The issue google is trying to address here is that the adblockers get permissions to basically all browsing data.
Google specifically says "Chrome supports the use and development of ad blockers."
There is going to be a content filtering approach that doesn't require folks give full access to all browser activity to a third party. For example, google could provide hooks for a pattern list that the extension could populate to block content. But no browsing data would be shared with the extension.
I know it's fun to go to immediate outrage - but Forbes is not the first place I'd be looking for thoughtful / balanced stories.
With what we know since January, the only reason Google implements it is because it will not allow sophisticated ad-blockers and anti-tracking extensions to work.
Google does this such that you can install some sort of pseudo adblock, while Google Ads and Google Tracking (especially) still work - at least behind the scenes.
And this comes directly from the dev of uBlock Origin.
The article is absolutely correct, only that 2B users will of course not switch.
But this move from Google is absolutely, 100%, meant to defeat effective ad blocking and any further privacy extensions that people may come up with in the future.
This has zero to do with privacy and security, because the APIs being removed only have to do with modifying pages, the ability to read data from pages is unaffected. The only real consumer of these APIs are ad blockers, they are quite obviously being specifically targeted.
Painting this as all about user safety when it handsomely rewards Google's largest profit center is farcical. (the new static list of 50k filters will be completely trivial to workaround).
The only thing that is bogus here is the people denying it has nothing to do with ad blocking.
> There is going to be a content filtering approach that doesn't require folks give full access to all browser activity to a third party.
FWIW that's how content blockers in Safari have worked for while now. I've always been surprised at how accepting people are of using a browser from an ad company.
Right, iOS also historically had a finer grained / more on point permission model than android, and I've liked that approach. Apps can request permissions that reasonably connect with their activity. The pop ups to provide that permission usually make sense (I generally say no to access all my contacts etc).
The issue google is trying to address here is that the adblockers get permissions to basically all browsing data.
Google specifically says "Chrome supports the use and development of ad blockers."
There is going to be a content filtering approach that doesn't require folks give full access to all browser activity to a third party. For example, google could provide hooks for a pattern list that the extension could populate to block content. But no browsing data would be shared with the extension.
I know it's fun to go to immediate outrage - but Forbes is not the first place I'd be looking for thoughtful / balanced stories.