We’ve been anticipating it for years,1 and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the …
We’ve been anticipating it for years,1 and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the …
I hope they end up killing Chrome.
What? They’re not going to kill their own browser that they virtually exclusively control. Why would they kill one of their biggest cash cows? Google is an ad company, and they want control of the client software that we use which they pump ads to and exfiltrate our identities from.
Whoosh
I think they were talking about Chrome becoming obsolete. Unlikely but not impossible
I think you’re being optimistic about the number of people who both use adblockers and who care enough to switch browsers.
Based on every browser statistic page I can find, about 2/3 of mobile traffic is through Google Chrome. There’s no ad blocker on that.
And mobile traffic is significant nowadays - it comprises around half of all traffic anywhere, despite requiring the viewer to be hunched over a phone or tablet.
Not that many people use real computers any more. At work, you may need to use a computer, but you probably can’t change the browser. At home, you have the PCMR folks who use a computer and probably also care about browsers. Everyone else just uses a tablet or a phone for browsing the web.
Speaking of the web, most people interact with specific websites through an app and an API, so they don’t even launch the mobile browser until they have to visit a site that doesn’t have an app. The world has changed and browsers aren’t as relevant as they used to be.
Yeah I fear society will get to the point in corporate autocracy, or corporate-feudalism where Google sues uBlock Origin out of existence (for lost revenue).
…and that’ll be a dark day, and it will be hard not to blame the people who just put up with ads and a loss of privacy. Who can just stomach Surveillance Capitalism’s incredibly flawed and one sided nature.
Those people are laying bricks for the foundation of a society I don’t agree with, and don’t want to participate in.