Microsoft all over again.

  • Since webmasters only write to blink/webkit and not open standards like HTML5 we need a chromium based browser with modern security. MS Edge has adblack and chrome's apis. Ublock is already there.

    On my Android phone I have to use Edge much to my initial disappointment as pornhub on mobile CHrome slows my phone down to a crawl with ads and malware. I hated IE hence my sig back in the day but Firefox is dead for a reason.

    I refuse to let strangers run 30 ad networks from anonymous people per fucking tab per si

    • >"Since webmasters only write to blink/webkit and not open standards like HTML5 we need a chromium based browser with modern security."

      NO! That only solves a SMALL PART of the problem. As long as you are using something still based on the blink/webkit engine, you are STILL giving control to Google to do whatever they want. The main problem is exactly what you said- that web DEVELOPERS are starting to ignore open standards. The correct way to fight that is to use Firefox or one of its derivatives. Fo

  • they need to update their extensions with persistent launch pop-up that gives the low-down on Google's actions,
    and explains that Firefox is great modern broswer that their blocking functionality will continue working 100% on.
    and when Google goes live with their crackdown, just stop their extension from working completely,
    because false constrained functionality is worse than none with clear direcion to alternative with 100% functionality.

    i don't know why people stick wtih Chrome, because it once was good and

  • They are forking Chromium for the new Edge already, this would make great differentiation (working AdBlockers for the masses).

  • hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by junkgoof ( 607894 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @10:26PM (#58689244)
    I no longer feel like an idiot for sticking with firefox.

    • You should. Sticking with something that is easily transferred away through bad times is exactly why crap software thrives. You "sticking" with Firefox is why people will "stick" with Chrome, why desktop users "stick" with Windows 10.

      Sticking implies you're not happy with it and are forcing yourself through the bad times. It's not a positive behavior.

  • I mean, why would Google, a company that makes its money by selling ads on the internet, ever want to restrict the viewing of its ads on the internet?

    IT'S SUCH A PUZZLER! A mystery we'll probably never get to the bottom of.

  • TL,DR. Because their business is entirely based on advertising.

  • We have unusually complex one page webapps. If I do not count the various browser bugs which appear regularly (and reapper again, seriously), then the remaining 90% of mysterious bugs user experiencing are caused by ad-blockers and virus killers, and in a less extend other browser extensions.

    We have to write various checks to test if the code running in the browser is actually our Javascript code, or one of these miscreants modified the code (and break it).

    • We have a very similar situation like yours with (probably) one fundamental difference. Our user base is very small. So when one of those periodic issues arrived our instruction to users is
      "try all browsers in your computer, if the program works in one of them as it should be working, switch to that browser for our application. Which browser you were using can be fixed in some weeks/months so if you want, you can switch back to that browser then"
      Maybe not so surprisingly all my users are using Firefox and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Or you could just follow W3C standards and no issues arise. But that would require sound and solid engineering.

  • Google was ahead for a time and could make claims like this and nobody really knew whether they were true or not. Too many of the 2nd rank of engineers have now caught up (the 1st rank is both small and does not care to even involve themselves in these childish machinations) and they understand now how this tech actually works. At that point, the lie becomes obvious. Of course, ad-blockers speed up things and generally improve user experience and browsing security. This does not even need to be explained an

  • "We'll allow our enterprise customers to pay for a worse user experience and lower security." ðY(TM)
  • problem solved!

  • Lots of dumb questions about why Google is doing this, but I'm not seeing recommendations for what we should all be doing about it. Is Firefox still safe? Are there other decent browsers (please don't say Edge) that we should be turning to?

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