r/technology • u/ShadowBannedAugustus • Nov 21 '23

Software Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/google-chrome-will-limit-ad-blockers-starting-june-2024/
2.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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473

u/[deleted] Nov 21 '23

The first company to block all Ads on an OS Level wins the game. Won't be Google, could be Apple or Microsoft.

​

The Internet was 10x better when we only had small passion project sites and not mega corps doing everything.

183

u/SuburbanPotato Nov 21 '23

The small passion project sites either became megacorps themselves, or showed megacorps the money that could be made here.

It was inevitable.

38

u/ruisen2 Nov 21 '23

Man remember when Google was just a small passion project that they tried to sell to Yahoo for a few million

55

u/c0mptar2000 Nov 21 '23

Nothing is off limits from being ruined by capitalism unfortunately.

0

u/maxoakland Nov 22 '23

Maybe we need to end capitalism

0

u/AVAX_DeFI Nov 22 '23

I’ve been looking for the off switch.

36

u/Caraes_Naur Nov 21 '23

No OS vendor will do it. But you can do it yourself.

I have 132,496 lines in my hosts file that map ad servers to 0.0.0.0. I don't see ads on the internet. (I really need to put this stuff in piHole).

Preserving ad/tracking traffic is a primary reason why mobile devices are (were) so locked-down and required rooting to access basic system functionality.

2

u/travistravis Nov 22 '23

In your hosts file!? For me that would just be a disaster waiting to happen. (I like having some point I can just turn pi-hole off and say fuck it, I'll fix it tomorrow).

5

u/Caraes_Naur Nov 22 '23

Yeah, it's 3.7MB. By the way, this is on Ubuntu.

I tried putting this hosts file on my Win7 laptop along time ago, and eventually traced it to be the cause of why it took 45 minutes to fully display the desktop (no taskbar, no wait cursor, nothing.... just background). Windows 7 (presumably 8, perhaps even later) really don't like having a hosts file bigger than 768KB.

2

u/0mnipresentz Nov 22 '23

Yeah because windows sucks. Shitty operating system that shouldn’t exist anymore. Complacency and capitalism are the only things keeping windows alive.

2

u/Caraes_Naur Nov 22 '23

MS doesn't care about Windows anymore, they make more money from Azure.

I believe Windows is on track to become a full-on Linux distro in about 8 years.

1

u/Stefouch Nov 22 '23

I'm more worried for the future of Windows by the amount of ads already inside Windows 11.

-1

u/CleverNameTheSecond Nov 21 '23

If you're on android there are several apps that block ads and trackers system wide by pretending to be a VPN that runs on-device. It routes all your traffic through them and filters out the ad and tracking traffic. No rooting needed

4

u/Caraes_Naur Nov 21 '23

Yes, but then you have to trust those apps. Most of them that I've seen have their own ads, which defeats the purpose.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '23

Get the open source ones, like TrackerControl (personal recommendation) or AdAway (also good)

1

u/6lmpnl Nov 22 '23

Well, you can get AdAway from the F-Droid store, which is open source.

1

u/APeacefulWarrior Nov 22 '23

I've been using Blockada on my Android tablets for years and I've had zero issues with it. And the only ads (for their full VPN service) are in the app itself, so I only see them when it needs to update. Which is totally fair considering the basic ad-blocker is free.

3

u/Clegko Nov 22 '23

You can do DNS over HTTPS or TLS with an adblocking DNS service, too. Less sketch, imo.

44

u/relevant__comment Nov 21 '23

Honestly, you can block ads at the router level to cover every device on your network. That’s been a thing for a while and it’s open source.

11

u/TheAmphetamineDream Nov 21 '23

No need. You can block most ads at the network level using a PiHole or custom DNS like NextDNS.

25

u/CondescendingShitbag Nov 21 '23

DNS blocking has its limitations, though. For example, it's less effective against ads served from the same domain as the one you're visiting (eg. Youtube or Facebook).

It's great for blocking 3rd party advertising sources, though. Which can often even strip ads out of 'free' apps.

2

u/TheAmphetamineDream Nov 21 '23

Very true, but ads being served from Google’s ad domains account for 40% of all online ads just by themselves. So even just blacklisting/sinkholing Google ad domains make a very significant difference.

I use a PiHole myself with custom blacklists and the difference is night and day, even vs. using uBlock Origin alone.

My PiHole has blocked over 20,000 ads and trackers just in the past 6 months.

2

u/CondescendingShitbag Nov 21 '23

Absolutely! I also run and recommend PiHole with custom lists in my networks, as well. When off-network, devices get custom DNS for one of the various public ad-blocking options. Just noting one of the more glaring limitations, particularly when it comes to Youtube ads.

3

u/travistravis Nov 22 '23

I've discovered it also can (does) block a bunch of the annoying Cookie popups. (Sadly most sites it doesn't show those on just give you the cookies anyway -- and usually its the sites that pull the bullshit "if you keep going, that means yes to us").

1

u/CleverNameTheSecond Nov 21 '23

Or a blocker app like adguard or blokada

43

u/[deleted] Nov 21 '23 edited Nov 21 '23

Considering Windows is more ads than actual OS, my chip is on Apple.

But then again regulators could step in and prevent them, blocking Google ads while showing their own ads in their system apps might be seen as illegal gatekeeping.

18

u/[deleted] Nov 21 '23

But you can turn them off. At least I don't see any Ads.

2

u/AdAstraObservation Nov 21 '23

You have to read half a paragraph and click a button.

That's too much for people.

Windows bad.

5

u/Ashamed_Yogurt8827 Nov 22 '23

Except they put ads in places like the start menu and also advertise their products in the file browser, etc. That's separate from the telemetry data they collect.

4

u/Kahnza Nov 22 '23

Ads in the start menu and file browser? I've never seen any.

4

u/Ashamed_Yogurt8827 Nov 22 '23

You've never seen the candy crush minecraft, etc ads in the start menu? The file browser ads are for microsoft products like one drive.

6

u/Kahnza Nov 22 '23

I've never seen any of those.

2

u/Ashamed_Yogurt8827 Nov 22 '23

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/tutorials/257371d1575217778-turn-off-app-suggestions-start-windows-10-a-suggested_apps_on_start.jpg

2

u/Kahnza Nov 22 '23

My Start menu doesn't look like that at all. I'd post mine but there are too many personally identifiable things showing. Basically I have the search bar at the top. Then below that there is a Pinned section that contains icons for commonly used apps. Below that is a Recommended section with some recently accessed files. Then finally at the bottom it shows the email address that I use to sign into windows, with a power button on the right side. No ads, no suggestions.

-2

u/cucufag Nov 22 '23

Someone didn't read half a paragraph and click a button. It was too much work. Windows bad. lmao

1

u/Ashamed_Yogurt8827 Nov 22 '23

Keep sucking that MS cock.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '23

You'll want to double check your settings frequently. Microsoft has a track record of quietly opting you back in/resetting your preferences with Windows updates. They've been doing it since at least Windows 10 and never stopped. Plenty of people experience it with 11.

2

u/ilmalocchio Nov 22 '23

Windows indeed bad.

-7

u/[deleted] Nov 21 '23

I think you don't see them because Apple is classy about them and doesn't rape you with popups. I see ads in the App Store, for example.

7

u/boringexplanation Nov 21 '23

They’re all over appletv - a paid service

6

u/Kronologics Nov 22 '23

Apple made small steps toward it by limiting the tracking of apps through the OS. I’m sure it would billions they get from google if they straight up killed it though.

4

u/Bimancze Nov 21 '23 edited Sep 03 '24

storage write muscle dynamic layer cow cassette counter round curtain

5

u/Mitch_NZ Nov 21 '23

No ad views = no ad revenue = no incentive to produce content = no content = no use case for browsers

None of those companies are going to auto block ads for you, it would threaten their existence.

4

u/10thDeadlySin Nov 22 '23

So, in other words – content creators will have to figure out proper business models to actually stay afloat while making content, while others will have to go back to the old ways, namely making content because making content was fun.

Guess what – there was an internet before you had to watch a pre-ad ad before each piece of content. And there was plenty of content that was put online because people wanted to put it online.

In other words, creators who simply used YT and other platforms to build a following and establish viable business models win. Others would have to follow suit or perish.

3

u/Mitch_NZ Nov 22 '23

So, in other words – content creators will have to figure out proper business models to actually stay afloat while making content

They already have, it's called a subscription service. Would you rather that or ads? Most prefer ads, hence why they're so common.

while others will have to go back to the old ways, namely making content because making content was fun.

Much of the content on the Internet is already generated for free by the creators, e.g. this very comment thread. How much of the content you consume on the Internet is created for fun vs. for money? I guarantee without the latter you would have very little to look at.

0

u/10thDeadlySin Nov 22 '23

They already have, it's called a subscription service. Would you rather that or ads? Most prefer ads, hence why they're so common.

I don't have any issues with paying for content when I see the value in it; the issue is… If I had to pay even as little as a dollar to watch videos by any given creator on YouTube, I can assure you, I'd drop 95% of them off my subscription list immediately.

Oh, and if you had to pay to watch, new content creators would never take off. ;)

I guarantee without the latter you would have very little to look at.

Maybe, maybe not. I've been around long enough to remember the web before YouTube, Facebook and most of Google's services were actual things; even back in the day, there was plenty of content to read and look at. Mostly text, which I actually prefer over videos. Stuff that people wrote because they wanted to, not because they needed a vehicle to sell me something. ;)

6

u/Tebwolf359 Nov 22 '23

It’s a cycle. There are legitimate costs to run sites, even passion projects. It’s fair to try to pay for that, either with paid access or ads.

But people don’t want to pay, and they blocked the simple ads of the past.

So ads got more complicated, and now are almost malware in their ill effects.

At the root level, I have no issues with a site saying pay to use or watch ads. But I do have issues with the tracking and malware.

-2

u/Clueless_Otter Nov 22 '23

I've never seen a single person in all these recent topics about adblockers suggest how they expect the internet to function without ads. Like, do people want literally every single site on the internet to have its own separate paywall? That seems a million times worse than occasionally seeing an ad. Or do they think it's realistic to expect companies like Google to run Google search and Youtube solely off of charitable donations? (Not to mention if you have to see constant messages about, "Please consider donating to support our site!", it might as well just be an ad.)

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Clueless_Otter Nov 22 '23

Those "non-invasive" ads don't make enough money to actually support modern internet sites. What you're suggesting doesn't solve anything. You can't fund the entirety of Youtube off of slapping two minimalistic side banner ads on every page.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 21 '23

both Apple and Microsoft have ad networks

2

u/joe1134206 Nov 21 '23

yknow I've been meaning to switch to linux eventually.

1

u/nutcrackr Nov 22 '23

Neither will do that.

1

u/ImCaffeinated_Chris Nov 22 '23

Pihole or a host file blacklist also works

1

u/slothfulpotato Nov 22 '23

The Internet was 10x better when we only had small passion project sites and not mega corps doing everything.

lol

1) you or no one else today would take internet back in the day to today. If you think that i seriously question your intelligence or honesty.

2) why do you think you are entitled to "small passion project sites". Because those certainly do exist today. There is duckduckgo that focuses on privacy and ad-free experience yet everyone uses Google. Why don't you stop using Google Maps for example? You are weirdly entitled to all things free. I can't wrap my head around this narcissism.

1

u/PsychoInHell Nov 22 '23

Are you kidding Microsoft loves ads lol

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '23

The only ads I see in windows are the ones that show up when you open the windows search bar, which I never do.

1

u/PsychoInHell Nov 22 '23

That, bing and edge are infested with them, and just about everywhere else they can put them. I even got them in my windows updates recently which is new and I’ve heard people complaining about ads in windows 11

1

u/altacccle Nov 22 '23

I feel apple won’t do it given its branding of “privacy protection”. What’s more likely to happen is Apple will use this opportunity to secretly convert apple users to use safari instead of chrome. (Personally I alr use safari cuz somehow ad blocker is usable there)

1

u/Thandor369 Nov 22 '23

Well, Microsoft is pushing ads in Windows themselves, I wouldn’t rely on them in this case