Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower extension updates

Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by Wowfunhappy on Saturday December 02, 2023 @01:54PM (#38500939)

It wouldn't be good for security. But I fundamentally believe that user freedom—the ability to do what big tech would rather they did not, such as adblocking—fundamentally depends on sideloading. You simply can't have one without the other. You're trusting the vendor to decide which software is safe, but that vendor will inevitably also consider which software makes them money.

On platforms where sideloading is either impossible (iOS) or usual (Android), adblockers are completely inaffective. The gatekeepers simply don't allow them to exist. This is true even though the maker of iOS ostensibly (!) isn't ad supported.

> I'm also not sure if sideloaded extensions can receive automatic updates

They can't (at least without some external software), which is why the ability to load remote Javascript would be important. For less frequent updates, they could prompt the user.

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Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by no_wizard on Saturday December 02, 2023 @02:29PM (#38501231)

There’s a legal avenue for this kind of thing too: pass laws that enforce clear and transparent rules around what the gatekeeper can do and give legal recourse to participants to hold said gatekeeper accountable if they break them.

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Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by Wowfunhappy on Sunday December 03, 2023 @09:10PM (#38512961)

But it's still like putting the coal companies in charge of the EPA. You can add laws and mandates to try to tie their hands, but they're going to push the boundaries as much as they possibly can.

You could have app approvals go through some truly public, government-run agency... except frankly I'd object to that too on free-speech grounds.

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Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by zarzavat on Saturday December 02, 2023 @03:17PM (#38501655)

As a developer not only can I be trusted to not install extensions from unknown sources, but there’s a much easier vector via NPM :)

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Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by fwn on Sunday December 10, 2023 @07:22AM (#38591053)

I'm not a developer, but I trust the author of ublock Origin a lot more than I trust Mozilla.

Mozilla routinely fails its users and spends a lot of money on downright bad ideas. They are a pinnacle of intransparency and most of their press releases are written in Newspeak, far worse than Google, ironically.

In this very thread we have a discussion about Mozilla putting the boot on its formerly open extension ecosystem.

So it is an odd idea that the manufacturer of the browser (Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Mozilla) should have a say in how much I can trust my content blocker.

The last group of stakeholders I would want involved in decisions about my content blocker is the ad-funded tech industry.

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Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by musictubes on Saturday December 02, 2023 @10:12PM (#38504478)

Ad blockers work fine on iOS. Yes, compared to ublock some things get through but not many. I have had good success with 1Blocker and AdGuard. Apple has allowed those apps for years.

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Re:Chrome's next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower ex... by Wowfunhappy on Saturday December 02, 2023 @10:32PM (#38504557)

I have 1Blocker and I find it does very little.

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