Google Considering Move That Will Render Ad Blockers In Browsers Useless; Cites Security Of Users

Google's plans to limit ad blockers has prompted complaints from developers offering such tools, reports Financial Express.

The technical change in the Chromium open source web browser project would break ad blockers in Chrome, Opera and Vivaldi, Computing reports.

The move was raised in ‘Manifest 3', which aims to highlight upcoming development proposals including a suggestion to "strive to limit the blocking version of webRequest, potentially removing blocking options from most events". The ad blocker makers will be severely affected as they need to rewrite or restructure their software.

The proposed design changes will replace the API relied upon by privacy extensions like uBlock and Ghostery with another designed to “diminish the effectiveness of content blocking and ad blocking extensions, reported The Register.

Google, in a statement, said that the move was aimed at improving security and privacy for Chrome users.

While boosting online advertising of Google, the move will render various ad blockers useless as it will limit the interaction of websites with browser extensions built by developers outside.

"It will be nothing less than another case of misuse of its market-dominating position,” Jeremy Tillman, Director of product at Ghostery, which builds a popular ad blocker, was quoted saying by FE.

However, a spokeswoman for Google was quoted in an emailed statement as saying that Google was working with developers on the proposal. The Alphabet Inc.-owned unit is known to make most of its revenue through online advertising.