undefined | Better HN

0 pointsDanielRibeiro7y ago0 comments

I really like the point the uBlock maintainer's make:

"Extensions act on behalf of users, they add capabilities to a user agent, and deprecating the blocking ability of the webRequest API will essentially decrease the level of user agency in Chromium, to the benefit of web sites which obviously would be happy to have the last word in what resources their pages can fetch/execute/render."

0 comments

Mirioron7y ago

I'm just waiting for the time until websites won't load at all unless you have hardware DRM turned on that will take all of your control away.

>Extensions act on behalf of users, they add capabilities to a user agent, and deprecating the blocking ability of the webRequest API will essentially decrease the level of user agency in Chromium

This is off-topic, but I felt the same way about most data privacy problems. It was my own browser that was giving out the information and I would still like to see better control over it by default. Data privacy laws are simply a bandaid that don't help at all against malicious actors.

giancarlostoro7y ago

> I'm just waiting for the time until websites won't load at all unless you have hardware DRM turned on that will take all of your control away.

I already leave websites that become unusable with adblock on, or without it on. It will just trim down on the amount of sites I go on.

mirimir7y ago

Same here.

If it's something I'm particularly interested in, I look for a cache, snapshot or whatever.

Edit: Or just read HN comments.

1 more reply

mancerayder7y ago

I'm just waiting for the time until websites won't load at all unless you have hardware DRM turned on that will take all of your control away.

My money is on news sites and other paywall sites doing that first. How long before they stop letting us "open in new private window"? Washington Post doesn't even allow that anymore -- a shame too, since I haven't read a single one of their articles since then.

Sidnicious7y ago

Extensions should act on behalf of users but, like websites, some don't. A questionable or poorly-maintained extension can do more damage than any single website, and browsers can support user agency by replacing APIs with better ones: an effective declarative API for content blocking would majorly speed up extensions like uBlock Origin and make it harder for other extensions to follow users around the web.

That said, we should all fight for changes that let extensions like uBlock maintain feature parity.

Disclaimer: I'm both a Chromium developer and a uBlock Origin user and speak only for myself.

chacham157y ago

If you create a superior api (esp w/regards to speed) people will naturally move to extensions which use that api. Then once usage of the old api has dropped significantly, you can deprecate the old api.

rkangel7y ago

It has been proven time and time again, that that's at best only partially true. There are two factors:

If they have something working with one API, they have to have a good reason to re-implement it with a new API. It may be 'fast enough' and reliable, so why go through all that pain?

Or, it's just the long tail of API consumers (e.g. site on the web). Some things aren't maintained and updated, but they don't go away.

fapjacks7y ago

I would gladly live in the universe which is a smoking bomb crater of questionable and poorly-maintained browser extensions, than be a wealthy rock star in any universe of amazingly performant extensions, but which are using a browser API which has denied my right to self-determination on my own computer, effectively taking away my ability to say "no" to actions which are then forced upon me. This is like a kind of information rape. And here the suggested "alternative" of static, declarative, JSON-only filters means no programmatic ability to veto requests before they happen. It is effectively forcing users to leap before they look. And this completely arbitrary limit on the number of filters -- and it is completely arbitrary -- is the same kind of neutering mechanism, forcing me to "prioritize" a small number of request vetoes. In other words, it's forcing me choose the manner in which the rape happens.

sgentle7y ago

I think this is the core difference motivating this change: do extensions necessarily act on behalf of users? If that were true, there'd be no such thing as extension malware.

qbaqbaqba7y ago

Google's business model is exactly the same.

tlavoie7y ago

Is it perhaps time to return to using external tools such as Privoxy, Pi-Hole and the like? Privoxy appears to still be around, and (I think) was originally at the forefront of user-managed web controls.

Once the browser reaches its natural Borg-self, transparent user-level tools will be all that provide a semblance of control. Well that, and Firefox.

michaelt7y ago

If a website shows a popover ad, it might be a first-party script putting up a modal, then a third-party iframe with the ad inside that modal.

Blocking at the network layer will leave the iframe blank, but the modal will still be present. It's not such a good user experience, especially for less savvy users who might be confused by a mysterious blank modal.

AsyncAwait7y ago

Tools such as Pi-Hole cannot block YouTube ads effectively.

tgragnato7y ago

AFAIK Privoxy isn't actively maintained.

18pfsmt7y ago

I think you are correct, and that may be an opportunity.

vetinari7y ago

That's what the DNS-over-HTTPS is about - so your local DNS won't be consulted, instead it will be drowned in the HTTPS traffic. Remember, SNI is going to be encrypted too, so your router cannot distinguish DNS and regular traffic.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse