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How to deal with Notifications in Google Chrome

Posted on March 26, 2024March 26, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

All modern web browsers support so-called push notifications. Websites may request permission to send notifications. When users accept, they may push notifications to the user’s system. Ideally, these are useful to the user. Maybe about a new post on the site, an auction running out, or about item availability in online stores.

Most of the time, at least from my experience, notifications are not that helpful for users. Sites may push lots of notifications to user systems. Abuse is rampant. Notifications may get abused for advertisement, scams, or malicious attacks.

While notifications contain no executable content, clicking on notifications may launch sites and thus attacks.

You can check out this recent story on Bleeping Computer for an example of attacks. The attack originated on Google Search and used notifications to push spam and malware.

One of the best options to deal with notifications is to disable them. This works well for users who never use them in the first place. Those who do use notifications on specific sites may also optimize their configuration.

The following paragraphs explain how that is done. Note that this applies to other Chromium-based browsers as well. All offer these options, and you may load the URL provided below to open the Settings.

Blocking Notifications in Chrome permanently

It takes just a few steps to block notifications in Google Chrome.

Load chrome://settings/content/notifications in the Chrome address bar. You may also open Menu > Settings > Privacy & Security > Site settings > Notifications manually.
Set the default behavior to “Don’t allow sites to send notifications”.

You are done. Chrome won’t send any notifications from this moment up. There is one exception, and this is handy to allow specific sites to send notifications while disallowing them from any other site.

Scroll down to the customized behaviors section. There you find overrides. Use the “allowed to send notifications” section to allow specific sites to send notifications to your system.

Activate the “add” button and type the domain name using the following format: [*.]domain.com.

This allows the domain to send notifications, even though the general setting is set to disabled.

Tip: you can also allow sites in the following way:

Open the site in the Chrome browser.
Click on the icon that is in front of the domain name in Chrome.
Select Site Settings from the menu.
Locate the Notifications preference and set it to “allow”.

Closing Words

My recommendation is to turn off Notifications and use the allow list for select sites only. This blocks all notification spam and any attempt to use notifications for malicious attacks. It also prevents less tech savvy users from accepting notifications on a regular basis in the browser.

Google turns Safe Browsing real-time checks on in Chrome

Posted on March 15, 2024March 15, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Announced last year, Google has now enabled real-time Safe Browsing checks in its Chrome web browser.

Safe Browsing is a security component of the Google Chrome web browser. Its main purpose is to warn users about malicious websites or downloads. This includes protections against known phishing websites and malware.

Google Chrome used a local list of known malicious sites by default previously. This list was updated every 30 to 60 minutes by the browser. This meant that there was a short period in which new known threats were not blocked by the browser.

Google calculated that “average malicious” sites exist for less than 10 minutes. In other words, a good portion of malicious sites do not exist anymore when Chrome updates the local Safe Browsing list.

Chrome users could switch the security setting to enhanced to get real-time checks. This new real-time checking of threats is now available in all Safe Browsing modes.

Safe Browsing changes

Google Chrome uses a Safe Browsing list on Google servers now to check any site that is getting opened against it. This improves the protection of users. Google estimates that this should improve the blocking of phishing attempts by 25%.

The change is rolling out to Chrome desktop users already. Android will also get the change “later this month” according to Google.

The option to enable Enhanced Protection is still available. This includes real-time checks as well, but also use of “AI to block attacks, provides deep file scans and offers extra protection from malicious Chrome extensions”.

What about privacy?

Google says that the new real-time nature of Safe Browsing checks is privacy-preserving.

Here is what happens in Chrome when a site is visited (according to Google):

The cache is checked to see if the site is known to be safe already.
If it is not in the cache, Chrome needs to check it against the remote Safe Browsing list.
Chrome starts by obfuscating the URL locally into 32-byte full hashes.
The hash is then truncated into 4-byte long chunks.
These are encrypted by Google Chrome and transferred to a “privacy server”.
The privacy server removes “potential user identifiers” before forwarding the encrypted hash chunks to the Safe Browsing server.
There the data is decrypted and checked against the database.
If a match is found, Chrome shows a warning to the user.

Google entered into a partnership with Fastly to “operate an Oblivious HTTP privacy server” that sits between the Chrome web browser and Safe Browsing.

The main idea behind Oblivious HTTP is to block the receiving server from linking requests to specific clients. Google published a blog post on the Chrome Security blog that offers additional information on the implementation in Chrome and server infrastructure.

Closing Words

Real-time checks should improve protection for users without impacting their privacy. Other browsers who also use Safe Browsing may not be affected by the change if they download Safe Browsing lists instead of using real-time checks.

Those who use Chrome but do not want these real-time checks can turn off Safe Browsing

Under New Management: Chrome extension checks if extension owner has changed

Posted on March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Under New Management is a new extension for Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers. Its main purpose is to notify users when the owner of installed extensions changes.

Here is why that is important: an entire ecosystem of companies exist that buy extensions to, usually, exploit the userbase and extract as much money as possible from it.

Popular extensions may sell for five or even six figures. This is mostly based on the userbase, but factors such as the rating, comments, or track record play a role as well.

When an extension gets sold, the new owners may implement money making functions. These cross borders often, for instance, by tracking users and selling data, or by changing ads on the screen or affiliate links.

The main problem for users is that ownership changes are not announced by the browser. It would be simple, but no browser does that at the moment.

Under New Management

Under New Management adds checks and notifications to Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers.

The developer describes how the extension works on its GitHub repository site:

Intermittenty checks your installed extensions to see if the developer information listed on the Chrome Web Store has changed. If anything is different, the extension icon will display a red badge, alerting you to the change.

The extension checks the Chrome Web Store for changes and warns users if it detects any.

It checks the following parameters:

Developer name
Developer website
Extension name
Offered by name
Developer email
Extension ID

If any of these change, it will notify you about it. All it takes is to install the extension in a Chromium-based browser.

Note: there is a chance that an extension may get sold but that the information is not changed.

Blocking automatic extension updates in Google Chrome

Another option that you have is to block automatic extension updates. Google Chrome and most Chromium-based browsers do not offer any Setting in this regard, however.

The idea here is to verify extension updates before allowing them.

As a side note, Mozilla Firefox does. Load about:addons in the browser’s address bar, activate the settings icon on the page and uncheck “pdate Add-ons Automatically” with a click on the entry.

Extensions won’t auto-update from that moment up, but you may still update them.

The only option for Chrome and most Chromium-based browsers is a bit complicated. It requires that you enable Developer Mode in the browser and load the extension in its unpacked state. Note that I have not tried this extensively.

Unpacked extensions do not get updated automatically, as they are loaded from the local system. It gives you control, but it means that you have to update these extensions manually each time.

Now You: how many and which extensions do you use?

How to add scroll buttons to Chrome’s tab bar

Posted on February 26, 2024February 26, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Google Chrome has a hidden setting to enable scrolling on the tab bar. This guide explains how to enable the feature in the browser.

When you open a lot of tabs in Chrome, you will come to a point where no tab gets added to the tab bar anymore. This is only a visual limitation of the browser. Tabs continue to get launched, but you cannot reach them from the tab bar.

The reason for that is that Chrome lacks tab scrolling options by default. While there are other ways to access invisible tabs, for instance by using Chrome’s Search tabs feature, it is far from ideal.

You may launch Search tabs with a click or tap on its icon in the tab bar. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-A launches it as well.

Another option that you have is to use tab groups, as you may collapse them on the tab bar. Google added the option to save tab groups recently to Chrome.

Tab Scrolling in Google Chrome

Tab Scrolling in Chrome — Tab Scroll buttons in Google Chrome

The screenshot of Google Chrome’s interface shows tab scroll buttons. The left and right buttons scroll the tab bar in the selected direction. This is useful when the open tabs do not fit on Chrome’s tab bar.

How to show tab scroll buttons in Chrome

Here is how you enable Tab Scrolling in Chrome:

Load chrome://flags/#scrollable-tabstrip in the Google Chrome address bar.
Set the status of the feature to Enabled.
Restart Google Chrome.

Note that Chrome displays scroll buttons only if too many tabs are open. The feature comes with configuration options. Tab scrolling does not change the minimum size of tabs in Chrome by default.

You may alter that as well by changing the status of Tab Scrolling.

The available customization options change the minimum size of tabs in Google Chrome. The following states are supported:

Tabs shrink to pinned tab width.
Tabs shrink to a medium width.
Tabs shrink to a large width.
Tabs don’t shrink.

The default state reduces the size of tabs to the pinned tab width. This is the smallest option. You may change that to medium, large, or no shrinking. Fewer tabs are shown then in the tab bar as a consequence.

Here is a screenshot of the medium width setting:

Other customization options

Chrome includes several customization options to further personalize the experience. The first option adds permanent scrolling buttons to Chrome’s interface, even if all tabs are shown on the tab bar.

The second enables drag scrolling. This does not require tab buttons to show on the tab bar, and may be an option for some users.

Chrome Tab Scrolling customization options

Here is how you enable and configure the options. First, the permanent scroll buttons.

Load chrome://flags/#scrollable-tabstrip in the address bar of the browser.
Set the feature to one of the following states:
- Enabled — the default state.
- Enabled to the right of the tab strip — places the scroll buttons on the right side.
- Enabled to the left of the tab strip — places the scroll buttons on the left side.
- Enabled on both sides of the tab strip — places them on the left and on the right side.

This setting places a set of buttons or two sets of buttons to scroll tabs on Chrome’s tab bar.

Now tab scrolling.

Load chrome://flags/#tab-scrolling-button-position in the Chrome address bar.
Set the feature to one of the following states:
- Enabled — the default state.
- Enabled tabs scrolling with constant speed.
- Enabled tabs scrolling with variable speed region.
Restart Google Chrome.

This feature enables tab scrolling using drag operations. The default option scrolls tabs at a constant speed, the other accelerates based on how far to the right you drag the selected tab.

Closing Words

Tab scrolling is an experimental feature of the Chrome browser. This means, that it could be removed at one point by Google. The feature has been available for years, however, and it seems unlikely that it is going to be removed any time soon.

Now You: how many tabs have you open in your browser?

How to save Tab Groups in Google Chrome

Posted on February 25, 2024February 25, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

The ability to create tab groups is a powerful feature that most browsers support. It allows you to group tabs together, which improves management of tabs significantly.

Tab groups can be collapsed to reduce them to a single icon on the tab bar. Excellent if you need space on the tab bar for other tabs.

Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers support tab groups, but most did not support the saving of groups. Note that saving is different from syncing.

Saving in this context means adding all sites of a tab group to the browser’s bookmarks. Bookmarks are stored locally by default, but if sync is enabled, are synced with other data to other devices.

Note: you may see the save group option in many Chromium-based browsers, not just Google Chrome. The functionality is identical.

Saving tab groups in Google Chrome

You need at least one tab group in Chrome to use the save feature. All that is required is to right-click on the tab group label and select “Save group” from the options.

Chrome adds a new icon to the label to indicate that the group has been saved. The group is saved to the bookmarks bar. One easy way to verify this is by selecting Menu > Bookmarks and lists > Show Bookmarks Bar. You may also use Ctrl-Shift-B to show or hide it.

There is one caveat. The saving option synchronizes data between the tab group and the bookmarks bar. Any change you make to the group in Chrome is automatically synced to the bookmarks folder. If you close the entire tab group, it is deleted from the bookmarks bar.

To go around this, Google has added the option to hide and show tab groups. Hiding removes the tab group from Chrome’s tab bar without deleting the saved bookmark information.

You may then launch the saved tab group again with a click on its listing in the bookmarks bar. It remains saved there when you do so.

Closing Words

The Save Group option syncs all open tabs of a group to the bookmarks bar. This is useful in conjunction with the hide group option, as it allows you to launch tab groups only when they are needed and hide them the rest of the time.

The save option is not a backup feature, on the other hand. Since it syncs all changes, tabs are removed permanently if you close them.

How to remove an entire site from your browser’s history

Posted on February 19, 2024February 19, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

This guide explains how to remove all history entries of a specific websites from the browser’s Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox. It should work in most other browsers as well.

All web browsers record the websites that you visit while using them. The browsing history serves two main purposes: to highlight previously visited sites when you type in the address bar, and as a record for the user to look up previously visited sites.

Sometimes, you may want to remove sites from the browsing history. Maybe because you do not need a record of the site anymore or want it to disappear completely from the browsing history.

All desktop browsers include functionality to do that. Problem is, it is not clear exactly how it is done. Opening the browsing history displays all visited sites, but there is no option to remove a specific site from the browsing history.

Clearing the entire history works, but it results in a loss of all records.

Delete a site from Google Chrome’s history (and other Chromium-based browsers)

Remove site from browsing history in Chrome

The general method of removing a site’s records from the Chrome browsing history works also in all other Chromium-based browsers. It works in Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, and all other desktop versions of these browsers.

Here are the required steps:

Select Menu and then History > History in the browser. You may also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-H to open the history, or load chrome://history/ directly.
Use the search history field at the top to find all entries of the website that you want to delete. The best option is to type its domain name, e.g., chipp.in.
Scroll all the way down to the end. Chrome lists only some of the entries by default. You may also repeat the operation multiple times if there are too many records.
Now check the box of the last entry on the page.
Scroll all the way to the top.
Hold down the Shift-key and click the box of the first history entry. All entries are now checked.
Select the Delete option.
Confirm the deletion.

Here is how this looks in other Chromium-based browsers:

The process should work in all Chromium-based browsers. Most redirect chrome://history to “their” internal page protocol, e.g., vivaldi://history or edge://history/all.

How to clear a site from Firefox’s browsing history

Mozilla’s Firefox web browser supports a similar feature. It works differently, as it is not based on Chromium.

Here are the steps in Firefox:

Select Menu > History > Manage History.
Use the search field to find all records of the website.
Switch from the “Today” filter to “History” to see all records of that site.
Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-A to select all entries.
Right-click on the selection and select “Delete pages”. Note that there is no confirmation.

What about other records?

Deleting a site from the browsing history removes records of visits only from this database. Other databases may still store information about the site. There is the downloads history, which may have records if you downloaded files from the site.

Sites may also place content on the computer, e.g., as cookies or site data. These do not get cleared when you delete the browsing history.

How to delete other site records in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers

It is relatively easy to delete site data and cookies in Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers.

Select Menu > Settings in the web browser.
Open Privacy and Security.
Select Site settings on the page that opens.
Click on “View permissions and data stored across sites”.
Use the search at the top to find a site.
Click on the trashcan icon next to it to remove it.
Confirm the operation with a click on the delete button.

Note: this removes offline data and logs you out of the site.

Do the following to remove the downloads history in the browser:

Load chrome://downloads/ in the browser’s address bar.
Use the search at the top to find all records of a site.
Activate the x-icon next to each to remove the records.

Deleting site records in Mozilla Firefox

You may also remove cookies and site data records in Mozilla Firefox.

Load about:preferences#privacy in the Firefox address bar. This opens the Privacy preferences.
Scroll down to the Cookies and Site Data section.
Activate the “Manage Data…” button there,
Use the search field at the top to find a specific website.
Click “remove all shown”. Firefox deletes the entry immediately without confirmation.

Here are the steps to clear all downloads from a specific site:

Select Menu > Downloads or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-J to open the Downloads interface.
Use the search at the top to find downloads from a specific site.
Use Ctlr-A to select all downloads.
Press the Delete key to remove all entries from Firefox’s history.

Google says it has optimized Safe Browsing in Chrome

Posted on February 14, 2024February 14, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Safe Browsing is a core security feature of Google’s Chrome web browser. The technology is also used by other browsers, often indirectly to improve privacy.

Google revealed in a new post on the Chromium blog that it has optimized Safe Browsing checks in the Chrome web browser.

The changes bring a performance boost to Safe Browsing checks thanks to the use of asynchronous checks. Some checks are also reduced to reduce their impact on the page loading time.

Safe Browsing: Asynchronous checks

Safe Browsing checks block pages from loading. This is a security precaution to ensure that malicious content is blocked before it can be loaded by the Chrome browser.

This is usually not a problem for local checks according to Google. Checks on Internet websites, on the other hand, add latency to the loading of the page.

Google Chrome 122 enables asynchronous Safe Browsing checks. This allows sites to load content during checks. Google says that this will reduce page load times in Chrome and improve the overall user experience.

Chrome continues to show a warning page if Safe Browsing determines that a page or one of its resources is problematic.

There is also potential for improving new artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms “to detect and block more phishing and social engineering attacks” according to Google. These experiments could affect the page loading time further in the past.

Risks associated with the change

Since pages may load while Safe Browsing checks take place, there is a chance of attacks.

Google says that it has evaluated two common attack types and concluded that sufficient mitigations are in place:

Phishing and social engineering attacks — Phishing sites may load while checks are still ongoing. Google believes that it is unlikely that users will have the time to interact with the site in a way that would impact security. Selecting a password field and typing the password, for instance, should take longer than the Safe Browsing check.
Browser exploits — Chrome has a local list of sites that attack using browser exploits. Checks continue to be made asynchronously and Google recommends keeping Chrome up to date to block most attacks from being effective.

Sub-resource and PDF checks

Two additional checks are listed by Google that are impacted by the optimizations.

Sub-resource checks — attacks using sub-resources are declining, according to Google. New protections, including intelligence gathering, threat detection, and Safe Browsing APIs, protect users in real-time without specifically needing to check sub-resources. As a consequence, Google Chrome will no “longer check the URLs of sub-resources with Safe Browsing”.
PDF download checks — Google reduced the frequency of PDF download checks. PDF documents were used for attacks in the past, but widespread attacks are rare thanks to improvements to Chrome’s PDF viewer. Google notes that most PDF files use links for attacks. These link may open in Chrome, which gives Safe Browsing a chance to block the attack.

Closing Words

Google benefits from the reduction in changes. PDF checks alone reduce Safe Browsing checks “billions of times” each week. The removal of checks may push certain forms of attacks again. Sub-resource attacks may see a revival as malicious actors find new ways to exploit the change.

Chrome users may check the browser’s Safe Browsing preferences under chrome://settings/security. There they find the two main options — standard and enhanced protection — as well as an option to turn off the security feature entirely.

Bug or Intentional: Edge reportedly importing Chrome tabs automatically

Posted on January 30, 2024January 30, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

At least for a year, some Chrome users reported that Edge imported data from their browser automatically. Back in May 2023, user Cerevox reported the issue on the official Microsoft Community website.

Cerevox claimed that Edge imported bookmarks and passwords from Chrome automatically. In November, another user claimed that Edge imported favorites and browser data from Chrome. Both said that Edge’s auto-import feature was turned off on their system.

Tom Warren, Senior Editor at The Verge, published an article today about the issue. He experienced the issue first hand according to the article:

Last week, I turned on my PC, installed a Windows update, and rebooted to find Microsoft Edge automatically open with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update.

A post on Twitter by Tom Warren reveals that it was the KB5034204 update. It is uncertain if the update has anything to do with the issue. I ran two tests locally and could not replicate the issue.

Warren says that the Edge feature that powers the auto-import of Chrome data was never turned on by him. He decided to check on another laptop and experienced the issue there as well. After installation of the update and the obligatory restart, Edge opened with all tabs from Chrome.

Warren could not replicate the issue on any other device he tested though, which makes the issue puzzling.

There are two main explanations for this: it is a bug or it is a feature that is either in testing or rolling out to everyone over time.

Checking Microsoft Edge’s auto-import feature

Microsoft Edge includes a setting to import browsing data from Chrome automatically. The feature is off by default. Edge users may verify this by loading edge://settings/profiles/importBrowsingData/editImportConsent in the browser’s address bar.

If you see “Turn On” next to “Import browser data from Google Chrome on each launch” on the page, then it is disabled. Since turning on does not necessarily mean launching Edge, it is easy to accidentally launch Edge unless you have precautions in place.

There is a chance that the feature may turn itself on automatically. Things like these happened in the past and there is a good chance that they will happen in the future again.

The auto-import feature supports Google Chrome only. Even other Chromium-based browsers are not supported. The main idea behind the feature is to make the use of Edge more comfortable for Chrome users. It may be useful if you use both browsers.

This import is local-only according to Microsoft. However, Edge users who sign-in using a Microsoft account and enable sync in Edge will have the data synced to the Microsoft cloud. From there, it is synced back to any device on which the Edge feature is turned on.

Closing Words

Warren said that he noticed a window appearing and disappearing after installation of the update. He did not have time to notice anything or react to it.

It is quite possible that the auto import from Chrome to Edge is a bug. It is also perfectly reasonable to assume that this is being rolled out to all Edge users on Windows. The thing that makes me think it is the former is that the auto-import feature in Edge was turned off.

Microsoft Edge is not a terrible browser, but Microsoft is still pushing users around as if it was Internet Explorer in its prime. It is time that companies accept a “no” the first time.

The EU considers Edge to be insignificant in the world of browser, which is why Edge is not considered a gatekeeper at this stage. Windows on the other hand is a gatekeeper.

In closing, there is little that users can do if a bug or forced feature changes things on their devices. Complete removal of the offending app, in this case Edge, may be an option. This will soon be easier for users from the EU.

Now You: which browsers do you use?

This Chrome AI tool submits all URLs and titles of open tabs to Google

Posted on January 25, 2024January 25, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

It seems like some companies have entered into the “adding the most AI tools into products” competition. Microsoft seems to be winning, with its pushing of AI into lots of its products. The company introduced Copilot Toolbar for Android recently, and many future Windows devices will even feature a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard.

Google launched Chrome 121 earlier this week and announced new AI tools that it included in the browser. These are limited to a small subset of users at the time but will roll out to more in the coming weeks and months.

One of the tools is called Tab Organizer. Google promises that the AI tool helps users bring order to their tabs. It does so by finding tabs suitable to be put into tab groups.

Tab groups is an excellent tab management feature. Open tabs may be placed into groups, or created there directly. A group can be collapsed, so that it occupies just a single tab on Chrome’s tab bar, even if it holds dozens or hundreds of tabs.

Tab Organizer

Google announced Tab Organizer on the official company blog The Keyword as part of three AI tools for Chrome.

Google writes: “With Tab Organizer, Chrome will automatically suggest and create tab groups based on your open tabs. This can be particularly helpful if you’re working on several tasks in Chrome at the same time, like planning a trip, researching a topic and shopping.”

The feature is available to a selection of users from the United States only at the time. These users need to be signed-in to Google Chrome and they need to enable the Tab Organizer feature first.

This is done by selecting Menu > Experimental AI > Try out experimental AI features > Tab Organizer and then selecting relaunch.

Tab Organizer is then accessible via the Tab Search icon in Chrome’s main toolbar, by right-clicking on tabs and selecting “Organize similar tabs”, or through the Chrome Menu.

Google’s AI will then suggest to put tabs into specific groups. Users may remove tabs from the list of suggestions and rename the tab group for better identification. A click on “create group” creates the tab group based on the selections.

The huge privacy issue

What Google’s announcement on The Keyword blog does not reveal is that Google collects all page titles and URLs when the feature is used.

This is confirmed on a Google Chrome Help page:

When you use Tab organizer, the page titles and URLs of open tabs in the active window and your feedback are collected. As described in our Google Privacy Policy, this information is used to improve this feature, which includes generative model research and machine learning technologies.

In other words, Google knows about any URL and page title open at the time. Since Tab Organizer requires to be signed-in, it could also link the information to the Google account.

Google says that human reviewers may look at the data as part of the review process.

A policy is available for Enterprise and Education users to block the data collecting from happening. No such option is provided for other users.

Closing Words

Most Chrome users may want to avoid the feature, unless they have no problems that it submits all URLs and page titles to Google.

While the feature can be useful, especially if hundreds of tabs need to get organized, it may be better in most cases to use the feature manually instead to avoid any leaks to Google.

With AI tools, it seems to become necessary to ask about privacy implications first before even considering using a tool.

Now You: what is your take on this?

This script deals with YouTube’s Adblock Popup and Ads

Posted on December 4, 2023December 4, 2023 by Martin Brinkmann

This year has seen a fundamental shift on YouTube regarding advertising and adblockers. Not only is YouTube showing popups to some users who use adblockers, to get them to uninstall them or buy YouTube Premium, Google is also working on making adblockers in Chrome less effective.

Without going into too many details. Chrome’s system for extensions will be updated in 2024 to only allow extensions that follow a new rule set. Called Manifest V3, Google claims that it improves privacy of users and combats rogue extensions. At the same time, it is also limiting legitimate extensions, many of which impact Google’s bottom line.

Most content blockers work fine right now. While you may get the “ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube” popup message, it is easily dealt with by updating the filter list of the extension.

The change impacts other Chromium-based browsers to a degree. Some, like Brave or Vivaldi, include native adblockers that will continue to work.

2024 changes everything, or maybe not

Come 2024, things may not be as straightforward anymore. Extensions need to be updated by their developers to support the new rules set. Those that are not updated can’t be used anymore.

Those that are updated need to follow the new rules. Besides imposing certain limits on extensions, Google is also enforcing all updates through its Web Store.

Content blockers rely on frequent updates to deal with an ever changing advertising landscape. Advertisers may rename scripts or move them, and content blockers need to update filters before these are blocked.

Most content blockers rely on filter lists. These lists are updated directly at the moment. Once support for Manifest V2 is dropped, these updates need to be pushed through the Chrome Web Store.

One problem here is that updates take anywhere from a few hours to days or even weeks. Google is in control of these updates, and the situation will worsen only if everything is forced through the Web Store’s review process.

Imagine the following scenario: Advertiser A makes a change on the site. Filter lists are updated. Updates are pushed through the Chrome Web Store. The review takes hours or days. Until it passes the review, ads may be displayed on the advertisers property.

Now imagine an advertiser that constantly changes scripts and tactics.

Remove Adblock Thing

Extensions are not the only option that users have to combat advertising and privacy invasions on the Internet. There are several other options, including DNS-based solutions and also userscripts.

Remove Adblock Thing is such a script. You need to install an extension in your browser of choice that supports scripts. A popular option is Tampermonkey, which is available for Chrome, Firefox and many other browsers.

The userscript blocks YouTube’s anti-adblocker popup. Besides that, it will also mute, skip or speed up ads on the site to improve its usability.

Here is how you install it:

Download Tampermonkey for your web browser. The official website has links to all stores.
Load https://github.com/TheRealJoelmatic/RemoveAdblockThing/blob/main/Youtube-Ad-blocker-Reminder-Remover.user.js next in your browser.
TamperMonkey should identify it immediately as a script and display its install option.
Select install to add it to the extension.

The script works automatically on YouTube and it includes an update URL as well.

Closing Words

The main benefit of the script is that it offers another option to skip or bypass ads on YouTube. Even if adblockers stop working temporarily or permanently, you may use Tampermoney with this script instead.

Now You: do you use adblockers or userscripts?