This is why content blockers are actually better, extensions are huge security holes.
Setting aside the whole issue of content v ad blocking, anything that locks down the capabilities of extensions on your system is only a plus for your security.
"This is what's good for you, and you're going to like it!"
I hate computing nowadays.
In a way, I mourn the lost freedom, but on the other hand, the increasing scale and sophistication of bad actors make me want for more security. Yes, I know about old Ben's "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" but in tech there are amplifying factors that can simply overwhelm even the most staunch defender of liberty. At this point you have to give up most uses of technology that have become socially ingrained, if you want to remain secure, yet have complete freedom about your tech. A lifestyle like RMS does not seem appealing to very many people.
A "caveat emptor" argument simply does not work with tech. No one can fully examine every piece of hardware and software, and determine it's secure, or find trusted and competent sources to vouch for everything with certainty. Even then, eventually tricky issues arise in time where subtle bugs can be exploited. By the time there's something for the emptor to caveat, their data has long still been stolen and compromised.
And yes, that would be a plus for security - and a negative for user freedom.
Which is different than any desktop OS.
It should remain an option, not a forced choice.
(As long as Firefox still exists and can run on desktops, there will still be a choice... but it’s still unfortunate and a disturbing trend to see more companies making moves against user freedom on their PCs.)
If the 50k limit isn't sufficiently high, I don't think, "they're trying to restrict blockers, but don't worry they're bad at it" is a great defense. And if the 50k limit is high enough, and it's a reasonable tradeoff between privacy and performance, then why are content blockers putting in extra work to bypass it?
Should we expect that Apple will block the limit workaround in the future?
Without a limit, developers would probably default to a massive append-only list that takes a minute to compile.
With a limit, developers have to shard their rules which lets them at least compile them in parallel. For example, you need to recompile the list if you want to support on-the-fly customizations like "whitelist this site."
> when Apple rolled out the new Content Blocker API, it enforced a maximum limit of 50,000 rules for each new extension that wanted to block content inside Safari.
Check again? You're probably thinking of how classic extensions used to work.
Eventually more rules will cause a performance impact.
Ads tend to have far higher performance and power consumption impact than this. Do Safari or Chrome force downscaled pictures and videos on you because it's faster? How is any other software "limited" for performance? And if this is a performance issue then why a fixed limit instead of one that varies with your system's performance?
Edit. HN is "hinting" at me that a developer setting arbitrarily low limits "for performance" and not allowing a change is reasonable and expected. Strange place to be told that manufacturer defaults are sacred and the "advanced settings" checkbox should be abolished. For performance, stability, all that. :)
The elegant solution would be to start with a sensible preset for your device, allow you to change it if you want, and then warn you if some noticeable delays are detected. IE used to do this with addon loading.