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Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by est31 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:41AM (#27130884)
Ad blockers could still "scroll" through a website, run an AI model on it to discover the ad sections, and cut them out. Even a simple model that filters out visual animations and replaces them with a static would be useful as a large annoying component of online ads is the movement and blinking etc. that make it hard to focus on the content.

Dark mode etc can, too, be implemented to work in terms of framebuffers only.

But yes, unless there is a serious need, canvas rendering is a severe regression.

Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by tjpnz on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:11AM (#27131270)
I've seen some rather atrocious techniques employed to bake ads into source but that can still be done without any performance impact. Making that work in WASM would require dynamic recompilation, doable perhaps for smaller apps but for behemoths like Gmail and Docs I couldn't see even Google getting that to scale. I think we'll still have browsers performing additional HTTP requests for that stuff, at least in the short to medium term. So traditional adblocking techniques will still be viable.
Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by asciimov on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:11AM (#27131271)
It will be like cutting out the ads in a newspaper. Lots of holes, everywhere.
Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by exhilaration on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:54AM (#27131770)
The difference from a physical newspaper is that on a computer we don't have to leave holes, we can replace them with beautiful artwork or our favorite cat pictures. That's still a hell of a lot better than ads.
Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by est31 on Thursday May 13, 2021 @09:36AM (#27141905)
I'm ok with ads in a newspaper. I can ignore them safely and blend them out. Many online ads nowaday blink or do other dark patterns to make ignoring them harder though. I hate that.
Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by xxpor on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @12:00PM (#27131827)
That still defeats the purpose. I want the ads to be blocked from loading for performance reasons more than anything else.
Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by anon_tor_12345 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:54AM (#27131045)
>run an AI model

what exactly would this AI model be trained on?

Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by iandanforth on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:57AM (#27131092)
Ads? The suggested approach is "from pixels" so any rendered ad is a source of training pixels.
Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by 4684499 on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:25AM (#27131411)
Is there any ad blocker that blocks ads rendered within videos?

It's possible doesn't mean it's viable.

Re:Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering by Nullabillity on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @01:51PM (#27133165)
SponsorBlock does a surprisingly good job: https://sponsor.ajay.app/