HN Explorer

Chrome is dead for those who uses ad-blockers

30 points by pk-protect-ai ↗ HN
Google's block at least some users with ad-blocks enabled and I happen to be one of them. Each time I attempt to connect to YouTube using Chrome, I encounter the following error messages:

www.youtube.com is blocked www.youtube.com refused to connect. ERR_BLOCKED_BY_RESPONSE

However, when I switch to Firefox, everything works perfectly. This leads me to two possible scenarios:

    This is a Chrome-specific feature and YouTube's reaction to installed Chrome plugins.
    Some YouTube connections are blocked regardless of the browser used.
If the first scenario is true, then Google, being the developer of the Chrome browser, receives too much information about my browser setup. This could enable Google to prevent me from accessing any or selected content, effectively violating my rights to access information. This could potentially turn Google into a censorship organization.

In the second scenario, if some YouTube connections are indeed blocked regardless of the browser used, it would mean that the issue is not Chrome-specific. However, the issue of Google potentially violating users' rights to access information still stands.

In either case, the implications are troubling.

20 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 38.2 ms ] thread
mcqueenjordan
Did you try disabling the ad blockers to verify that claim?

Not trying to be disrespectful, but I think you may have jumped to a conclusion too quickly here -- I suspect a misconfiguration or some other issue (dirty cache, corruption, etc.) seems more likely to be the cause.

pk-protect-ai
Oh, don't you worry :) I know how the stuff works :D By the way same configuration works again with youtube, that mean's you have to hit a specific pool to be enforced being a beta-tester of new blocking mechanism.
jve
Started appearing few months ago for some users: https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/ygnw9w/getti...

I also had some funky/non-working sites, don't remember the code, but browser restart seemed to help.

heavyset_go
There's also a reply to that thread from 6 days ago reporting this same issue with YouTube. The user might be the OP, though.
pk-protect-ai
Time travel? And I'm hit this problem today only, so you are jumping to conclusions. Anyway how does it justifies the fact that Google is able to prevent me from accessing the content based on setup of MY SOFTWARE ON MY HARDWARE?
heavyset_go
I'm not accusing you of anything or jumping to conclusions, nor am I trying to justify what Google is doing.

I use different usernames across platforms, I'm just pointing out that I don't know if the post on Reddit came from you or not. I regularly post bug reports on different platforms so it's something that's in the realm of possibility in my mind.

stavros
Or it could be that your Chrome installation is borked somehow. Did you try removing all plug-ins, doing a fresh Chrome install and adding them again, trying another computer on the same network, etc? It sounds like you went from "Chrome won't open YouTube" to "therefore Google is censoring all users".
Buttons840
Weird stuff happens on the YouTube webpage. My mom called me for help the other day because she couldn't connect to YouTube. She said the YouTube screen partially loaded, but it said she was offline. What? That doesn't make sense. How does a website load and tell you you're offline; if I was offline how are you telling me that I'm offline?

But sure enough, the YouTube app (a single-page application or whatever it is) was loading partially and showing an error telling the user that they were offline. This was with Firefox.

stavros
That can happen when you're offline. They've cached enough of it locally to show you the message.
LiamPowell
That makes perfect sense: The static content can be cached while the dynamic content is unavailable, therefore the static content will present an error message.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
pk-protect-ai
Oh, sure. I'll just start reinstalling stuff on my PC when changes are happening on the server side. Very logical. Thank you for your help. You are the best kind of support person I've ever called for help. But did I?
yownie
Clearly you posted a dumb thing affecting your specific setup with a misleading title hoping for help......yea....yea you did.
mektrik
Where does your 'right to access information' come from?
pk-protect-ai
Yeah, you go this line a little bit longer and you might end up in the country not much different from North Korea.
yownie
it's a private company, not the government censoring you.

over-dramatize much?

slowmovintarget
There is no "right to access information."

There are many rights called out specifically as "natural rights" or "God-given rights" but your ability to access a data store that is not yours isn't one of them, nor is it among the unenumerated rights alluded to in the U.S. Constitution.

Chrome may be misbehaving. Chrome may be detecting that you have a video downloader plugin and blocking you. Perhaps... Don't use Chrome. I personally recommend Firefox. But one thing Chrome, Google, and YouTube are not doing is infringing upon your rights.

pk-protect-ai
Sure, but you are getting off the course. The ability of a company to know what is installed on my hardware and decide based on this information what to do with it, much broader topic then the access to a storage with a third party content on it.
yownie
>This leads me to two possible scenarios:

or a third scenario, you're just not thinking of all the things creating this behaviour and jumping to conclusions.