I migrated off Chrome as soon as this BS story about improving privacy, a joke coming from Google. Then the excuse was "well it improves performance", which they could easily do by marking extensions as low performance.
If Google wanted to improve this they have an entire search engine where they could re-rank sites based on privacy and performance.
It was never about improving peoples web experience.
https://programmerhumor.io/programming-memes/browsing-withou...
I feel really bad for less tech-savvy users who'll be stuck with this nightmare version of the internet.
Doesn't Safari have the same restriction, also ostensibly for "security/privacy" reasons? The only difference is that Apple doesn't have a web advertising presence, so you can't make the accusation that they're "abuse its market position to their own benefit".
Imagine what it would cost Google's bottom line if Apple was truly user-focused and enabled ad-blocking on desktop, mobile and embedded safari views by default. Someone do the napkin math please!
They've gone well beyond what Microsoft did in the 2000s.
Google owns so many panes of glass and funnels them all through its search and advertising funnel. They've distorted how the web (and mobile) work to accomplish this massive market distortion.
Search, Ads, and Android should be broken up into separate units. Chrome shouldn't be placed with any of those units.
While we're cutting, YouTube should be its own entity and stand on its own legs too.
Apple, Amazon, and Meta need the same scrutiny. Grocery stores and primary care doctors should not be movie studios and core internet infrastructure. Especially when those units are wholly subsidized by other unrelated business units, and their under pricing the market is used to strangle out the incumbents and buy them up on the cheap.
I currently use Adguard as a content blocker for Safari on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Does this mean that Safari will also start restricting access to these ad blockers?
I hate these arguments where people point to some other shitty thing a company is doing as some sort of gotcha.
Google is an ad company restriction use of the primary ad-blocker on its browser, it's blatant.
The reason why Chrome waited for so long to add extensions was the danger they posed to users. I was at Google when Sergey often worried about what extensions would do to non technical and older users who get tricked into installing them, then I saw first hand that danger with my own grandparents. They had extensions intercepting every network request, redirecting certain sites to fake sites, and injecting code into pages. It was horrifying, and they were lucky that they didn't have significant money or identity theft.
No point using 99% of the web due to the hostile, fraudolent, abusive approaches on top of the hollow (yeh, very very gentle world for the thing what it is) content. No point searching for advice, products, job, as crap is poured at you while your actions are registered, your profile is sold, just to pour dedicated crap on you by the highest bidder.
I have mail and 5 (7 with weather) pages I check regularly, and that's it. That's my online life. More like a hermit goes into town for tools and cans kind of digital solitary. Clicking on links only after reconsidering five times, if I am really interested in the possible content. Mostly here. So, so far away from the extremely curious me 20 or so years ago spending hours to the limit of my thirst and bladder, navigating all that is out there.
It is very sad what humanity made out of the Internet. It does not even hurt anymore. It is numb blob where the feeling about the rich common knowledge source this was and could have been should be.
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-...
For one, they simply have had a better product, at least in the past. Part of their large monopoly is due to just being better outright for a large portion of users (presumably). Are we to punish making overly-good products?
For another, sell to whom? And why would they be a good steward?
And yet another, there's literally Chromium, which other browsers (built by other corps) use, e.g. Edge, Brave, etc.
Did Google have to open Chromium? No.
Disclaimer: I hold these opinions weakly and would love to learn more about why they might be ill-premised.
The modern web, as we all know, is all kinds of shit. Anybody here compile Firefox recently?
Chrome is their project, they should be free to do whatever they want with it. People can use a different browser if they wish (I do).
This whole “better for users” bullshit is why I don’t respect Google as a company. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
Google has a long history of "accidentally" breaking gmail on firefox and funneling users to Chrome back in the day. It's beyond stupid to argue they should be able to do whatever they want with their vertically integrated monopoly.
Like, if you want to dig holes in your own driveway sure whatever, but if you own all the roads in Detroit and you want to dig holes in them, then make a killing selling new tires and suspension repair a fair society wouldn't move out of Detroit, they'd fucking run you out of town.
Of course lying about why makes it worse, but I don't think it would've been that much more okay if Google was honest and said "users' ability to install highly effective ad blockers hurts our bottom line so we're removing them".
I LOL every time I see it. Imagine the lengths they have to go to, to try to make people trust a product they have.
They shouldn't be free to use all the money in the world to corner a market, rope in the conpetition and then abuse that position.
It only works because nobody can touch them, it's otherwise straight illegal in most markets.
What makes me sad is that if we go back a handful of years here in HN comments, there were tons of posts assuredly stating google would never do anything like this.
Even though it should have been obvious that a company who lives and dies by ad revenue will of course do everything to protect ad revenue and block users freedom.
Thanks, now I have coffee on my keyboard.
Have we seen this movie before?
That way if I click on some random GCP link in Slack it opens the link in Chrome, but everything else stays in Firefox. I don't need ad blocking for GCP so that works fine.
Sucks, but better than using Chrome full time.
That would at least save you from stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942252.
Using Firefox and whatever for the Google cloud is kinda like running Windos applications in Wine or ReactOS.
What are you using instead?
I kinda appreciate that you still apply some benefit of the doubt.
Everyone will call them on it. Why not be straight with their intentions?
An advertising company optimizing their technology to better support their business while improving security.
Great. Very few companies do. What difference does it make?
We don't give bankrobbers credit for all the days they could've robbed a bank but didn't.
That's some fatalistic wording. How about:
Company that publishes a free product and business model relies on ads, stops distributing app that piggybacks on their free product while circumventing ads.
And regardless, using their ownership of the browser to shut down competitors is the very definition of "anti-competitive" "monopolistic" behavior.
That people claim it's impossible for a browser to survive without Google's funding demonstrates how broken the market is by ad money: of course people would pay for something like a web browser if it were illegal to make money by selling your users. The web is obviously valuable to people.
Regardless, I'd love to see this give FF a big bounce in the stats. Something to reinforce that there are people out here that really want manifest v2, badly enough to switch!
The problem is that Mozilla's customers are not Firefox's users. Mozilla's customer is Google. They pay Mozilla to exist and they are paying Mozilla to intentionally drive Firefox into the ground.
I think it's pretty clear that the TOS change basically coincided with the removal of manifest v2 change in chrome.
They've long advocated that Big Tech is a problem, but as soon as somebody tries to actually address it and this coincidentally impacting Mozilla, they abandon any and all principles.
Don't worry, they won't. They have more important endeavors like funding some new bullshit virtue signalling campaign and paying huge CEO bonuses.
chrome://flags, "Extensions Menu Access Control" flag. https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-extensions-menu-testin...
Whenever someone says how fast Chrome is I think about this.
I know people have made a lot of arguments as to why it might not be as good in theory, or why things might change in the future. But so far, ever since I was forced to switch, I have seen exactly zero difference. Lists are updated often enough that I haven't seen anything get through. Adblocking works on YouTube. If anything, pages seem to load even a little faster. I've had no complaints.
The difference between v2 and v3 is that v3 will no longer allow uBlock to modify network calls. Previously one of the big savings of a adblocker is they can stop the calls from being made AT ALL. That means less tracking AND less of your internet bandwidth being used
Both v2 and v3 can block the actual elements from your screen so you will probably still not see most of the ads. But you will still be able to be tracked and your data will still be used in the background
Pretty sure people are figuring out to switch to uBlock Origin Lite and ads -- including on YouTube -- are still being blocked just fine.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
They switched because it was MUCH, MUCH better.
(And was part of the ecosystem, profiles, bookmarks, passwords, etc.)
---
For better or worse, no such disparity exists currently.
Firefox is definitely better than Chrome in some ways, but it is also worse in others. Notably performance and integration with Google's password manager.
A move that was widely celebrated at the time.
From where I was sitting, Firefox grew from word of mouth. Friends old friends, or simply installed it for them and said “trust me”. And people were shamed for using IE.
Over time Firefox started to feel more bloated, and Chrome was new, lean, and fast.
Chrome then went through its own bloat phase, and now this.
Browser monopolies have toppled before, through various means. I see no reason why it can’t happen again. Currently Apple is pretty much single handedly keeping Google from having total control, by only allowing WebKit on iOS.
I have a feeling people would be more likely to switch to a new player than to run back to an old one they left once before.
And it's worse with extensions. For instance right now the OneLogin extension is dead on firefox, and while it's a crappy service, it's cheap and enterprise friendly...so employees in the contracting companies will only be able to log to corporate resources through Chrome.
It's not as hellish as the IE6 situation was, but boy we're pretty quickly approaching it.
People also seem to think switching over is some kind of involved process for some reason.
I've had a very different experience with browsers though... I switch browsers pretty often and with ease. I genuinely can't get my head around why someone would continue to use Google Chrome if they're unhappy with how they're treating their users. The UI between browsers is 99% identical. The most annoying thing about switching browser is just having to spend 10 minutes setting things up, but that isn't going to exceed the annoyance of having to see ads constantly for months or years.
There's really no good reason not to switch browsers. Your habits are not going to change between browsers. Unless you're a Chrome power user and using some very niche features in Chrome there is very, very little difference between Firefox and Chrome for the vast majority of tasks.
I still have no idea why Firefox/Mozilla think they need to compete with the other browsers. None of their '10 Principals' is "win the browser wars"
I went back to Chrome, re-enabled uBlock for now, and will probably switch to the lite mode when it is completely removed.
Edit: Instead of downvoting actually try convincing a normal person to switch to Firefox and see how well it goes. I've been recommending it for 10+ years and they're all still on Chrome. But in two days I have 4 new Brave users.
I personally dmd Eich on Twitter during 2019-2021 ish. He's opposed to censorship, tracking, government lockdowns during COVID, and authoritarianism.
That is exactly who you want running your browser and search company if you wish to use an open Internet. It's anti chat control, anti governments choosing which apps it's citizens can install, it's free speech for all, including "hate speech". Open and free wild West Internet culture.
What happens when adtech decides this is a problem because the hoi polloi have arrived? Have you thought about that as you're cluing in normies?
Specifically, I couldn't view my 360 videos or photos on Google Images or Immich at anywhere near acceptable performance. The videos, recorded at 30fps, would get maybe 5fps. This was weird, because I have a fairly beefy laptop, it should be able to handle these videos just fine (especially since my iPhone handled it just fine).
After a bit of debugging, it appears that there's a bug in how it's writing for the shader cache, and as such there was no hardware acceleration. I found a bug filed about my issue [1], and I didn't really feel like trying to fix it, because I didn't want to mess with Mesa drivers. I just installed Chromium and that's what I'm using right now, and it worked with my 360 videos and photos absolutely fine.
I want Firefox to succeed, but that really left a bad taste in my mouth; it's not like it's weird to want my browser to be hardware accelerated.
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1921742 Looks like it might be fixed now, or at least they figured out it was an issue with Mesa
It's interesting to notice how much my internal feelings have shifted over the years. There have been a few rare occasions where I had to use a Chromium-based browser, and I felt the same "ick" I used to feel when forced to use Internet Explorer for some reason.
Come to the Firefox (and variant) side. The water is warm.
I have a completely custom minimal layout with address bar and tabs at the bottom, all the extensions I need, and I don't notice the performance or compatibility differences almost ever, with few rare exceptions. I feel it much more as "mine", and it's a joy to use.
Mostly because they're peeing in the pool. Mozilla deleted their promise to never sell its users' personal data.
It's a browser.
90% of users won't notice a difference.
Here's the feature diff. [0]
[0] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
And I still have all of my uBlock origin happiness. :)
More info: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1de7bu1/were_the_f...
Cast is a bit more cumbersome. There is fx_cast on GitHub, but it requires a companion app. Firefox seems to want to add cast based on a flag you used to be able to enable, but I'm guessing there are some restrictions from Google's end they ran into.
So, small stuff. Maybe Copilot isn't working because of ublock, though.
I continue to use Firefox because I know when to suspect a website problem might be the browser, but she doesn't have the ability to analyze a situation like this. I have this conundrum with other family members that I support. I want them to use Firefox, but I hate to have them run into an issue because of the browser I recommended.
One crap product forcing me to use another crap product! ;)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43099417 ("uBlock Origin Has Been Disabled", 19 days ago, 40 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43299886 ("The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome", 2 days ago, 663 comments)
Powershell commands to set them:
1. New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome" -Force
2. New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome" -Name "ExtensionManifestV2Availability" -Value 2 -PropertyType DWORD -Force
The silver lining is it can be the birth of a new generation of hackers. This generation’s version of the printer inspiring those who refuse to accept the hostile hand they’ve been dealt. Tech doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to accept these changes. Rebel! Start hacking away. Don’t join these companies. Found new ones that prioritize valuing users first forever. It’s a difficult task. But all difficult tasks we’ve solved were.
Ironically (or not) this is the Apple side of the Android/iOS debate. And most people are happier with iOS. (And use Macs over Linux, FWIW.)
[I probably shouldn't mention that I personally think adblockers are unethical :) ]
Sadly, on HN, of all places...
1. United States v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey (1911)
- Duration: 7 years (1904–1911)
- Outcome: Standard Oil was ruled an illegal monopoly and broken up into 34 companies.
- Duration: 4 years (1998–2002)
- Outcome: Initially ordered to split, but after appeals, Microsoft avoided a breakup and instead agreed to business restrictions.
- Duration: 8 years (1974–1982)
- Outcome: AT&T agreed to a settlement, leading to the 1984 breakup into seven "Baby Bells" to increase competition.I am not aware of a google-lobbyist being as close to trump as Zuckerberg and Musk are, and I definitely see the possibility of these two manipulating the administration against google.
[0] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
But Kagi made that part so easy it's unbelievable.
But.. nobody tests on it anymore I think. Lots of popular sites are very slow and laggy with it, including sites I need for work. I don't think this is because of inferior technology, I think I just think nobody spends the time to make sure things work well on firefox. I could split-brain and use chrome for github and some other stuff but that is such a pain when clicking links.
The other issue is I think firefox support will only get worse. Their market share is back to where it was in IE6 days and dropping.
(Disclosure, I work for Kagi, creator of the Orion browser.)
But there are some things that I miss from Chrome, especially for web development. In Chrome it is possible to adjust the CSS of grid and flex containers within the developer window, which can be helpful. Firefox and Firefox Developer Edition don't have this. Firefox also seems to sometimes have problems with reloading a page when it is changed during development, whereas in Chrome this always was instant. Then there are some small feature and UI differences, like the reading-mode on Firefox is nice, but the UI of Chrome feels just a bit nicer.
They could try and keep manifestv2 support for a while, but they will have an increasingly large and hard to support patch se to make manifestv2 work still.
[1] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/bring-back-pwa-progress...
[1] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-can-firefox-c...
After the install, Chrome will disable the extension on the next restart but it can be re-enabled .. for now.
We had mainframes and dumb terminals where the work was done in a remote data centre you connected to
Then we had the personal computer revolution where the work was done on the box you owned and controlled on your desk
Then we moved to the cloud where work is done in a remote data centre you connect to
Ignore the crypto; enjoy the integrated ad-blocking.
Most seamless ad-blocking I've ever experienced.
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
Ad blocking on Youtube.
Youtube-blocking Safari extensions “solve” Youtube blocking by using non-declarative APIs that need full access to Youtube. Apple seems ok with that so far, but the APIs are not as goods, so their success rate is limited.
Whether Google will allow new extensions that block Youtube remains to be seen.
So, switch to something which has privacy respecting attitude or at least tries to have it and ditch everything who does not. It is not just the browser itself, but also the services and tools that you use to do your job: browsing. After some time, you will realize how horrible browsing the web with Chrome was in this respect and how easy it is to just browse the web without a bloated piece of advertising machine.
If uBlock Origin uses filters, would it not be possible to build a program that acts as a "proxy" for Linux/macOS/Windows, etc., that uses the same or similarly crafted filters to do something akin to what some of us did back in the Flash LSO supercookie days? I was a Linux user then and I recall creating a symlink from .macromedia and .adobe to /dev/null. The cookies were written to their folders but went into the event horizon of /dev/null and I never had to worry about them, but the websites worked like a charm.
Maybe I'm wrong, but would it not be possible to use filters similar, or even different than uBlocks, to "symlink" the addresses to /dev/null or other bit bucket like NULL on other OSes? I write automation code, so I don't have the chops to develop such a program/project, but I can see it in my head "how it might work". Thoughts, ideas, criticisms welcome.
I've also taken to using Violent Monkey and scripts to block quite a bit of nonsense on the web. Violent Monkey and the iFrame blockers work well with YouTube. I suppose it's also a matter of time before things like Violent Monkey are removed as well. There has to be a way to proxy the traffic through a filter list and /dev/null the offending objects.
Microsoft missed a lot by not keeping ManifestV2 in Edge.
I just re-enabled the one already installed on my devices.
Once it's legit gone gone though yeah I'm going to Firefox or use Edge for web dev stuff
Edit: I will say I am a hypocrite though I am trying to build a following by posting on YouTube... I don't control the ads on there, maybe you do when you are monetizable but yeah sucks I feel bad for the viewers. At the same time... I'll spend weeks/months on a project and no one cares so idk.
https://www.neowin.net/guides/google-turned-off-ublock-in-ch...
This URL, shared elsewhere in this thread, seems to tell you how to get it back up and running if you cannot do it easily; that said, I'll be moving to FF if they continue their shenanigans.
So far it seems to be the only general solution that can inject cosmetic filters into network requests while blocking on a request (not dns-only) level.
https://adguard.com/en/blog/mv2-extensions-no-longer-alterna...
Terrible sample size: I moved to FF as soon as I couldn’t use a cookie cleaner for web dev work, and ublock origin.
And you can, I believe, still just modify your hosts table to block out ads in Chrome. https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
Or your router's DNS using something like NextDNS. https://nextdns.io/
Ads suck. Support content where you can, but even when you pay they still serve ads / tracking scripts. So fuck 'em. Block all the ads.
How long after the announced Windows 10 end of life will it be before all the software companies say 'Windows 11 is the minimum' like was seen with Windows 7?
uBlockOrigin “Lite” is a good(?) replacement afaict
https://adguard.info/en/blog/review-issues-in-chrome-web-sto...
>Switch to Chrome to install extensions and themes
"DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next"
<https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-...>
HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43323485>
AddBlock is still available. I was wondering if there is some issue with the extension itself that it got flagged? Maybe an update to the codebase would make the extension installe-able again?
uBlock Origin didn't have this problem, which is why it got recommended so much.
Edge store doesn't even mention that, in fact it's featured.
I switched to edge canary on my phone because the dev options allow you to install extensions by id/crx, which I've used to get ublock origin, though it crashes sometimes, and doesn't work when you reload the whole browser, until you refresh the page or manually reactivate the extension....
It looks like I could turn on the linux vm and run firefox, but it "only" has a 16GB ssd of which like 12GB is "system space" (ridiculous) and I only have 1GB left which isn't enough to enable the linux dev environment.
I could look into seeing if I can get native linux on the hardware, but it's probably not worth the time and trouble for it.
I haven't used Chrome itself in years, but have had a hard time giving up Chromium-based browsers due to the rendering performance. It's always felt weird that the only way of getting extensions on these browsers was via the Chrome Web Store.
If there are viable alternatives I've not heard of, I hope folks let me know.
Like one day Wikipedia inserts ads on their pages to keep the lights on. We bash Google for blocking uBlock?
I feel like I'm missing out on something. Please help me understand.
[1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...
It didn't even catch any hype regarding this manifest support issue uBlock origin has, and it keeps silently working good without any interruptions, I wonder why is that?
(Old habits die hard)
There's https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium - is it a sound choice nowadays?
The Firefox UI is honestly very close to chrome.
I also wonder when someone one will "hack" chromium to run whatever extensions they want - I could build my own extension, or build uBlock Origin from the source (if available) and execute the extension regardless of the store.
If it's too expensive to develop a viable alternative to chromium, just say that.
The Firefox that has been trundling along for years is really just an excuse to keep the chromium monopoly afloat.
I am getting high CPU usage with uBO since yesterday but I do have a lot of tabs so I was wondering if thats a bug that will get fixed.
Download and setup Brave browser on their device. I haven't seen an ad in years.
Edge is based on Chromium, so would that mean this breakage will eventually apply to Edge as the Manifest changes, uhm, manifest to Chromium-based products? Or is this just a Google Chrome thing?
FWIW I keep Firefox around but I have to admit I like Edge's smooth sync of bookmarks and settings across machines and even different platforms. I switched about two years ago when Edge was clearly faster and lighter. It's no longer as lightweight and there are slowly accumulating annoyances coming mostly from some Microsoft Clippy-esque attempts to make some tasks "easier" (mostly via Copilot) but I still prefer it to Firefox. My former employer/retiree benefits site, for example, won't open at all in Firefox. I've considered other Chromium based browsers like Brave but haven't (yet) been sufficiently motivated to switch. (Give Microsoft some time, I expect they'll eshit Edge eventually).
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/how-to-switch-f...
But large Web properties do not gain anything by promoting Firefox. Many are ad-supported, so getting rid of uBlock Origin is a good thing for them. Only having to test on Google Chrome (and maybe Safari) is cheaper for them. There has to be something in it for them to promote Firefox or an alternative browser.
In the attention economy the browser and the mobile OS (and soon your LLM/Perplexity agent) are the most important points to control the aggregate user data. So it's a lost battle.
For a sub 0.01% of the nerds there would be alternatives for the non-DRM content, but this wouldn't change the big picture.
It's like the junk food business. Yes it's bad for people, but it's so addictive...
Either Python or PowerShell would work for the scripting.
It seems like it would have worked, but the danger was over time Google report less and less information to the extension, but as it is today, the extension would have worked the same on v3 as v2?
As I say - I am ignorant sorry, its hard to search for an answer to this specific question
Edit: Sorry the answer is here: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
If it could work in v3 it would have been updated. There are some alternate v3 versions that don't work as well.
Chrome is dead. Long live Firefox.
Safari on the Mac and Firefox on Linux and Windows it is for me.
> Switch to Chrome to install extensions and themes
uBlock Origin Lite still blocks ads on Chrome, but it's faster than uBlock Origin.
I don't expect Google's ad revenue has changed meaningfully at all, assuming people switch to uBlock Origin Lite.
See: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/08/new-doj-proposal-still-cal...
uBlock Origin is obv a great great extension and I'm considering switching to FF just for that one extension, but consider what some newfangled AI extension developed by a random dude can do to the webpage you're viewing - anything UBO can do! So I think they have a decent case but I wish there was a carveout for UBO
If you are on Arch Linux, try ungoogled-chromium:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ungoogled-chromium or precompiled https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ungoogled-chromium-bin possibly with https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store and possibly using a .config/chromium-flags.conf like this:
--extension-mime-request-handling=always-prompt-for-install --enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL --wm-window-animations-disabled --animation-duration-scale=0
Timely updates, team defending manifest V2, no user data stealing or background scanning b/s, browser as it should be. Got a 10 year old machine with Intel iGPU and even video acceleration in the browser works.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
To boil it down, the most dominant philosophy, whether peole know it or not, is idealism. In idealism, people, nations, corporations, etc have some inherent quality beyond their physical make up. It's almost spiritual in that way. Even the concept of a soul is an idealist position. It's largely a circular argument that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
So, the USA on the world stage is the good guy because we are the good guys, regardless of our actions or the consequences thereof. So an awful lot of effort is spent to label certain actors as "good" or "bad" to suit some objective. Superhero movies and a perfect example of idealism and it's no coincidence that they've had a renaissance since 9/11.
Materialism is simply the view that the physical world is all there is. The consequence of this is that we affect the material world and it affects us. There are no inherent qualities like being "good" or "bad". Instead, those are simply labels you apply to the actions of an entity.
My point here is that for years Google pushed this good guy narrative (ie "don't be evil") but any materialist understands that Google is a corporation so ultimately will act like any other corporation.
Google makes money selling ads. Ad blockers affect Google's bottom line. The relentless pursuit of increasing profits means fighting ad blockers was always an inevitability. Nobody should be surprised by that.
Now some will point to Google's control of Chrome as an antitrust issue and it probably is but that misses the point. A corporation that solely owns Chrome will ultimately act in a user-hostile way too because that's what corporations do.
The only long-term successful model for something like Chrome is to be something like the Wikimedia Foundation. The profit motive will always ultimately destroy it otherwise. If you can even find a business model for a browser, which I have serious doubts about.
A materialist knows all this because of how the workers relate to the means of production. A collective (which Wikimedia Foundation is, basically) is where the workers own the means of production. A corporation introduces capital owners whose interests are in direct opposition to that of the users.