this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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BTW, this:
So this is part of a larger adblock checker, if the ad doesn't load within 5 seconds, it fails and triggers the adblocker warning. Since the ad should load in 3, they've set it for 5. If you have ubo, you won't see the warning that it then wants to pop up, it just seems (and is) a 5 second delay. Changing the UA probably removes this from Firefox because then the clientside scripts will attempt to use builtin Chrome functions that wouldn't need this hacky script to detect the adblock. Since they don't exist, it just carries on.
I was wondering how badly out of context the above quote must be considering the UA isn't checked in the function. Above poster is trying to construe it as a pure and simple permanent delay for Firefox.
That being said, the solution is still bullshit.
That is just the timeout function, not the call stack. It is likely called in a function that uses a UA check.
The UA check can happen before the function is called though.
This is some ultimate scumbaggery.
This should be illegal, Firefox being their competition (tangentially)
It honestly probably is
EU might hit them for it. I have no faith that the US government is going to do anything.
The thing that gets me is they think no one will ever find this stuff. There are hundreds of thousands of people (maybe more) who are actively looking ways to block ads and get around this behavior. There's no way it'll ever go unnoticed.
They could literally have used some variance in implementation, server side bandwidth limitations, etc, but THIS is just blatantly obvious
I wonder if it's a case of malicious compliance.
Exactly what I was thinking. Let's not say it too loud for the sake of our mole(s)
The world runs on the shoulders of disgruntled employees. This smells like a deliberate act backed up with a paper trail to protect the guy in charge of implementing it from taking the blame. But, I realise that also may be my imagination... It's a compelling tale regardless.
That's one hell of a phrase that should keep any CEO awake at night.
I believe that Google is just trolling people real hard. There are much better ways to disable any adblocks, but they are not even trying.
Is there something like:
If(not chrome){add_delay()}
?
No, the full context of the code snippet doesn't appear to check the browser user agent at all. Other comments have explained that it's most likely a lazy implementation of a check for ad blockers.
Ok so this is just client side I'd imagine I'd be pretty easy to make an addon that removes the code