> Continuing to push the narrative that the performance concerns are bullshit
There are two ways to interpret Google's claims about performance:
A) Content blocking in general is impossible to do quickly without a declarative API.
B) The current API gives bad extensions too much power to slow down pages.
We already know that argument B is wrong, because the changes Chrome is proposing don't prevent extensions from slowing down the page. If Chrome was completely, 100% deprecating the old API, I think B would be a much, much stronger claim. But they're not.
So that leaves argument A, which is exactly what this article attacks. It is possible to build adblockers with the current APIs that are good enough that performance doesn't matter.
Now, if the Chrome team wants to argue that extensions have too much power and malicious actors can do bad things, that's a legitimate claim to make that I honestly kind of agree with. But that's so clearly not what the point of these changes are, because a set of changes that were focused on that would look very different from what we've gotten. It's the same reason why I don't take Google's privacy claims seriously for the manifest -- because they haven't actually deprecated any of the worst features that allow people to spy on me.
If someone claims that they need to buy a new car to help save the environment, and then they show you an ad for a pickup truck, I think it's reasonably safe to assume the original claim was just an excuse.
There are two ways to interpret Google's claims about performance:
A) Content blocking in general is impossible to do quickly without a declarative API.
B) The current API gives bad extensions too much power to slow down pages.
We already know that argument B is wrong, because the changes Chrome is proposing don't prevent extensions from slowing down the page. If Chrome was completely, 100% deprecating the old API, I think B would be a much, much stronger claim. But they're not.
So that leaves argument A, which is exactly what this article attacks. It is possible to build adblockers with the current APIs that are good enough that performance doesn't matter.
Now, if the Chrome team wants to argue that extensions have too much power and malicious actors can do bad things, that's a legitimate claim to make that I honestly kind of agree with. But that's so clearly not what the point of these changes are, because a set of changes that were focused on that would look very different from what we've gotten. It's the same reason why I don't take Google's privacy claims seriously for the manifest -- because they haven't actually deprecated any of the worst features that allow people to spy on me.
If someone claims that they need to buy a new car to help save the environment, and then they show you an ad for a pickup truck, I think it's reasonably safe to assume the original claim was just an excuse.