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A comment on Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Blocker Coming Next Year.

Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by pythonaut_16 on Thursday June 01, 2017 @03:51PM (#14463875)
This is somewhat concerning to me. While I'm all for blocking obtrusive and obnoxious ads, I'm not sure I want Google using it's position as a web giant and browser vendor to push these standards by default via Chrome.

An open web means I can host whatever (legal content) I want on my website and people are free to view it or not view it if they find it undesirable. Current ad blockers play well into this scheme because they protect the end user's right to view content in the way that they want.

This move by Google on the other hand is telling websites that they have to play by Google's content rules or have their website broken by default.

I'm not sure that's the web that I want to live in.

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by Crontab on Thursday June 01, 2017 @04:46PM (#14464508)
This move is mainly about making sure their own ads don't get blocked because of people trying to escape the bad behavior of others. But like you, I have doubts about an ad blocker created by an advertising company.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by Animats on Thursday June 01, 2017 @09:53PM (#14466853)
I have doubts about an ad blocker created by an advertising company.

Right. Once Google gets this deployed, watch them remove ad-blocking add-ons from the Google Store.

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by leeoniya on Thursday June 01, 2017 @10:16PM (#14466938)
i'm concerned about this as well, but i'm fine letting Chrome function simply as a dev tool and actually browse with Firefox, Opera, Servo, etc. w/uBlock Origin & uMatrix
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by wbl on Thursday June 01, 2017 @10:47PM (#14467058)
Firefox has some pretty nice dev tool extensions.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by Mayzie on Thursday June 01, 2017 @11:26PM (#14467206)
It won't for long when they deprecate their extension API and move to Chromes...
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by clouddrover on Friday June 02, 2017 @12:56AM (#14467550)
The dev tools are built into Firefox by default. So what do you base your claim on?
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by y4mi on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:32AM (#14468395)
pretty sure he was talking about the extensions that extend them though. firebug comes to mind.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by clouddrover on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:41AM (#14468436)
Firefox DevTools was built from Firebug, which is why they no longer develop Firebug. See the Firebug website: http://getfirebug.com/

And here's some more history: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/12/firebug-lives-on-in-firefo...

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by robin_reala on Friday June 02, 2017 @06:23AM (#14468852)
No, Firefox Dev Tools is a completely seperate project historically. Firebug version 3 and up built on top of it, but that’s the only connection (beyond commonality in tool function).
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by H4CK3RM4N on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:10AM (#14468315)
They're sadly moving towards interoperability/feature-parity with WebExtensions, but I don't think they'll change entirely at any point.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by Crespyl on Friday June 02, 2017 @03:42PM (#14472759)
I think they've explicitly stated that they're planning to entirely remove XUL from the codebase, eventually.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by derefr on Thursday June 01, 2017 @11:52PM (#14467302)
Presumably that won't mean that Firefox will only install extensions from the Chrome Web Store, though. addons.mozilla.org will continue to exist.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by patrick_haply on Friday June 02, 2017 @01:07AM (#14467596)
> i'm fine letting Chrome function simply as a dev tool and actually browse with Firefox, Opera, Servo, etc. w/uBlock Origin & uMatrix

I'm definitely in the same boat. That makes me wonder if it would be a bad long-term move for Chrome. Just guessing here based on personal anecdata, developers are more likely to use ad blockers, which could alienate the developer community. If that's true, I wonder if we would see a resurgence in Firefox and other browsers.

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by gjjrfcbugxbhf on Friday June 02, 2017 @06:29AM (#14468885)
Firefox needs to improve its dev tools first. I love Firefox as a browser but I find myself forced to use chromium devtools because I can't figure out how to get our source maps to work with Firefox :(
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by clarkbw on Friday June 02, 2017 @07:37AM (#14469136)
This is going to get a whole lot better. Try nightly now to see what's coming.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by fmueller on Friday June 02, 2017 @06:52AM (#14468969)
I don't think this would will be the case as it will only make people who know how to install an ad-blocker move to firefox. I think they target the users not having an ad-blocker installed.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by vlozko on Friday June 02, 2017 @10:51AM (#14470299)
So Google is going to be picking winners and losers here? In some instances, the ad company in question may behave better than Google (The Deck was one before they folded). In a worse case scenario this could lead to anti-competitive behavior where Google is essentially blocking out competition while still enabling its own tracking/ad placement.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by mcintyre1994 on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:24AM (#14468364)
If it doesn't block Youtube's ads then I don't see any motivation to switch to it, and I can't imagine it will. I think YouTube is the only site with quality content that I'd find unusable without a blocker.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by abtinf on Thursday June 01, 2017 @10:54PM (#14467089)
Replace the word "ads" with "popups" in your comment and you would be making an argument for a return to a horrible era.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by cm2187 on Friday June 02, 2017 @03:00AM (#14468025)
In fact this "ad blocker" is more of a popup and auto play blocker. It doesn't really mean to block ads. And worse than that, it does nothing to block or even reduce the tracking of users. In fact I haven't seen a single new feature in Chrome that would make tracking more difficult. Rather the contrary.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by flyingfences on Friday June 02, 2017 @09:24AM (#14469662)
> it does nothing to block or even reduce the tracking of users. In fact I haven't seen a single new feature in Chrome that would make tracking more difficult.

Of course not. Google makes their money through ads; they wouldn't do anything that would hurt their money-making abilities.

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by inimino on Friday June 02, 2017 @07:23AM (#14469085)
Popups and popunders were due to a browser feature (window.open) which was open to horrible abuse, and browsers were right to make this feature more restricted over time.

Browsers fixing their own UI mistakes and browsers setting and enforcing rules for content are two entirely different things.

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by wmf on Thursday June 01, 2017 @05:13PM (#14464805)
Chrome already has its TLS version treadmill and a blacklist of evil sites, so this is not really the first step down that slope.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by wheelerwj on Thursday June 01, 2017 @10:51PM (#14467078)
no but it is a huge step. using your platform to block competitors is the definition of anti-trust.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by clhodapp on Friday June 02, 2017 @02:09AM (#14467829)
Well... It's the sort of thing so-called anti-trust laws were designed to prevent but it's the definition of anti-competitive, not anti-trust.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by bitmapbrother on Thursday June 01, 2017 @04:10PM (#14464050)
These are ad standards agreed upon a consortium of companies.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by redm on Thursday June 01, 2017 @04:12PM (#14464078)
Of which Google is a founding member and the only traditional ad publisher (AdSense/AdX/etc) who serves ads to 3rd party properties. [1] I'm sure they have plenty of control to shape the standards to their benefit. In other words, the "consortium" is biased by Google themselves.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/coaltion-for-better-ads-launc...

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by bitmapbrother on Thursday June 01, 2017 @04:15PM (#14464106)
Are you sure about that?

https://www.betterads.org/members/

edit: I see you stealth edited your post.

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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by combatentropy on Thursday June 01, 2017 @05:25PM (#14464940)
The Wall Street Journal is a member of the group, and on page load it covered the article with an ad.
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by ceejayoz on Thursday June 01, 2017 @04:10PM (#14464056)
Were consumer advocacy groups included in that consortium?
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Re:Google Will Help Publishers Prepare for a Chrome Ad Block... by a2decrow on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:50AM (#14468465)
Of course not. But even if they were, it'd be only for show. They wouldn't have a say in anything.
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