DeepJ: Style-Specific Music Generation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/calclavia/DeepJ/tree/icsc <comment><USER2> In terms of melodies I think trainning off lead-sheets is far better than raw midi. The reason being is when humans generate melodies they can anticipate implied harmonic structure. i.e.Chords. You folks might be interested in a leadsheet dataset i'm creating for the purpose of generating melodies: [https://github.com/shiehn/chord-melody- dataset](https://github.com/shiehn/chord-melody-dataset)

<comment><USER3> Lead sheets are only suitable for songs though. This work focuses on more complex/polyphonic music.

<comment><USER2> Ah ok, I really just made an assumption that the goal is to generate convincing harmonic music. In this case after spending a couple years fighting with that problem I've been reaching a conclusion that the chords and melody are absolutely by far the most difficult & 'human' aspect where as counter- point/polyphony are actually very mechanical & really just support the chord/melody structure. Recently I've been having very good results by first generating chords/melody with RNN's then having subsequent processes generate supporting harmonies.

<comment><USER3> Can you show us some of those good results?

<comment><USER2> These are results from starting with just a chord progression & stacking ontop of it: [http://signalsandsorcery.com](http://signalsandsorcery.com) About 5 months ago I decided to pivot & start with a melody & chords. I have not yet stood up the system that starts with chords & melody. So the answer is not yet.

<comment><USER3> I wonder how great composers go about creating a novel melody? Like Mozart or Beatles.

<comment><USER2> Ya, good question. I doubt there is a single method. I suspect pre 20th century single note melodies were often sung and then following the strict rules of counterpoint harmonies were added. Its seems like pop music is often a chord progression first and then a melody added second.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This project would really benefit from some examples.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, not really sure what the point of the website is if it's just some sliders with nothing actually playing.

<comment><USER3> [https://github.com/calclavia/DeepJ/tree/icsc/archives/v1](https://github.com/calclavia/DeepJ/tree/icsc/archives/v1)

<comment><USER6> These sound pretty awful, frankly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Same old story. Short incoherent melodies scattered everywhere with no structure whatsoever.

<comment><USER8> That describes 90% of jazz too.

<comment><USER9> And 100% of glitch music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00887](https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00887)

</comment><comment><USER10> `requirements.txt` has a linux only wheel - any help on getting it running with OSX?

<comment><USER3> Just install pytorch.</comment></comment>


Rethinking Nero - <AUTHOR> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/emperor-nero/draper-text

<comment><USER2> _In my opinion_ ,

Nero was dubbed tyrant because the _media_ at the time - that is, senators who could write _and_ publish disliked him. The dislike is understandable for his execution of Seneca; one of them. Tacitus hated him to guts and later Christian history dubbed him as the worst tyrant. The infamous Damnatio Memoriae(the worst possible punishment to a public figure at the time; erasing all evidence of the person's accomplishments) was held against him as well.

But if you think about it, He never _really_ messed up as a role of Princeps. In short, Augustus' princeps were given two responsibilities: national security(as an Emperotor) and food supply(As a 'Caesar Augustus' and 'Princeps'). Food supply was pretty much guaranteed in his tenure, apart for one turbulent season.

For national security, many give Corbulo the credit to resolve the conflict with Patria(i.e., letting Patrian prince take throne of Armellian, but have Roman authority give ceremony). While it was a drastic change in Roman politics, Nero was the one to give the final say. He was unstable, but he wasn't stupid.

All northern defence lines were peaceful(i.e., didn't have a major breach) and conquest for Caledonia(Britain) was ongoing. When Judea revolt came about, he sent possibly the best card against that(Vespianus, who later wins the civil war after Nero's demise).

His demise was a complex one; he lost respect from populus due to his murder of Octavia and his mother(authority), and support from senators(justification to power), and finally, from the armies(military power) all at the same time.

Compared to mediaval then later post-Renaissance divine rights, Roman emperors' powers were far more justified, and consequently, liable to be checked.

<comment><USER3> He was so reviled by early Christians that the number of the beast (666) is probably derived from his name [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkZqFtYtqaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkZqFtYtqaI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tough to talk about "truth" or "lies" when talking about history...

"What is history, but a fable agreed upon?" \- Napolean</comment>


Google's Schimdt warn young will have to change names to escape 'cyber past'  - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-change-names-to-escape-cyber-past-warns-Googles-Eric-Schmidt.html

<comment><USER2> What happened to "Kids will be kids"? Society might change to put less weight on what people did when they were young.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any examples of profitable Google Chrome extensions? - <AUTHOR> I have been trying to see if I could find any Google Chrome extension that were either profitable or at least created revenue so far without any luck. <comment><USER2> Adblock Plus seems to have a very good business model extorting money from Google and others to show their ads. [http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of- sha...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down- websites/)

<comment><USER3> That website popped up another one of those "Subscribe to get our newsletter" things that are infuriatingly common nowadays.

I always enter some variation of "firstname.lastname@example.com" with the domain changed to suit in the vain hope it tips the balance in a discussion someday.

<comment><USER4> I do the same. [http://thosefuckingpopups.tumblr.com/](http://thosefuckingpopups.tumblr.com/) collects screenshots of people who join the cause.

Be aware that simply disabling Javascript by default and only whitelisting it when you need it gets rid of obnoxious brain stressers like these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Postman is a great example for this. [https://www.getpostman.com/](https://www.getpostman.com/)

They're based out of India and they have been featured in TC too. [http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/26/postman-api- platform-1-mill...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/26/postman-api- platform-1-million/)

<comment><USER6> I love postman, but how do they make money from it?

<comment><USER7> There are paid licenses for the standalone chrome app (not the extension) that let you do extra things like pre/post JS processing on requests. I think the licenses are also tied to their new sync feature which would let you sync a collection of requests (say all your API requests) across your team.

<comment><USER6> Oh, nice. I couldn't make heads or tails of their website. Seems like a lot of potential there, tho, for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These are extensions that make money and are just in Gmail.

Us (Streak YCS11) Yesware Boomerang Bananatag RightInbox Grammarly Cirrus Insight Minmax

</comment><comment><USER9> I just signed up for the $39/mo plan for Streak CRM (www.streak.com) -- the product rocks and the support has been phenomenal (thanks, Andrew!).

You have to install the Streak Chrome extension to get the CRM inside your Gmail.

</comment><comment><USER10> Synergyse provides interactive training inside Google Apps, our extension is deployed at over 2000 organizations supporting 2.5m+ users.

[https://www.synergyse.com](https://www.synergyse.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> Zenmate, One click VPN, have a premium version for €5 a month [https://zenmate.com/](https://zenmate.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Honey ([http://www.joinhoney.com/](http://www.joinhoney.com/)), the automatic coupon-finding extension does pretty well.

Our textbook price-comparison extension ([http://www.OccupyTheBookstore.com](http://www.OccupyTheBookstore.com)) generated 5-figures during the January back-to-school rush.

</comment><comment><USER13> Not sure how profitable it is, but Dimensions costs $1 per year and I've been using it for a while [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dimensions/oajdmmi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dimensions/oajdmmikmphdckpkjgkdofoegppahcak?hl=en)

<comment><USER14> I used to use Dimensions (paid, I was reminded just now), but the latest Chrome Dev Tools made the space very competitive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> LastPass's Chrome (and Firefox and IE) extension is a big part of their product and they definitely have some revenue.

</comment><comment><USER16> The camelizer will create price alerts for amazon and makes money. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the- camelizer/ghno...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the- camelizer/ghnomdcacenbmilgjigehppbamfndblo?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER17> I've created an anti-adware/malware extension called Extension Defender which has a free and paid offering, the paid offering has made around ~$750

[https://www.extensiondefender.com/](https://www.extensiondefender.com/)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension- defender...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension- defender/lkakdehcmmnojcdalpkfgmhphnicaonm)

I've had a few emails about our Enterprise offering but I have not had to the time to really land the sales. I know there are alot of people on HN looking to acquire projects, if someone is interested in the project, you can contact me at email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER18> Boomerang for Gmail

[http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/06/09/turn- paywall-c...](http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/06/09/turn-paywall-cash- windfall/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Hola VPN is a very good example[0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9614993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9614993)

</comment><comment><USER20> Invisible hand: [http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/](http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/) [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/invisiblehand/lghj...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/invisiblehand/lghjfnfolmcikomdjmoiemllfnlmmoko)

</comment><comment><USER21> I work at Virtru and we create software to allow people to send end-to-end encrypted email directly from Gmail. Our Chrome Extension is our most downloaded client and customers can purchase the Virtru Pro plan for more advanced features.

[https://www.virtru.com/other-platforms/](https://www.virtru.com/other- platforms/)

</comment><comment><USER22> JSTorrent : [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jstorrent/anhdpjpo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jstorrent/anhdpjpojoipgpmfanmedjghaligalgb?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER23> Mixmax seems to be doing well with a Chrome extension for Gmail. Not sure if they're profitable though.

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

(I found out about them because they use Meteor.js and blog about it)

</comment><comment><USER24> I guess at this moment, the conclusion is: not really, but there are a few exceptions.

</comment><comment><USER25> Rescuetime isn't extension-only, but the extension is arguably an important part of the product, and I like the product lot.

[https://www.rescuetime.com/](https://www.rescuetime.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> The company I'm interning at right now works on a chrome extension that helps teams manage projects in GitHub. [https://www.zenhub.io](https://www.zenhub.io)

</comment><comment><USER27> We do alright with [http://fetching.io](http://fetching.io). The extension itself is free but it's a critical part of our paid for product.

<comment><USER28> Could you please share Cloud vs Native usage ratio/%?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Entanglement is a game I considered buying. I have bought only Postman so far. In fact, I find the "native" desktop software for REST API testing less friendly than Postman.

</comment><comment><USER29> So far most mentioned profitable extensions are for Gmail?!

</comment><comment><USER30> You are looking for an extension that automatically generates money ? I'm afraid neither Google nor anyone has developed such thing yet.

<comment><USER30> Of course this was a joke.

Jokes aside Adblock Plus has got a pretty good business model based on ads whitelisting ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus))</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you get over the feeling you're not good enough? - <AUTHOR> Often, I find I cannot absorb things as fast as others, cannot make the same connections, cannot have the same insight.  It's getting to the point where I avoid trying to learn and develop because I always feel I'll be lagging.  How do you get around that nagging feeling? <comment><USER2> \- Forgive yourself. It's okay. You are who you are.

\- Understand that there is no speed limit. You can be as fast or as slow as you should be.

\- Mimic. Connections and insights are rarely magical. Usually the person has been trained by themselves/others or have come up with mental "hacks" to promote these kind of eureka type thoughts.

Decades ago, my best friend was much better about making connections, insights, etc. I was constantly wowed. Instead of fixed mindset like "I'll never be as good/clever as they are" I simply asked: "How did you come up with that?" or "How did you figure it out?". Sometimes he would point me to how he read documentation and interpreted that into code. Once I got the cryptic answer "Think like an electron." (His point was that similar to how you can predict how water will flow down a mountain, valley, gather against dams, you can kind of predict how electrons move through capacitors, inductors, diodes, etc.)

The point is that I was less interested the outcomes and more interested in how they were achieved.

You'll find that there is a snowball effect. The more connections and insights you make, the easier it is to add to them.

Lastly, the core principles of no zero days might help out. Here's a link to the seminal reddit comment:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_ju...](https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_just_dont_care_about_myself/cdah4af/)

</comment><comment><USER3> You need to realise that this nagging voice that is telling you that you are not good enough is not "you". May sound weird or esoteric, but it is possible to distance yourself from it. This voice has been built up by your environment and is just a summation of that outside world. And everyone hears it. The difference is how one reacts to it.

There's a plethora of material available about how to overcome this voice (mindfulness, meditation, self-help etc.). It's a long process, but it is possible to liberate yourself from it.

Personally, what helped me was to keep a journal. And take regular breaks to reflect on what I have written. Over time (talking years), I realised in a kind of "insight" the ever repeating thought patterns I keep writing down. Am I now free of them? No, and sometimes they still frighten me (rightly so, the feeling of not being good enough has a positive, encouraging side) but more often than not I see them as this old grumpy neighbour that you meet every morning who keeps to bore you with the always same complaints. You greet him, listen for a few minutes and then continue with your day.

</comment><comment><USER4> Matching megamindbrian2's comment, it never really goes away in my experience. However, some coping mechanisms I use are to read about new things in my field, play CTFs (even if I do poorly, just for fun to learn from write ups), and practice my reinforcing what I do know.

I find that doing things like that reinforce my confidence and give me the drive to go learn new things and build my knowledge. Also try to surround yourself with good people, that's easier said than done, but even following colleagues on social media that you find to be good role models is helpful. It's reassuring to me when someone I really look up to also experiences these same feelings. It's just comforting to know you're not alone sometimes in that regard.

But as far as shaking off the "nagging feeling" goes, I'd start with reinforcing what you do know to help build confidence, and see if that helps.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're inexperienced (in general, or at new job) you're going to feel like you have a hard time learning quickly. It's normal. That's what learning feels like! If you're comfortable and everything is easy then you're not learning.

Talk about this more here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/03/05/failing- at-your-new-...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/03/05/failing-at-your-new- job/)

The other option as others said is impostor syndrome. [https://adainitiative.org/continue-our-work/impostor- syndrom...](https://adainitiative.org/continue-our-work/impostor-syndrome- training/) has some techniques to help you get more realistic understanding of where you are.

</comment><comment><USER6> Stop comparing your self to everyone else, you cant be better than every one at everything. This is obvious when spelled out, but not while you are judging your weakness. You will compare it to others who don't have that weakness, setting your self up for failure.

Stop comparing your self to other individuals, you are not them, you don't have their strengths or weaknesses. You are trying to compare apples and oranges.

Stop judging yourself over such a broad spectrum, you just can't be good at everything you don't have the time to learn it all. You have weaknesses sure but you also have strengths, deal with it, give your self a bit of credit where credit is due.

Stop comparing your self to external forces that are beyond your control or ability to understand. Stop setting your self up for failure.

Start comparing yourself today to yourself yesterday. "I always feel I'll be lagging" you can't lag behind yourself. "cannot make the same connections", "cannot have the same insight" you make your own insights and connects not others, this is your strength and their weakness, give your self some credit where credit is due.

"I avoid trying to learn and develop" Don't try to match or improve on others, improve on yourself, start small. Learn one new thing a day, it doesn't have to be a big new complicated thing. Through out your day you will at some point have a question or a curiosity. Keep an eye out for it and encourage it, answer your question or do a bit of research, then make a note of it, job done, you are now objectively better than your competition(you yesterday) and have the note to prove it. Well done! Give yourself a reward like a coffee or a cookie :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, your comment really spoke to me. Thanks a lot

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had this feeling a lot. Then I stopped drinking, moved out of my parents house, and started eating healthier. It's only been a month, but just making time for myself and putting my own comfort first, being aware of my own uninterrupted being, made me cool down a little bit. Perhaps it might come crashing back, but at the moment, you have to realize that maybe the feeling you are not good enough might arise because you are doing something you might not do. You feel like you are incomplete because you have created this image you must reach. Perhaps you might not get that job you want, but then you weren't suited for it in the first place. You may cram, you may try to force yourself to do it, but that should be a sign that you aren't doing the right thing. You should learn something because you want to. If you are still a student, then this is unavoidable because the system is designed for competition and there is that #1 spot that someone will naturally fill. If that's not you, that's not an issue. There might be dominance heirarchies, but also the world seems to be complex enough and there seems to be enough people in the world who aren't #1 in anything, but are completely content. The best way to compete is to not compete at all.

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't compare yourself to others, rather compare yourself to the past you.

</comment><comment><USER9> This feeling is known as impostor syndrome and is extremely common amongst knowledge workers (especially programmers). I haven't found any good resources for overcoming it - it generally persists for a long time, even when the person is very senior and experienced.

<comment><USER10> It's imposter syndrome if you don't feel confident and Dunning Kruger if you feel over confident.

You need middle confidence

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You're not alone. I don't think there is any "solution" that can prevent such thoughts. Instead, I prefer to look at them as a motivator to work harder and learn more. This Venn diagram [1] always helps me adjust my perspective. A useful approach to find those intersections and unions of what you know, what you think others know and what others actually know is to give talks at meet- ups on any topic you feel comfortable with - you'll quickly realize how much unique knowledge you have.

[1]: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCfUQh_UsAAXNKv.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCfUQh_UsAAXNKv.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER12> Get really good at your one niche. This is through sustained daily directed practice. Then you become the go to person for that specific area of expertise.

I think finding out what your niche is in the first place can be much harder than actually getting good. Best of luck ;)

<comment><USER10> Ha that's wise.

"Know Thyself"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I focus on myself and what I have accomplished.

What did I do well today? Did I learn something? What did I accomplish? Did I improve myself compared to yesterday?

I also have a reminder in my phone morning and night that tells me "I am good enough.".

</comment><comment><USER14> Being extremely persistent can make up for a lot of deficiencies. It's totally fine to lag behind everyone initially if you're willing to keep going long after most other people stop making progress. There's nothing wrong with being the tortoise rather than the hare.

The other important thing to learn is that you can become an expert at something. Once you have one skill under your belt you realize that it's possible to climb the ladder of expertise on almost any topic if you're able to stick with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> You get around by not always making choices based on your feelings.

I guess you have made something? Many others would not be able to make what you have made, well done.

I also also guess there are those smarter than you. They will also make things.

One day you will look back and find that you made something which others more clever than you never got around to. Enjoy what you make and don't worry too much about what those more clever do or don't make.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't know. I think in tech those feelings are accurate because the knowledge domain is so massive. It's taken me half a decade of accumulated knowledge to shake those feelings.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ask everyone you can if they feel the same and I bet you will see that what you feel is common.

</comment><comment><USER17> I feel like while I still suffer from this a bit, its mostly gone away for me.

There's the common quote that I hear people say "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." If you always follow that, you'll always feel like you're the dumbest, and no one will ever learn anything that you know. There's some other problems with that quote such as if everyone followed that, we'd all be chasing each other from room to room and the smartest person on the planet would have some issues, but alas, that's not relevant.

Going and mentoring people, or finding a company where you didn't start in as the lowest rung, will help you a lot. When you stay in the company you started in, as long as you're there you will wonder if you are skilled, or if you just have domain knowledge that makes you look more skilled than someone who just joined. Mentoring and teaching will help you realize just how far you've come, and the people who you teach will look to you like you look to those people who make you feel dumb and not good enough. I don't mean that in a negative way, they will respect your skills and look to you for advice, just like the people you look to now.

As for having trouble making the same insights and connections, that's just per the territory. Perhaps you're a developer who is self taught, or went through a boot camp, and working in a place that gets pretty computer science level (ML, fancy math and algorithms, NLP, ect). These people have lots of experience in these things that you don't, and so they make the connections, and you can learn to get there but it will take a long time. It's useful stuff, but maybe switching to a less intense job for a bit will help on that. Or maybe they know more about the current industry you're in, someone making medical study tracking software will do better if they have conducted a study before for example.

Lastly just straight up be honest and maybe ask them how they made that insight. Tell them that you don't understand how they got from point A to point D, and you can see if there's some thought process you can learn from them, or if the difference is just a large amount of background knowledge.

Truly lastly though, I will also say that consuming alcohol often can really slow your brain down, and just in case this is relevant, consider looking into cutting back safely with your doctor's advice. My mind has doubled in sharpness and speed of making those kind of connections since I got sober almost 2 years ago and also gave up smoking. So also talk to your doctor and be sure there's nothing physical that is actually causing your mental thought processes to falter and sabotage your confidence.

</comment><comment><USER18> I never did. I'll check back if someone else knows how.

</comment><comment><USER19> "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter. For always, there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

</comment><comment><USER20> * Do stuff that matters. Start small.

* Do less stuff that does not matter. If it does not matter but needs to be done, try to delegate or automate it.

* Don't devote attention to stuff that does not matter. (Eg. the tech news firehose or the latest Trump tweet)

* Exercise regularly.

* Eat right.

* Sleep well.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've heard people who are able to absorb inputs and make connections faster have high IQ and only 50% of the population has average IQ.

Maybe you are comparing yourself to those with higher IQ.

Training and education doesn't seem to help IQ that much.</comment>


How Google Chrome's ad blocker works - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/chrome-adblocker <comment><USER3> I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive.

Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait.

Step 2: Google declares the given trait "not meeting the Better Ads standard", "clarifies" the standard (or their implementation of it), and blocks all their competitors ads. Their own ads of course are still meeting the new set of rules, as they knew the change was coming. If the Coalition for Better Ads disagrees or won't be bullied by the Goliath of advertising, Google will go form their own version of it claiming to be more strict, "for the sake of the users".

Step 3: After a few weeks or months, the competition will modify their ads and eventually everything will be back to normal. That's when Google goes back to step 1.

The final Step 4 is the opposite. Find a trait that none or few competitors have in their ads but would potentially increase click-through rates. Modify the rules to say that doing this thing is okay, and oh hey Google ads are doing that thing as of right now.

Why all of this? Because Amazon is growing in the advertising business and is ruthless. "Your margin is my opportunity". So Google needs an arsenal of dirty tricks up their sleeve.

Do I really believe this is the plan? No. I think Google are legit trying to meet a user need that exists. But I also know they're a publicly traded company with growing competition in a fierce industry. It's not what they plan to do that worries me, but what they can do when up against the wall.

<comment><USER4> I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions':

1\. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and they don't like that.

2\. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.*

3\. By building in an adblocker that blocks annoying ads, people will stop installing full adblockers that also block Google's ads.

*There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, but I don't think most people know or care very much about that.

<comment><USER5> If people no longer feel the need to install a stronger ad blocker why is that bad?

<comment><USER6> They're doing it, not to block ads, but to make sure ads reach you. So the question gets philosophical in a hurry. What is the "goodness" of an otherwise generous act done for self-serving reasons?

Is it good or bad to write a check to an orphanage for the publicity?

Is it good or bad to save someone's life because they owe you money?

Is it good or bad to block certain ads to make sure other ads still reach you?

<comment><USER7> > Is it good or bad to block certain ads to make sure other ads still reach > you?

If there is a growing product that works better, and fully blocks ads and your goal is only to quickly take over the market and do a worse job then I say 'no' that's not being altruistic...

If they put up a big banner saying "only works half as well at blocking ads as the competition" then maybe it's a little better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Google appears to be shipping the entirety of EasyList and EasyPrivacy; > which includes blocking rules for Google's own AdSense and DoubleClick > advertisement platforms as well as Google Analytics, and other Google > services.

This is confusing. EasyList is not bound to the "Better Ads Standards", its purpose is to block all ads, regardless of their perceived intrusiveness.

Also, I failed to understand why would EasyPrivacy be used: its purpose is outside that of "Better Ads Standards".

The article further claims:

> Google's ad blocking capabilities will be on par with the best tools > available from day one.

How is this even possible if the web sites targeted are only those which are not compliant "Better Ads Standards"?

The blockers making use of EasyList do not care about "Better Ads Standards", so the result can't possibly be "on par with the best tools available"[1]

I would like to know how the author of the article got the information about EasyList and EasyPrivacy, I find it difficult to believe these would be used by Chrome's integrated blocker given its claimed purpose.

* * *

UPDATE: After looking around a bit, I understand better now how this works. As per ghacks.net[2], excerpt (my emphasis):

> Google Chrome will download rules from EasyList and EasyPrivacy at regular > intervals and _apply them to sites that failed reviews_ automatically.

So EasyList/EasyPrivacy are used on sites which fail to comply with "Better Ads Standards".

In retrospect I suffered reading comprehension, the sentence in the article was clear enough:

> These lists are used to limit what resources are loaded on websites > identified by Safe Browsing as being non-compliant with the Better Ad > Standards.

* * *

[1] Add to this that EasyList is just a complementary list on top of more advanced blocking features found on blockers such as uBlock Origin or Adguard.

[2] [https://www.ghacks.net/2018/02/02/details-about-googles- ad-b...](https://www.ghacks.net/2018/02/02/details-about-googles-ad-blocking- integration-in-chrome/)

<comment><USER9> > apply them to sites that failed reviews automatically

Wait, sites that failed automatic reviews or sites that somehow "automatically" failed reviews (sounds like, because of 'some reason' they aren't eligible so they default-fail). Because the latter would, of course, play right into Google's hand.

<comment><USER10> Automatically applied to sites that failed whatever review Google chooses to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As long as your are not serving _visually_ intrusive ads you can still track the shit out of users [1] under the Better Ads Standards [1]. If you are annoyed by flashing ads this is an improvement, if you are concerned about your privacy this does not really help at all. Sure, Chrome will seemingly also block trackers as some kind of side effect when blocking visually intrusive ads but just make your ads pass the visual standards and you are back in tracking business.

[1] Unless I failed to find the relevant rules.

[2] [https://www.betterads.org/standards/](https://www.betterads.org/standards/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is 100% about reinforcing Google's ad monopoly (along with the AMP initiative).

Google owns DoubleClick which is the biggest adserver on the planet and the #1 source of all the bad intrusive ads in the first place. This could've been easily solved years ago.

<comment><USER13> Yep. And you can see this in a lot of what Google does.

Most people think Google's push for HTTPS, both in Chrome and SEO rankings, is somehow related to privacy.

It's not. It's about net neutrality and it's about third parties being able to switch out Google's ads for their own, on-the-fly, using a middleman.

I interviewed with a stealth-level startup a few years back. They were developing a product, similar to a WiFi router, that would be installed on premise and sit there, filtering out Google/Facebook/etc. ads and replacing them with ads that the owner of the box wanted. You can imagine this box being installed in Starbucks, airports, libraries, and everywhere else. Cutting into a massive chunk of Google's ad revenue.

The Time Warners, AT&Ts, and Verizons of the world would also be doing this, for HTTP traffic.

We are getting the benefits of privacy. But it's not because Google has good intentions.

<comment><USER14> > I interviewed with a stealth-level startup a few years back. They were > developing a product, similar to a WiFi router, that would be installed on > premise and sit there, filtering out Google/Facebook/etc. ads and replacing > them with ads that the owner of the box wanted. You can imagine this box > being installed in Starbucks, airports, libraries, and everywhere else.

Funny, I was a similar boat once. They weren't a startup, yet. Good for them, because in both meetings I had to tell them their business idea was impossible unless they broke prime factorization. I was surprised I had to meet them the second time.

Oh, and their business idea was a little more intrusive than merely replacing ads. They wanted to be able to read people's emails and Facebook data and serve targeted advertising based on that.

<comment><USER15> The intrusive reading of emails is exactly what gmail does, isn't it?

<comment><USER16> Gmail doesn't do this anymore: [https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite- gains-traction-in...](https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains- traction-in-the-enterprise-g-suites-gmail-and-consumer-gmail-to-more-closely- align/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How will this not lead to google strangling their competitors. Are we really going to have to just trust them to use this fairly? Will we really expect google to interpret the Better Ads Standard without any bias, treating their own ads equally to other ads?

Maybe they will be good, but I for one am not comfortable with this. Imagine what happens when chrome decides Facebook ads deserve to be blocked.

<comment><USER18> According to the article, this is more about google's competitors strangling _them_ (by being so intrusive that customers consider full ad blockers to be necessary).

<comment><USER19> Credit where it's due - they're right. Full ad blockers _are_ necessary.

<comment><USER20> And I don't expect this to change that, frankly. They say nothing about blocking the trackers, and that's what needs to be blocked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google telling us what "better ads" are is like a drug dealer lecturing you about crack quality control. They could have solved it years ago, but made tons of $ by letting the ad space become the wild west of nagware, malware, and tracking bonanza.

If they were to provide a real adblocker, allowing people to opt-in to ads on sites they like, while blocking everything else, I'd have considered it, on the basis that any technology running in-browser must be more fast/efficient than an extension. But this initiative is just them trying to get people to drop their adblocker and get tracked again.

All things being equal, I think I'll keep my uBlock extension - at least until Google kicks it out of their web store. I believe that would be the next logical step for them :(

<comment><USER22> To me, "better ads" sounds like "humane torture" or "acceptable manipulation".

The principle of ads is repugnant to me. There's no way to make it better. I don't need to be psychologically manipulated to buy things I don't need. There's no way to make that manipulation ok. What Google considers acceptable, I consider subtle and even more manipulative, trying to sneak it in where most people won't object to the intrusion.

<comment><USER23> Any thoughts on how web search should be funded, in an ideal world, if ads are inherently repugnant?

<comment><USER24> Web search shouldn't be centralized or closed source, it should be made of the same stuff Linux is. Whatever Linux does to keep existing, there should be a community driven web search project that mimics it.

<comment><USER23> How could openness coexist with adversarial SOE? Genuine question -- I think it's possible, but how?

For example, "Optimizers" currently have to guess at what Google is doing, but if the system was open source, they would know exactly.

For another example, modern cryptography actually _benefits_ from openness. Is there a similar possibility for Search?

<comment><USER24> I have no clue really but I'd like to see what the results would be like if the presence of anything that makes a site money would count negatively towards it's ranking. Any eCommerce site unless the search is something like "where to buy...". Completely disqualify any site with ad network and tracking scripts. I'd also like to see "text/plain" given the highest ranking. There's not much incentive to game the system if you can't make money off it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Which is it, the super secret consortium that won't even let you download the full list of bad sites, or Easy List/Privacy? Why don't they just use EasyList and report offenders there instead of this new consortium? The answer to that rhetorical question will let you know why I'll remain on uBO. They didn't need to build this in, but they did and gave the current ad-blocking community the finger instead of support.

<comment><USER26> >Which is it, the super secret consortium that won't even let you download the full list of bad sites, or Easy List/Privacy? Why don't they just use EasyList and report offenders there instead of this new consortium?

The lists serve different purposes. EasyList is a lit of ad-serving URLs to block. The uh, consortium list is a black/white list of which sites don't follow the standards. The standards are not about bad ads, but about sites that use ads in bad ways. The standards can't be automatically enforced since software can't reliably determine if an ad is a popunder or otherwise intrusive due to placement. Sites would quickly use CSS/JS hacks to work around the classifier.

<comment><USER25> EasyList is also a list of ad-serving sites to block and a list of elements to hide. Can you help me understand why the blacklist can't be just placed in a normal ad blocking list like EasyList? If it's by site anyways, I'm not sure the actual difference for the blocker itself. It's not like the EasyList standards can be automatically enforced by software either.

I think "serve different purposes" could be rephrased to "serve different overseers". I can't find a reason for the tech difference.

<comment><USER27> They don't want to block ads on sites, unless the site is on the other list.

That is, if site foo.com and bar.com both serve ads, but foo.com is on the "blacklist", the ad blocking will be enabled on foo.com. However, ad blocking will remain disabled on bar.com.

It's not Google's intention to block all ads on all sites - only ads on "bad" sites. If they can reduce the number of adblock installs by reducing the overall number of invasive ads, they can keep their own ad business from folding.

<comment><USER25> Ah, I see now, EasyList is selectively applied after first determining whether the site "deserves" it. That's an evil use of the hard work of EasyList maintainers IMO. I wonder if I can find a way to make Chrome think every site is "bad". If not, uBO still for me.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, this seems like it already is, or will soon become, solidly evil. If Google decides to flag your site, all of a sudden you don't get ad revenue from anyone. An AdWords sales-drone can then contact you to explain how you can remove yourself from Google's "naughty" list, e.g. by giving them more inventory, or giving their competitors less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wouldn't trust a burglar to install my security system. I won't trust Google to block ads.

<comment><USER30> You can trust a burglar to install a security system that will keep _other_ burglars out, but you can be 100% sure that you will not be able to keep the installer out, in fact you are just about giving them an incentive to rob you blind at the first opportunity. Google will do an amazing job at blocking competitor ads.

<comment><USER31> Then why did the competitors, including the top competitors in terms of revenue, sign up to be part of the consortium?

I see this as a shot at piracy sites, if anything. Since they cannot join reputable ad networks, they join disreputable ones that don't even try to police their ads or publishers and show shady and misleading ads. Those will all be blocked now, choking the piracy sites of revenue.

The primary beneficiaries are content producers. The secondary beneficiaries are Internet companies that are hit by botnets.

<comment><USER32> > _Then why did the competitors, including the top competitors in terms of > revenue, sign up to be part of the consortium?_

They don't have a choice. Either they join the cartel or they watch their ads vanish entirely[0] from the most popular browser.

I don't think this is an either/or thing. Google is doing something with positive externalities. But it also so happens to align 100% with their commercial interests.

[0] edit: "entirely" is hyperbole. But even a low percentage is worth giving in for.

<comment><USER31> > Either they join the cartel or they watch their ads vanish entirely[0] from > the most popular browser.

Why do you think they didn't want to join? They get the same benefits as Google and the Internet at large. I'm having a hard time following your logic for why this is Google attacking its competitors if its competitors are unaffected by the change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a good thing. Advertising is one of the most effective ways companies have to let people know about their products - I'd say they're essential in free market economies. But having ads is one thing and completely disrupting the user experience is another. Finding a balance is a better approach than blocking all ads.

<comment><USER34> Two things about ads.

They don't seek to inform you so much as they seek to inform you that something exists whilst manipulating your emotions to get a particular reaction out of you and millions of other people. This is particularly blatant in AV ads.

The other thing, mainly regarding software ads, is they don't seek to inform you so much as manipulate you whilst tracking your every move to guarantee that the ad was effective. This is particularly blatant with the Google and Facebook ad networks, but pretty much almost any 2-bit ad company you've heard of on the web at least tries to do something similar.

So in the end, advertising has at least two major problems with trying to either 1. manipulate you directly through your emotions or 2. manipulating your computer bandwidth and CPU time to violate your privacy and oftentimes, security.

Regarding #1, there are always going to be people that think they're smart enough, intelligent enough, or logical enough that they will never fall prey to this vector of advertising, and almost universally they are wrong. I don't doubt some few exceptions exist, I just don't think I've ever actually _met_ someone who is an exception, nor am I under any illusions that I am. Your best defense is to cut ads out of your life to greatest extent possible. You'll probably never cut bus ads out of your life, if you at all enjoy city living, but you don't have to let advertisers into your home either.

How do you find out about things after that point? If you are at all social, read any kinds of news sites, invest any money into markets, have any kind of skin in some kind of game, or engage in any kind of recreational activities, you'll have other channels of information. Generally the signal will be of a much higher quality than if you were personally bombarded with advertisements intentionally seeking to cut out a large slice of your overall attention bandwidth every single day.

<comment><USER35> Even before ad-blockers, I have never intentionally clicked on an internet ad, whether in search results or on a website. These days, I block ads with extreme prejudice so I never even see most ads.

But I don't hate the concept of advertising. I don't deny being influenced by ads, or even sometimes finding them informative. I just reject being tracked and targeted.

<comment><USER36> I have adblock on my primary chrome profile, but occasionally browse using a profile where it is disabled because [reasons]. My experience has been generally pleasant if you discount the low-quality ads that would be blocked under this new scheme.

Instead, I get ads for interesting new components on DigiKey or Mouser, or the similar, and I find myself clicking on ads several times a week because I'm genuinely interested in what I see -- it's like a news feed for unusual devices.

Imagine if your Twitter feed was served several tweets at a time embedded in other sites you regularly visit. You could argue it's a distraction, but but it's far from unpleasant. "Personalized ads" work a lot the same way for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Google's incentives here are still antithetical to my own, so I'm going to stick with uBlock. For example, on Google search, ads masquerade as legitimate search results. These used to be highlighted in light yellow, clearly marking them as different from organic search results. Now, they only have the word "Ad" in light grey text. This notice is on the right, intentionally where it will be overlooked when reading through the titles of each result.

I can't imagine that Google would start blocking their own ad network, let alone their own ads. Therefore, I'm sticking with an ad blocker that I control.

<comment><USER38> _> These used to be highlighted in light yellow, clearly marking them as different from organic search results._

The specific shade of yellow was indiscernible from background white on a cheap laptop at almost any angle. I wish I'd taken a photo when I noticed. I knew people who had never even noticed the yellow, at all, let alone understood it was ads.

I know, Never Attribute To Malice and all that, but hot damn, that must have been a _massive_ multi million dollar move of "ignorance".

<comment><USER39> Google is the company that user-tested 41 shades of blue¹.

Malice or not, that yellow was surely intentional, and working as intended.

[1] [http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye- google.html](http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> To have an ad network control so much of web traffic and then decide which ads to block is just absurd.

If the chrome team and google's ad teams were not controlled by the same unit that primarily makes money from ads it would have been ok, but given that they do, what incentive will they have to block their own ads and how much more powerful is it making their own network?

Sadly, chrome is still the easiest browser to use, especially as a developer

<comment><USER41> In your opinion, would spinning off Chrome into its own company under Alphabet be a possible solution?

<comment><USER42> Not OP, but that seems strange to me. Chrome is a product, not really a business. I can't see any way for them to make money, besides maybe enterprise deployments.

<comment><USER43> If Firefox makes $500M per year from search referrals, Chrome could make over $1B. Chrome would be very profitable as an independent company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Full disclosure: I work in ad-tech.

1\. Why do you guys downvote civil, informative posts that just happen to be philosophically different than yours? Seems anti-knowledge, and a net negative to HN.

2\. What do you think pays for the internet? This is the first time I've ever engaged in a discussion, but I've been lurking for a year or two, and at least half of the links shared in the comments are ad-supported. Probably more. Sharing information is going to be more difficult when the money dries up and everything is behind a paywall.

3\. People are annoyed that they see the same ad over and over again, but "tracking" is a cardinal sin. How is this supposed to work?

<comment><USER45> The notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated. Recent research shows massive amounts of fraud with the involvement of the ad industry which eats through the money flowing through the ecosystem. See [https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry- insiders...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry-insiders-are- connected-to-a-fraud-scheme-that?utm_term=.cqVM0x3aYJ#.pnzYnK19rE) and [https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest- malvertis...](https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest-malvertising- operation-b84cd38d6b85).

<comment><USER46> I don't see how the two links you posted supports the assertion that the "notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated."

First link is about fraud against advertisers, selling them fake ad impressions. Second link is about a sophisticated scheme to deliver malware to the end users using the ad ecosystem.

How does that dispute the fact that people who have websites can profit from putting ads on them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> If you want to go read the source yourself, I believe this is the implementation:

[https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/extensions/browser/api/...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/extensions/browser/api/declarative_net_request/)

And the code reviews cover the feature are tagged with DNR: [https://chromium- review.googlesource.com/?polygerrit=0#/q/Dn...](https://chromium- review.googlesource.com/?polygerrit=0#/q/Dnr)

Edit: this may just be the net blocking code.

<comment><USER48> Now I'm half tempted to serve up ads from a path in the form '/a{n}b/\d+' with sufficiently large n to bring the O(mn) std::string::find subpattern matcher to a crawl when it encounters my harmless 'src="/a{m}"' iframes. Preferably n > 32K/2 to blow through L1 cache.

<comment><USER25> Which code are you looking at? I see it uses [https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_index/url_pattern_index.h).

Also, from what I gather from their docs, this is only for the ad-block-filter formatted lists. For their own super-secret-better-ads list, they use safe browsing lists which use a hash-some-then-phone-home approach IIRC [0]. I mean, even Mozilla that uses the safe browsing lists says at [1] that the internal documentation [2] is only available under NDA.

0 - [https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v4/local- databas...](https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v4/local-databases)

1 - [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing)

2 - [https://mana.mozilla.org/wiki/display/FIREFOX/Safe+Browsing](https://mana.mozilla.org/wiki/display/FIREFOX/Safe+Browsing)

<comment><USER48> This is the call stack I'm looking at:

#0 [https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_index/url_pattern.cc?l=93)

#1 [https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_index/url_pattern.cc?l=227)

#2 [https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_index/url_pattern_index.cc?l=595)

#3 [https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/url_pattern_index/url_pattern_index.cc?l=653)

<comment><USER25> Ah, I didn't dig, but I'd contend that URL length limits would apply and the worst you could do is slow down a client's browser in the same way you could just by multiplying the number of attempted requests to a blockable URL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Big Brother Google has a new definition of "ad blocker" with the novel feature of _not_ blocking ads.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak)

</comment><comment><USER50> Seems like they are using their dominance in browser market in order to kill the competition in ads market.

<comment><USER51> that seems the case.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here are test pages that can be used to trigger the adblocker via Safe Browsing.

[http://testsafebrowsing.appspot.com/s/subresource_filter_des...](http://testsafebrowsing.appspot.com/s/subresource_filter_desktop.html) [http://testsafebrowsing.appspot.com/s/subresource_filter_mob...](http://testsafebrowsing.appspot.com/s/subresource_filter_mobile.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> Slightly tangential, but:

> ... Google Safe Browsing service. Chrome checks every website you visit > against a list of malicious websites that it periodically downloads from > Safe Browsing.

So I have always disabled Safe Browsing because I assumed it was sending all my browsing activity to Google in real time to be checked. But this sounds like it's checking locally from a downloaded list. Anyone know if that's correct?

<comment><USER25> It's half and half from what I'm reading. It checks a local list for the sha-256 hash or partial hash. Then, if found, it phones home with the partial hash it found.

If you don't want to read [0], I think the Golang parser/lookup at [1] is a reasonable interpretation of what they're doing, but not sure. You can see there that the hashes generated are of different-host-combinations + different-URL-path-combinations. They do the partial hash check in a DB (local, downloaded periodically). If there's a partial hash in the DB, they phone home w/ that partial hash for the full hashes and check if it matches.

So Google gets the partial hash of a URL it had told you could be bad. They return the full hashes for that partial hash. We can hope (and see) that the partial hashes do not match a broad set (and they are host possibility + URL path combo possibility). Surely Google has something that maps the hashes to actual URL patterns, but like the other commenter said, the partial hash you send is only sent when it matches a local DB already.

0 - [https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/safe_browsin...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/safe_browsing/)

1 - [https://github.com/google/safebrowsing/](https://github.com/google/safebrowsing/)

<comment><USER52> > _Surely Google has something that maps the hashes to actual URL patterns, > but like the other commenter said, the partial hash you send is only sent > when it matches a local DB already._

It sends the first 4 bytes of a 32 byte SHA-256 hash of the URL. There isn't a reasonable map back for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I think Google is setting itself up for antitrust action. Isn't this essentially what Microsoft did on the desktop by blocking competitors and priorritizing their own products?

<comment><USER54> Google may have pushed for this, but the standards were agreed upon by the ad industry:

[https://marketingland.com/industry-groups-self-regulatory- pr...](https://marketingland.com/industry-groups-self-regulatory-program- coalition-for-better-ads-226109)

<comment><USER30> The standards should be set by independent consumer watchdogs or the competent (one would hope) authorities, depending on the industry to self regulate has not worked in over 25 years, I see no reason why it would magically start to work now.

<comment><USER26> The ad industry had no means or incentive to self regulate. That has changed.

The incentive is ad blockers. The means is "Coalition for Better Ads."

Can't trust them to fight against tracking. Can't trust them to eliminate malvertising. Can't trust them to unblock your website in a timely manner or give good feedback about what is wrong with it. Can expect them to keep obnoxious use of advertising down to stop the whole industry from collapsing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is still not going to help with websites that force you to disable adblockers to access their content. It's especially annoying when after disabling the site looks like a cluster of ads with information hidden in between. It's an abusive relationship.

<comment><USER56> That is fine... personally those sites go on my mental block list to avoid in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I hope Mozilla will do the same, only with a proper ad blocker. It's the only thing that makes sense given the two organizations' goals and purposes. Either that or they're loving their sponsorship money too much and there's no difference in goal or purpose between the two organizations. Can't wait to see if they stand up for users or lie down for money.

<comment><USER58> If webpage owners don't make money off of a browser, they'll stop testing/building their webpage against that browser or even block access from it, leading to broken webpages in that broken, which is not at all in the interest of users.

<comment><USER57> Plenty of browsers are not supported/tested on, yet they work just fine because they implement web standards.

<comment><USER58> Yeah, they work fine 90% of the time. But no web browser implements all webstandards and even less so implements them without bugs.

Google is also adding more and more proprietary APIs to their browser, which Mozilla will not be able to implement (Chromecast, Google Earth, Hangouts) or is adding pseudo-webstandards, which have been publicly specified, but they did not push it through the standardization process to reach an agreement with other browser vendors (e.g. WebSQL, File Storage API).

You're also saying "plenty of browsers". There's hardly any browsers that don't use Trident/EdgeHTML, Gecko or KHTML/WebKit/Blink. If they use one of those, then there's the major browsers IE/Edge, Firefox or Safari/Chrome that webpage owners will test/build against and as a result also cause it to work on that fork, meaning that yeah, those forks can easily implement an ad blocker without much to fear.

But that's not the case, if you are such a major browser yourself. Then webpage owners will notice and will not have any reason to optimize against your browser engine anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> > Google's implementation is a bit different from how most extension as > blocking is enforced at an earlier stage in the rendering processes than > extensions have access to.

Nice to hear adblocking performance is set to have a huge boost as soon as extension authors figure out how to hijack the filter to return a BETTER_ADS violation for all sites.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm all for ad-blocking and the existence of ad blockers.

But I really don't like the idea of corporations making decisions about what ads we get to see. It's a slippery slope to go down. The existence of an entity which may even be "blamed" by content creators for taking their money(not exactly, but to some extent) for not meeting a standard they virtually have very little control over is almost un-democratic. And I won't be surprised if there are some "oops, these guys meet all criterias but are still getting blocked" unintentionally(or even intentionally) by Google.

I don't use Chrome very often, but I'd recommend everyone to disable this feature when it ships(and use ublock/other open source blockers if one has to).

</comment><comment><USER61> The owners of DoubleClick are going to protect you from obnoxious ads! That's So Googly!

<comment><USER62> "Focus on the customer and all else will follow"

oops

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It's never good to have someone as both a player and a referee in the same game.

</comment><comment><USER64> I use an Ad blocker and I kinda regret it sometimes. Most of the time the blocker keeps me from seeing annoying, repetitive ads for things I have zero interest in learning about (trucks, loans, cash back, etc.)

However, I have realized that by blocking all Ads I am missing out on some cultural things, events that I want to know about. Movie information (Avengers, Hellboy, etc.) is one thing that I don't get informed of anymore. I didn't even see the latest Spiderman Homecoming movie in theaters because I had no idea it was even out until it was too late. I'm sure there are other things that I'm missing out on, but it's hard to know what you don't know.

Anyway, I think Ads are not evil or bad but they do need to be targeted better. If the Ad companies can figure out how to tell me about things I care about, or will possibly care about in the near future, then I'm OK with being exposed to them. If anyone should be able to do this it would be Google (they know everything about me). So I turned of uBlock Origin and started using Chrome's built-in blocker. So far it's been terrible; I'm seeing all kinds of Ads for things I just don't care about. I think I'm going back to my blocker. :/

<comment><USER65> I know what you're talking about and feel the same.

If you block marketing you are blocking a part of society. It reminds me of a Christian friend who never watches television.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Can you easily modify Chrome to use a more restrictive list that blocks all known ads?

Is there any reason you would ever want to see anything from DoubleClick?

</comment><comment><USER54> Do these standards and this Chrome ad-blocker also solve the issue of advertisers putting crypto-mining scripts into their ads?

<comment><USER67> Or the minute+ unskippable ads on youtube?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm so glad Google is starting to put the customer first again. I hope the media gives credit where it's due, instead of this non-stop negative sensationalistic media we've been getting.

I for one, hope there's some kind of blocking for embedded videos. I haven't had luck with the existing solutions out there.

<comment><USER69> As someone here said, don't trust a burglar to install a security system.

Google is doing this to make sure their ads will be displayed. If chrome has built in ad blocking many people won't feel the need to install ad blockers that block all ads.

Another point mentioned is that this could be used in the future to hamper business of their competitors. It is very unlikely that this is why it was created, but don't forget that Google is a publicly traded company, if they will be pressed against a wall they will use anything available, and this could cause a serious damage against their competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Google. Advertising company. If I ever have to watch advertising on the internet, I'm turning it off.

</comment><comment><USER71> I long for the day Google asks you to disable your adblocker (uBlock, ABP, etc.) to be able to search.

<comment><USER72> You are part of the problem. People should not have to give up their privacy and expose their devices to the evil of the advert companies just to get online. Ads are almost the number one vector for malware. Ad servers are rarely, if ever, equipped with decent security and are frequently compromised.

Ads are a poor method for making money and the system is horribly gamed at every opportunity. Anything worth having is worth paying for. Google and their ilk have ruined the Internet and the general online landscape by dint of offering "free" services that are not really free; people pay for them dearly with lack of privacy and security and the return of a "free" service is not worth what is given.

I have happily paid for Fastmail since 2002. They are security conscience, responsive, and give a damn about their customers. I will use no one else. They are very transparent with their issues and enjoy providing their use base with information regarding their running of the company. Good luck with Google or Microsoft giving even paying customers this level of service and transparency.

Google have become too powerful. Way too powerful. They have their awful ads, beacons, and trackers on most websites and people just blissfully go along with it. I use zero Google services and block all of their tracking with a Pi- hole and other software tools. Ditto allowing no Android devices on my network. Getting into bed with Google in any way, shape, or form is literally giving away your privacy for a few trinkets that are worth nothing. If it's worth having, it's worth paying for. It's all an electronic leash...

<comment><USER73> > You are part of the problem

On HN, please make your points without stooping to personal swipes.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> This feels like it's "DoubleClick For Publishers or Bust."

Admittedly, I've only been on the DevOps side of content marketing -- and even at that, only on the cloud infrastructure side of it -- but, I think that just about everyone knew that while writing your own content and then selling your own ad inventory was ideal, if you couldn't sell your own ad inventory, DFP was the second best play for the income.

To me, this screams, "Even if you have other ads, if they're not DFP- compliant, we won't show them if they are from our browser."

I may be completely wrong...but, who knows.

<comment><USER75>
        if you couldn't sell your own ad inventory,
        DFP was the second best play for the income

If you don't sell your ad inventory, then how is DFP different from Adsense?

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> When I interviewed at Facebook almost every person I talked to said "if Google blocks ads by default Facebook will sue them" so I expect to see a lawsuit eventually

<comment><USER77> Out of interest how long ago was this? Asking because: "Mobile advertising revenue is reported and according to Facebook, it represented approximately 88 percent of advertising revenue for Q3 2017 up from 84 percent in Q3 2016." [https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook- statistics/](https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/)

Facebook seem to have done an incredibly good job of reducing their exposure to the browser. That comes at the cost of exposure to Android, but it feels like Google are going to find blocking Facebook ads in the Facebook app way harder than in their website.

That's all a little bit irrelevant though because Facebook are members of the 'coalition for better ads' anyway.

<comment><USER76> December 2017

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> It'll be interesting to see how sites respond to this. Will they eliminate intrusive ads[1] from their sites entirely? Or start trying to force users to disable their ad blockers before using the site?

I have a feeling this is going to lead to an increase in both of those behaviors.

[1]: [https://www.betterads.org/standards/](https://www.betterads.org/standards/)

</comment><comment><USER79> There are no annoying ads. All ads are annoying.

</comment><comment><USER80> I don't think that browser should be in the business of blocking Ads. That's the job of 3rd party tools and extensions. A browsers job is to display a webpage as is not to alter it. At most it should scream if a man in the middle altered my page anything more is crossing the line.

<comment><USER81> Should a browser also not be in the business of alerting a user that they're about to visit a site serving malware and using zero day exploits or is that also the job for 3rd party tools and extensions?

<comment><USER80> Alerting is fine. Altering the page is not.

<comment><USER82> Browsers alter the page when they block popups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> When Microsoft enabled DoNotTrack by default in IE, there was a huge outrage along the lines "how do they dare assume by default that I don't want to be tracked on the net?"

Where is the outrage now "how do they dare assume that I don't want to see annoying ads by default?"

</comment><comment><USER84> Here's how my ad blocker works:

\- Install uMatrix (firefox/chrome add-on)

\- Manually whitelist javascript

Get uMatrix folks.

<comment><USER85> Don't get how it's different from ublock or what's the benefits of umatrix

<comment><USER84> Does ublock allow to block all javascript and cookies by default, and manually whitelist javascript or cookies domain by domain?

<comment><USER35> In "advanced user" mode it can do this. You can even say things like "yes allow from foo.com but only when I'm visiting bar.com"

I did this for a while but it all got to be too much trouble honestly. Now I just run uBlock in default configuration and also have an /etc/hosts file, and browser set to clear all history and cookies when closed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> "However, users can't add their own websites to the blocklist."

<comment><USER87> It doesn't prevent you from installing an Ad Blocker extension to block sites yourself, as you do today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Google is not happy with third-party blockers blocking all their ads (e.g. YouTube ads), so they want their own blocker that can show more "Google- friendly" ads. It's all about the moolah...

</comment><comment><USER89> Doesn't seem fishy at all that an ad company would develop a product that blocks ads. Nope. Couldn't possibly be used to further it's own business. No sir, no how.

</comment><comment><USER90> youtube ads are worse than anything they're blocking

</comment><comment><USER91> Will this work on the mobile versions of Chrome as well (Android, iOS, etc)?

For iOS in particular, there doesn't seem to be any officially supported way to block ads.

<comment><USER92> Safari Content Blockers are the officially supported way. Eg BlockBear, Crystal, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> It sounds for me like a begin of monopoly: google ads put in silence all other ads competitors thanks a largely used in-house browser

</comment><comment><USER94> I am confused. Are they doing (i) EasyList + EasyPrivacy OR (ii) List derived using better ads standard?

I would imagine (i) to be much longer than (ii).

</comment><comment><USER95> It sounds like Google is using it's Monopoly position to control the ad space. Microsft used these tatics to get like 90+% marketshare before the government stepped in.chrome is open source it shouldn't be too hard to modify the code so it block Google ads too. I publish a browser which is a modified version of chrome which block ads. The issue is a lot of sites now detect this and tell you to disable it. They seem to use the script on the page itself so it's harder to block.

<comment><USER96> Did you read the article?

<comment><USER95> Can you point to the point where it says that instead of just attacking me?

This is what I saw.

Google have announced that their Google Chrome web browser will block every ad on websites that are not compliant with the Better Ads Standards by default. Google admits that they're taking action against the types of web advertisements that annoy people the most in an order to halt the rise in ad blockers that block all forms of advertisements on all websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> How easy is it to disable the whitelist and notifications in chromium? It seems like an obvious, user friendly, change.

</comment><comment><USER98> Kudos to the blog for not having silly facebook sharing button. Thanks for protecting my privacy / reading log

</comment><comment><USER99> Going to stick with Firefox and keep blocking all tracking and ads. Thank you very much.

</comment><comment><USER100> I am fine with this, at least less work for of ad blocker

shame I don't use chrome

</comment><comment><USER101> It's a bit surreal that an advertising based company's browser will now block annoying ads by default while the privacy focused Mozilla corporation's browser is still not implementing _any kind of_ built-in ad blocking.

<comment><USER30> You should not see this as a Google vs Mozilla thing but as a Google vs adblockers and Google vs its competing advertising networks issue. Then it makes much more sense.

<comment><USER101> Well, I have Mozilla's back personally since I've always used _only_ Firefox ever since version 1 and never used Chrome except for trying it out for a test drive from time to time, but the millions of Firefox users worldwide will now have one more reason to jump ship to Chrome and that's something Firefox can't afford at this point. Built-in ad blocking is just too good to pass up. Firefox needs to implement their own version soon, IMO.

<comment><USER30> That I agree with, but installing an ad blocker is fairly painless in firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Why am I trusting an advertising company with an ad blocker?

</comment><comment><USER103> if (domain != 'adsense') { blockAd(); }

<comment><USER104> My thought as well, google/alphabet has a real PR problem here.

<comment><USER105> They won't discriminate against all 3rd parties at first, it would be too obvious. They will quietly grow the list of blocked 3rd parties, with the intention of gradually shifting all spend to AdSense/DoubleClick platforms.

<comment><USER106> Given how many bad sites and bad ads there are out there, I think the list would quickly grow even if Google had the best of intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> It's a nice writeup but to be honest, I'm so happy that I have my pi-hole setup so I don't care anymore :). For Android is an OSS app called dns66 (f-droid) which has the same functionality.

<comment><USER108> Couldn't you set up a VPN to that raspberry pi and use that to block ads on your phone too? I use Adaway but I don't have a pi hole

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> Just use Brave, everyone. I think everyone here knows there's no way Google's sandbox doesn't morph into quicksand.

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

<comment><USER72> Brave is ad friendly, something that doesn't sit well with me. I want it all blocked. No ads, beacons, trackers, bad JavaScript. It's my browser, I call the shots as to what is allowed through. Ad companies have proven themselves to be evil and untrustworthy. They are now one of the main vectors of malware. I owe it to myself and my family to block everything like ads, beacons, and tracking my our network. I'm not interested in helping other people make money, generate crypto currency, whatever... My computers, my rules. Ads are a bad way to make money anyway and I've been blocking them since 1998. No way would I use Brave or any other software that actually encourages the advert companies to continue down their dark path.

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> No option for script blocking?

</comment><comment><USER111> Will those idiots block YouTube as well for serving malware that mines on users' machines?

</comment><comment><USER112> On mobile I've been using incignito mode exclusively. This prevents a lot of tracking, and bonus is it avoids many paywalls. I'm liking it so far - <USER2> try to do the same on desktop.

</comment><comment><USER113> To sneak in Google ads?

</comment><comment><USER114> So, who wants to bet on the size of the inevitable EU fine for anticompetitive activity? Another €1.2 billion?

</comment><comment><USER115> It seems a lot of people here work for shady ad networks whose bonus will be cut this year. It's not only "Google", it's Coalition for Better Ads. There top competitors' are all part of it.

It's still a lot better for my elderly folks who can't seem to figure out how to install ublock.

<comment><USER116> Google loves to claim something is administered by a "coalition" or "alliance". But that isn't how it works internally.

Remember the "Open Handset Alliance"? The industry group of companies which used Android? Well, Google threatened to remove Acer from it if Acer dared to release a phone without Google Apps on it. This was never a mutual organization, it was a Google-run organization.

"Alliances" and "coalitions" are the tools which Google uses to tame the companies they've more or less taken control of.

<comment><USER115> Adtech industry can't be compared with Handset market. You can start your ad network today with minimum capital. There are lots of smaller players in this game who are setting over each other to gain some competitive advantage by pushing nastiest ad around. These smaller players can make their own coalition and go to courts if it's that bad for their business and no court will not allow you to run shady ads, so these guys will never go to court!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> I for one welcome this - uBlock is great but it's slow and creates bugs with __many __legit applications. My first tech support question these days is, "are you running an adblocker?"

<comment><USER118> Yeah mine too, followed by me installing one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> Google as an advertising company has been putting its pieces into place for years now. Now is the final step of their plan of total takeover of the WWW.

Once you have the dominant browser and you're the largest ad provider on the internet, you can start actively destroying competition by declaring their ads "intrusive", and simply "bad", and blocking them. Since you have control over web standards and most of the browsers in the world, you hold everyone else by their balls. They either play by your rules, or they don't get to play at all. You can stifle all competition, completely, forever. Anything you do at this stage only tightens your grip on the internet.</comment>