This article is from 2018, and contains a single update from 2020. I would think the terrain has shifted in the last 3 years, so take the article with an appropriate pinch of salt.
Isn't it somewhat hilarious that the author of Adblock Plus, far and away the largest privacy risk faced by anyone, throws this much shade on Google's privacy protections? ABP gets unfettered, full and complete access to all your data no matter how sensitive and only the publisher's OpSec stands between the user and total exposure.
Every ad blocker gets full and complete access to all your data. It needs that kind of access in order to … tada … remove ads. It’s really simple: ads are on all websites, so an ad blocker needs access to all websites.
You probably mean that Adblock Plus abuses this access? Surely this is something you have proof for? Here you can see an example of how this kind of thing looks like: https://palant.info/2023/06/05/introducing-pcvark-and-their-.... You can look around in my blog, there is more.
It has been a while since I’ve been involved with Adblock Plus. I sincerely doubt however that ABP’s privacy stance changed that much since I’ve left. But I’ll wait for you to find proof for your claims.
Funny thing is: declarative access to websites still allows for plenty of mischief if one wanted to do it. I’ve actually seen malicious extensions abuse that. Browsers might have to revisit the decision to ignore declarative access as far as the permission prompt goes.
I'm not sure I see the humor? Also not sure how Adblock Plus is far and away the largest privacy risk for anyone?
I'm sympathetic to wanting to limit data access to things. But this data seems to already be available to the browser? Having a separate process to manage that seems somewhat natural?
Google is already in possession and presently selling information on you. Adblockers like basically every piece of poorly segregated software on your system is in a position to compromise your privacy. Both are concerns but one does appear more immediate.