Your IT Consultant

Ad Blockers Beware: Google Chrome May Shut You Down

January 29, 2019

I LOVE my ad blocker! Did you hear that Google? Apparently, Google is considering a change for the Chrome Extensions platform that could potentially kill ad blockers like uBlock Origin and uMatrix. I use a different ad blocker, but it is unknown if other ad blockers will be impacted by the anticipated change. According to an Ars Tchnica post, the issue revolves around an API called webrequest. Google is considering replacing webrequest with a new API called declarativeNetRequest. The action of the new API acts differently. Instead of having the browser ask the extension what to do with each and every request, the extension declares to the browser "block requests that look like X, redirect requests that look like Y, and allow everything else."

Google claims this action will speed up the browser and actually improves security. I don’t buy it. If the Chrome change breaks my ad blocker, I’ll abandon Chrome and jump over to Firefox as my default browser. Sorry Microsoft, but I’m not moving to Edge in the foreseeable future.

E-mail:   Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsimek
https://amazon.com/author/johnsimek
https://www.senseient.com