Google says it’s not trying to stop ad blocking on Chrome

Google has faced increasing criticism over some proposed Chrome changes that developers claim could prevent popular ad blockers from working properly. Dubbed Manifest 3, the changes involve crippling the WebRequest APIs that developers currently use to block content in favor of a new declarativeNetRequest API that’s more limited. Google revealed the changes were being made over performance and privacy concerns, but the developers of Ghostery showed that performance in most popular ad blockers simply isn’t an issue in Chrome. Google is now backtracking on some of its changes following a backlash from developers of ad blocking extensions. “It is not, nor has it ever been, our goal to prevent or break content blocking,” says Chrome engineer... Continue reading…