The level of low effort negativity on HN these days is just exhausting. Chrome has a stellar track record on security all the way back to the launch, both on an engineering and product level. Why would it be surprising that they're continuing with that?
Malicious extensions are probably the biggest existential threat to the web as a platform. If browser regain the reputation for being insecure that they deservedly had 15 years ago, more and more serious business will move into mobile app walled gardens. This has to be solved.
But rather than accept the simple explanation, we get these inane conspiracy theories on what the true motivation is. No, it's not about ad blockers because the subject of this blog post is not a feature that ad blockers would use. And the same for the half dozen alternative explanations.
Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Can't you at least save the high school level cynicism for situations where an assumption of malice makes some sense?
Got any stats on what percentage of the browser install base has even one extension installed? Then we can come back to your "tHe biGgEsT eXisTenTiAL ThReAt" nonsense.
And how an assumption of malice doesn't make sense when we're talking about the world's biggest ad company doing something in the name of security that happens to cripple ad blockers -- well, suffice to say, you're probably not cut out for journalism.
Itβs an oversimplification to chalk it up to some ulterior motive. Design decisions like this are hardly ever unilateral, and there are many competing interests.
I wish I still had that kind of innocence.