
Chrome 71 will block any and all ads on sites with “abusive experiences” - okket
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/chrome-71-will-block-any-and-all-ads-on-sites-with-abusive-experiences/
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dagenix
We all know the types of ads that Google is saying they are going to block
here - and good riddance. I really wish I knew of some study - but, my
personal theory is that roughly 100% of those ads are trying to sell some scam
or download some virus. It's really hard to imagine a legitimate company that
sends users ads with fake close buttons, pop ups, redirects, fake mouse
pointers, etc and after the user trudges through all of that they end up at a
page advertising 10% of garden shears at the local hardware store.

Yes - Google sells ads. Yes - Google, apparently, now blocks ads. Yes - that
sounds troubling. And it sure will be troubling is if it turns out that they
are blocking legitimate Ad Words competitors. But, these aren't really ads by
any reasonable definition: these are overwhelmingly anti-user malware scam
garbage. In my opinion, it's pretty troubling if a super profitable company
like Google has the ability to make such a user-positive change and _doesn't_
do so.

Maybe its step 1 down a slippery slope to actual bad behavior. But, let's get
worked up about that when there is some actual evidence of bad behavior - it's
not like there won't be plenty of people interested in trying to keep tabs on
what Google is doing here.

~~~
bscphil
When you search for certain pieces of free software to download on Google
search, their own ads on those pages often direct you to malware-laden or
otherwise unofficial sources for those downloads. One wonders whether these
scams will be blocked by Google's new approach to ad-blocking.

~~~
dagenix
I'm not sure what you are getting at. If it turns out that Chrome doesn't
block these ads, and there is some sort of reasonable evidence that it's due
to some sort of intentional functionality to exclude them, I'd agree that
would be a big, big problem. But, if some number of them manage to get through
the ad blocking, another reasonable explanation would be that Chrome's feature
just isn't as good as it could be and isn't by itself evidence of some
conspiracy.

Regardless, it's all speculation about something that hasn't happened yet.
It's reasonable to talk about these issues - and hopefully some group goes
further than speculating and actively monitors the situation. But, until there
is some evidence that Google is misbehaving, what has been announced is that
Google is going to try to provide a feature that will actively help users -
and I hope they are successful at doing that.

~~~
x0x0
Well, I for one am quite confident they will show small pubs the same leniency
they will no doubt grant to goggle.com. right?

~~~
dagenix
There is a pretty big difference between a legitimate ad and what Google is
saying they are targeting here. We can't be sure if Google will end up
targeting other ad companies in inappropriate ways - but we can remain
vigilant. However, whats actually been announced here is that they are going
after garbage ads that in my anecdotal experience, are basically 100% malware
/ scams and its a complete fallacy to say that Google should not do something
good (shut down that garbage) because they _might_ later do something bad
(which they could do regardless of if they shut down that garbage).

I'd challenge anyone to provide even anecdotal experience of encountering an
ad that meets their stated guidelines for being an abusive ad (linked by Yver
at:
[https://support.google.com/webtools/answer/7347327](https://support.google.com/webtools/answer/7347327))
that isn't a scam / malware.

~~~
x0x0
You clearly don't understand what google is proposing at all.

They are going to block all ads on a _PUBLISHER_ which shows any of their list
of bad ads. This has nothing to do with ad companies.

My point is that google has -- including relatively recently! -- quite proudly
run the ads they label as bad ads, which now trigger blocking of all ads on
the site, on google.com. And there will be future instances of malware ads on
google.com. See: malware and unwanted software, particularly for downloads
such as vlc or flash.

So when a publisher has a stray bad ad on their site -- an no one is disputing
these ads are bad -- google is going to screw them. When google doesn't
blacklist scam software install ads, or whatever slips through their filters,
well, what can you do? No chance chrome blocks all ads on google.

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Chazprime
Google has a conflict of interest here given that they sell advertising
themselves, so a single company policing ads is definitely suspect. I’d prefer
to see decisions like these made by a group of interested parties/companies
rather than Google alone.

~~~
AdamSC1
Among other features DuckDuckGo's extension blocks third-party trackers on a
website (duckduckgo.com/app) and gives each site a privacy grade.

Unlike other vendors, there is no pay-to-play option.

We aim to take a principled rules based approach to blocking and raising the
standard of trust online.

(Disclaimer: DDG employee)

~~~
balibebas
I'm using DDG Browser to weeks after recently giving up on Brave. The DDG
browser is nice and all but not as well designed as FOSS Browser (available on
F-Droid). Thanks for offering a popular alternative though.

~~~
ahalam
Why did you give up on Brave? I find Brave a good option on Android with all
the privacy options built in. What am I missing?

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graphememes
Chrome 88 will require you to do three "I am not a robot" verifications every
time you visit a site.

~~~
gruez
...unless you are signed into a Google account and have history sync enabled

~~~
graphememes
Chrome 90 now saves incognito history to google servers, the config option to
disable this has been removed.

~~~
benologist
This tradeoff was definitely worth preventing bots from using Google Search,
something that affects us all deeply on so many levels.

------
Yver
Google's Web Tools Help's definition of what constitutes an "Abusive
experience":
[https://support.google.com/webtools/answer/7347327](https://support.google.com/webtools/answer/7347327)

------
retox
Google's hostile takeover of the web continues unabated.

~~~
kstrauser
Eh, I'm all for this one. I don't use Chrome (I prefer Safari on my Mac), but
I think it's a reasonable response to increasingly terrible, malware-spewing
ads.

------
julienreszka
Good. The layman isn't capable of seeing the difference between fake error
messages and real ones.

~~~
Forge36
That's being generous: if I'm tired I may not notice an error message is fake.

The typical tell I look for: is this window right for my OS? (Windows dialog
on Android) Is the version right? (XP styled dialog) Can I tell which window
it can from? (Move browser to sanity check where I am)

~~~
craftyguy
I run a tiling WM full-time, so it's rather hilarious when I see _any_ dialog
error/warning box since literally nothing I run generates them. A virus on my
C: drive, you say? Nope.

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kbd
What I'd really like is an option to auto-decline all requests to allow
desktop notifications.

~~~
twiceaday
Can't you just set them to blocked under
"chrome://settings/content/notifications"?

~~~
kbd
Sorry for not responding forever... I thought doing that would block all,
while I'd still like to allow some from apps I use like Gmail and Google
Calendar. Just tested with Calendar, and it turns out the allow list still
allows even if set to blocked! Thanks for letting me know about the setting,
I've set it to blocked.

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skybrian
Here is Google's announcement: [https://blog.chromium.org/2018/11/further-
protections-from-h...](https://blog.chromium.org/2018/11/further-protections-
from-harmful-ad.html)

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King-Aaron
I see this as a thinly-veiled "any ads that aren't run through Google Ads
Network will be blocked"

~~~
andybak
Surely fairly thickly veiled?

Any grounds to believe that?

~~~
StanislavPetrov
>Any grounds to believe that?

Knowledge of history? The ability to think critically?

~~~
andybak
Well. I'm obviously of the opinion that it's me doing the critical thinking
here. But your absolute certainty is most definitely intoxicating.

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skybrian
There was a Chrome ad blocker that got a lot of press back in February and
then apparently disappeared. What happened to that? Is this the same code?

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dude3
The suspicious thing is the full block. The right thing to do would be to
alert the user and let them decide.

~~~
dagenix
Many users aren't going to be equipped to make a good decision when presented
with that alert. Just explaining what the alert is saying is probably going to
involve more text that most people are going to read. Doing a full block isn't
suspicious - it's a perfectly reasonable default.

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sys_64738
Anybody else using Vivaldi?

