uBlock Origin will soon stop functioning in Chrome as Google transitions to new browser extension rules.
At this point if you use Chrome I think there is something wrong with you.
well, there’s a lot wrong with me. but the only reason I use chrome is because when my last windows machine took a shit, I couldn’t afford a new PC so I grabbed a chromebook for $130CAD and I was seriously impressed with how easy and fast it was to use. that was 4 years ago, and now I’m just waiting for google’s hammer to drop so I can switch back to windows.
a chromebook isn’t without its charms, there are features that just make sense to me that are non-existent on windows: for example, you can increase the size of everything on your screen with two fingers on your touchpad. expand to make larger, pinch to shrink it down. seems like a no-brainer for any OS, but windows lacks this feature. and when you’re old af and your eyesight is for shit, this is an extremely useful tool to have available.
but if I can’t block ads then it’s meaningless. there are no redeeming features that could ever outweigh adblock capabilities. once that happens, I’m gone and I’ll never go back to chrome. they can go fuck themselves to death if they’re gonna take away UO
I’m (unfortunately for reasons) running Win11 on a Surface Pro 7 with keyboard, and pinch/pull to zoom works fine in Firefox and Vivaldi, which are the only apps I use the feature on. It produces funky behavior in Explorer and usually does nothing elsewhere.
Is it universally functional in Windows? No. Is it implemented at the OS level? Absolutely.
Every now and then a website doesn’t work on Firefox.
I have that problem too but I find using a Chromium-based browser is the solution. I doubt you actually need to use Chrome for these websites you’re having problems with.
i mostly use a vivaldi or opera portable for those. unzip, run, use the temperamental site, close, delete directory. it’s not very often that i have to do this.
but for a couple of pesky sites i do frequent a bit more often, i keep their portable browsers to reuse and have them configured (including addons) specifically for them.
For me, my default browser is LibreWolf with several privacy hardening extensions, but if I do come across a website that fails, my usual route goes LibreWolf > Firefox > Ungoogled Chromium
If it doesn’t work beyond that then I just won’t use the website.
Google isn’t blocking one of the biggest adblockers. It’s killing chrome!
Those who aren’t using an adblock won’t notice any difference but everyone else will just migrate to a non chromium browser
This will incentivize businesses to only support chrome
I’m fine with not supporting them then.
More people should use Firefox. Anyone who does not want Google to control the web browser space with a single base. Firefox will continue support uBlock Origin in its full strength. Notice, Google does not “kill” uBlock Origin, but rather weaken it substantially with a new protocol.
But I get it. With such headlines more people will read it. At least it has a good effect of getting attention of people, who would otherwise ignore it.
They do kill uBlock Origin. The Lite version is a different extension.
Its still the same extension, same source code, same logic, just less capable; hence the addition of “Lite” to the name. Originally they wanted release the Lite version with same name, but changed it Lite, so people don’t get confused why its not longer blocking everything it blocked before.
The developer specifically released the light version because they acknowledged that it is not the same and you need to make the explicit choice of what you want to keep using
same logic
That’s the point, it isn’t. The good old version was built on logic where the browser would send the downloaded webpage to the extension, and uBO could weed out ads and trackers, and give you the sanitized version. uBOL works completely differently, as it has to ask the browser to clean it out, but the browser will ultimately decide what to actually do, and there are already limitations that impact ad blocking, as the browser won’t accept enough changes to block all the different kinds of shit that comes through.
The other big difference in logic is distribution, uBO relies on outside blocklists to keep up with Google changing Youtube several times a day to keep sending you malware, in the new system, this is not allowed, so it’s on Google to approve a new blocklist as fast as they do their changes - they won’t.
It’s going to be less capable, it’s going to be exactly as capable as Google wants. It might as well be named the Google Ad Blocker if only that didn’t discount the insane work the uBO team does to keep up with Google’s shit.
@Kissaki@beehaw.org @baggins@lemmy.ca @ivn@jlai.lu Apologies. I think you guys are right about this, its actually killing the old plugin (in Chrome). Thanks all for explanation, now I understand why that is.
Its still the same extension, same source code, same logic, just less capable
the same… but not the same… ??
I think the technologies are quite different.
uBOL is entirely declarative, meaning there is no need for a permanent uBOL process for the filtering to occur, and CSS/JS injection-based content filtering is performed reliably by the browser itself rather than by the extension. This means that uBOL itself does not consume CPU/memory resources while content blocking is ongoing – uBOL’s service worker process is required only when you interact with the popup panel or the option pages.
Are you claiming non-lite does the same, plus more?
You say it’s the same source code, but it’s a different source code repository. non-lite, lite.
Use DNS filtering. I use NextDNS which has a free tier that meets my needs. You can add popular filter lists and your browser will never even see those ads, trackers etc. Or you can use Vivaldi and Firefox of course. But DNS cuts it off before it even gets to your machine.
a free tier
Alternatively, you can just host this stuff yourself and never pay. A Pihole is just DNS-filtering. There’s a million guides to do this on the internet already. You can also do it more directly with some routers, I run DNS filtering on an ASUS router with the merlin third-party firmware. It’s possibly the simplest thing you can host yourself. Like others have pointed out though, it isn’t a replacement for uBO. They both complement each other and I would recommend both to people who are able. The one major advantage it has is being able to block some ads in mobile apps. But it cannot block as many in a browser.
DNS filtering only gets you so far. An adblocker is still a very good addition
dns blocking methods do not, and literally cannot, block them all.
The ad company blocking an ad blocker is totally about security
- Google stans
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“For the security” is starting to sound a lot like “for the children”. I hope this works out better than secure boot. When these new ideas emerge that have, let’s call them, “side effects” like disabling ad-blockers or preventing Linux from being installed I am suspicious.
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if google cared, they’d vet ads and ad links, and guarantee their safety and security.
if google cared, they’d put a stop to seo ‘optimizers’ and scammers scoring top positions on serps.
but google doesn’t care about anything other than their profits and share price.
adblockers can affect both of those. they’re using the weak cover of ‘security’ enhancement to neuter them.
existing adblockers provide more safety and security than what can be realized by the shift to mv3.
This is the most succinct, unbiased explanation I’ve seen for this change. Thank you for this! It’s good to know there’s an unintended security improvement in their otherwise brazen attempt to kill ad blockers on Chrome.
Fuck Google.
With this change, extensions can “only” alter/inspect/redirect/block 30,000 domains if they use the webRequest API. That’s not enough to build uBlock Origin with, but at least there’s limit now.
That seems like an arbitrary number. Why not 20,000? Or 300,000? What the hell is this limit even for? Even malware can still target 10 domains and do some significant damage. So, what the hell is the point?
Remember, politicians don’t pass racist laws by directly saying they are excluding PoC into the law. They do it by targeting commonalities that happen to apply to PoC.
Google isn’t going to flat-out say they are blocking uBlock Origin. They are going to do it by implementing “security features” that just so happen to target only uBlock Origin.
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With this from chrome, and Reddit going paywalls do you think we’ll see another spike in Lemmy traffic…i think it’s a safe bet.
They have already been coming in over the last week since the announcement.
Yet another reason to use Brave, which has better native ad block than any of the other browsers.
Meh, Brave is still Chroium. Even if they continue to support manifest v2, even today the are selling „good“ ads to the users. That and the Crypto bullshit they tried a while ago makes them untrustworthy in my eyes.
Firefox is the only real alternative.
Brave is still Chroium
And yet, it does a better job blocking YouTube ads than Firefox, without any add-ons.
Crypto, Ads
Those features are opt-in.
You mean by building the add-on directly into the browser? No thanks. I like my browser dev to work on my browser and my ad-block dev to work on my ad-block. They are both good at what they do on their own, I don’t need them to mix.
Those features are opt-in.
They are now. They were opt-out to begin with. This is one of those “fool me twice” situations. That, and the founder of Brave is also an outspoken homophobe. He financially backed Prop 8 in California to overturn same-sex marriage, and left Firefox because it was too woke. I seriously would rather Chrome at that point. They’re just regular levels of corporate evil, not “every person who uses my browser is proving my identity politics” level of evil.
They are now.
That’s what I don’t get with the Anti-Brave crowd. Brave learns their users don’t like a feature and then they do better. This would, to me, be indicative of the way things should proceed.
Meanwhile Firefox is moving backwards.
By all means, use a browser that doesn’t work as well, but maybe don’t run a circle jerk of trolls whenever someone offers a better-working alternative.
Personally, I think I should be able to expect a company to understand their target demographic well enough to know that those “features” wouldn’t be well received. But I also personally don’t consider ads and crypto garbage to be features. I guess if you do, then it’s the perfect browser for you. However, I don’t really want to contribute to Google’s monopolisation of browser engine development anymore. Nor do I want to use a browser developed by a homophobe. So even if Brave may be slightly “better-working” I would not consider it better at all.
As well, even though I’m a Blahaj member, I’m going to take the time to point out the “Bee Nice” rule of the instance we’re currently on. It feels like you’re skirting dangerously close to violating that, considering you implied I’m a troll for calling out the prejudicial politics of the founder of a piece of software, which you didn’t at all address in your comment. I’m going to attach some resources about it here, if you care to read them at all:
- https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/04/04/javascript-inventor-gave-1000-to-support-californias-gay-marriage-ban/
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/gay-firefox-developers-boycott-mozilla-to-protest-ceo-hire/
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozilla-employees-to-brendan-eich-step-down/
- https://tim.dreamwidth.org/1844711.html
- https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/killing-the-messenger-at-mozilla
- https://tim.dreamwidth.org/1852118.html
- https://community.brave.com/t/brave-needs-to-address-brendan-eich/281044
(Some of these are older, about the push for him to step down as Mozilla CEO, some are newer and urging him to leave Brave, or for people to boycott it.)
No thanks Brendan Eich the CEO of Brave is a piece of shit.
Only vivaldi caught this issue. Brave had this api enabled, most likely on accident.
But the problem is, that chromium is just such big and complex software, when combined with development being driven by Google, it’s just impossible for any significant changes or auditing to be done by third parties. Google is capable of exteriting control over Brave, simply by hiding changes like above, or by making massive changes like manifest v3, which are expensive for third parties to maintain.
Brave can maintain 1 big change to chromium, but for how long? What about 2, 3, etc.
My other big problem with brave is that I see them somewhat mimicking Google’s beginnings. Google started out with 3 things: an ad network, a browser, and a search engine.
Right now, Brave has those same three things. It feels very ominous to me, and I would rather not repeat the cycle of enshittification that drove me away from chrome and goolgle.
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I’m pro-crypto enough that I tried Brave but anti-crypto enough that I had to stop.
The popup ads were melting my brain and the payment wasn’t worth it.
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I wouldn’t recommend Brave for 3 main reasons:
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Chromium-based
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Funded by venture capitalists
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Supported by crypto and ads
Unfortunately, Firefox and its forks are really the only alternative to Chrome.
Also the whole brave CEO being a homophobic prick. Also that adblock will probably break under v3
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Nice, doesn’t excuse the CEO tho
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Good, and CEO are kinda mutually exclusive
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Google has been telegraphing this for months. Either switch browsers now or enjoy your ads.
They’ve literally said ad blockers are a threat to their revenue https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419000004/goog10-kq42018.htm
Risks Related to Our Businesses and Industries
[…]
New and existing technologies could affect our ability to customize ads and/or could block ads online, which would harm our business.
Technologies have been developed to make customizable ads more difficult or to block the display of ads altogether and some providers of online services have integrated technologies that could potentially impair the core functionality of third-party digital advertising. Most of our Google revenues are derived from fees paid to us in connection with the display of ads online. As a result, such technologies and tools could adversely affect our operating results.
It’s not exactly super helpful to just link to an 86 page SEC filing. Maybe you could provide a quote?
Ctrl F for “block”. There were only 5 usages of the word and that led me to the section.
That’s nice. A quote still would have been more approachable for most, while those that were more curious could have followed the link to the document.
I have some time now, I’ll grab it and edit it in
Google was declared a monopoly. Next step: Let the monopoly keep doing the monopoly stuff.
The judge has yet to rule on how this should be addressed. Even after he makes a decision on that, there will be appeals. So long as the orange shitbag isn’t reelected, things look better for the industry than they have in a long time: at least something is finally happening.
Declared a monopoly only in the search engine space AFAIK. Browsers don’t have anything to do with that other than maybe setting Google as the default search engine.
i use firefox (and you should too) but they’re blocking ubo, which as not updated to mv2 - ubo lite still works.
Yes but that’s not the same. Because of Chrome limitation it can’t update it’s blocklist directly. You have to update the whole extension to update the blocklist and that goes through Google validation in the Chrome store. It adds delay and Google could even refuse some updates. The blocklist is also shorter because not all filter rules are supported.
Sounds like ubo lite could end up blocking everything else than Google, unless of course the ad companies pay Google to force ubo lite to remove them from the list.
Enshittification goes brrrr.
Block Chrome and use anything not Chrome based. In other words use Firefox.
But Firefox is about to loose it’s funding because google is a monopoly lol
Firefox is open source. It’s not going anywhere; even if Mozilla Co. goes broke and closes down the Mozilla Foundation.
Sure. But loosing the money to fund development surely won’t help, will it? My point is that there is a real danger here. There are other forces at play which is why you have the chrome dominance already. Long term firefox will fall behind if not maintained. There really needs to be a push to finance firefox or alternatives.
Or imagine if more and more websites “require” some new web protocol to prevent ad blocking, or use of DMCA against browsers or addons altering websites as “web apps”. This is another problem that cannot be solved through individual responsibility.
So Google is a monopoly and removing funding to Firefox will help them not to be a monopoly? That does not sound right. Rather the opposite.
Nothing has been decided or done yet. Most likely they will just be forced to not abuse their position, for example make ads for it on www.google.com, don’t bundle Chrome with Android and such things.
I believe there will always be an alternative to Chrome available as the Open Source community will find a way together.
Perhaps this will bug people who currently use Chrome and uBO to switch browsers.
I wish I could for work. But stupid corporate policy demands otherwise, Google workspace is so shit.
Google workspace
Dystopia is real
Only a few more steps until “Google Government”
If I were an exec at Google, I’d have already made a move to buy out a small country. Tuvalu, Nauru or something with a minuscule GDP. Then proclaim the Google Republic, move HQ functions over, and be free of taxes and outside influences forever.
And being their own country, they could even have a full fledged military…
I don’t think you can cancel an entire country with a couple months notice after you get bored of it.
Doubt it, because we have ″Microsoft Government″
Oh no judgment at all, I’m also using Chrome at work and somewhat outside of work.
I use Firefox everywhere except work where my only options are Chrome or Edge (both chromium). Apparently uBlock lite is supposed to work on the new version of Chrome and hopefully still functions roughly the same. Apart from block web ads, I rely on it to block YouTube ads.
i did read somewhere that affected chrome users are being presented with alternatives from the chrome extension ‘store’ that are mv3-ready.
whether or not they’re capable of clicking the right buttons on the right screens and windows to do it is another story.
ubo, abp and adguard all have mv3 variants. there are others, but i think those are the ‘big three’. ublock origin lite is what i’ve been moving people to here, if not to firefox. so far, so good.
I think the lite versions don’t allow scripted blocking, only static or something. So a whole lot of the adaptive blocks for persistent ads you encounter on facebook, instagram and other shitty socials that behave like viruses will be hard to impossible to kill.
I’m glad I never had to deal with that as I have never used Chrome on desktop, but I’m pretty sure there will be many folks out there who don’t know how to switch.
This coming down the line finally got me off of my incredibly lazy ass and forced me to switch a few months ago. It was easy, and I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.
They’ll switch from Chrome to Cryptocurrency flavored Chrome and think all is well in the world.
Will this change be implemented in Chromium too? Or will it / should it finally become independent of Chrome?
I guess so. I don’t get your second point however. Chromium is as independent from Google/Chrome as your banking app from your bank account.
I thought the situation was a little like Android. Google develops an open source version (along with as many independent developers who wish to contribute), then sticks on a bunch of proprietary BS and sells that version to phone companies. If chromium is to chrome like vanilla android is to android with g-services, then I guess my question really becomes: is google making this change in the underlying code base, or just in the BS they put on top?
Or am I confused about how the connection works between chrome and chromium?
Now I get your point. Technically, I think it could be possible to only include the changes in Chrome. It would make sense for Google to push the changes all the way down to Chromium, though, as this would eliminate ad blockers on many competing browsers as well. Judging based on the past I would say this is what’s gonna happen
yes, it will.
whether or not a ‘fully functional’ and fully-featured content blocker remains available for third-party browsers that use chromium as their core will depend on those third-parties and what they add, or add back, to their own releases to support those kinds of browser extensions.
