Comment by Fluorescence
1 year ago
People scratch their heads about how "just a default setting" can be worth an annual $20 billion payment from Google. It makes more sense if it's actually for a raft of wildly illegal under-the-table measures this.
Imagine what it would cost Google's bottom line if Apple was truly user-focused and enabled ad-blocking on desktop, mobile and embedded safari views by default. Someone do the napkin math please!
Oh, people just don't understand the value of default settings. It's a constant theme even on this forum.
It's really surprising but also not.
Defaults is exactly how Microsoft has been getting away with everything they did for forever. Anti-trust investigations? Irrelevant if you can just make it configurable but the default is Microsoft.
Most people don't change default settings unless prompted and guided. And adding a setting shuts up most of "us" coz we'll just change it.
The only reason they're remove the ability to configure something would've been if too many of us change the settings for too many of our friends and relatives for it to register negatively on their end and they'd try to get away with not allowing it to be configured / hiding it as much as possible until they actually get anti-trust investigated // convicted (Re: requiring Windows to ask if you want to install other browsers than Internet Explorer).
Heh, sometimes you feel pressed between “but it’s just a default” and “who uses settings anyway”. Because the first group is blind and deaf to network effects of a default and the second to the fact that workflows and preferences differ.
It's a revenue share deal where Google pays Apple 36% of the search revenue they get from Safari users [1].
In other words, Google pays Apple ~$20B per year to be default search engine because they make ~$53B in revenue from those searches. This is profitable for both Apple and Google -- no "wildly illegal under-the-table measures" required.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/apple-gets-36percent-of-goog...
How much would Google even lose if Apple didn't make Google the default search engine? People would almost certainly just use Google anyway. If Apple switched to Bing most people would use it once, get pissed off, and then switch it back to Google.
It's not that weird that people are a bit suspicious that it's really worth Google $20B/year.
I couldn’t possibly disagree more. I’ve always worked with end users and I can say with confidence that the majority of people wouldn’t change it or more accurately wouldn’t feel like putting in the effort/dealing with the hassle of changing it, minor as it may be. Also a non-trivial segment of the population most likely wouldn’t be aware of that it is even an option.
The power of the default is just that, they it is the default.
Also Apple themself has only one incentive which is to get the best deal for themselves. Is Microsoft willing to offer more money than Google? The evidence points to no.
I use ddg, have basically since it was released, what's wrong with bing?
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That's a fair question, but even if Google makes an extra $21B/year because of that default setting it's still a good deal for Google.
ah the advertising ecosystem.
even when an outsider tries to think of the nastiest scam, an insider shows up to explain the boring day to day is already worse.
This conspiracy theory doesn't make sense because safari's content blockers (ie. the nerfed version of adblock) block most ads just fine, especially from google ads. The only ads that get through are first party ads (eg. youtube), but as of a few years ago adblockers could block those as well, so it's a moot point.
Safari content blockers are awful compared to UBlock and I’m a Safari user. Not only does YouTube either get through or cause weird issues, YouTube now blocks you until you completely disable the extension. Content blockers often block cookie banners too which can often result in broken functionality - a nightmare when you’re trying to buy tickets to something and have to “reload without blockers” for the website to work.
If I go to buy something, I switch off ad blocking on that page, at the very least, on the checkout page. Ads can even be actually relevant there.
If the page is too ad-ridden to tolerate, I may consider to just close that page, and go search for other options.
I use Firefox + uBlock Origin, because going to the wide commercial internet without some form of ad blocking is like going out without an umbrella when it's raining heavily.
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Suggest using a service like NextDNS or Pi-hole for DYI ad blocking at the DNS/network level. I started with pi-hole but the hassle of updates and most importantly not having it available outside of my home network pushed me to a service like NextDNS which works on any network (5G, work, etc)
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What blocker do you use? I don’t have these problems with AdGuard in Safari
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>Not only does YouTube either get through or cause weird issues, YouTube now blocks you until you completely disable the extension
Works fine on my machine. You might need to update your filter lists or try another content blocker app.
>Content blockers often block cookie banners too which can often result in broken functionality - a nightmare when you’re trying to buy tickets to something and have to “reload without blockers” for the website to work.
So don't enable the filter lists that try to block cookie banners?
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Firefox Focus' integration with Safari works well for ad blocking while general browsing.
That doesn't match my experience. I use 1Blocker and Purify on Safari and see very, very few ads.
That’s nonsense. AdGuard + SponsorBlock.
I almost exclusively use Safari and I havent seen a single ad in almost a decade
For me the element blockers are the most important of all. It's not just about blocking ads. It's about making websites more usable. Ads are only one of those detrimental points. Many websites bombard you with big photos of their articles. I block all that with custom blocklists so the end result is a lot more like here at hacker news.
Taking this as an opportuinty to pitch an extension I developed to do that and more: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-defuser/
The main difference between this and current element blockers is that Web Defuser allows you to block annoying behaviors (by modifying requests/responses in flight) in addition to elements.
At the moment it's a bit lacking in the UI department, I'd appreciate early adopter feedback (you can contact me at gmail with my username).
If you're talking about element blocking, that's still doable in manifest v3 with injected css elements. That's how it was done in manifest v2.
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Yup.
I understand that nerfing adblocking is definitely a big draw for Google, but Apple went the ManifestV3 route many years before, specifically to increase extension performance and privacy.
Back then there was a big uproar too, but mostly because Safari extension developers charged for a new version because they had to rewrite the entire thing.
> specifically to increase extension performance and privacy
This reasoning is so bogus that it’s hard to believe anybody could believe it in good faith. Ad blockers are essential for performance and user privacy and security.
If Apple truly bought into this reasoning then they’d integrate an ad blocker like Brave does. Follow the money.
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Safari content blockers are not enabled in embedded Web Views.
Neither is uBlock Origin.
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You're downvoted so much that I can't even read your text without copy and pasting it.
But you're right. When I'm using Safari with 1Blocker, I don't even notice that I'm not using Chrome with uBlock Origin. And it accomplishes that with static rules instead of with an API that reads every request.