Upcoming Chromium Update Could Make Ad Blockers Less Effective

This is utter CRAP. I install both ublock origin and ghostery on nearly every machine I touch. I have found out the hard way that infections, malware and SCAMS are nearly eliminated when you block connections to about 95% of the ads and trackers on the internet. Supposedly "legit" ads servers and trackers I might add.

Making Ublock Origin or Ghostery non-effective will make me militant about vocally opposing any of my customer's continued use of Chrome. I will actively fight for using something else.

The ad server issue on the internet has reached a point of absurdity. It doesn't matter what the revenue streams are there is so much malicious code out there getting pushed that you can't trust ANY of it. And Google isn't doing jack diddly bupkis to create an environment of trust for even its own ad servers.

Almost without fail, when I get a user in here that doesn't have the blockers on I'll be locked up on some web page to "call this number now your computer is infected!"

i use ublock and umatrix. it's awesome, because umatrix the moment you visit a site, prevents anything (e.g. scripts,cookies) from auto loading unless you whitelist it first. This is the way it ought to be.... especially considering how some ads are a vector for malware.

Ad-Based Malware: Malware embedded in advertisements has always been common, as third-party networks are often the driving force of many ads. Simply viewing a malicious ad could be enough to inject malicious code into an unprotected device. These ads are often distributed and viewed on large, trusted websites, which makes many users potentially vulnerable. Malicious ads can also be directly embedded into apps and served through apps that are otherwise trusted. In recent years, many of these malicious ads have been used to mine cryptocurrency (in other words, to generate digital currency that can then be used by hackers). The popularity of cryptocurrency has bolstered the spread of ad-based malware, which in turn takes advantage of the user’s computer resources and may impact the stability of their system.

Yes it's an extra step having to whitelist stuff first, but once you get the knack of it, it is really easy, and ends up becoming a good internet surfing habit to follow through on. some common elements like youtube you can set to global whitelist since they appear on most sites. and most other times you have site specific whiteblocks only. You end up not having to tinker with most sites you visit once you whitelist it the first time.

the moment they begin to block this, i'm switching browsers. probably to firefox.


Chrome is planning on making it's own adblocker. Who is gonna trust that? especially after what they are doing to destroy addons like umatrix/ublock from working as it should
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/02/15/google-introduces-ad-blocker-chrome-will-work/
 
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I dont use Chrome but I should probably grab chrome now and ublock origin. You can always cripple / disable Chromes ability to upgrade itself.
 
Chrome is planning on making it's own adblocker. Who is gonna trust that? especially after what they are doing to destroy addons like umatrix/ublock from working as it should
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/02/15/google-introduces-ad-blocker-chrome-will-work/

This is all part of a master plan, and tremendously well played by Google. They got most people to use Chrome, now they want to be the sole arbiter of what ads people see since they are an advertising company. They know most people won’t switch browsers regardless of what they do. For this plan to work, they need to block out other companies from deciding which ads people can see.
 
That's it I'm done with chrome, going back to Firefox.

Eats all my memory, runs a software reporter tool to gobble up CPU, forces videos to autoplay, now it's forcing ads on you. Good job sucking, Hard.
 
I remember the good ol days where editing your hosts file was all that was needed, now webpages have dynamic names that try to avoid all of that crap. Hey I want to go to a site and up comes pops ups for maleware imfested crap "your computer is at risk, click here", xratrd versions of p2w games, and meet asian/latina/etc women in <your city>
They can’t even get my city right.....
 
I've been curious about untangle, but never taken the dive.

Does it result in any buffer bloat for you?

Does it's adblockers ever break any webpages? If so, is there a way to override, or are you stuck with it?
If it breaks a page there is no override it’s just broken, and unless you are running SSL decrypt it doesn’t work much better than ADP or anything else.
 
Well no sheete.

Things are changing though, within the last half year or so i have seen more and more commercials sneaking past the guards i have put up.
I am sort of hoping for myself maybe EU will throw some fines around in this regard, cuz commercials don't pay for the internet its just parasites making a living of it ( here i am especially looking at you google )
 
I've got PI-hole integrated into my network with Sophos UTM and an Edgerouter. I have PI-hole sitting on a Debian VM on my big Hyper-v server an it works great. I'd advise everyone to look into it.
 
Guess Chrome will be my HardForum browser and then FireFox for everything else.
 
Meh, I already moved to PFBlockerNG at my endpoint. Browser can try and load all it wants, but the DNS query will be blocked.

im looking at moving to that myself at this point since the blockers have been mangling pages lately. seeing any downsides to PFBlockerNG that you've seen so far?
 
The problem with blocking ads on the router level is what happens when your out and about ? Then what? It is not like you can take your network with you.
 
Dang, this really sucks.
I use Chromium for everything. I'm pretty much wired into into Google for work related tasks.
I don't have a network computer on my home network that runs 24/7 so I just ordered a Raspberry Pi 3 to install Pi-hole. This should be a fun project.
 
The problem with blocking ads on the router level is what happens when your out and about ? Then what? It is not like you can take your network with you.

Always use a VPN back through your home network, instead of just using whatever public connection you find.

That's one way of solving the problem.
 
I think I just found a use for the old Atom SFF box I built a bunch of years ago - heck it already has Ubuntu on it, so pihole here I come.
 
For a very long time I've been of the opinion that Chrome itself, and even Chromium and those projects based upon it, should ideally be avoided. Across many issues from certainly privacy (ie all it reports to Google), standards use/compliance (ie Chrome Apps are proprietary and require chrome, while Chrome/ium browsers have a certain way of doing things etc) , to even how Chrome became popular (ie Google at one time pushed Chrome/ium bundled installers alongside everything and leveraged their other products etc)., prove that Chrome / ium is built for the interests of Google, not for its end users. Yes, this goes even for open source Chromium which the way it works (including the current issue of discussion) definitely isn't always as advantageous to the userbase; this also goes for any browsers built upon it (ie Opera, Brave, SRWare Iron, etc..).

Way back when Chrome/ium came onto the scene, it was noted that at the time it did not allow "real" ad blocking. Users could hide ads/trackers/content, but they were still loaded and stored even out of sight. Of course, eventually Google corrected this after an outcry, but every couple of years some permutation of "you can't do X for Y reason, but that's really suspicious because X can be used to break big data collection or advertising" event like this occurs. Even since the arrival of Firefox Quantum (ie the rewrite with WebExtensions), it is noteworthy that many apps - including the lauded uBlock Origin - had features that worked on Firefox but NOT on Chromium based browsers! Now, it seems that an even larger incident is at hand which further proves that leaving so much of this market to Chrome/ium is not a good idea! Like most previous issues, this will happen even on other powered-by-Chromium browsers, including those few that mean to make Chromium's codebase/features more private/user focused (ie Ungoogled Chromium, Brave etc..) but at the end of they day it is a bandaid, is still supporting Google's codebase and ultimately control/direction for the web.

No matter if the developers of uBlock Origin (and the few other truly open and performant ad-blockers out there) can find away around this on Chrome/ium or not, this is yet another call to remind users that being locked into a sea of Chromium based browsers isn't our only option and that more specifically, we should be supporting Mozilla and using Firefox if we really care about openness, privacy and the like. Browser development these days is nearly as complex as OS development (the merits of that not withstanding) so its no surprise that we've seen major companies drop their engines and projects in favor of Google's well heeled Chromium platform. With the exception of hobbyist projects and niche items, Mozilla's Firefox remains the one standing against the storm so to speak and is doing so as a non-profit foundation and a much smaller wallet compared to Google's behemoth. They certainly deserve our support as Firefox is the last noob-to-guru usable, free and open source, browser designed for the needs of the user first and foremost, and they're fighting an uphill battle.
 
Just curious - which AdBlockers don't trigger nag screens? I'm getting tired of 1/2 the websites I visit forcing me (or at least strongly suggesting) to turn ABP off.
 
Just curious - which AdBlockers don't trigger nag screens? I'm getting tired of 1/2 the websites I visit forcing me (or at least strongly suggesting) to turn ABP off.

Without going into too much technical depth needlessly, it requires both an ad-blocker that can use certain type of "fake" calls so to speak without getting "caught" and typically a list of "anti-adblock" servers to block. Generally, I'd suggest to keep off AdBlock Plus (and many other "no name" blockers, especially if they're proprietary / not open source), in favor of uBlock Origin. Note the "Origin" as there was a forked, not as updated or viable version just called "uBlock" a few years ago. While network-level blockers like Pi Hole - https://pi-hole.net/ - can be useful (though I am unsure how well they do with cosmetic filtering compared to browser level blockers), if you're using Firefox (or even something powered by Chrome/ium), uBlock Origin developed by "gorhill" - is the one you want https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock . You can install from Github and/or from Firefox's addon hosting (not sure about Chromium based browsers ). Once you get it installed, go into the options and look at the block lists - if you want to start out with the basic pre-auth'ed ones you can, but you can also add others that are listed from reputable services, including one specifically for anti-adblock detectors.

Hope this helps!
 
I dont use Chrome but I should probably grab chrome now and ublock origin. You can always cripple / disable Chromes ability to upgrade itself.
Then mysteriously a bunch of exploits and vulnerabilities get leaked and the fix is to upgrade.
 
Google is an advertising company. They are going to ween you off of your ad blocker just like with YouTube they weened people off commercial free videos. In the end, you will have most of the ads back, especially google or google related ones. And at best the more egregiously annoying ads will be blocked. Because they actually deter browsing which deters google serving more ads.
 
If uBlock on Chrome stops working I will drop Chrome in a heartbeat. I absolutely despise ads for mouth-breathers.
 
kinda reminds me of the whole MS and AV thing a while back. MS has their own AV, finally!, and then MS changed things that broke it for other AV vendors

I'm thinking i should buy some shares in popcorn makers for this
 
Been using Nano AdBlocker and Nano Defender for a year, really don't want to go back.

I was a [H] Patron until I deleted my account over the whole Sargon incident. Does anyone know if [H] uses SubscribeStar or other service?
 
I would. AdBlock has been pay-to-play for years, now. Companies can buy their way onto ABP's whitelist, kind of defeating the whole purpose of an adblocker for end users in the first place.
What? ABP's docs say the exact opposite: Anyone that wants a place on their acceptable ads list have to meet their criteria and that it is not possible to "buy" an exception to these rules. Source: https://adblockplus.org/en/about#monetization . Also, it is very easy to disable that acceptable ads list. Though, considering that many websites, including HardOCP, depend on the income from advertising, I personally use that list. Not the default though but my own derivative that has Google's ads patched out.
 
This is utter CRAP. I install both ublock origin and ghostery on nearly every machine I touch. I have found out the hard way that infections, malware and SCAMS are nearly eliminated when you block connections to about 95% of the ads and trackers on the internet. Supposedly "legit" ads servers and trackers I might add.

Making Ublock Origin or Ghostery non-effective will make me militant about vocally opposing any of my customer's continued use of Chrome. I will actively fight for using something else.

The ad server issue on the internet has reached a point of absurdity. It doesn't matter what the revenue streams are there is so much malicious code out there getting pushed that you can't trust ANY of it. And Google isn't doing jack diddly bupkis to create an environment of trust for even its own ad servers.

Almost without fail, when I get a user in here that doesn't have the blockers on I'll be locked up on some web page to "call this number now your computer is infected!"

We deploy Firefox ESR on our domain. Mozilla was kind enough to provide GPO templates that allow the loading of extensions as well. Consequently every domain joined computer now has Firefox ESR with uBlock Origin installed and enabled.
 
Just curious - which AdBlockers don't trigger nag screens? I'm getting tired of 1/2 the websites I visit forcing me (or at least strongly suggesting) to turn ABP off.

I just installed Pi-hole on my file server and it appears to be preventing those nag-screens. I haven't seen any on weather.com at least, which used to pop up all the time.

Thanks to all in the forum for the recommendation! So far it's running with the default configuration and haven't had any issues yet.

I installed it per this video. Running on Debian --> Hyper-V --> Windows 10. I allocated 1GB of memory and 5GB of hard drive space to the VM. It's currently using 65% memory and 2.3GB of hard drive.
 
Got the Raspberry Pi installed and configured with Pi-Hole and Dang! I didn't realize what a drag on resources adware and banner traffic was.
I should have done this a long time ago. I don't have have the IPv6 side working; router was not configured for it. I needs some specifics from my ISP to get that working.

Rasp%20pi%20thumbs%20up%20small.jpg
piholescreen%20%20small.png
 
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