Google's Chrome Browser Starts Disabling uBlock Origin (pcmag.com)
- Reference: 0175258811
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/15/1739233/googles-chrome-browser-starts-disabling-ublock-origin
- Source link: https://www.pcmag.com/news/googles-chrome-browser-starts-disabling-ublock-origin
> If you're a fan of uBlock Origin, don't be surprised if it stops functioning on Chrome. The Google-owned browser has [1]started disabling the free ad blocker as part of the company's plan to phase out older "Manifest V2" extensions. On Tuesday, the developer of uBlock Origin, Raymond Hill, retweeted a screenshot from one user, showing the Chrome browser disabling the ad blocker. "These extensions are no longer supported. Chrome recommends that you remove them," the pop-up from the Chrome browser told the user. In response, Hill wrote: "The depreciation of uBO in the Chrome Web Store has started."
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/googles-chrome-browser-starts-disabling-ublock-origin
Firefox Still Supports Manifest V2 (Score:5, Informative)
If uBO is a major part of your browsing security, maybe now's a good time to give Firefox another try.
Re: Firefox Still Supports Manifest V2 (Score:2)
I sure hope you're using uBO on there too.
Re: (Score:1)
... did you read the title of the post...
Re: Firefox Still Supports Manifest V2 (Score:2)
Firefox is unfortunately also turning into shit. It just refuses to load sites from time to time for seemingly no reason, and the same sites load just fine on another computer where everything is actually synched between them. Website 1 will load on PC 1 but not PC 2. Website 2 will load on PC 2 but not PC 1. Same network, near identical hardware, same version of Windows, no rhyme or reason whatsoever. Infuriating.
Re: Firefox Still Supports Manifest V2 (Score:2)
Have they made it suck less? Longtime FF user who gave up like 10 years ago
Re: (Score:2)
That's vague.
To my memory, the things they did to suck 10 years ago were all copying the UI anti-patterns that chrome used.
And no, those haven't gone away.
Re: (Score:3)
If you gave up 10 years ago the answer is yes. Firefox went through a very core re-write in 2017 which turned it back into a functional and competitive browser, no longer painfully slow, no longer crashing when you look at it funny.
If you're annoyed about some nebulous issue on the interface, well I'm sure that still sucks.
No problem (Score:5, Informative)
uBlock Origin works just fine in Pale Moon for me.
Re:No problem (Score:5, Informative)
> uBlock Origin works just fine in Pale Moon for me.
uBlock Origin works well on Palemoon, but not for YouTube. On YouTube I get a popup message saying that adblocking violates Youtube's terms of service. I don't get that with Firefox or Brave.
I really like Palemoon and have used it as my main wen browser for a couple of years now. Unfortunately, the developer of Palemoon doesn't like "web extensions", so Palemoon requires its own special version of uBlock Origin that isn't updated as often
There really is no reason to use Chrome any more. There are other chromium-based browsers hat work just as well and don't have Google's anti-user bullshit built in.
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly, Pale Moon disables NoScript, which means I have to use a different browser.
Re: (Score:2)
> Sadly, Pale Moon disables NoScript, which means I have to use a different browser.
Really? When I was last using Pale Moon it was still possible to install and use NoScript. Moonchild really hated it and got in a snit when people questioned his judgment about it, but I installed and enabled it anyway. I'm kinda surprised that it's no longer possible to use it.
Long Live Firefox! (Score:4, Informative)
I always knew Google was the enemy. It's sad it was so obvious for far too long.
Re: (Score:2)
From the very first time I saw Google attempting to sneak-install Chrome when visiting google.com, I was turned off and have since bristled at their strong-arm, aggressive tactics to get people to use their browser.
I never left Firefox and I am glad that they are still around to offer an alternative to Chromium and Webkit.
Other browsers (Score:5, Informative)
Time for FF, Brave or DDG.
Re: (Score:2)
I use Brave but it is a derivative of Chrome, and I am wondering if Brave can continue to support uBlock Origin.
Re: (Score:2)
LibreWolf isn't bad either (Firefox fork with no Pocket and better privacy defaults). Mullvad Browser is apparently decent but I have not tried it. I use their VPN though.
Lifelong firefox user (Score:5, Informative)
I can attest that Firefox is still my daily driver and I've had very close to zero problems with it. If they want to burn their hard-fought market % to the ground, let them. I strongly recommend that everyone switch.
Re:Lifelong firefox user (Score:5, Insightful)
Ditto. FF has been solid for me as my daily driver for years. Remember when Chrome first launched and everyone loved it because it was "so fast"? The days of the noticeable performance boost are long gone. Yes, there's a handful of sites which don't work well with it (EX: QNAP, vCenter, etc) but that's not exactly a deal breaker.
For most users, FF will work just fine but they're too traumatized by some second hand story about someone's brothers aunts roommates cousin that couldn't get a YouTube video to work during a full moon.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe Firefox not working sometimes is mainly because of its lack of popularity, developers simply don't test and there are some differences, if people start using it those issues would go away. But it is pretty good and most sites work and if it doesn't turning off enhanced tracking protection usually fixes it.
How fortunate for me that I don't use Chrome, then (Score:5, Insightful)
How fortunate for me that I don't use Chrome, then.
Oh, you say many do, and thus I shoudl be concerned?
Why, yes -- I am concerned -- but about the direction the internet is taking, while being "steered" by Google for 20 years now.
The folly of people never ceases to amaze me. You lie with dogs, wake up with fleas. Put another way, you use a browser from the world's biggest advertiser and data rapist, you're expected to just bend over and take it for your Tech Bro Overlords.
Ditch Google, as hard as you can, on as many fronts as you can. Deny them every penny you can.
Re: (Score:2)
A classic. Also, "He who fly in airplane upside down have crack up"
Why? (Score:3)
What's the rationale from Google? That they don't like it when we have nice things?
Back to Firefox...
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
> What's the rationale from Google? That they don't like it when we have nice things? Back to Firefox...
Google is an ad company first, so I would assume the rationale is, "This just ever so slightly slows our Mississippi river size profit margin. Block it."
Re: (Score:2)
Because they are an advertising company, first and foremost.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
It's right in the summary? Google announced a transition from Manifest V2 to V3 in 2019 and are now enforcing the transition. They say it's mainly security issues, I will leave that up to the reader to determine but it's not like browser pluging haven't been big security holes since they existed so I would say there is some validity to it.
Raymond Hill explains it right in his FAQ of the capabilities UBO loses from the transition to UBOL which is already V3 compatible:
[1]Filtering capabilities which can't be ported to MV3 [github.com]
[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)#filtering-capabilities-which-cant-be-ported-to-mv3
Re: (Score:2)
You're asking why McDonalds opposes treating cattle like humans.
Stop asking questions and get back to looking at ads.
Adblockers... (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh, I've come to realize that I don't need adblockers anymore. Malwarebytes browser plugin does everything I need.
Re: Adblockers... (Score:4)
That's also an ad blocker...
Re: (Score:2)
> Eh, I've come to realize that I don't need adblockers anymore. Malwarebytes browser plugin does everything I need.
For now. Malwarebytes is also a Manifest V2 plugin which will need to be significantly gimped for Manifest V3.
Downloads of Ungoogled Chromium (Score:1)
Are about to go way up
Time to disable Chrome then (Score:5, Insightful)
Whelp, the time has arrived to completely uninstall Chrome, then.
Re: (Score:2)
The best time was 15 years ago.... But the second best time is now :)
New adbvlockers, same as the old adblockers (Score:1)
Origin uBlock Lite works just fine. Put the pitchforks down.
Re:New adbvlockers, same as the old adblockers (Score:5, Informative)
Not exactly. Adblock Plus does a very poor job blocking YT ads in Chrome exactly because of these anti-features. No such issues with uBlock on Firefox.
Switch to Brave (Score:2)
When they announced that this change was coming however long ago, I immediately switched to Brave. So happy I did! Eat a bag of 'em, Google!
Re: (Score:2)
I was switching off Firefox, and reluctantly heading to Chrome when the announcement sparked a discussion that got me on Brave.
No regrets so far.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]Here [wikipedia.org] are some regrets for you:
> Brave has received negative press for diverting ad revenue from websites to itself,[32] collecting unsolicited donations for content creators without their consent,[45] suggesting affiliate links in the address bar[51] and installing a paid VPN service without the user's consent.[60]
Add to that the ads on the dashboard and the [2]cryptocurrency bullshit [brave.com] and it paints a picture of pretty unscrupulous owners. Enjoy your honeymoon—it seems predestined for enshittification.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Reception
[2] https://brave.com/brave-rewards/
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, but since Brave is using Chromium (which is an open-source project maintained by Google), how long before they are forced to fork the code base in order to continue on with V2?
I think a big reason that other projects use Chromium is for the cross-compatibility with other Chromium-based browsers. You can write one extension and use it in many different browsers.
As time goes forward, the fork that Brave would be using will become more and more divergent from the official Chromium project and new plugins
Interpret Google as damage and route around it (Score:2)
This is exactly why Google cannot be trusted with any standards, because if they could, they would have made it impossible to block their ads.
Network Wide Adblocking (Score:2)
These stories are always a good opportunity to plug Pi-hole. Defense in layers.
[1]https://pi-hole.net/ [pi-hole.net]
[1] https://pi-hole.net/
Re: Network Wide Adblocking (Score:1)
I instantiated my pihole about 3 years ago. It's amazing.
Re: (Score:2)
It has had limited effectiveness for me. Many apps and devices have hard-coded DNS servers and do the DNS-over-SSL queries that are either unblockable or break when you try.
Re: (Score:2)
If it was just me, pi-hole and noscript all the way. I am fine doing the extra work to troubleshoot problems and create exceptions.
My wife, on the old hand, is not so tolerant.
With the pi-hole in place, I would get calls like "why doesn't Paramount+ save viewing progress?" and "Why do web pages look weird / not work?" and "I am trying to play a game on my tablet but the game just goes blank for periods of time"
It got to be too much to try to figure out from the logs which domains were serving what purpose s
Whining gits (Score:4, Insightful)
uBlock Origin can still work with Manifest v3.
They just haven't gotten there yet.
Complaints that this shouldn't happen are just insane. One of the serious issues that's been an ongoing problem was apparently "legitimate companies" putting an extension in the store which gets checked out and approved, and then installed by users, and then immediately goes and downloads an "update" from super-sketchy-site.totallynotcriminals.xyz. Manifest v3 stops that nonsense. This means that definition updates for uBO just have to go through the same vetting process, which might mean updates are delayed by 2-3 days. ...but it's not like Chrome hasn't been saying exactly this for literally months. Users would just rather complain and engage in stupid conspiracy theories than actually be safe from whatever dumb things they try and install into their browser that makes it wildly unsafe for them to shop online or access online banking.
Re: (Score:1)
Might even be worse than that, those 3 days might be enough for google to see what changes were made to the ad-blocking list so they can nullify the workaround before it ever even gets to the users. By the time they update their definition files, google has accounted for the new block list and it doesnt do anything.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, that's ll true. Ublock Origin has hacked and root kitted me dozens of ti... oh wait, no, it hasn't.
If this was really about security they could vet developers and have a program to sign up as partners. I'm sure they could even find a way to profit from that.
Google is an ad company that makes most of their money from browser ads. They made a decent browser during a time there wasn't one. They owned the ads and the delivery mechanism. Now they're just pulling the trigger on filtering their revenue s
Re:Whining gits (Score:5, Informative)
False, they have gotten there. Unfortunately under manifest V3 the functionality is somewhat hindered and as such they actually released their fully compliant manifest V3 plugin under a different name: uBlock Origin Lite allowing users to continue to use the objectively better version as long as they can.
uBlock Origin isn't alone in this, Malwarebytes Browser Guard have the same issue. Literally everyone producing content blocking plugins have come out and pointed out severe technical limitations that manifest v3 impose on them. Yeah v3 also includes security benefits, but don't pretend that is the only thing that it does. There are legit restrictions in place on what a plugin can do.
Not according to Raymond Hill. (Score:5, Informative)
uBlock Origin's main developer says you are wrong. [1]Here [github.com], in his words, is a list of functionality that cannot be ported to Manifest v3 due to inherent limitations in it. These limitations are why uBlock Origin Lite exists and why it is named the way it is.
[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)#filtering-capabilities-which-cant-be-ported-to-mv3
Firefox is not the solution (Score:2)
It will only take a "visit" by Google execs to Firefox similar to how Nintendo visited Ryujinx. The ad industry are biding their time, and will find away to implement unbypassable ads or get adblockers classified as unauthorized software. Firefox already messed with Ublock lite, and there are still plenty of extensions that never survived the end of XUL.
Trying out Zen browser (Score:1)
Once the rumblings started, I switched to Firefox as my daily driver. No real complaints except some slowness (especially with some animations, etc.).
I'm also trying out [1]Zen [zen-browser.app] and I must say, I really do like it so far. Somewhat like Arc's UI and Mozilla under the hood, with Firefox sync. I especially like the workspaces feature since it fills the void of tab groups, which Firefox lacks and extensions aren't the greatest IMO.
[1] https://zen-browser.app/
Advertising Company (Score:2)
Google is literally an advertising company. If you use a browser made by an advertising company, you're basically getting what you deserve.
Firefox (Score:2)
Use it.
I guess Google doesn't (Score:1)
I guess Google doesn't want advertisers to find out they have been charging them for ads that never got delivered because of ad blockers.
Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially every single google product is turning miles worse in the last few years to squeeze extra advertising revenue out of you.
Now's the time to learn our lesson.
Re: (Score:3)
Their search has become a cesspoll. Only thing I of value from them is Youtube.
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Insightful)
And youtube is only remotely tolerable with uBlock these days. The ads-content ratios have been going insane.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think ads work nearly as well as advertisers believe. Yes, if you can make your ass ubiquitous you can force your product into the public consciousness and get that beautiful brand curiosity going. Or maintain brand loyalty.
Everything else? Marginal. So as advertisers pull back, platforms try to make it up on volume. Which makes their platforms less desirable which reduces ad pricing which leads to more volume.
Eventually everything ends up being a pile of crap with flyers posted on it, and econ
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus if an ad becomes too obnoxious, people will associate the products with the annoyance and actively avoid them.
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Interesting)
> Plus if an ad becomes too obnoxious, people will associate the products with the annoyance and actively avoid them.
This is already every ad I see TBH.
I "love" it when you go to a news site on mobile and there's a banner on top, floating video window, banner on bottom, and a larger scroll-based banner that appears and then you get a full-screen "sign up for xyz" 5 seconds in.
80% of the screen real estate is covered by ads. All you're doing is pissing off customers and training them to ignore ads. If they wonder why the click-thru rate is so low, it's because you've trained people thus. We're in some weird dystopian era rn and I'm wondering when peak-ad will hit.
Re: (Score:2)
I will never use Carvana for this reason.
Re: (Score:1)
I will never, EVER install that match three game with the stupid king character on it. Match three games are fun in a mindless way to kill 5 minutes with a puzzle. This game looks like they have some creative scenarios to add to the fun. But I've seen those ads so... many... times... that it's taken any desire I had away to try it out.
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Interesting)
> Plus if an ad becomes too obnoxious, people will associate the products with the annoyance and actively avoid them.
There is a famous marketing book called "Ogilvy on Advertising" written by [1]David Ogilvy [wikipedia.org].
In that book he warns that marketing firms have demonstrated empirically that the "wrong" ad can actually un-sell a product.
So yeah, that phenomenon is a thing that the advertising industry itself is aware of.
As a nerdy asperger type, I've often wondered why that doesn't apply to virtually every ad, since I find commercials to be so obnoxious that most of them leave me thinking that I will try to remember that brand so that I can NOT buy it.
But then again, I was reading an article the other day posted to Hacker News about the state of psychology, and they referenced a 2017 Heineken ad that allegedly did more good for bringing people on opposite sides of the partisan divide together than any known psychology experiment in academia ... and so I looked that up and thought to myself "now THAT is what good marketing ought to look like." So I definitely think there is a perception bias that is created by the "bad ads" that are so common. I guess if the 90/10 rule applies to everything else then it stands to reason that 90% of advertisements are garbage.
In any case, it's somewhat comforting to know that our suspicion that ads can backfire has been tested by the industry and verified.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogilvy_(businessman)
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Insightful)
For the most part online ads don't do anything but annoy users. Not for the companies buying them, anyway.
I worked a few years at an ad company in the day. We had the stats from our logs, our customers, and industry that showed ads actually have negative value for the ad buyers over all. For the content hosts they can be a bonanza and real business model if they have the right kind of users and don't go crazy with the excess ads. And users, I guess get free content but we had free content before ads existed on the net so maybe not. We were the content guys hosting other's ads, btw, in case that wasn't clear.
With some a/b testing, we learned the obvious: too many ads on a screen drives users away, flashy ads drive users away, auto play video and anything that makes noise will get users to send bomb threats, more than 4 reasonably small ads drives users away, forced ads before content display drives users away.... Hmmm, there's a pattern here. Too bad a decade later these dumb asses still haven't figured it out. We did 4 small not-obnoxious ads per page and made super bank without sending users fleeing.
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Interesting)
For the most part online ads don't do anything but annoy users.
When they were static images. Now they're all JS-based and open the users up to malware.
Re: (Score:1)
Ok yes, there's that. I meant don't do anything positive for the users. Sure, in addition to being annoying and a waste of time and network bits, they are a potential security and privacy problem, too, agreed. I was looking at it solely from a "what are the benefits" perspective and the answer is "none".
Re: Don't use anything from google (Score:2)
Whether or not they work is irrelevant, stupid. Google can say /maybe/ they're useful and cur up mega FOMO in ad buyers and nothing else matters.
Re: (Score:2)
Yet at the end of the day, the bills for the servers have to get paid.
Most people when presented with something like Youtube Premium are like "LOL - Adblockerz!", while proclaiming that ads don't work and are pointless.
At some point you have to either suffer through whatever penance there is to watch content for "free", or you have to pay for it, otherwise its not profitable to host it and the content will go away.
And remember even in a world of user generated content you still need servers to host this stu
Re: (Score:2)
I tend to view it as ad effectiveness is limited to some constant value, divided among all the ads a person experiences, with some time averaging.
Go back to the days of broadcast TV.
IE show 1 30 second ad, it's effectiveness is C. Show 3 30 second ads back to back? It's C/3 per ad. Show 6 30 second ads? It's now not even C/6, as they've gone to the bathroom or kitchen.
Try to show 12 at a time? Now they're recording and fast forwarding through them, or utilizing more advanced skipping methods.
As you men
Re: (Score:2)
welcome to our corporatocracy, this is the inevitable result of classism in action and the decline of a once great civilization ...
Re: (Score:2)
I'm getting blocks of 60 second unskipable ads now on my Roku, and tons of surveys. I've taken to just putting obvious bullshit into the surveys every time.
Re: (Score:2)
I am in the process of switching over to Firefox, but I'm not writing off Chrome just yet.
There is uBlock Lite that still works with Chrome. I've been testing it because the full-fat uBlock is a battery killer in Firefox for Android. Firefox implements the pattern matching in Javascript internally, where as Chrome uses C++ and is much more efficient.
uBlock Lite blocks about 80% as much as uBlock. Most of the important stuff is removed. It's adequate, if not ideal.
So if Chrome for Android gets add-on support
Re: (Score:3)
ublock lite only blocks content once it's been downloaded.
Which means you're sending HTTP requests to every tracker under the sun. And you're downloading every giant-ass video ad that you might successfully hide.
This isn't 2005 anymore, and we're not all paying out the nose for bandwidth, but I know my mobile provider still caps my download and I'd prefer not to waste it on the latest Proctor and Gamble ad-blast.
Re:Don't use anything from google (Score:5, Informative)
That's not correct, uBlock Lite does block things before they are downloaded.
Manifest V3 introduces a new network filtering API that allows add-ons to set up a large number of filtering rules that are then processed internally by Chrome when any network resource is about to be fetched.
There are some major limitations. It can only update filter lists when the add-on updates, and the number of filters is limited. The developer selects the most effective rules, you can only enable or disable general categories. No element picker and none of the advanced filtering features. It also can't do as extensive editing to BOM.
Re: (Score:2)
> I am in the process of switching over to Firefox, but I'm not writing off Chrome just yet.
"In the process"? Just install it, export your Chrome bookmarks and be done with it.
Despite all the trolling against firefox that usually takes place here, firefox has always been my main browser since ever, even when it was named Netscape.
OTOH, just like you'll soon be doing, I use multiple browsers so yes, I have Chrome installed but I use it only for silly sites which don't correctly work with anything else and for web applications testing purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
I had to test Firefox for Android, and determine that battery life is acceptable with uBlock Lite. Then I had to test various sites I use, get things like auto-fill data moved over.
Some sites don't work so I need to keep Chrome around. I'm in no rush, I'll see how things develop. uBlock still works with a registry entry until next year.
Re: (Score:2)
On Android I use the DuckDuckGo browser, it is Firefox based and does not need any additional add blockers.
On Linux I do my browsing on Firefox and have not seen any problems.
Yet, the company uses Outlook, Teams, Office365 and their ilk, they work fine in Chromium.
The bottom line is; you don't need Chrome.
Re: (Score:2)
> I am in the process of switching over to Firefox, but I'm not writing off Chrome just yet.
I use uBlock Origin in FireFox, and videos have been blocked by YouTube in FireFox for months. I have to use Chrome to watch 80% of videos.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not a big YouTube user but daily watch a few live feeds and some days other videos.
So far I have seen no problems caused by uBO.
Re: (Score:2)
I find YouTube is okay with uBlock in Firefox. At least in normal windows, in private browsing they don't work for some reason.