Google Removes Plugin Controls From Chrome, Reports Claim (ghacks.net) 106
An anonymous reader shares a Ghacks report: Google made a change in Chrome 57 that removes options from the browser to manage plugins such as Google Widevine, Adobe Flash, or the Chrome PDF Viewer. If you load chrome://plugins in Chrome 56 or earlier, a list of installed plugins is displayed to you. You can use it, among other things, to disable plugins that you don't require. While you can do the same for some plugins, Flash and PDF Viewer, using Chrome's Settings, the same is not possible for the DRM plugin Widevine, and any other plugin Google may add to Chrome in the future. Starting with Chrome 57, that option is no longer available. This means essentially that Chrome users won't be able to disable -- some -- plugins anymore, or even list the plugins that are installed in the web browser. Please note that this affects Google Chrome and Chromium.Further report on BetaNews.
If it is an embedded non-removable part of the app (Score:5, Insightful)
...Well, then it's hardly a plugin anymore, is it?
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Google doesn't attempt to use a new directory if the directory it expects for the plugin exists but lacks appropriate permissions. Remove permissions for yourself and the plugin stops working.
This works for the flash installed in syswow64 and system32 as well. Just be careful editing permissions in those subtrees :)
Goodbye chrome (Score:1)
Is their goal to make IE look good?
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And (regardless of their intent) they have succeeded. Been using Edge since I permitted the upgrade to Win10 (which, incidentally, is considerably superior to the Win8 OS which was preinstalled on my current laptop). Edge is a competent browser and (with the availability of the AdBlock plugin) more than adequate for my web surfing needs. YMMV.
Let me repeat that before I get flamed . . . Y M M V.
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Blue pill.
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I'm pretty sure all the ad blockers are facilitated via Extensions, not Plugins.
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Man, way to shoot themselves in the food.
Those bullets really make a mess of the mashed potatoes. LOL
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Remember! Don't shoot food!
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no, but it makes the hungry Wizard sad.
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DRM+flash+ads always on in chrome now?
Man, way to shoot themselves in the food.
erm... that's FOOT not food.. muppet
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DRM+flash+ads always on in chrome now?
I'm not that fussed about Chrome since I don't use it, but I'm not looking forward to when Chromefox copies it, as it's copied every other boneheaded decision Chrome makes. Yes, I know there's Pale Moon, but it has too many annoying old bugs that have long since been removed in Chromefox for me to have much enthusiasm for it. Mind you, given the ongoing downhill direction that Chromefox has been heading in, I'll probably have to switch to Pale Moon eventually.
Dear Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Firefox,
Please do NOT copy this feature.
Signed,
All four of us who still use Firefox.
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Re:Dear Firefox (Score:5, Funny)
Dear 4 remaining users,
We value your feedback.
In the mean time we hope you enjoy the upcoming changes to our plugin system. We're replicating the features of a market leader with this one.
Signed,
Mozilla Dev Team
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>We're replicating the features of a market leader with this one.
Buddy, I can see that your marketing-speak is a little rusty.
I think you meant to say: "We're bringing you the features you've come to expect from a market-leading browser."
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We're replicating the features of a market leader with this one.
Yes, the battle to give away free software. So exciting.
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Dear Mozilla Dev Team,
You now have 3 remaining users.
Signed,
Your mom.
This is how it starts (Score:5, Interesting)
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So use open source! For fuck sake they even give the source in the Chromium project! It's time to stop whining about completely replaceable proprietary software and actually start using open source rather than just pontificating about it.
Admittedly there are a great many cases where there is no decent open source alternative but web browsers *is not* one of them!
Re:This is how it starts (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I read they are looking to do away with plug-ins entirely, which may or may not be a good thing. Well, rather than removing them, they will be for internal use only, just like any other random DLL that a developer would choose to use in their code.
On the one hand it would probably be better if browsers didn't have plug-ins because they have security issues. Flash is famous for them, as is Adobe Reader. Let everything be implemented as an extension, pure Javascript and CSS that runs inside the browser's sandboxed interpreter, and is cross compatible with other browsers. Get rid of binary interfaces, OS and architecture dependence.
On the other hand, it means you can't disable features like the Widevine DRM bullshit even if you want to. At best all you can do is use an extension to block content in that format. And worst of all, there is no UI for finding and disabling stealth plug-ins that get installed by other apps.
Re:This is how it starts (Score:5, Insightful)
RE: And worst of all, there is no UI for finding and disabling stealth plug-ins that get installed by other apps.
Great!
Hidden Chrome plugins: the New Browser Helper Objects
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This makes sense for Google, but not for me. It's high time someone forked Chromium. While they're at it.... Add back in the ability to Easily see SSL certificate information!
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This makes sense for Google, but not for me. It's high time someone forked Chromium. While they're at it.... Add back in the ability to Easily see SSL certificate information!
Go ahead and do it or pay somebody to do it, that's the point of Open Source. We saw the same thing with systemd, a lot of whining but no action so these changes get "forced" through. If you're just going to whine about it and do nothing then Open Source is pointless.
You can fork and maintain (merge from the mainline and keep your plugin changes) Chromium or pay somebody to do it and then Google can just keep doing what they want to do, if enough people don't like Google's approach and use yours then so muc
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Understatement of the year there, forking a browser would require more effort than one person could likely handle.
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Understatement of the year there, forking a browser would require more effort than one person could likely handle.
Nobody is suggesting forking it and abandoning upstream, a fork that merges everything but also maintains the chrome://plugins functionality is hardly a huge task.
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And worst of all, there is no UI for finding and disabling stealth plug-ins that get installed by other apps.
Or, considering that Chrome's chief of security recently said that [arstechnica.com] antivirus software is "my single biggest impediment to shipping a secure browser," maybe Chrome is going to get rid of the ability for other apps to install stealth plug-ins at all.
Considering they have at least tried to make the presence of such plug-ins more transparent in the past, I'm optimistic that's indeed their plan.
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The new IE 6 (Score:4, Insightful)
Webkit is getting too popular. Many websites are using -webkit or blink specific CSS 3 tags and ignoring HTML 5 standards. THis is not healthy.
We need another new browser and not just one on an outdated insecure version of webkit/blink, but a new rendering engine with proper plugin and multiplatform support
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https://vivaldi.com/ [vivaldi.com] is a decent looking alternative.
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https://vivaldi.com/ is a decent looking alternative.
Vivaldi uses the Blink engine, so no, it does not qualify.
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Well, considering the complaining was about Webkit...and Blink is not Webkit...
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Well, considering the complaining was about Webkit...and Blink is not Webkit...
Blink is the fork of Webkit also used in Chrome and Chromium, so yes, it is directly relevant.
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Blink is a fork of the WebCore component of WebKit and is used in Chrome
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Many websites are using -webkit or blink specific CSS 3 tags and ignoring HTML 5 standards.
.
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Submit it as a bug to the Webkit project, and get support for the non-CSS3-standards-compliant CSS tags removed?
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I'm not particularly bothered if a browser doesn't fully support HTML 5. Omitting support for certain aspects of it would even be a selling point.
Vivaldi and Firefox (Score:2)
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We need another new browser
Why? The old one [seamonkey-project.org] works just fine...
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Webkit is getting too popular. Many websites are using -webkit or blink specific CSS 3 tags and ignoring HTML 5 standards. THis is not healthy.
The glacial pace of the standards body is the problem, people want to use the new features rather than wait for a committee to standardize them and then of course they rarely go back and revisit them because the specific extensions continue to be supported.
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HTML 5 is moving too fast! It is very very big and not just a simple neutered XML with text with tags like HMTL 1,2,3, and 4.
It includes special e6 javascript, CSS 3, 3.1, media codecs, webrtc for webcams, buffering algorithms, and the proper implementations. HTML 5 is as big as ajax, css, and HMTL 1,2,3, and 4 combined.
Guess what? HTML 6 or 5.1 depending on which standards body is being worked upon ... just by Google setting the standards with Microsoft having some role too. Mozilla and Apple are irrelevan
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HTML 6 or 5.1 depending on which standards body is being worked upon ... just by Google setting the standards with Microsoft having some role too. Mozilla and Apple are irrelevant these days
Of course, because Google and Microsoft develop the sorts of applications best suited to run in platform-agnostic browsers so they need to inn
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You mean like Firefox? I use Firefox on a daily basis (I still prefer Firebug over Chrome's developer tools) and it works great. YMMV
never switched to Chrome (Score:2)
I use Chrome only where complex web applications seem to need it to work (e.g. ones provided to me by my employer).
This move kind of justifies the challenges I face getting certain websites to work in my browser of choice (a Firefox fork). It may lack the level of website support that Chrome enjoys but it provides a shitload more support to me.
Sorry Google, your quest for world domination has already failed. Well, until someone kills me anyway.
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If Tree Style Tabs goes under, there will be very little reason to actually use Firefox anymore.
*Enpass isn't as good as lastpass, and has an ANSI import-bug, which I just reported
But LastPass causes 20%+ persistent C
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See: Sidewise, or Tabs Outliner.
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The problem is that the new interface for extensions doesn't allow for many things the old did and thus many existing extensions just can't be replicated with the new API and so will cease to work in the Firefox versions.
Firefox cookie management, too (Score:2, Informative)
Firefox somewhere back in the low- to mid-40 version nummers eliminated the option to ask the user for each new cookie that sites try to set. This was valuable to anal-retentive users like me who could allow the target site and maybe its CDN to set cookies, but BIGINVASIVEADS.COM and TRACKYOUREVERYMOVE.NET would get nada.
Remember when these were the upstart, alternative browsers out to help the little guy?
Re:Firefox cookie management, too (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, that's a problem. However, there are FF add-ons that will bring that behavior back, such as Cookie Controller.
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I like cookie monster myself.
Allow session cookies, is a great option.
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Sadly, nope.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/... [mozillazine.org]
Cookie Controller seems to be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too complex for what it provides, yet if it doesn't allow me finer control over the setting of cookies in the first place I'm not sure it's worth it.
I guess Mozilla is in cahoots with advertisers these days. YOU MUST ACCEPT COOKIES. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!
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We already won the cookie war via private browsing / incognito mode. Let sites set whatever the hell they want, because no one but the originating site will ever see it, and as soon as the browser closes, *poof*, all nice and clean.
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Personally, I find incognito mode too inconvenient for common use. There are some cookies that I want to be maintained, and it's too error-prone to have to switch modes back and forth. It's much safe and easier to tell the browser which cookies I want and which ones I don't.
Don't be evil (Score:2)
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Can't Remove Norton Spyware (Score:5, Interesting)
Norton Spywa...err..."anti-virus" does this. It installs itself into Chrome and Firefox, without permission, and doesn't allow you to remove it.
You can disable it, but not remove it.
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and doesn't allow you to remove it.
This may not be quite as evil as you think. Norton's plugin are installed by way of the installer under elevated privileges; because of this they're owned by "SYSTEM" (iirc) so regular users and even administrtor's can't remove them.
It's not so much that they are trying to be douches as being a side effect of how they got installed. And, there is an argument to be made that you don't want it to be possible for a random user or user-space process to be able to remove your antivirus plugins at will.
That said
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Having worked for a couple of major consumer security software firms, I can tell you that my experience is that you're half right.
The developers have every intention of allowing you to remove the software. However, once installed, uninstalling such software is technically challenging on a number of levels. Not just because the software must put tendrils deep into sensitive parts of the OS, making removal difficult when done on a system in an unknown state, but also from a project management perspective. The
ACHTUNG!!! (Score:2)
ACHTUNG!! Ziz is ze Kookle Krome team! You vill uze ALL extensiuns, ALVAYS!
Rule #1: Never get pissy with the opinion-leaders. (Score:5, Insightful)
After Apple started with lock-in and iOS golden cages with no access to file systems, they started losing Karma with the nerd crowd. Karma they had gained so much in moving to basically a FOSS unix as their new OS of the second coming of Steve Jobs.
As Apples Karma burned, Google was the closest thing to the new darling child of the nerd/geek crew. With moves like this and them also slowly turning their phones into nothing but hardware outlets for their brave new google services they are going the way of Apple in annoying the opinion-leaders (us). This is never a good move in the long-term and usually marks a decline of some sort. You know, like planlessly releasing 2 additional messaging apps and other strange things. Chrome is an awesome browser and V8 does a lot to strengthen the web - the worlds #1 free plattform these days. But screw this up, and people will start finding ways to move away from Chrome and Google. I hope there are enough smart techies in charge at Google to backpedal on this decision.
All that aside I have a question:
Is there a Fork of Chromium in the wild that won't follow this lead? I use chromium regularly, but I've used alternatives too (Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, etc.) and wouldn't mind using a fully FOSS Chrome clone alternative for a change. Any project doing this?
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The problem is that chromium is ... fucking massive. It's larger than many OS, it's more than any individual can comprehend in his lifetime, forking it is no small task. I don't know enough about building a browser to know if it's possible - but I would really like it if smarter people than me got together and built a good fast browser with a small code base, that would allow a lot more in the way of forks and freedom. Chromium is basically chromium, and is unlikely to ever be anything more (with v8 as the
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Abusing the users only has consequences if a large amount of those users get fed up with it (doesn't seem to be happening either with iOS, Android or Windows 10) and they can migrate to better alternatives. At this point, IMO, there's no good alternative in the mobile space, and in the desktop space yo
Ads (Score:2)
This is presumably so you can't block ads via plugins.
Soon you'll have to use google's proxies, which will automatically insert appropriate and life-changing ads into any network stream you use.
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Well, considering Google owns online advertising, I don't think there's much to do to add ads to the network stream - because the places you go already use one of Alphabet's ad networks anyways.
And the sites that don't, well, it's because Alphabet's ad networks refuse to touch them anyways.
So practically all the ads
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that sucks! (Score:2)
Plugins are not Extensions... (Score:5, Informative)
Important distinction:
chrome://plugins/ is where the internal PDF viewer is enabled or disabled.
chrome://extensions/ is where you put uBlock, or your corporate overlords install WebSense.
Plugins are moving to chrome://settings/content
That's it. INTERNAL PLUGINS ARE GETTING MOVED to a new menu location.
Manage Extension the other way. (Score:1)
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This story is about plugins, not extensions. These are two different things. Plugins are managed at chrome://plugins, extensions are managed at chrome://extensions.
That is really a diversion (Score:1)
Firefox (Score:1)