www-client/chromium-12.0.742.112 and other (newer) versions includes a "feature" with which google can display ads on the "new tab" page, and possibly others. Yesterday, this mechanism caused an advertisment for a game called "Angry Birds", which is supposed to be available in the chrom app store now, to be displayed in my friends browser. Since the new tab page is protected from executing third-party addons, adblock plus can not be used to block these ads. Within the browser, a sophisticated background downloading system for ads, based on the web tipps system has been implemented. It periodically checks for content at the hardcoded address "https://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/topic/1142433/inproduct?hl=", and then includes this content in places it deems appropriate. Even though advertisment being shown in a browser window is nothing new to anyone, and the display of these ads can be quickly deactivated, we think that this mechanism is a new quality of invasive advertising, since the browser itself (being a free software product) is being abused with an explicit mechanism to transport and display ad content entirely controlled by google inc. It is our opinion that this ad mechanism should not be part of the Debian/Gentoo operating system. Use http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?msg=5;filename=no_ads_in_chromium.patch;att=1;bug=634101 to remove this whole advertisment system from the chromium source, applicable against version 12.0.742.112~r90304-1 currently in wheezy and sid (Yes, this is dabian, I know). This should be easily adaptable for other (gentoo) versions. Upstream bug report for this issue: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=89499 Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open a new tab 2. See ads for angry birds 3. Uninstall chromium forever Actual Results: See a new tab page that does not want me to play senseless third-party apps, because some corporate policy decided I should. Expected Results: No spam, just a clean spammless pages without SPAM!
Sorry, I'm not going to diverge from upstream in this case. The "I don't like it" argument can be applied to many parts of the browser, and everything has its maintenance cost.
