Far less user agency with Google Chrome's Crackdown on adblocker extensions etc.

General Topics
1

L.S.,

Read: https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/10/googles_browser_extension_platform_rewrite/

By default users of Google Chrome and likewise browsers will have far less user agency over what ads and content they will be able to block starting from to-day.

The contemplated Manifest v3, now coming as a beta with Chrome 88, just being released yesterday, will make extensions like Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin etc. virtually impossible to exist through considerate Google API changes. One could block as per website, and the new Manifest v3 will certainly harm a lot of privacy extensions.

It would be very bad if that also came to a chromium like browser like Avast Secure Browser (being a beta tester I fear for user agency being taken out of the hands of users considerably by this recent Google Alphabet move). The German privacy ad blocking browser Cligz already has surrendered and has been discontinued, not around anymore

uMatrix extension already has been left by it’s developer and will function as long as it takes before Chrome will be blocking it to function as SunsetV2 functioning is being phased out from Google Chrome and chromium and chromium-type browsers.

For the moment you could go back to SunsetV2 but that is as long as it last. Technical challenge for extension developers in this cat and mouse game Google plays.

Apparently agreat extension like uBlock Origin will not survive any longer than a year, rather let us say any time past six months from now. A sad day for your individual user rights, but we see this all over society now. It is either go along with proposed uniformity or be left behind.

Do we all have to bow to Big Tech Google’s market dictates? Interesting to see whether Firefox and other browsers will follow down this path also. Sad, score 1-0 now for Big Tech Corp versus browser end-user agency. You only will loose that very last bit of privacy left and you will be obliged by force to watch ads and being profiled all the time all of the time.

This only because users do not seem to care anymore, free senseless clicking is the norm for the vast majority of them.
A sad thing really, but we could have waited for this to happen with such Google attitudes (Google don’t be evil).

polonus (volunteer 3rd party cold reconnaissance website security analyst and website error-hunter)

2

No effects yet on Version 88.0.4324.96 (Official build) (64-bits)
Tested in a clean environment with following plug-ins

uBlock Origin
ScriptSafe
Disconnect
minerblock
Wappalyzer
BlockTube
PrivacyBadger
EditThisCookie
User JavaScript and CSS

polonus

3

This has only confirmed my previous decision never to install Google Chrome or Chromium (ASB).

There have been some posts related to Ad Blockers disappearance in ASB, https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=247734.0
Whilst one user has managed to get it back up and running, ‘PaulW66’ https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=247777.msg1580974#msg1580974

I don’t know if this will occur again once the chromium based version gets updated to a version including these measures.

4

I have AdBlock+ running on Chrome v 88.0.4324.96

5

Polonus reports that there is no change in that version in Reply #1

No effects yet on Version 88.0.4324.96 (Official build) (64-bits)

So I think you may have that to come on a future Chrome update.

6

That version was just released yesterday. :slight_smile:

7

I think you were lucky there, we will have to see if and when these restrictions come in.

8

Hi DavidR and bob3160,

That functionality, now called browser wide extension functionality, will be halted inside the browser, when SunsetV2 is not supported any longer. Google’s default will be the Manifestv3 api only. Expect that to happen in some 6 months from now. Then you will have to deal with unwanted ads and content through in a platform wide action only (like for instance using Blokada on Google-android, only issue you won’t be able to download that from Google’s web shop, only reliably to be downloaded from Portuguese Aptoide. So Google will put in hoops and additional hoops to jump through, so average Joe will stop bothering and accept “reasonable Google profit-building ads”. That cat and mice game will go on, where the cat’s name is Goggle’s and the mice are you and little old me. Will be a real technical challenge for developers of ad-blocking to keep up with the ad-launching monsters, as the latter have also other tricks up their sleeves.

polonus

9

Extension already adopting to the new schemes, example:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/privacy-badger-changing-protect-you-better

Thanks to disclosures from Google Security Team, we are changing the way Privacy Badger works by default in order to protect you better. Privacy Badger used to learn about trackers as you browsed the Web. Now, we are turning “local learning” off by default, as it may make you more identifiable to websites or other actors.

pol

P.S. I run this extension in Avast Secure Browser (Beta). Also MBAM, which is quite a good add-on.

10

Easy solution, switch to Firefox…!! 8)

→ https://forum.avast.com/index.php?msg=1578670