https://www.ghacks.net/2023/12/03/soon-google-has-even-more-leverage-against-adblockers/
The article discusses a second lever that Google has against content blockers once the new extensions Manifest V3 lands in mid-2024.
More than you think. They are also actively seeking ways to make that leverage effect more people.
They are defining web standards. They control chrome and chromium. So all of the alternative browsers that aren't safari and Firefox are using Google's web engine. Even Firefox and safari are beholden to Google as they fund both these web browsers through their default search deals.
Google after many failed messaging apps has taken on RCS messaging. They provide most of the supporting infrastructure through their Jibe servers. They don't allow anyone but themselves and Samsung to make an RCS app on android. They also had a campaign to pressure apple to use RCS. It's likely apple's RCS will be following Google's Jibe service closely, as they've already said their will work with Google on this. Google successfully got most RCS messages going through their servers, with apple on board with RCS itll see most SMS messages defaulting to RCS and most of those going through Google.
They also have deep hooks into education market with their OneDrive/Google docs products and Chromebooks.
Most privacy focused android alternatives recommend Google hardware.
I'll call that an incorrect and generalizing statement. The adaptation of these apps differs a lot from country to country, and SMS is definitely not dead yet. Beside people still texting, it's also being used for verification codes, order confirmations, postal tracking notices, scamming, phishing and so much more!
Most of my personal communication goes through Signal, but I still get a ton of SMS messages.
Real useful stuff...
I wish I could.
I've tried for years to get people over to things like XMPP, which is cross platform since, well, forever.
No dice.
They are defining web standards. They control chrome and chromium. So all of the alternative browsers that aren’t safari and Firefox are using Google’s web engine. Even Firefox and safari are beholden to Google as they fund both these web browsers through their default search deals.
I think they’re in a better position than Microsoft when they tried to make ActiveX and Silverlight a thing. They own the two most visited websites. On top of that, they own the most used web browser and the most used operating system (judged by web use).
Firefox is loving every week of this as they head towards launch. Market share is guaranteed to improve.
Nah, I've seen people who were hard chrome users start to change their tune about it. A few even changed over to Firefox. Now I understand that my sample size is people I know, but even my wife asked me "how can I stop the youtube ads stuff" after noticing that I don't have to deal with that bullshit... and she's not tech literate at all.
The issue is that most people will just end at "well I guess I can't block ads anymore".
Yep. Just like everyone that was going to leave Netflix when they axed account sharing, but then just made their own accounts and went on with life. I'd see a similar thing playing out here for all but the more technical users who may start switching.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, Netflix started blocking me from sharing an account with my parents, and we cancelled the account and didn't make any new ones.
Although, if they still had disc deliveries, my parents would probably have kept the account.
It's not really about giving a shit, but when you're used to no ads, then seeing ads is an inconvenience. And that's usually even more potent than people giving a shit or not
I switched to FF on mobile a few months back and I finally switched to FF on desktop earlier today.
I had been a chrome user for maybe 15 or 20 years? I don't actually remember when chrome came out but I started using it shortly after.
The problem is Firefox is not really an independant organisation; (it's not independant from Google).
If you are talking about Mozilla gets money from Google for default search engine deal, Apple also gets money from Google. That doesn't make Firefox depended on Google.
My 5 years old decided to switch to Firefox after I told him google chrome will not block ads on YouTube anymore.
That's the iq it takes yeah. :)
Not saying anything bad about your son, hopefully you understand what I mean.
Escaping the musk-spam is truly impossible in this platform, no wonder people are leaving.
Meh, it gets old.
Yea the truck is trash.... That's news from two yeas ago.
It'll die, I'd rather stop wasting time on such a banal subject.
Bread and circuses.
I'll never understand why so many people seem to be afraid of change. To me change is exciting, something new to explore, a chance to learn something new.
It will happen as you get older. You might not even realize it, and it will start with disliking changes that are objectively bad. But soon it will be changes that are neutral, and eventually changes that are positive but not very positive.
Firefox isn't an "alternative browser."
I didn't think Google would play the evil card, but don't trust the ad blocking abilities of software made by an advertising company, I guess.
What do you mean by not an alternative browser?
Are you trying to say something about the word choice or...?
Chrome is an alternative browser to Firefox too.
yes, i think he is speaking about the word itself. it is terrible that it is gaining negative connotation... like when people say bullshit like "alternative facts" or "alternative medicine" and the word itself slowly starts to look slightly suspicious just because it is used by morons.
Holy fuck, 3 ads for the same thing that take up half the page?
Thank developers for ad blockers, I don't even see those anymore.
How is this even legal? So now suddenly every chromium extension has to go through a play store style review? How is Google entitled to do this on their competitor's browsers?
They can do it if a competitor has forked Chromium but not bothered to provide their own addon store. For example, Edge supports its own store plus Google, Vivaldi only supports Google
I switched to FireFox slightly before all this Adblock-Drama came up. Simply because i realised Chrome was getting ridiculously slow ._.
How is it still a problem for anyone? I haven't used Google in years and I am unexpectedly still alive
We have prescribed terminals in our classrooms that are wiped between classes and only have chrome included. It's a fuckin' pain to have to load uBlock in each class in each section every day, because for some reason, our uni's IT department only supports chrome.
Are you able to access anything like USB drives? There are portable versions of Firefox you can carry around with you.
Yeah, I have 'em, but links still default to fuckin' chrome, which makes "impromptu" PowerPoint supplements awkward.
There are also portable Version of libre office for Windows, which you can configure to open in Firefox.
Nah, they went with the route of least resistence. Gotta remember, they're dealing with thousands of students (college aged kids now just don't use computers the same way and don't want to learn how to, at large) and faculty (people who may be doing this job for decades and refuse to learn computers beyond the minimal requirement).
This reminds me of years ago when I was trying to get my grandma off of Internet Explorer.
The only thing that worked in the end was adding a shortcut to the desktop and changing its icon to IE's. For a lot of younger people, or older folk who resisted computers until the 2010s, Chrome is the internet, the same way my grandma thought IE was the internet.
Well let's say they shouldn't for many reasons, the most obvious being Google's systematic push at harvesting every last data about your life. In my country, many schools ban chrome from their devices for this very reason
What happened to the ad blocker detection thing a month ago. Did Google remove it or does uBlock Origin have a permanent workaround now rather than needing to clear cache and reload?
It's still an ongoing war, but with Manifest V3, Google will have an advantage over adblockers because they will be in full control over the frequency of extension updates, how many ad blocking rulesets they'll allow, and perhaps when no one is looking, prevents those rulesets from targeting their own domains. The latter is the nuclear option that'll instantly piss off the whole tech world if implemented now, but perhaps slow boiled frogs won't notice it once the heat is high enough.
Setting up a huge privacy lawsuit by trying to force us to allow these horrendous advertising tracking scripts.
They regularly try to add things to break it, and uBlock's devs update it as fast as possible. They'll probably slow down on these breaking changes as it falls out of the spotlight and people slowly forget about it.
I'm wondering if Chromebooks can run Firefox? I'm guessing not. I know you can install adblockers on them. Not after mid-2024, I guess.
It really sucks that an affordable notebook computer means getting locked into an advertising system. You can get a Chromebook for under $100 and they have a very, very easy-to-use OS. They're great for poor people and elderly people.
So much for putting an adblocker on Grandma's computer now.
you can have refurbished thinkpad for the same price and you don't have to deal with some chrome-crap.
honestly, the fact that people have to be reminded there are alternatives to chrome is the most mindblowing fact from the article.
You can run the android version or use the Linux VM. Neither are great but are workable. Unless they've changed it recently, you can also dual boot them and run Linux off an external drive.
I'd honestly say skip the Chromebook, get an older used laptop that is known to be fully supported by Linux, install a lightweight distro, and off you go if all Grandma needs is a web browser. Older used laptops are usually far better powered than a cheap Chromebook for the same price anyways. Plus it fights e-waste.
A further option is to do adblocking at the router or through the computer's own networking system or something like a Pihole. These all come with their own pros and cons.
I’d honestly say skip the Chromebook
It's not always an option. For example, every computer in my house runs normal desktop GNU, except that I was forced to buy a Chromebook because my university's proctoring software only supported that, MacOS, or Windows.
There are but sometimes you want shit to just work. Annoyingly, a real windows computer is the easiest sometimes.
Yeah I remember our school stuck out like a massive sore thumb and ran Linux on its computers until the very, very fucking end. The Dept. Education eventually threatened budget cuts that would kill the school. They eventually folded but to really make it hard for the dept. ed they said that all the laptops that were already running linux could and would continue to run linux. The reason why is because of some monitoring program the dept. ed wanted to put on that linux wouldn't run.
If all you need is a cheap laptop, there's thousands of deals on refurbished or used ones. You don't need this year's model to browse the web and send email.
Throw Ubuntu or something on it and you can go even cheaper hardware wise.
I've installed the Android version of Firefox on my wife's Chromebook via the Google Play store. There's also a way to enable Linux within ChromeOS and install the more full fledged version of FF.
See: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/chromebook/
If she'd allow you, you could always put a little pihole ($10-20) on her network (with the bare minimum lists so that it doesn't break things too often). Wouldn't change anything about her computer.
Just started running PiHole with a couple lists (default + more restrictions) and have seen zero negative effects so far. Surprising really.
Sure, but do you think Grandma who spent $100 on a Chromebook at Walmart is going to be able to figure out Linux even if their grandson knows how to install it? Chrome OS is the push-here-dummy of OSes. You really can't get much simpler. This is dangling a carrot in front of them so they'll be forced to look at endless advertising.
That's fair enough although I'd argue some desktop environments and Linux distributions are usable very easily. Remember that people like grandma are using "the operating system as a bootloader for the browser" and if they can open Chrome or Firefox they're good.
That being said when writing my response I admittedly had you in mind as the user who simply wanted to save money.
Well I do want to save money, but I'm not interested in a Chromebook for myself. My mother-in-law swears by hers though.
A lot of chromebooks run linux pretty well since chromeOS is essentially just linux which is always an option.
My mother-in-law, who has a Chromebook, doesn't want a tablet because she wants a reliable keyboard. That makes sense to me.
Also, lots of school systems have opted to give their students Chromebooks and turning educational platforms into advertising platforms is criminal. Currently, my daughter's school Chromebook (thankfully she returns it in a few weeks) is ad-free unless she goes to a third party website. How long is that going to last?
"Just get a Linux tablet" is not a universal solution. Nor is all of these people saying people should just get older refurbished or used notebooks instead. That will work for some people, sure, but it will not work for all people. Not for school systems and not for people who already own Chromebooks and can't handle a Linux learning curve.
That said, according to others, you can install FF on them through their Android compatibility, but how long will Google allow that?
I'm sorry, but "just switch to X" is really not a solution for a lot of people. And they don't deserve this from companies like Google.
It's not all about advertising. It's just that Chromebooks are practically disposable and locked down enough to break most LMS, and prevent idiots from breaking / installing stuff. And Netbooks have fallen out of vogue.
Google is disallowing "remote code" in extensions and classifying blocklists (the lists of urls that ad blockers use to know what to block, which are just text files hosted on remote servers like github) as remote code. As a result, any blocklist updates will need to go through the extension review process, which typically takes anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks.
Google often updates YouTube's ad delivery on a daily basis. Blocklists must also update as frequently to keep ads blocked on YT. If Google requires that blocklists go through the review process, they can drag their feet and essentially render the ad blockers useless even if they have to allow them to stay in the extension store.
It's going to open a tab in the browser while closing the app. That's more trouble than I wanted.
