I was an Android user for many years but what drove me away was the inability to set a system-level adblocker without rooting. The cherry on top was the inability to turn off the unique advertising tracking ID provided by the system. When I found myself setting up a weekly reminder to manually reset the ad tracking ID I realized I was never going to win the fight over control of my own device and I switched.
I don't know what advanced level jiu-jitsu the evil Google product managers are trying to pull off with this adblocker but I am glad I don't have to worry about it anymore. Though I am sad I lost what I once thought was a great champion for users.
> I don't know what advanced level jiu-jitsu the evil Google product managers are trying to pull off with this adblocker but I am glad I don't have to worry about it anymore.
There's two (not mutually exclusive) theories:
1: By shipping an adblocker themselves, the number of people who will install a third-party adblocker will dwindle, leading to less development of those and we might eventually end up with the only adblocker being Google-controlled, allowing them to slowly increase the number of ads seeping through without anyone being pissed off enough to write a proper adblocker.
They might even block other adblockers from the Chrome Store on the basis of them being unneeded now and clearly just security risks.
2: Their adblocker blocks ads by completely arbitrary criteria. "Intrusive ads", as Google calls it. But obviously, these criteria are cut out to mostly block ads from other ad networks. For example, Google unsurprisingly doesn't think that user tracking is intrusive.
Also, there's markets that Google can't compete in. Porn & piracy sites, for example. It's commonplace to have visually intrusive (and less broadly privacy intrusive) ads there. Google just doesn't have such ads in their catalogue and it would damage their reputation, if they did. So, by blocking those visually intrusive ads, there's a much higher chance of their ads being used there instead.
I think it's about controlling the conversation. Ad blockers are trickling down to mainstream adoption, and this is an existential threat to Google.
The best way to counter that is to redefine "ad blocker" to mean "Google ad server (Chrome)".
Google can't win this fight by telling people to not use ad blockers. They can win this fight by making sure that when you offer to benefit your aunt by installing a real ad-blocker, she responds "that's ok, I hear Chrome already has an ad blocker".
And of course, Google has all of the data needed to keep an eye on public opinion and how well this strategy is working.
Google's rumored criteria is all about the look and behavior of the ad with no consideration for data privacy implications.
Apple's taking the true consumer friendly approach and blocking based on prevalence across multiple sites. Google's approach arguably makes people less likely to install a tool that blocks data hoovering.
If you have Google Play Services installed, it will try to use it. If you don't, you can install the apk from here https://signal.org/android/apk/ which should auto update. Their permissions list is still kind of whack and everyone else on android except you is going to have Google in between every message so...
What is your new setup and how do you ensure system level ad blocking ? I personally use a combination of Privoxy and pihole and I just point my router to it. All the clients on my local network don't get ads on any of their apps/websites.
Block ads for all devices on your wifi with one DNS change. We launched early July and the response so far has been encouraging that such an Adblock is needed.
When you enable Limit Ad Tracking, your advertising identifier is set to null for third party apps. It is automatically reset to a new random identifier when you disable Limit Ad Tracking.
I don't know what advanced level jiu-jitsu the evil Google product managers are trying to pull off with this adblocker but I am glad I don't have to worry about it anymore. Though I am sad I lost what I once thought was a great champion for users.