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Comment by justinlardinois | Hacker News Reader

> Today, more than 90% of Flash on the web loads behind the scenes to support things like page analytics. This kind of Flash slows you down, and starting this September, Chrome 53 will begin to block it.

Slightly off topic: I always found the term "block" to be a bit odd in the web browser context. The browser is the ultimate authority on what gets rendered and shown to the user; there's no need to block anything, because it can just not attempt to show it in the first place.

The term goes back at least as far as popup blockers. I wonder if it's because early popup blockers were browser plugins, rather than built in features, so they did have to actively intervene in the user experience.

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The UA might be the ultimate authority on what gets presented to the user and what doesn't, but, for better or for worse, the policy has been "draw everything" since forever. Given a change in policy that explicitly avoids drawing some specific things, it's fair to call it "blocking" those things.

> This kind of Flash slows you down, and starting this September, Chrome 53 will begin to block it.

Ah, so it's for the user, not because other ad networks cannot rely on implicit whitelisting for their analytics callback channels because, aww shucks, the browser vendor just happens to run the ad network.

You are absolutely correct. 'Block' is an easier term, or at least a more familiar term, for the layperson.

"boycotts"? "strikes"? "No animation, no service!"?

Ignores? Filters?

I think it is very easy. Your browser BLOCKS the server from delivering something. I think the term "blocking" is perfect here. :)

The server is not going to deliver something unless the client requests it (or the client and server are using a protocol like HTTP/2 that can push content from the server).

I think your parent is pointing out that the browser is the one that initiates the fetching of all of this content in the first place. So, there's no need to "block the server from delivering something" as it can decide never to ask the server to deliver that something.

That's not what happens though. The server totally delivers the initial thing, the browser decides the thing is not important and doesn't do anything with the data it received and inspected. This may result in other things never being requested.

The term "ignoring" is more accurate.

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