With no inside knowledge of this team or feature, this appears to be almost the exact same feature MS shipped in the IE6 betas over 20 years ago, though without the ability for 3p to integrate with it:
Excellent historical perspective. So many attempted and discarded ideas are being rediscovered/tested to see if they make sense in the current environment.
I expect someone to re-attempt a browser with built-in ads like Opera used to have way back.
As squirmish as this makes me, this is exactly the kind of thing that the original architects of the web imagined when they describe the browser as a "user agent" - that the browser doesn't have to show you exactly what the server sent you.
The user's agent is free to transform the data sent by the server in any way, and users will seek out agents that do useful things for them.
As a developer I'm uncomfortable with the idea that some browser or extension might break my site, or that I may break the customization with an update, but the idea here is really powerful. I don't think it's ever caught on much though. I think most extensions that do this kind of thing have pretty solidly failed.
It's certainly a powerful idea, but I wonder how well it translates to users that don't even know what a browser is, let alone understand what it means for that to be "acting as their agent".
If the original architects of the web didn't foresee corporations owning the browser so they can inject ads and propaganda into a publisher's content, of what use was the vision?
AI has got people thinking about this again. I'm hopeful that there will be at least some browser features that will genuinely act on the users behalf in a largely adversarial online information environment.
Was initially surprised that Google would have the nerve to do something like this until I realized that there's literally an app just called "Google" that doesn't seem to be a full blown web browser. The described opt out process is shitty, but realistically this seems like exactly the type of thing that someone using the dedicated Google app would appreciate. I do wonder if Google defaults to its own link or the website's link when there's an existing hyperlink in place.
It's got 2m reviews where as Chrome iOS only has 1.9m. It's effectively a full browser. In other words, like Google and chat apps, they've got multiple browsers on iOS.
Ad networks used to inject “search” links all over the web that opened ad popups on hover. If I remember correctly, it was that obnoxious behavior that first spurred me to look for an ad blocker. Full circle!
How is this any different than selecting the text and going to “Look Up” that exists natively anywhere in the OS?
I suppose one aspect is that it looks like a link the website creator has made themselves which might therefore be deceptive? Whereas the OS context menu is obviously from the OS.
Readit News
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft)
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2167301/what-is-the-purp...
https://alistapart.com/article/smarttags/
Response was extremely negative and the feature was removed. The only thing remaining is the opt-out meta tags all over the web.
I expect someone to re-attempt a browser with built-in ads like Opera used to have way back.
The user's agent is free to transform the data sent by the server in any way, and users will seek out agents that do useful things for them.
As a developer I'm uncomfortable with the idea that some browser or extension might break my site, or that I may break the customization with an update, but the idea here is really powerful. I don't think it's ever caught on much though. I think most extensions that do this kind of thing have pretty solidly failed.
With user-defined CSS style sheet?
Turns out I have this app, but it’s really not clear why anyone would use it. Or even why I have it downloaded.
I can’t possibly imagine they’d enable this behavior in chrome.
Other than that, I believe "Google Lens" (i.e. picture search) was also exclusive to that app on iOS at least for some time.
I suppose one aspect is that it looks like a link the website creator has made themselves which might therefore be deceptive? Whereas the OS context menu is obviously from the OS.
Half the discussions on these stories are comments from people who can't read reacting to bad faith reporting.
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