lemm.ee

12 points

1 year ago

“Pop-up blocking” was originally found only in minority web browsers like iCab and Opera. Netscape didn’t want to include it at first, because Netscape was dedicated to the commercialization of the web.

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Buddahriffic@lemmy.world

6 points

1 year ago

Which is ironic because Firefox (Netscape’s descendent) is the better one and Opera is chromium based, which is developed by Google, an ad-supported company that isn’t so keen on continuing to allow browsers to block them.

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tun@lemmy.world

3 points

1 year ago

Opera didn’t use chromium back then.

Chrome was kind of late to the web browsers market.

Opera was initially released on 10 April 1995, making it one of the oldest desktop web browsers still actively developed. It was commercial software for its first ten years and had its own proprietary layout engine, Presto. In 2013, it switched from the Presto engine to Chromium.

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2 points

1 year ago

Google Chrome blocks pop-ups too. Google does not allow its own ads to be shown in pop-ups; this is a term of service of the AdSense product.

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CmdrShepard@lemmy.one

4 points

1 year ago

Pop-ups but not ads. They have moved to restrict what adblockers can block with newer versions of chromium.

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3 points

1 year ago

Google has probably done more than any other major web company to ensure that ads aren’t allowed to harm users — whether through unsolicited pop-ups, malware, or other attacks.

Malware ads used to be commonplace on ad networks; with “legitimate” websites like CNN.com showing ads (served via a third-party ad network) that attacked security holes in Windows users’ browsers.

Ask anyone who worked in IT in the early 2000s. Web ads used to be a shitpit. Now they’re annoying at most.

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CmdrShepard@lemmy.one

3 points

1 year ago

Sure but now everyone is at parity with regards to blocking ads and malware, but Google is intentionally rolling some of that back. I won’t say they’re ‘evil’ or anything (at least in this instance) but they’re definitely greedy and there are much better options out there (though chromium makes up a huge majority of the market)

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2 points

1 year ago

When we’re talking about a for-profit corporation’s actions, “they did it for profit!” is not typically a very useful thing to say.

This is because no matter what they do, they’re doing it because they expect to profit from it.

When a for-profit corporation does something that’s good for humanity, they’re doing it for profit. They expect that doing that good thing will cause them to profit.

When a for-profit corporation does something that’s bad for humanity, they’re doing it for profit. They expect that doing that bad thing will cause them to profit.

So really, we can just note that we’re referring to a for-profit corporation’s actions, and just say whether they’re doing something that’s good or bad.

And we can try to ensure that good behaviors are profitable and bad behaviors aren’t profitable.

But saying “it’s for profit!!” doesn’t by itself mean that it’s good or bad; just that a for-profit organization did it.

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