Comment by saynay
2 years ago
OPs point, I think, is that wasting the user's time is part of the point of the code. This specific code seems partially meant as a punishment of the user for using an adblocker.
2 years ago
OPs point, I think, is that wasting the user's time is part of the point of the code. This specific code seems partially meant as a punishment of the user for using an adblocker.
*for using firefox instead of google's own browser.
That's somewhat in debate, the last I saw. The initial report was it affected a user using Firefox, and it didn't when they switched useragents. Since then, there have been reports of users not seeing it in Firefox, but seeing it in other (even chromium-based) browsers. So it seems likely they are A/B testing it, but less clear if they are intentionally targeting non-Chrome browsers.
Their goal, quite clearly, is to prevent (or at least heavily discourage) adblockers. This is one attempt to detect them, and maybe in Chrome they have a different detection mechanism so it doesn't show the same behavior.
It would be a particularly foolish move on their part to push Chrome by punishing everything else right now, while they are in the middle of multiple anti-trust lawsuits. It makes me think that is unlikely to be the intent of this change.