Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users - <AUTHOR> https://9to5google.com/2019/05/29/chrome-ad-blocking-enterprise-manifest-v3/ <comment><USER2> From the author of uBlock on this:

What we see are the public statements, for public consumption, they are designed to "sell" the changes to the wider public. What we do not see is what is being said in private meetings by officers who get to decide how to optimize the business. So we have to judge not by what is said for public consumption purpose, but by what in effect is being done, or what they plan to do.

This is how personally I see the deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API in manifest v3:

In order for Google Chrome to reach its current user base, it had to support content blockers -- these are the top most popular extensions for any browser. Google strategy has been to find the optimal point between the two goals of growing the user base of Google Chrome and preventing content blockers from harming its business.

The blocking ability of the webRequest API caused Google to yield control of content blocking to content blockers. Now that Google Chrome is the dominant browser, it is in a better position to shift the optimal point between the two goals which benefits Google's primary business.

The deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API is to gain back this control, and to further now instrument and report how web pages are filtered since now the exact filters which are applied to web page is information which will be collectable by Google Chrome.

[https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock- issues/issues/338#iss...](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock- issues/issues/338#issuecomment-496009417)

<comment><USER3> Indeed, almost the entire ad-blocking market is controlled by the company behind Adblock Plus (eyeo GmbH), who has contracts with Google. It appears they also own AdBlock, and uBlock (not confused with uBO), so during the last years they basically tried to capture the entire market. The fact that Eyeo has >150 employees tells us something about the amount of money to be made from ad blocking. Although they have only published the numbers from 2016, it seems they are quickly approaching around €50 million yearly revenue, with almost 50% of pure profit. For Google this Acceptable Ads Program may be more than a 100 million dollar business.

The only real nuisance is uBO and the future possibility that someone comes along and uses Google's own software to eliminate their core business model.

Basically in this entire environment if an extension does not take part in extracting money out of people, it becomes a problem for most parties involved.

Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously.

Google indirectly controls ABP, but they want the ABP model to apply to all blockers, so that they both get money from non-blocking users as well as from blocking-users.

In the perfect world of Google content-blocking does not exist beyond mere visual ad-blocking of the most annoying ads.

ABP already allows cookies and network connections, so google still knows everything about those users.

Personally I use a combination of pi-hole, third-party cookie blocking and uBO, which takes care of basically all cross-site tracking. But when I recently had a look at another system of someone who uses ABP I noticed that the blocking really is only visual, theres still a profile that is being sold to data brokers, you just don't see the stuff they recommend to you.

The default settings of ABP are also extremely anti-user.

ABP/Eyeo is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

uBO users on the other hand are basically invisible to the survaillance capitalists.

<comment><USER4> This is why it's so unfortunate and frustrating that people are depending so much on Chromium/Blink. Electron, various browsers that are just skins over the embedded framework...

We were still dealing with legacy IE6 (and IE 7/8 by that point also) in 2013! Almost a decade since we got Firefox and the first version of Chrome.

The web has empirically suffered through homogeneity and the lack of strong competitors in the browser space, not helped by the underlying HTML/JS spec becoming exponentially more convoluted to the point where building your own renderer is nigh impossible.

And since everyone is standardising on a Google, their decisions on ad blocking and supporting APIs are automatically going to flow down into every dependent product.

It's frustrating that MS copped out and went Chromium. Like we never learned this lesson the first time.

We still have WebKit and Firefox and (sooner or later), more of Servo at least. These need to be protected if we don't want Google and the ad network to totally control the browsing experience.

Although, controversially, we as a web dev collective have learned nothing if we continue to only develop for a single browser. Not for the web itself, but for one particular rendering engine. "Only works in Chrome," is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept.

<comment><USER5> > "Only works in Chrome," is poor engineering for anything more than a > prototype or proof of concept.

Can't we, developers, do the opposite? Like introduce a small annoyance, like showing a pop-up, when visitors use Chrome? It could say something like "today is free web day, upgrade your browser to Firefox or any other libre browser"

<comment><USER6> What you, as Web developers, can do, is use Firefox while developing your site to ensure it really works well on non-Chromium browsers. And do your level best to encourage your developer friends to do the same. If they're on Mac and would rather use Safari, that'll do too.

Then, every time you see any site or any Web developer satisfied with "works in Chrome", do what you can to let them know that's not acceptable. In a polite, loving, and extremely firm manner of course.

<comment><USER7> A decent idea of course, but you are going to run in to the same issue as everybody else who tries that: unless Firefox has a significant market share, it is just not worth throwing resources after it.

What you can do is develop automatic filters to make chrome specific CSS prefixes general, etc. Those are probably worth using since a few hours/days of engineering time easily is worth the larger market share.

<comment><USER6> Firefox already implements a bunch of -webkit prefixed features for compatibility reasons. Are there specific Chrome-only features that aren't yet supported that you think should be? If so, file Firefox bugs!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I say this all the time when this kind of thing comes up.

Please use Firefox!

Even if it's worse. Even if its slower[1]. Even if it doesn't have that one feature or bug fix that you personally consider really important. Just use Firefox anyway. Find a workaround. Suffer whatever it is you dislike about Firefox because in the end if we don't act as individuals against the chrome monopoly then google are going to own the web and we'll suffer a far worse period of monoculture than the IE6 ever was.

If you can't go all the way, going part of the way is still valuable. I personally have chrome installed still because there are a couple if internal sites at my work that have problems on Firefox, so I use Chrome for those but Firefox for everything else.

Firefox for Android is also solid browser, and as a bonus you don't see any AMP stuff.

If you're a website/app maintainer, check for compatibility in Firefox.

It's worth supporting Firefox to keep the web the way it should be. I know they make mistakes sometimes, but we need a viable alternative or it will be too late.

([1] I don't think it is, it's made soild improvements in recent years, but lots of people seem to have their own specific issue they hold dear against it)

<comment><USER9> what do you think about the new Edge browser from Microsoft, its based on Chromium. So you would get most benefits of chrome but its from Microsoft, which personally, I trust more than I trust Google.

<comment><USER10> I installed the beta for macOS and I'm not happy about it.

It installed a daemon that updates Edge even when the browser is closed. Even if you delete the .app the daemon keeps running and when there is a new update it downloads it and installs it.

There are no settings to change this intrusive behavior.

I sent feedback and complained on Twitter. Apparently the team is looking on it.

<comment><USER11> > It installed a daemon that updates Edge even when the browser is closed.

They learned that trick from Google and Chrome; search for `com.google.keystone.agent.plist` -- they install a Launch Agent for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12>
      Google is essentially saying that Chrome will still have the
      capability to block unwanted content, but this will be
      restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome.

Never heard of a paid version of Chrome before! Can anyone elaborate on this?

I gotta say I'm kind of glad Google is doing this. It will force me to finally abandon Chrome, something I should have done awhile ago.

<comment><USER13> Googler here, but I do not work on Chrome and I'm speaking on a personal capacity.

I believe this is a misnomer. The enterprise deployment stuff I'm aware of in Chrome/Chromium is accessible by any user, as far as I know, and in the past I've used it to force private browsing on always for my own personal usage.

That said, I switched to Firefox when Quantum came out and haven't looked back. Mozilla has done some annoying stuff over time, but imo the browser itself is really solid, and with some tweaks is very good.

<comment><USER14> One of my favorite things with Firefox is the ability to "edit and resend" requests in the browser devtools. I'm sure there are plugins that do something similar on chrome/chromium. But I use it all the time and my colleagues are always blown away when I show them this.

<comment><USER15> Whoa, never knew that was a thing. I found FF's dev tools quite bulky and clunky in the past, but I might have to give it another go.

<comment> King-Aaron That's the only reason I keep falling back to Chrome, the dev tools are just so much more refined.

<comment><USER13> The one thing I always liked about Chrome dev tools was the ability to introspect WebSocket frames. Last I checked this couldn't be done in Firefox :(

Otherwise, I have found Firefox dev tools to be fairly competitive. I liked the CSS Grid stuff they had around the launch of Quantum; it made it easier for me to jump into Grid.

<comment><USER16> I use Firefox personally, but develop with Chrome. I have a hard time getting stack traces from Firefox reliably. Oftentimes one of the following occurs on Firefox:

There is no error, but the page won't load. There is an error, but the error message is generic. There is an error message, but no stack trace.

When I switch to chrome, I always get the error and stack trace without any further code modifications.

I make sure to clean up for Firefox in releases. But it's just impossible to develop without error messages and traces. I'm on Ubuntu using the latest stable releases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This kind of crap is why we need to be cautious in allowing Google too much control over web standards, including AMP and their not-iframe element (portals [1]). Whilst the engineers mean well when creating them, Google's main objective is to make money, not to make a better web.

At the moment you have awesome projects like Project Zero [2], but how long till they start strategically handling exploits for monetary gain? Contrast Project Zero to Project Dragonfly [3]. Nobody should be relying on them being good actors.

[1] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a- new-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a-new-web-page- navigation-system-for-chrome/)

[2] [https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/](https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/)

[3] [https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/26/technology/google- dragonfly...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/26/technology/google-dragonfly- senate-hearing/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Not only is this enough to get me switching back to firefox, it's enough that my next laptop purchase won't be another chromebook

the internet without an adblocker is simply not usable for me.

<comment><USER19> If google moves forward with this we should all start randomly clicking on ads until advertisers start to realize that they're basically throwing their money away on advertising that doesn't work :) Let's hit 'em where it hurts.

<comment><USER20> It would be I interesting to make this into an extension.

That said it probably wouldn't change marketing budgets, just what people pay CPC/CPM etc to offset the percentage of users doing this.

<comment><USER21> The AdNauseam extension [1] does exactly that, and Google really didn't like it (banned it from the Chrome extension store [2]).

1\. [https://adnauseam.io/](https://adnauseam.io/) 2\. [https://adnauseam.io/free-adnauseam.html](https://adnauseam.io/free- adnauseam.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm glad I already made the switch to FireFox. I only use Chrome to access Google apps, because for some strange reason they work a lot better in Chrome...

The only thing I miss is a Session Buddy equivalent. When my computer crashes, it's nice to be able to restore all my tabs and windows, and also it's nice to be able to close a bunch of windows when I travel and then go back to my tab state from three weeks ago.

<comment><USER23> Firefox has session restore, which also works when the browser is closed abruptly. Is it now working for you?

<comment><USER22> Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it just restores some of the tabs and windows. It's really inconsistent.

Also it lacks the granularity of session buddy, which has a list of every tab and window configuration I've ever had.

<comment><USER6> You should try reporting a bug. Session Restore always works for me, and I'm on Nightly!

<comment><USER22> I can't replicate it so I can't report it. :( It works like 95% of the time, but that 5% is just really irritating.

<comment><USER24> Have you tried hitting Ctrl+Shift+N to restore the previously closed windows?

These will behave differently: (1) "Quitting" Firefox will multiple windows open. (2) Using your WM to close both Firefox windows. The latter will cause only the last-closed window to be restored, but you can pop the others off the stack too with Ctrl+Shift+N.

<comment><USER22> I tried that. I exhausted the stack and not all the windows were there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is malice. Plain and simple. I will remove the last remaining installation of Chrome from my workstation.

It's still good that I can run Firefox on Android but we have to make Chrome the new IE fast.

<comment><USER26> > we have to make Chrome the new IE fast.

Microsoft has literally done that already: [https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en- us/](https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't get it. I've used Firefox and Chrome for years. Firefox is easily as good and capable as Chrome. The barrier to switch from Chrome to Firefox is almost non-existent. Is Google counting on the majority of people not being knowledgeable enough or motivated enough to switch browsers?

<comment><USER28> I've been using Firefox for the last two weeks or so. It's fine, but noticeably slower (on a 2018 MacBook Pro) when opening new tabs and especially dragging tabs into new windows. It also seems to get stuck resolving DNS sometimes, which is probably an artifact of the corporate network, but Chrome doesn't have that problem.

<comment><USER29> > It also seems to get stuck resolving DNS sometimes, which is probably an > artifact of the corporate network, but Chrome doesn't have that problem.

OMG I thought I was the only one running into this exact same problem! This has been a deal killer for me.

<comment><USER30> Switch your DNS servers (I suggest 22.214.171.124). Chrome uses Google's DNS servers by default, they're probably just faster than whatever you're using.

<comment><USER29> That isn't an effective solution on a corporate network that depends on internal name resolution.

And FWIW I run into the same DNS-like issues with Firefox on my home network, which uses Cloudflare's 126.96.36.199 DNS. Perhaps it is something to do with the way my company provisions my machine, I don't know. All I know is that Chrome has no issues. I've made efforts to track down the issue but it's ultimately not worth my time.

<comment><USER31> Double check it's not using or trying to autodetect a proxy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I am not surprised. If you look at the direction in which browsers have been "evolving" (or perhaps _devolving_...) especially over the last decade, especially after Google first introduced Chrome, the message has been pretty clear: gradually hide and remove functionality that helps users take control of how they consume content, and silence opposition by explaining that it's "for your security".

Chrome isn't the only guilty one here; it just happens to be the most user- hostile, maybe because it started the trend (good example being [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7329855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7329855)), but all the other ones have made similar decisions. Firefox made extension signing mandatory (many people think Mozilla is benevolent, but that doesn't mean their views will continue to align with yours), and more recently IE, which could be said to have been the last reasonably popular browser with a per-zone configuration and site whitelisting/blacklisting feature by default, was deprecated for the far more dumbed-down (and now becoming even more Chrome-like) Edge.

But as long as you can still install a custom CA and set a proxy server, you're still in complete control over the content your machine receives; there have been many changes to frustrate that (first HTTPS, now DoH --- to protect, not just from attackers, but _you_ ), but it is still possible to MITM and control your experience. There's been a strong opposition to them ostensibly for "security" reasons, however, the way things are going, you will give up your freedom _and_ security.

(I'm a long-time Proxomitron user. It's far more fine-grained than DNS-level blocking, although I also use a HOSTS file, and I can do more than just block. The best part is, it works for all browsers, even the ones embedded in other apps.)

<comment><USER33> As always, I think it's appropriate mention Brave here. They are very much going in the opposite way of other browsers. They've now for a long time had features such as being able to change scripts/third party cookies/tracking/etc on a per site basis with a single click. As an example, you can get rid of all bait and switch paywalls (such as NYT) by simply disabling scripts. In Brave that's a two click change - Lion Icon -> Toggle Enable Scripts button.

They've also added features like built-in TOR support. Right click a link and one of the context options is 'Open link in private window with Tor'. You can then change 'identities' (Tor exit node -> IP/country) with a single click as well. Absolutely awesome for geoblocked content or even just seeing what users from other countries would see. Kind of fun to play 'Google Roulette' and perform the same search from various places around the world.

And obviously there's built in ad blocking and all that good stuff. It's like a Chrome that runs absurdly fast (in part because all the rubbish is removed) and has put privacy as a #1 consideration. Of course the downside is that, as mentioned, it uses Chromium as the renderer. If Google starts bringing this stuff over to Chromium, which is probably a non-zero possibility, that's going to pose major issues to browsers like Brave.

Incidentally I was also a long time Proxomitron user!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Here are browsers that aren't just 'not Chrome,' they are better.

Brave: [https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

Firefox: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/)

<comment><USER35> Maybe it's unfair, but I can't help but think of Brave as just a scheme to push their cryptocurrency. They're removing the website's ability to monetize and replacing it with their own system. That seems gross.

<comment><USER36> I mean we would be paid for viewing ads this way instead of being paid nothing as it is now, and losing all our privacy instead.

Seems like a win/win to me. Advertisers would actually pay the eyeballs that should be paid for seeing ads instead of the middleman in the attention economy. The technology in the Basic Attention Token performs all the functions instead.

<comment><USER37> I get paid for working a job. I don't want any ads on my screen.

<comment><USER38> "I get paid for working a job. I don't want to pay road tolls"

"I get paid for working a job. I don't want to pay the grocery store for my food"

<comment><USER37> My point was I don't need my browser injecting extra ads that I get paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is not entirely surprising. There is a reason why mobile Chrome, unlike mobile Firefox, never allowed extensions in the first place.

<comment><USER40> I mean, mobile Safari doesn't allow extensions, and only recently allowed content blockers. Safari also has essentially the same model that Chrome wants to adopt:

> Apps tell Safari in advance what kinds of content to block. Because Safari > doesn't have to consult with the app during loading, and because Xcode > compiles Content Blockers into bytecode, this model runs efficiently. > Additionally, Content Blockers have no knowledge of users' history or the > websites they visit.

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/creating_a_content_blocker)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I see a lot of comments saying to switch to Firefox, or people saying they're already using Firefox. This is fine, but I don't think people should be totally comfortable with this. Switching to the one other choice still leaves us in danger of the whole web being controlled by a few programs. We should encourage other browser projects as well. I've seen some cool browser projects, but mostly they use webkit still. I'm not sure what you call that part. The core maybe. We need more browser cores. I think this[1] is one, I encourage people to share more that they know of.

[1] [https://robinwils.gitlab.io/articles/sbcl-browser- engine.htm...](https://robinwils.gitlab.io/articles/sbcl-browser-engine.html)

<comment><USER42> Also, Mozilla is largely dependent on Google via their default-search arrangement, so even if it's not Webkit/Blink based, Google still has significant influence.

<comment><USER43> Mozilla doesn't even put a priority on open-source operating systems. Chromium actually supports hardware acceleration but Firefox doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Another big issue is that if chrome makes it difficult to disable ads such that 99% of chrome users aren't able to do it, websites may simply choose to block Firefox as it would be easy to do so without losing a large part of user base while making sure no users are blocking ads. Right now there are far too many users using ad blockers.

<comment><USER45> Blocking a user agent? Oh no, whatever shall we do? Thankfully, we can still just change it, though I suppose a really insidious web site could use feature checks.

<comment> ryan-c A trivial way to check for Firefox in javascript:

        !!{}.toSource

There are many others, of course.

<comment><USER46> For others who may be wondering, this is because `Boolean.prototype.toSource()` is a non-standard method that is only supported by Firefox: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Boolean/toSource)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This should be good news for Firefox and Safari. I'd be interested to hear from Gorhill on whether uBlock Origin works with the Content Blocker API for Safari and if not what needs to change to make it possible.

<comment><USER48> Currently Safari complains that uBO will slow down your browser. But it still lets you load it.

<comment><USER47> Yes but as far as I understand it doesn't actually use the native API. The Content Blocker API has benefits from a performance and privacy perspective.

<comment><USER49> Yes, content blocker extensions are many times more lightweight than old-style blocker extensions (virtually zero negative impact on resource usage and site load speed), can never be hijacked to do anything malicious, and know nothing about you or your web traffic.

I use them on my iOS/macOS devices and the their effectiveness is quite apparent, especially on the iPhone where CPU and bandwidth aren't as abundant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I just switched back to Firefox after using Chrome since pretty the day it came out. I switched after updating to 74 and noticing how many features I depended on were removed. I originally intended to just revert some of the changes (using Chromium on Linux) but I decided that amount of work was silly. Switched back to Firefox. After this news, glad I did.

<comment><USER51> Which features were removed in 74?

The only particular thing I can find is that hyperlink auditing can no longer be disabled. I doubt this is what you meant when you said features you "depend on".

<comment><USER50> Mute Tab and the place I was modifying to restore Ctrl+shift+q was removed. It was too much effort to maintain these features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Google never wanted to have these adblock extensions on their store in the first place, it just turns out that when chrome was released and had zero market share they had to make this huge compromise to gain territory in the browser arena and eventually overthrow Firefox and the competition. And when (not if, when – it will eventually happen) they do that I will jump off from the Chrome bandwagon.

<comment><USER52> "When" they do that, it will be because they have judged that they have, by then, thoroughly extinguished all competition. If you (the royal "you") want there to exist an alternative browser to which to jump to when the time comes, then consider making the jump today, when your influence might still make some small contribution to the competitiveness of the browser market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Chrome serves me just fine nowadays. Unlike you, I'm not some kind of Gandhi of the tech scene or anything like that. If it serves me fine I won't stop using it. If Chrome ceases to support adblock extensions then I will go look for some other browser, I would probably change to Vivaldi or anything like that, or even Firefox, they sure as hell will be there.

<comment><USER53> You totally missed his point. Which was:

For as long as you, I and everyone else continues to use Chrome, we effectively support Google's ability to monopolise the browser space.

Google's continuing monopolisation of the browser space will (and is?) leading to a dearth of alternatives.

So, by waiting for the time when Google finally puts that final straw on the haystack which makes this whole thing too onerous to bear - and then you say "right, now I've finally had enough - I'm switching ...."

... you may find that there's nothing left to switch to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> For what it's worth, I've had a great experience with firefox for the past year (since quantum convinced me to give it another chance). All though, it recently basically factory-reset itself. Signed out of sync, extensions gone, custom settings gone. Any one else have this happen?

It's also got a weird memory leak, which I think is related to the pdf viewer. Never really checked in detail or tried to measure.

<comment><USER54> Firefox has been doing a few rather questionable things. They had the Mr Roboto add-on which was pushed out to advertise a TV show, they stuck ads in the "Recommendations" [1], they proactively destroyed peoples' bookmarks when they dropped support for RSS, they dropped support for RSS (because, apparently, a decentralized way to track website updates is anti-Google), and they destroyed a lot of useful add-ons.

I basically can't trust them anymore.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/7/17326184/firefox-ads- spons...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/7/17326184/firefox-ads-sponsored- content-pocket-suggestions)

<comment><USER55> Which browser do you recommend then?

<comment><USER56> Waterfox is good if you miss the old add-ons from pre-quantum Firefox. But it is the old model, and one lagging page will still hose the whole browser.

I tolerate it because I need my Downloadthemall extension, amongst others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Modern firefox is an awesome experience. The only reason I use Chrome is because the dev tools are that good.

<comment><USER12> Don't forget there is a Firefox Developer version that includes additional devtools.

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/developer/)

<comment><USER58> Devtools are baked into standard chrome. I find it odd I'd have to download a special version of Firefox made for developers.

<comment><USER59> Devtools are also in standard firefox. The developer edition just includes new features that haven't yet made it to the current release. The chrome analog is Chrome Dev ([https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/](https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/))

Firefox: Nightly -> Developer -> Beta -> Stable -> Extended Support Release

Chrome: Canary -> Dev -> Beta -> Stable

<comment><USER60> Firefox is actually Nightly->Beta->Stable->ESR, where Developer Edition is a differently configured build of Beta.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> A good time to suggest everyone here commit to using FireFox and DuckDuckGo. You can manage, even with any initial bumps. It's ok.

<comment><USER19> I will start doing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I've been a Firefox user throughout - never made the switch to Chrome.

But here's what worries me, what I'm wondering now: As far as I'm aware, Mozilla/Firefox tried to follow Google for extensions, deprecated their own API for Google's/Chrome's instead.

How likely is it that Mozilla will further "follow the spec" so to speak, doing a change like this for compatibility or whatever?

<comment><USER63> Seems unlikely. It's in opposition to Mozilla's clearly stated stance toward privacy.

In addition, their reasons for deprecating their old extension API was purely technical. Even then, they were _extremely_ conservative in their deprecation timetable, waiting long past when the old API was massively harming performance. But once they made the decision to replace it, it made sense that they would choose an existing API as a base, not make a separate incompatible API.

But do note that, while Firefox and Chrome share the same base extension API, Firefox has APIs Chrome doesn't. It's reasonable to believe that this new deprecation will just become another thing that Firefox has and Chrome doesn't.

<comment><USER64> Yes, that sounds exactly right. But I would add that there _is_ a technical reason for the more limited blocklist setup, in that it's much more reasonable to do a simple list check asynchronously than to run JS code.

But to me, that just suggests that firefox might want to consider an additional async API. I can think of many options that are more powerful than what Chrome is moving to. eg use the exact logic uBO needs. Or register a WASM function with no access to anything that would problematic to run async.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Chromium / Blink is open source, we should be doing everything we can to get as many users using non-Google Chromium browsers. We really shouldn't be having to worry so much about Google's conflicts of interests. Brave and Blink-based Edge are looking to be better and better options.

Another is UnGoogled-Chromium: [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled- chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

Would love to see this latter option becoming something that appeals to a very large, mainstream market rather than just a few techies.

<comment><USER66> Another excellent browser that users should be switching to:

[https://firefox.com](https://firefox.com)

<comment><USER67> Unfortunately it is unbearably slow on MacOS.

<comment><USER68> Try again

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I've been hesitant to agree with calls in the past to break Google up, but now it's time. This is Google choosing what's best for their investors over what's right for the community. This is Google doing evil.

</comment><comment><USER70> I recently setup Pihole as the DNS server for my entire home network and said farewell to my Adblock extensions. It's glorious.

<comment><USER71> My fear is something like pihole may end up being a temporary stopgap; it can only help with DNS queries that go through it, and so it too may end up in the same position as chrome + ublock origin. For instance, if chrome decides to use a trr or dns-over-https and removes options to change it.

<comment><USER70> True, but at that point you can elect to stop using Chrome altogether. #firefoxGang

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> > Firefox is available on all platforms (including Chrome OS via the Android > or Linux app)

Maybe this is a viable solution on brand new chromebooks, but on my Acer R11 both Android apps and Linux containers run pretty poorly. I use an Android app as my password tool just fine, but trying Firefox was a rather poor experience. And the linux container just dogs trying to do anything.

I have Ubuntu loaded on via crouton (to use tools like GIMP or actual VLC), but if chrome gets rid of ad blocking that removes much of the point of ChromeOS for me entirely.

<comment><USER73> I run Firefox on my Chromebook in Ubuntu via Crostini, works pretty well and appears right next to native ChromeOS apps on the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I'm starting to question whether it was such a good idea to make web browsers virtual machines (for Javascript or WebAssembly apps).

It makes web browsers big and complex. I know both Chrome and Firefox are open source, but does that really matter so much when the codebase is so big and complex that only large and well-funded organizations are able to develop it? I'm not sure if it's realistic anymore for a few guys to get together and create a web browser (including rendering engine) in their spare time.

This centralization can lead to censorship, as we're starting to see here.

We also end up with a mono-culture (well, not quite there yet, since there are still at least 2 web rendering engines), which is horrible for security. The Irish potato famine is good example of what can happen when you have a mono culture. These days, you often have to let strangers execute code on your computer, if you just want to read an article or look at some pictures.

</comment><comment><USER75> And this pops up on the same evening that Google chooses to roll out unblockable advertising in Android System App "Duo" in the form of an unsolicited video message from Virat Kohli, apparently the lead player on an Indian cricket team?

Way to work that Lily Tomlin "Ernestine" vibe Google.

Edit: also, "Oh, we're so _sorry_ that our 'security' update is going to gut something that users love but our accountants hate (for anyone else). This is completely an unintended consequence."

</comment><comment><USER76> Definitely time to ditch Chrome, but also even more of a reason to set up a PiHole [https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

<comment><USER77> Can you help a newbie understand why I'd want to use this instead of Firefox + uBlock Origin? Seems like a lot of extra maintenance overhead...

<comment><USER78> You only need to set it up once per network, instead of once per browser, and it is capable of filtering (most) ads even on closed platforms (e.g. apps on non-rooted phones).

The downside is that it is much less granular and harder to set up exceptions.

<comment><USER79> The other downside is that if you have a laptop and take it outside your home network, the ads will reappear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I've been meaning to give Firefox another try; I haven't used it actively in years, and this is a good prompt.

And after a couple hours....

....Firefox is pretty impressive! I'm actually going to switch to using it as my "daily driver".

</comment><comment><USER81> Now they are at the position where they can make the users dance to their tune. Im quite not sure if any decision makers at Google have a glance at HN on whats the reflection on their decisions. They just know that users are hooked to their platform all around (Search, Android, Chrome, Maps, GPay, GMail, etc.,) and they can decide where to be a dictator and where to be a humble servant. In the end, all they care is how much data can they harvest & how to use that data to be more relevant for their service offerings (advertisement). Monopoly at the best level! Also, when Google gives a statement/blog post on their decision, it becomes a news for media & HN. But, the reverse doesn't happen; whats the reaction across different blogs/media/HN doesn't get much visibility.

<comment><USER82> You have just described business. A for-profit corporation is explicitly required, by its fiduciary duty to shareholders, to do what you are describing.

<comment><USER83> This is untrue. It's a particularly rapacious Wall Street meme, but a company can do whatever its board dictates, including _not_ being a monopolizing monster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> I think it's time for Microsoft to rethink their decision to base Edge on Chromium.

It's a painful decision, to be sure, but the Microsoft team has to make a decision here: fork or adhere. The immediate benefit of forking and not following Chromium on this change is obvious. However, the cost of the fork will grow over time and it will be in Google's interest to deprecate and replace all of the infrastructure that supports the webRequest API to make it maximally painful to maintain the functionality in a fork.

On the other hand, had Microsoft decided to base Edge on Gecko, they wouldn't be working off a forked codebase whose owner has a perverse incentive to make the fork as painful and expensive as possible.

How many engineer hours, months, years are going to be wasted just shoring up features like this?

<comment><USER85> Why wouldn't they just patch that part of the code? I'm seriously surprised though Microsoft didn't build an adblock in IE much earlier, that would have stopped google in the tracks.

<comment><USER84> That part of the code doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's baked in at a rather low level in the browser. That's how it can block requests! In JavaScript!

Google will begin by deprecating the webRequest block API (that's in progress). Then they will begin deprecating the code that supports it.

Then they will begin removing and deleting the "unnecessary" code. Then, at some point in the future, they may make other breaking changes to the webRequest flow that assume that requests cannot be blocked. Each time Google writes new code that assumes webRequests cannot be blocked, Microsoft must patch _that_ code too.

With each successive change, Microsoft will be forced to make a choice:

1\. Support both Google's webRequest API and the Microsoft's, at increasing cost with every merge and rebase where Google has cut off or altered another piece of functionality

2\. Adopt Google's API and break ad blockers

Google has a profit motive in shrinking the ad blocking market, and therefore they have a perverse incentive to make their browser worse for users, and more expensive for any forks that want to maintain ad blocking functionality.

<comment><USER86> Ostensibly Microsofts browser team is the size of Googles'. They could just fork once and never look back.

Merging incompatible changes seems like a win compared to doing everything themselves.

<comment><USER87> That's what Apple did by forking KHTML and starting the Webkit project. KHTML is still maintained and both KHTML and Webkit can be used in KDE.

<comment><USER88> And even more recently with Blink forking WebKit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Is there a good way to convert chrome saved passwords/history to firefox? Thinking I'll switch back to firefox.

<comment><USER90> I don't know how current this is:

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome- firefo...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox)

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> Well, now is as good a time as any to switch back to Firefox. They've managed to come out of a long stretch of mismanagement, technical debt and security issues to a much better place.

</comment><comment><USER92> Running Chrome without adblock is a security risk. Google has turned a blind eye to malicious ad behavior for their own profit, and this is going to lead to infected corporate networks.

<comment><USER93> They dont care. That's your problem not theirs. Which is why I want to see more data protection laws in the US. I want to give them problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Now that's an advantage my non-tech family and friends will appreciate if it gets implemented and ad blockers stop being efficient in Chrome.

I'll install Firefox, they will see things are better and the switch is done. No need to talk about Quantum, freedom, etc.

Mozilla should be sending one of those cakes to the Chrome team.

<comment><USER95> Have fun cleaning out Chrome if you are around again and they didn't even realize that it came along some other software...

We need a chrome install blocker...

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> The new Chromium based Edge suddenly got a whole lot more relevant. I certainly won't use Chrome if I can't have an ad-blocker!

<comment><USER6> Did you miss the part where these Google decisions affect all Chromium browsers?

<comment><USER97> Microsoft might just have the horsepower to keep up with any particularly shitty changes that Google might potentially try to push through, better than some of the other Chromium skins. At least if they want to.

<comment><USER98> Microsoft displays ads within their OS. They would join arms with Google if they honestly decided to tackle adblocking.

<comment><USER99> Why settle for some petty ad revenue when Google is handing you the opportunity to regain some browser marketshare in a silver plate ?

It's not like MS is dependent on ads as much as Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> For those of you not familiar with what is being proposed ...

Chrome engineers want to replace the ability to block any request with a standardized ad-block functionality based on a list of provided rules and inspired by Safari. In other words the ad-blocking functionality becomes built-in.

However this facility excludes dynamic capabilities that plugins like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger need.

Also I'm speaking with first hand experience in this field: the ad-blocking functionality provided but Safari sucks and can be easily fooled. That there are publishers that don't implement anti-ad-blocking measures, that's only because they either don't have the resources or because they don't want to piss off users.

And at this point uBlock Origin is by far the most aggressive extension out of the popular ones and the nightmare of advertisers, not only because of its capabilities, but also because it doesn't have a commercial entity behind it.

It is no accident that Google is hitting these extensions.

Switch to Firefox folks. The grass over here really is greener ;-)

<comment><USER101> Today it is, unfortunately history has shown that trusting Mozilla is also foolish.

<comment><USER100> Really? How so?

I've been a Firefox user ever since the beginning and I can't remember once when they violated my trust.

It seems to me that Mozilla is held to much higher standards in this community. I often see a huge double standard.

<comment><USER101> The Looking Glass extension, the whole deal with pocket, and Studies being on by default and allowing them to push changes remotely with no user action.

I don't use Firefox currently, so these are just what I recall from HN posts.

<comment><USER100> I love Pocket, I love seeing them experiment with such services and I don't get what the big deal is.

Sure they could have pushed it as an extension instead, but note that nowadays Mozilla owns it so the issue is irrelevant.

The source code for the Looking Glass extension was open source and was a mistake, they are only human.

Nowadays every platform maker has the capability to push changes via updates. This increases security for regular users and it's what the default should be. I agree that there needs to be a way to turn off these updates for power users.

No, those issues haven't violated my trust in them and when you compare it with what companies like Google are doing, the double standard should be clear as day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Well I guess using a browser made by an ad company isn't a good idea after all.

</comment><comment><USER103> One of those turning points when techies start recommending friends to use a different technology and in a few years that technology wins?

In this case, Firefox again.

</comment><comment><USER104> I hope that this makes browsing with Chrome so bloated with ads and tracking that it is faster and efficient to browse with browsers that allow users to get rid of unwanted cruft. That may be the selling point to switch from Chrome in the future.

</comment><comment><USER105> bait + switch.

I've been going back to Firefox for 6 month now, both on desktop and mobile. I'm a developer so I still need to use Chrome for testing, but I'm never going back to it as my main browser, for obvious reasons. There is an obvious conflict of interest going on here, and I'm not going to give Google any more money.

Firefox works fine now, didn't get any issue whatsoever. It used to be slower than Chrome, yes, but it's not true anymore and it uses way less memory than Google's browser.

That's why I don't trust Google with anything, Golang, Goggle PAAS, whatever, they'll go full Oracle in a few years, mark my words.

</comment><comment><USER90> For work stuff I rely on multiple profiles for different client work (I use about ten of them...so far) and so I stick with Chrome.

If Mozilla didn't have such a demented mechanism to operate with multiple profiles then I'd happily switch from Chrome. This is a feature that should be upfront in the UI, not hidden behind about:profiles and it's generally janky UI and behaviour. This needs to be a first class citizen, not what feels like some half baked afterthought.

<comment><USER106> Have you looked at the multi-account containers feature? I think it would do what you are looking for, and it's not restricted to google profiles.

<comment><USER107> Sorry but multi account containers aren't even close to the same thing as having separate profiles. This is one of those things for me that keeps me coming back to chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> I switched to the Brave Browser a few months back (learned about it via Coinbase Earn). Its a great alternative to chrome with solid ad-blocking & I got $10 out of it.

<comment><USER109> I did the same a few weeks back, and the ad blocking's been great. Hasn't behaved any different from Chrome + uBlock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> So... is this the real reason why Google developed Chrome? So they can play the long game and eventually prevent ad blocking from harming them?

</comment><comment><USER111> This makes sense from the viewpoint that google is entirely beholden to their shareholders and has to maintain their insane growth. That doesn't make it ok.

It's a shame all these companies follow such a predictable pattern. Any resources to help actively ungoogle? I've switched search, email, and browser so far, and will be pushing everyone I know to avoid. Long time coming.

</comment><comment><USER112> I propose we create a new browser fork due to this issue and back it by the main ad block developers.

The other issue is that Chrome on mobile doesn't support extensions.

They tried to away with not having ad-block on mobile this way. No extensions means no ad-block.

Let's just have a new browser based on Chrome that supports mobile + extensions and ad block and tell Google they can go pound sand.

<comment><USER113> How about Brave or Dissenter?

Edit: I've just been informed this will effect all Chromium browsers. My goodness.

<comment><USER114> Chrome restricting extension APIs won't affect Brave's ad-blocking.

See: [https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1133878509342846977](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1133878509342846977)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> To gorhill and all the people working in real privacy protection: Thank you, I love you all, keep up the good fight, we rely on you!

</comment><comment><USER116> Why exactly would anyone use the "enterprise" version of Chrome over the regular one, or vice versa?

As far as I can tell, it's the same browser...

[https://cloud.google.com/chrome- enterprise/browser/download/](https://cloud.google.com/chrome- enterprise/browser/download/)

<comment><USER117> It's mostly a thing for companies that deploy Chrome in their images and want to retain control over it (group policies). It's not for your common end user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I found this post highly editorialized. Here's the actual response if you want to understand the context, instead of simply seeing bits and pieces with a journalist's spin.

[https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chrom...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chromium- extensions/veJy9uAwS00%5B1-25%5D)

Also, the headline seems mostly incorrect. The gist of it, as I understand, is that Chrome is enforcing a migration from the webRequest API to a new declarativeNetRequest API. The latter API doesn't currently have all the capabilities of the former, which is important for context blocking extensions. However, features are still being added and the team states that they are interested in more feedback from extension developers.

<comment><USER118> And if those features happen to never be implemented?

I really think it is a bad practice to force adoption of a new API that can't fulfill the same functions as the previous one.

Nobody would be here talking about this if they just made the new API without breaking add blocking (useful add blocking), and then forced people to move.

Even more so given that it looks really bad when your main goal is to serve people ads.

<comment><USER119> > I really think it is a bad practice to force adoption of a new API that > can't fulfill the same functions as the previous one.

I agree, which incidentally is the reason I switched from Firefox to Chromium a couple years back as Mozilla dropped XUL extensions for their own development convenience, toward an ideal of cross-browser extension compatibility, and in hoping to win over Chrome users by making Firefox more alike in both looks and performance.

How many of those motivations have changed, and do we know that Mozilla aren't actually going to follow suit with a similar restructuring of APIs some time after such changes have settled into and been normalized in Chrome?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> This sounds like a wonderful gift from Google, to Mozilla.

As you're deciding what browser to move to, consider using two browsers: Firefox for any sites you need to log into or otherwise identify yourself, and Tor Browser for everything else. I've been trying this a while, and it works pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER121> Will this change apply upstream to the entire Chromium project?

</comment><comment><USER122> I'm not a fan of antitrust as a tool to punish tech companies, but I think there would be great benefit in cleaving Chrome off of Google. The tension between Google's business model and what is good for users is just too great.

</comment><comment><USER123> So, in the new Edge, they could still support this?

Would be a good point of difference for them.

</comment><comment><USER124> I use Firefox with NoScript and found that leaving most domains disabled by default eliminates nearly all ads. I have to fiddle with enabling a few domains on a new site, but if the site is one of those where it uses a million 3rd-party "X as a service" domains, I just leave.

This is the reason I quit using DigitalOcean: every page on their web site required me to enable 5 new domains in NoScript. Other VPS providers just required 1 or 2 enabled.

Or, if the site is coded so that it only works after enabling ad-looking domains, I leave. Vote with your feet folks.

</comment><comment><USER125> Clearly this is the line for me: let's sue them for abuse of their dominant position, and get them toward antitrust lawsuit/procedure.

It's maybe not gonna fly in the US but definitely workable in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER126> >> Just remember to unblock sites you wish to support financially.

The way ad networks function, is unblocking a site you want to support any different at all from unblocking everything?

<comment><USER127> Yes and no. With uBlock you can allow ads at the site level, the problem is that half the reason to block them is the tracking they do, even if I like I site I don't like it enough to unblock google's spyware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> Between pihole, firefox and addons, I see no ads. The way the ad industry is going, they will at some point prevent people from blinking.

A big thank you to the developers at pihole, mozilla and the plugin devs.

</comment><comment><USER129> I wonder what MS will do with Edge(Chromium)?

I've been using it for couple of weeks now as a secondary browser to Brave (separate sessions etc) and it is looks and behave like a normal Chrome.

Hope MS fight this.

<comment><USER99> This is a big opportunity for MS to keep this functionality as a side-patch that's maintained and applied to every new version of Chromium they use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER130> You could always run pi-hole on your network, no extensions needed [https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

</comment><comment><USER131> Chrome is faster! Yeah but FF blocks ads, trackers, analytics and social media buttons. Basically half of the shitty internet. That saves some time I would think.

</comment><comment><USER132> Will these changes affect the pure Chromium? I really don't want to move to Firefox, all my settings, auto-fills and stuff is in Chrome, and Chromium seems like a better alternative if it still supports ad-blocking. I know that Firefox has improved a lot over the years, but I still have a few too many issues whenever I try using it, whereas Chrome and Chromium "just works".

</comment><comment><USER133> How will this affect Vivaldi and Chrome-based Edge? It's a worrying thing unless Microsoft and Vivaldi can provide a safe alternative.

</comment><comment><USER134> Is this a chrome API or chromium API? For the later case we have Chromium Edge([https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com](https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com)), which is just as good! If it's chromium API then Microsoft may actually end up taking a fork off chromium codebase right away and decide to keep that alive.

</comment><comment><USER135> All the more reason to use Pi-Hole. Works with any browser, incurs less overhead than an extension, and Google can't stop it.

</comment><comment><USER136> This is a good move by Google to promote Firefox. We should use this opportunity to inform laypersons about Firefox and the freedom it provides with ad blocking (which includes protecting oneself from malware too).

Mozilla should use this for a PR move (even though the bulk of its revenues come from having Google as the default search engine in many geographies).

</comment><comment><USER137> DNS-based and hosts-based blocking should still work.

[https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts)

</comment><comment><USER138> I've been a Firefox/Safari user for a long time now because of concerns about Google, but I don't really get what this outrage is all about. As I understand it, Chrome is moving to the Safari rules-based model? Can someone explain why this is such a bad thing? It's not like Chrome is stopping all ad blocking.

</comment><comment><USER139> Hoping Microsoft keep the APIs enabled on the new Edge-ium. Solid browser. If they port it over to Linux (they're already doing OSX) and keep the APIS required for ad-blocking enabled I see it picking up speed very quickly.

Opera has it built-in to the browser so I think they'll be safe too.

Wonder if this will apply to Chromium or just Google Chrome?

</comment><comment><USER140> Might be a silly question, but is the block list per extension or is it a global block list? Ie, if each extension can have 30k rules, and the current block list requires 70k rules, could there be 3 extensions, 2 with 30k rules and 1 with 10k rules? This would surely be an inconvenience, just wondering

</comment><comment><USER141> That's it, Getting myself a pi-hole.

</comment><comment><USER142> This just means that ad blockers will need to work with a natively-installed proxy.

Remember, with https you can install a certificate and man-in-the-middle yourself. This is how tools like Fiddler and Charles allow inspecting and debugging HTTPS.

In this case, a natively-installed proxy can deny requests to blacklisted domains.

</comment><comment><USER143> At the end of the day, it's their browser, their rules.

The only way this could be changed is through (EU?) law, but i'm not sure what would be the basis of such law. It would be like forcing every car manufacturers to implement free HEPA air filters in their cars.

</comment><comment><USER144> This is the final straw for me, I just installed firefox and changed it to my default browser.

</comment><comment><USER145> This will probably get lost, but Raymond Hill confirmed that he will keep developing uBO and uMatrix for Brave (and any other Chromium-based browser that exposes access to webRequest) after Chrome deprecates webRequest for non- Enterprise users.

</comment><comment><USER146> more reason to use the Brave browser instead of Chrome. Essentially the Chrome browser without the Google bindings. Use the crypto features or not, it has been working for me and my mac runs way more cooler when i had been using Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER147> Well, I find this to be great news! Now I have a great way to convince my non tech friends to switch to Firefox. "It lets you install a thing so you don't see ads anymore, unlike Chrome where you have to pay for it"

</comment><comment><USER148> This is great news for Firefox.

<comment><USER43> Not if you want hardware acceleration support in Linux. Not that most Firefox users care about open source operating systems.

<comment><USER148> I thought it had hardware acceleration? Alas hidden away in advanced settings.

<comment><USER43> No, Firefox doesn't support hardware acceleration for video decoding at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> Apparently, some misguided folks seem to think there is room for more than one browser in the world, and a non-Google one to boot. If you smell the scent of roasting flesh, those heretics are being burned at the stake.

</comment><comment><USER150> Will this affect just Chrome or will browsers built on top of chromium also get manifest V3? If so, I assume they can implement the old web request API themselves to keep as blockers working?

<comment><USER151> You could fork Chromium, but then Google will prevent you from watching videos like netflix and amazon online, which means no one is gonna use this browser

</comment></comment><comment><USER152> I think this is a positive thing. Somebody has to accelerate FF popularity, and this is a start of a big push. Combination of this and FF efficiency equals more users on FF.

So, hey, thanks google :)

</comment><comment><USER153> That's ok Google. You may not force me to look at your stupid advertising. Plenty of decent browsers out there that take my privacy seriously. You just shot your selves in foot

</comment><comment><USER154> Time to try the new Edge!

<comment><USER155> New Edge is Chromium, the change will apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER156> Google is in a position to disrupt ad-blocking in Chrome (via webRequest API) and on Android (via DNS over https).

This makes both mBlock Origin and PieHole obsolete. Where do we go from here?

<comment><USER157> Firefox?

<comment><USER156> On Android it won't work I think. Some DNS queries will go exclusively through Google DNS - ads mostly I am afraid.

And I am also worried because my main desktop platform is ChromeOS. And my main adblocking strategy had been DNS based. That sucks.

<comment><USER158> The Android Firefox browser is great. Not only does it do everything you expect a modern mobile browser to do, but also supports extensions, including uBlock Origin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER159> Can't use ff on linux unfortunately. It has this weird bug where it clicks on the first item automatically if I right click on anything. It's a super annoying bug.

<comment><USER160> I'm having the same problem on macOS. Might be HiDPI related as I run on non- standard settings (1.5x scaling).

</comment></comment><comment><USER161> I just modify etc/hosts with this file:

[http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm](http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm)

</comment><comment><USER162> The only place I use Chrome these days is [http://localhost:x000](http://localhost:x000) for Chrome Dev Tools.

</comment><comment><USER163> I actually enjoyed the original Google search result ads, a tiny text based thing that would side on the right side of the results...

</comment><comment><USER164> Going as planned I presume.

Step 1: Enable "Built-In Ad-Blocker"

Step 2: Disable all other ad-blocks from store for some reason

Step 3: Allow only ads from Google ad-network

<comment><USER165> > Step 3: Allow only ads from Google ad-network

They can't do that, this is an anti-trust lost case for them.

<comment><USER164> Aren't they already doing this with theyr "Acceptable Ads Program"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER166> Can't suggest pi-hole enough for a small personal network. Happily donate to them. On a larger scale, I am not sure...

</comment><comment><USER167> Is this applicable to chromium too or just chrome? Would like to see how Microsoft approaches this with their new browser

</comment><comment><USER168> Firefox Quantum is pretty good now. I've switched back recently and rarely use Chrome now as my personal browser.

</comment><comment><USER169> Every time when I see Google is advancing into this bs, i donate some money to mozilla foundation to counterbalance.

</comment><comment><USER170> How is the FireFox experience on OSX these days compared to Safari? This is 100% a nail in the Chrome coffin for me.

</comment><comment><USER171> Let's all use the web browser made by the world's biggest ad company, what could go wrong right?

</comment><comment><USER172> I wonder if it will be too difficult to maintain downstream patches for Chromium that reverts this change.

</comment><comment><USER173> Edge is looking more appealing now. Although PiHole is still the bomb because it also blocks in app adds.

</comment><comment><USER174> google slowly showing it's grip with it's android 'open' model falling over and it's chrome now going corporate... :')... soon you will need to pay-per- search not to get only advertisements and nonsense results. enjoy your internet ppl..

</comment><comment><USER175> I wonder how many regular people even use adblockers or would care, enough to see a migration soon?

</comment><comment><USER176> I don't get it. Is Chrome not open-source? Can't we create a fork that keeps that API?

<comment><USER177> Chrome itself is not. Chromium is opensource. That's what Brave, Edge, and what ever others are using.

</comment></comment><comment><USER178> [https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

</comment><comment><USER116> Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have _actually_ had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly.

I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problems playing video, streaming, or anything of the sort. I keep tons of tabs open. I just can't really say anything wrong about Firefox at this point.

It was once the case that Firefox had significant disadvantages in contrast to Chrome, but now the only reason I have to still keep Chrome installed is when work forces me to use some Google-proprietary page that doesn't work in other browsers.

If you had problems with Firefox 2 years ago, try it again before bringing up performance when people are considering it as an alternative to deleting Chrome. The more people who uninstall Chrome, the better.

<comment><USER179> My issue with Firefox is essentially one bug where they refuse to fix. In private mode, previously closed tabs are, for some reasons, restorable. This doesn't happen for Safari or Chrome.

<comment><USER180> That's a feature. Chrome will refuse to remember history so that you can reopen the tab, however it will remember all other data from the closed tab such as cookies. If you log into a website in an incognito window, close all tabs of that website and then open a new tab and navigate to the site again, you'll still be logged in.

It tricks you into thinking that session state is kept only per-tab by disabling a useful feature (history), however the incognito session's state is actually scoped per-window and not properly cleared/forgotten until you close the window.

Firefox knows how to have temporary window-local cookies/site data _and_ history. Chrome doesn't know how to keep the history. It's a missing feature IMHO.

<comment><USER181> I don't think that is true. I am using incognito all the time for web dev to test without cookies.

<comment><USER180> It's trivial to check that it's true for yourself

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER182> There's a lot of bias in this article title. I'm kind of disappointed in them for it. "Complex ad blockers" would have been just as informative but without the blocker-favoring tilt.

Bonus irony for realizing that a properly configured blocker as they're favoring with this title would reduce their site's revenue, being both JavaScript and ad-heavy.

</comment><comment><USER183> What a jerk move. I hope enough users are outraged by this to force them to rethink it.

</comment><comment><USER184> what is "enterprise users of chrome"? Does this mean paid GSuite accounts?

</comment><comment><USER185> Ditched Chrome a few years ago and switched to Vivaldi. Couldn't be happier.

<comment><USER186> Vivaldi builds on top of Chromium. All Chromium browsers will eventually receive these extensions changes as well unless they fork their codebase. Most of them support extensions via the Chrome Web Store though which means they'll need to adopt Manifest V3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER187> I switched over to Brave (chromium skin) and I'll never go back to Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER188> That's okay, I switched to Firefox (+uBlock Origin) a while ago.

</comment><comment> rajesh-s Does this include "Chromium" browsers as well like Vivaldi?

</comment><comment><USER189> Well, glad I never started using Chrome instead of Safari on my Mac.

</comment><comment><USER190> This is what I needed to finally abort Chrome altogether.

</comment><comment><USER191> Well I'm done with Chrome then, Firefox it is.

</comment><comment><USER192> and hopefully this shall be the high water mark of the chrome browser. rise firefox, rise!!!

</comment><comment><USER193> Google is not what it used to be

</comment><comment><USER194> every day i'm happier that I've changed my browser to firefox last year.

</comment><comment><USER195> Bye bye Chrome...it was good while it lasted, although you have become a bit of a resource hog in recent years.

</comment><comment><USER196> iridium is another chrome based browser without some of the googleisms.

</comment><comment><USER197> Does this affect Chromium?

</comment><comment><USER198> Easy. Just use Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER199> I wonder if a browser Monopoly could bring an antitrust lawsuit against Google.

</comment><comment><USER200> Abusive. Monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER201> Awesome. Mozilla should be happy. Let Chrome die.

</comment><comment><USER202> Surprise!

</comment><comment><USER203> How long until Google starts threatening to disable your account if you're detected using a 3rd party ad blocker?

Essentially building a paywall around their services, where receiving their ads is the subscription cost.

Is this a realistic extrapolation of the direction they're moving?

</comment><comment><USER204> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish)

If you are not using/contributing to firefox, you sold yourself short.

<comment><USER205> Unfortunately, Firefox's resistFingerprinting is nowhere near as good as Safari's. I still use Firefox on Windows, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER206> It's such a shame Microsoft thought it will benefit more from piggybacking on the Chromium monopoly over building its next browser on top of Firefox.

If Microsoft would have donated only 50% of the Edge browser development budget to Firefox, Firefox would be in a much better position in the future to compete against Chrome.

Now, I fully expect Google to end its search contract with Firefox, or pay them much less, too, since it won't feel like it needs to fund its competitor anymore.

</comment><comment><USER207> I guess my Chromebook will not be running Chrome.

<comment><USER208> Yeah, it's time to unscrew the write protect screw.

I'm wondering how Firefox for Android manages on ChromeOS. For now it's too slow on Crostini. But my cheap Chromebook is not performing well with both Crostini and Android containers. So straight up Linux should be hopefully better.

It's certainly harder for my old Tegra K1 Chromebook.

<comment><USER207> > _I 'm wondering how Firefox for Android manages on ChromeOS_

I've done this before, it works pretty well, but Firefox for Android doesn't have a great extension experience as far as I've seen, though it could have improved since last I tried.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER209> When will this actually kick in? Just wanna know how much longer I have on Chrome.

Wait, will Chromium have the same problem?

<comment><USER6> Yes, this is a Chromium change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER210> Okay so is Chromium safe? Can I switch to that?

<comment><USER43> Do you need permission? Just cause Firefox users have turned into the new hipster Mac fanclub doesn't mean you have to join them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER211> Is this effectively paying to remove ads? That is a compromise I'm willing to make.

</comment><comment><USER212> Ugh. Now I'm going to have to switch my passel of family members, neighbors, and friends who rely on me for tech support over to Firefox.

Not that Firefox isn't going the same way eventually. Firefox crippled the ability for real customization with Firefox 57 and it's only gotten worse since then.

<comment><USER213> Pale Moon exists if you want the old school Firefox add-in capabilities

<comment><USER212> It'd be lovely if I could get the speed of Firefox Quantum while still being able to put the damn tabs and address bar wherever I want them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER214> I'm confused about the difference between what people are saying here, and what chromium is working on. Referring to the email discussion of the feature: [https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium- exte...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium- extensions/veJy9uAwS00/AppqR6u-GgAJ)

" It's really unfortunate how many people seem to be commenting here without understanding what the proposed changes even are. To be clear:

1\. This change _IS NOT INTENDED TO GIMP AD BLOCKERS_. Rather, it is designed to make them faster and more secure. (Yes, even despite the limitations that might impact uBlock.)

2\. The new proposed content blocking API _is not final_ and can/will be changed.

3\. Threatening to switching to Firefox is not helpful and _WILL NOT CHANGE GOOLE'S MIND ABOUT THIS_.

If you don't understand this, please refrain from commenting as you'll only be decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio in this thread and thus making it more likely that the entire thread (including those who are expressing actual legitimate concerns about the limitations of the new API) gets ignored.

If you want to help:

1\. Explain a specific use case that the new API can't handle (including a technical explanation of _why_ it can't handle that use-case)

2\. Suggest constructive changes to manifest V3's API that will improve its capabilities _while still adhering to the stated goals of manifest V3_

3\. If you can't do any of the above, please refrain from commenting so you don't just make things worse

Sorry if I sound aggressive. It just really frustrates me when constructive technical discussions get hijacked by large volumes of unconstructive, uniformed comments. It makes it way harder to get real work done. "

I know the anti-google bandwagonning is strong, but seriously, I doubt most people actually tried to understand what is being changed here, and it's sad.

<comment><USER215> Don't yell.

 _1\. Explain a specific use case that the new API can 't handle (including a technical explanation of _why_ it can't handle that use-case)_

The maximum number of rules is 30k, which will break HTTPSEverywhere (I'm assuming you don't need that explained).

 _Suggest constructive changes to manifest V3 's API that will improve its capabilities _while still adhering to the stated goals of manifest V3__

If Google wants me to do work, they can pay me.

There was a time in the past when Google would have deserved the benefit of the doubt with changes like these. That time is long, long gone.

<comment><USER214> FYI I'm quoting the email list, that might not have been clear.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is http://News.YCombinator.com not mobile compatible? - <AUTHOR>

I surf from my smart phone for a significant amount of time, and I'm sure I'm not alone.  I couldn't help but notice that this site is not mobile compatible.  Any particular reason as to why http://news.ycombinator.com is not compatible with smart phone browsers? <comment><USER2> The desktop site is perfectly usable with some zooming in to hit the vote buttons. That's a hell of a lot more compatible than half the sites with "mobile" interfaces that look fancy but have terrible usability.

(I've complained about some of these on HN before, but a particulary bad offender is that blog theme that lets mobile users swipe left or right to go to the previous or next blog post. Aside from being undiscoverable, ugly (since the swiping entirely misses the point of iOS's UI, acting only after a swipe has been completed rather than smoothly tracking the finger with an interface element-- Google Images also has this problem) and useless (who wants to skip to the previous or next blog entry in the middle of reading the current one?), this feature always catches my not-quite-vertical swipes and tries to take me off the page while I'm reading!

Of course this doesn't have anything to do with Hacker News, but I think it's the mindset that adding a mobile site is solving a compatibility issue, thus always an improvement over inaction, that's responsible for the vast number of crappy mobile sites out there.)

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing you use Android. The site is OK aside from the butons on Android, but the text is unreadably small on iPhone.

<comment><USER2> I use an iPhone 4; I find that the Retina Display makes it easier to read small text. I guess experiences differ.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You could use <http://ihackernews.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER5> It might simply be the case of someone editing the live stylesheets to include the mobile media queries and make it look good on mobile and sending the file over to pg.

</comment><comment><USER6> It would seem easy to retrofit using something like Foundation (<http://foundation.zurb.com/>).

</comment><comment><USER7> There seems to be little bandwidth from its creators for substantial UI improvements. Fortunately, there are a few mobile apps, at least on iOS.

</comment><comment><USER8> In what way is it "not mobile compatible"? Works fine on any phone I've seen it on.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sure you have to zoom in but otherwise it renders fine on android..

</comment><comment><USER10> Works fine for me. On my iPhone I automatically get redirected to ihackernews.com otherwise it's very readable on the iPad too. The new Reader in Safari in ios helps a lot with some articles.</comment>


Extremist group tries to game Digg - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.alternet.org/oleoleolson/2010/08/05/massive-censorship-of-digg-uncovered/

<comment><USER2> That's nothing, you should see what rabid Erlang fans can do when they're bored.

<comment><USER3> I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it's MASSIVELY PARALLEL AND MUNCITONAL.

<comment><USER4> I hadn't come across 'munctional' before. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yH_j8-VVLo>

I don't know whether to thank you or not. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _What they fail to understand is that there was never a conspiracy to censor their content, it was the greater Digg community that did that because their articles are usually unprofessional, fact-challenged fantasies that nobody wants to read._

They should probably have asked a conservative. It's hard to tell whether these folks were submitting quality stories with a different slant, or were actively submitting crap. Obviously it's hard to trust the views of a site that says:

 _There are a few differences of opinion within DP, although for the most part, they are extremely similar in perspective. They hate Obama. They hate progressives. They hate the UN, diplomacy, and peace/disarmament efforts. They hate reforms of health care, Wall St., and immigration. They hate science, in fact many are creationists, and some even blog about it. They hate the secular nature of our nation. They hate environmental protection, requiring polluters to be responsible for their own cleanup, and especially hate climate efforts. They hate unions and any attempt to level the playing field to give all Americans economic opportunities. They hate the government, except the military-industrial complex. They hate abortion rights. They hate public schools and really hate higher education. They hate anyone in the media except far right personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin. They hate anyone who doesn't think Obama is a secret islamist and/or marxist who was born in Kenya._

And follows that up with the unironic:

 _They just love to hate._

Fortunately, this article makes it easier for voting sites to detect cabals and manipulators by seeing which accounts vote in tandem. That might lead to false positives, but that may not be so bad--if only a tiny minority cares very strongly about a single story, I don't have to care whether or not they're coordinating their votes. Either way, it's likely to be of less interest to the average reader.

<comment><USER6> This kind of stuff (both sides) is why politics should be kept as far as possible away from Hacker News.

<comment><USER7> Maybe... At least I've got the impression that on HN reactions are way more professional, I see people here actually listening to the arguments of others and that's the least you need to keep things quiet.

Most people here keep extremism out here anyway. Emotional arguments don't succeed to gain traction, you have to be factual and nuanced to gain respect here, and as far as I see blind extremism doesn't get that far.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, reddit started that way too. It doesn't last long.

<comment><USER8> On HN the fear is "Are we turning into Reddit?".

On Reddit the comparison used to be Digg. (I left three years ago, so I don't know what happened in the mean time.)

<comment><USER9> It's to 4chan now. With pride, usually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> pretty sure the headline here should say "Extremist group succeeds in gaming Digg"

<comment><USER11> I am certain a left leaning group is doing the same thing. Think moveon.org (in a different medium). They just negate each others extreme views.

<comment><USER12> I don't think they cancel each other out. Digg has an extremely conservative bias. Half the stories on the front page are basically "Global Warming Is A Hoax Because Jesus Wouldn't Let That Happen"

<comment><USER13> Yeah as a user since 2007, it went noticeably conservative in the last year or so (which is when many of us moved to Reddit). And it's not just conservative leaning but really pointed partisan stuff.

I hope they can figure out a way to solve this sort of thing going forward. And I'm curious if their choice of either digg/bury instead of upvote/downvote makes it easier to game. I believe it does, as these folks haven't been able to do the same with reddit. I'm not sure, but I believe a story is gone once it gets a certain number of "buries" whereas on reddit a story with a lot of downvotes can be easily resurrected by upvotes. (though I could be wrong about this?)

<comment><USER14> People tend to self-segregate in real life. It makes sense that it should happen on the Internet, too.

<comment><USER13> Agreed, but I think this is a little beyond self-segration. If they just wanted to self-segregate, they'd find stories they agree with and digg them up, but extending that to also ruin other people's discussion is another thing. They are gathering with the explicit goal of drowning out other voices outside of their self-segregated group.

Perhaps another reason reddit isn't as susceptible is that it allows for user- created subreddits where like-minded folks can form such hives.

<comment><USER15> Happens in real-life. Look at how many news stories you see about some speaker coming to a college and being shouted down (or food being thrown at them) so they can't speak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is slightly off topic, but why do people do things like this? I don't understand why anyone would go to such lengths to do something like this. I just don't get it.

I see people around me fighting over parking spaces. I see people holding conferences on how to fight over parking spaces (that guy is muscling in!). I see people do the same for roughly every damn topic in this world, and sometimes it gets really messy. Why?

What's in it for them?

<comment><USER17> Fighting for parking spaces... you might be surprised how underhanded even that can get. The state of California has a rule in the vehicle code about abandoned cars. It's clearly intended to deal with cars people just walk away from (without intent of coming back), and perhaps some that are left in unsafe places (on the freeway etc.) The code mentions the court system addressing some aspects of it.

The city of San Luis Obispo (known as being the first for banning smoking in public places and one of the first to have curbside recycling) came up with 72 hour abandonment. There are no 72 hour parking signs. But go on vacation, away to visit family, carpool or use your bike instead of driving, bed in bed with the flu for days... and a car left is in violation. They mark a tire and the street with chalk and leave a little "courtesy notice" under a windshield wiper and then at three days tow. Beside the high towing fees, and a substantial impound release fee, there is also a citation for abandonment ($280). Of course the towing contractors charge a hefty per day storage fee. They (the city police and parking agency) may reduce/rename the abandonment citation considering picking up the car from the towing yard to be "no intent to abandon". Of course some strapped for cash may not be able to get a car right away, and end up losing a vehicle due to the high ransom at the towing yard. The pirates may extract a lot of money for cargo ships, but on a personal level what the City of San Luis Obispo does to people hits harder as a percentage.

Note that this practice happens even in from of ones own home, even if there is no parking shortage. Neighbors that don't get along use it as a way to harass each other, and in some places people call in complaints to tr and get parking spaces. As a college town, there are many places were units have no off-road parking, or insufficient off road parking. The city makes money on this, as do the towing contractors. They see to meet the public notice requirements without people noticing... I know of an employee who has bought dozens of vehicles at auction for the minimum bid (towing/storage fees).

There's dirty business at every level it seems.

<comment><USER18> while there is some validity to your argument, there is a reason for this strict code.

i went to school in San Luis. i know two people who left their cars parked on the street after finding out that fixing the car would cost more than the car itself.

the first two years i was in San Luis, i lived at a place that charged for parking. i would park my car on the street and leave it there for weeks until i needed to go visit my folks in the central valley. i did not have the problem you are describing even when i left the car unmoved for 3 weeks at a time.

<comment><USER17> The enforcement is primarily complaint driven. It does catch some legit cases of abandonment, but also sees abuse.

Although the state vehicle code section cited in their paperwork mentions the court, the actual process of dealing with SLOPD or the parking people DENIES access to the court. Appeals go to the same people that issued the towing order.

Except for a home, a car is the largest investment that great many Americans make. There's notice to ones' mailbox before towing. A person that's ill or otherwise not using a car for legitimate reasons may very well not see a notice on the car. The fine is more than that for parking in a handicapped zone or for any other parking violation. They're unwilling to work with the community to solve problems. For instance I once had someone park across my driveway which is less obvious than most (especially at night) and I called the PD asking if they could help me by contacting the neighbor (I didn't know which apartment he was in) so he could move his car. It wasn't an immediate problem. They said sure. But when an officer showed up, he refused to go to the neighbor and instead had the car towed. They didn't make me happy, and I'm sure they didn't make the owner of the car happy. The solution was worse than the problem.

If they had 72 hour parking signs up and simply issued tickets with the right to go to court, it'd all be fair. But to put someone through some very expensive grief without due process is just wrong. Also, as you noted, the enforcement is spotty. It's often selective enforcement. It may not be bias on the part of an officer, but the complaint process is open to bias too. Someone of lower income with an older car is more likely to be targeted simply because a neighbor doesn't like seeing an older car, or some assume an older car isn't operational.

San Luis has many people that are very environmentally conscious. Many ride bikes, walk, take a bus or car pool. Some students rarely drive except to see family or buy food. Being parked for a period is not abandonment, and the state code used here has no time limit. The city is misapplying the law selectively. It is being applied to some people that have no intention of abandoning their vehicles. There is no opportunity to appeal towing/impound fees at all and only improper means are available (not to a court) to appeal the citation that follows.

Additionally, towing is overkill when in a residential zone. Extended parking downtown (in an area typically metered) reduces availability of parking in a saturated area. But in a residential area, a car that's parked continuously for a couple of weeks versus one that's used a few times during the day has no difference in impact because it's overnight (when essentially everyone is sleeping) that parking is closest to saturation. Someone towed and subjected to that cost and the impound release fee when it is not an abandoned car will most likely bring it right back to the same area it was towed from. So what's the point of towing?

Beyond simply being parked, there should be some pretty good additional reason to believe a car is intentionally abandoned. Not currently registered, owner failed to give valid address, flat tires... Issue a ticket with right to appeal, send certified mail to registered address... if the car is by the registered address maybe even knock on a door. The city employees and PD get huge salaries. Perhaps in the things they do they need policies modified to solve problems with the least possible harm. The refusal to knock on a neighbors door when he parked across my driveway by accident makes it clear just how unwilling to help they can be.

You never got cited. If you'd done something (could be trivial - rude when a party gets a noise complaint) they could throw the book at you for other things. Just laws don't make ordinary citizens into criminals that can be harassed and emotionally / financially damaged with no appeal. (and I said, a neighbor upset with you could easily have caused the same grief, it is often arbitrary enforcement where there is no actual problem)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It doesn't take an extremist group to game digg.

Before Digg went to their new format, I made a bot that upvoted or downvoted stories in C# in just a couple hours. I haven't dug around their new format yet, but I imagine it is equally easy to game too...

</comment><comment><USER20> Wait, you mean they didn't do a perl script to automate the downvoting ? With such a simple and regular downvoting scheme it shouldn't be very difficult.

They must hate computers too

</comment><comment><USER21> I may be completely off-base, but after reading the article and poking around a bit I got the impression that most in the DP group are youngish (under 21) and just wanting to be part of a secret society that does something 'useful.'

Most of the conspiracy theory nuts I know (I know a couple) are just kids who something big to happen, and so they make up a conspiracy so that they can be part of it.

</comment><comment><USER22> The fact that they named themselves the Digg Patriots should be funny to anyone who's played Metal Gear Solid 2.

</comment><comment><USER23> And the world becomes even more like some 80's cyberpunk novel.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is this an argument to not allow downvotes but only upvotes?

</comment><comment><USER25> what's the point of trying to "control" digg? Does it really make a difference for anybody? Did they call themselves the Digglluminati?

</comment><comment><USER26> Are they different from Slashdot moderators?

<comment><USER17> Well Slashdot posts never get removed, just modded down (below the thresholds some users may read at, but they have a choice). The meta-moderation process should help catch abusive moderation and reduce the frequency of bad moderators getting mod points.

Since the moderation system isn't for down-rating posts that one disagrees with, the system get still get flooded with well-tempered deliberate misinformation.

Would MS pay people to post "I tried for days to get my Linux install to work right, but the buggy drivers made my screen flicker so much my dog had a seizure and died. I'm sticking with Windows forever!"? Fun for moderators...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> How much you want to bet this isn't just another part of the 'game', an example of the left-wing extremists attempting to combat the right-wing extremists?

</comment><comment><USER28> That's nothing, you should see what Google does to conservative news. Google is a pretty big shill for the Democratic party, has a former exec in the West Wing, and has been caught repeatedly spiking stories in their news site that are critical of the left.

Also not sure I'd call this an extremist group. Ideological group perhaps, but extremist? Sure some of the members cited were bad apples (stalking, etc.), but yeah this is pure ideological polemics. When you have the the majority of mainstream media shilling for the left, one can't really blame the right for trying to regain some ground.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, could you cite where Google has been caught "spiking stories in their news site that are critical of the left"? I'm deeply interested in censorship and feel that this would be a pretty big story.

<comment><USER29> How would it be a big story? Fox "spikes" stories that aren't even true, and are critical to the right every day. A lot of it ends up as fodder for the Daily Show.

<comment><USER30> Are you specifically referring to the Taliban-trained monkey soldiers, motivated by bananas and peanuts?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buoVwM1pQEs&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buoVwM1pQEs&feature=related)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review my most recent side project (cost behavior analysis) - <AUTHOR>

I made this web app because I found doing cost behavior analysis for my managerial accounting homework very tedious and relatively time-consuming.
Cost behavior analysis is the process of dividing a mixed cost into its variable and fixed components (math: Finding the slope and y-intercept of a line or "m" and "b" in the equation y = mx + b)
This app is written in Python on the Tornado framework and makes use of numpy, matplotlib, and MongoDB.
What can I do to make this app easier to use and more useful?
The app: http://apps.charleshooper.net/cost-behavior-analysis/
Sample analysis of my power bills: http://apps.charleshooper.net/cost-behavior-analysis/results/4cd58f4399fda52f44000000/ <comment><USER2> Clickable:

<http://apps.charleshooper.net/cost-behavior-analysis/>

[http://apps.charleshooper.net/cost-behavior- analysis/results...](http://apps.charleshooper.net/cost-behavior- analysis/results/4cd58f4399fda52f44000000/)

Personal grip - why do people not put these links in themselves?

<comment><AUTHOR> A better question: Why doesn't HN automatically convert the URLs to links in the first place?

<comment><USER2> From the FAQ at <http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>

      > How do I make a link in a question?

      > You can't. (This is to prevent people from using
      > this method as a way of submitting a link, but with
      > their comments in a privileged position at the top of
      > the page. If you want to submit a link with comments,
      > just submit it, then add a regular comment.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>