So they admit that MV3 isn't actually any more secure than MV2?
I also think uBlock Origin is so important and trusted it should not only be an exception to the whole thing but should also be given even more access in order to let it block things more effectively. It shouldn't even be a mere extension to begin with, it should be literally built into the browser as a core feature. The massive conflicts of interest are the only thing that prevent that. Can't trust ad companies to mantain ad blockers.
UBO is absolutely incredibly important. Figure you might know more than me about how journalists and reviewers and the like can still earn a keep in a world with adblockers built in to every browser.
Absolutely. The web is mostly ad funded. Advertising in turn fuels surveillance capitalism and is the cause of countless dark patterns everywhere. Ads are the root cause of everything that is wrong with the web today. If you reduce advertising return on investiment to zero, it will fix the web. Therefore blocking ads is a moral imperative.
> Worry about the interim where some publishers would presumably cease to exist.
Let them disappear. Anyone making money off of advertising cannot be trusted. They will never make or write anything that could get their ad money cut off.
People used to pay to have their own websites where they published their views and opinions, not the other way around. I want that web back. A web made up of real people who have something real to say, not a web of "creators" of worthless generic attention baiting "content" meant to fill an arbitrary box whose entire purpose is to attract you so that you look at banner ads.
It's entirely possible to manually vet extension code and extension updates in the same way that Mozilla does as part of their Firefox recommended extensions program.
> Firefox is committed to helping protect you against third-party software that may inadvertently compromise your data – or worse – breach your privacy with malicious intent. Before an extension receives Recommended status, it undergoes rigorous technical review by staff security experts.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-...
Other factors taken into consideration:
Does the extension function at an exemplary level?
Does the extension offer an exceptional user experience?
Is the extension relevant to a general, international audience?
Is the extension actively developed?
Besides, there's ways of having powerful extensions WITH security, but this would obviously go against Google's data harvesting ad machine. The Firefox team has a handful of "trusted" extensions that they manually vet themselves on every update, and one of these is uBlock Origin. They get a little badge on the FF extension store marking them as Verified and Trusted, and unless Mozilla's engineers are completely incompetent, nobody has to worry about gorhill selling his soul out to Big Ad in exchange for breaking uBlock or infecting people's PCs or whatever.
Make Signal video call to someone in front of a laptop, provide verbal instructions on what to click on, read to my liking, and hang up to be connected with someone else next time.
(EFF’s Cover Your Tracks seems to suggest fresh private tabs w/iCloud Private Relay & AdGuard is ineffective. VMs/Cloud Desktops exist but there are apparently telltale signs when those are used, though not sure how easily linkable back to acting user. Human-in-the-loop proxy via encrypted video calls seems to solve _most_ things, except it’s stupid and would be really annoying even with an enthusiastic pool of volunteers. VM + TOR/I2P should be fine for almost anybody though I guess, just frustrated the simple commercial stuff is ostensibly partially privacy theater.)
Because it's a dishonest point. Ad blocking still works. All the same ads can still be removed from the page. Tracker blocking doesn't. This is still a huge problem for privacy. But while nearly everyone dislikes seeing ads that interrupt your content, people who actually care about tracking privacy are a much smaller group. The latter group are trying to smuggle concern for the latter issue by framing it as the more favorable issue to garner more support from the former.
I've been paying for it for a year+ for my girlfriend who was watching more ads than content and we've never seen ads since.
I can’t speak for the future, but I’ve had this for probably 5 years and I haven’t seen a single ad, only the videos that I’ve asked to see.
The family plan is nice to share with family to reduce how much everyone's exposed to ads.
In-Video sponsorships are a pain, sometimes they are chaptered out enough and can be skipped.
If I could pay for an ad-free google search I probably would. Off the shelf, not doing API calls.
It works amazingly well provided a video's been out for at least a half hour or so. It also has the option to skip the "like and subscribe" parts too.
I also tried the https://dearrow.ajay.app/ extension to replace clickbait titles, but decided I'd rather know when a channel/video is too clickbait-y so I can block/unsubscribe.
Browser extensions don't fix a chromecast skipping ads, for example. It'd have to be written into the casting client, I'd presume.
Syntax: www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w
This also works for playlists, and auto-repeats.
edit: is this getting downvoted because it works and people are worried this service might disappear should this bypass become too popular..? Just curious.
Best to try it out yourself. I can't watch Youtube with Ads ever anymore.
If a 100% Ad-free youtube premium at the current price point ever went away, something would have to change about the ads.
You also can't block ads on iPhones, which a majority of the developed world uses. My girlfriend has never watched a YouTube video on something other than an Apple device for example.
People really live like this... ? Like those who watch movies on their phones lmao.
Also, Brave works on iphone -> m.youtube.com adfree :)
Then again I went years not using conditioner and moisturiser for my skin, only deo... We all need tips from people who know better you know. (Im white.)
> which a majority of the developed world uses
... the USA? It's not a majority in any other country that I'm aware of
I've got a Eurocentric view though, I have e.g. no idea if Singapore or China has a majority of Apple users or where you draw the line on 'developed' (critique on the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Factfulness&oldid...)
I got fed up and stopped paying for premium, now I get no shorts and no ads, it's a win-win.
Creators can just as easily pop a Patreon or BuyMeACoffee these days in a few clicks. In fact, most creators constantly admit that Google pays them peanuts for their view counts. But support the leviathan for reasons unknown I guess.
Also, isn't patreon also a middleman by your definition?
As for paying for the content you consume, most of the costs aren't on Google's side. I can understand paying for Youtube as a shortcut to hopefully giving some pennies to each person you watch, though, at least for those with no moral objection to making Google's/Youtube's monopoly in online video stronger
Ads are a violation of the sanctity of our minds. They are not entitled to our attention. It's not currency to pay for services with.
Then they have to go to advertisers and say, “advertise on our network where all the wealthier people are not.” A brand like Tiffany’s or Rolex (both huge advertisers) aren’t going to opt into that.
Apart from that, you can bet that YouTube is pricing it in a way that they aren’t losing out compared to ad revenue.
Personally I do like YouTube Music, due to all the user-uploaded content that isn’t available on other platforms.
People who choose that without much thought - because it's barely an expense for them - are definitely tending towards "higher net worth" nationally, let alone globally. A lot of those people just don't realize it, because the entire point of seeking that kind of status is so that they can enter a socioeconomic bubble and not have to care about annoyances (like advertising).
At some point some shareholder value maximizing CEO is going to sit down and notice just how much money he's leaving on the table by not advertising to paying customers like you. It's simply a matter of time.
Take a third option. Don't pay them and block their ads. Block their data collection too. It's your computer, you are in control.
If you truly have those beliefs the right moral action is to not use YouTube at all but god forbid you'd have to make any sort of sacrifice.
Edit: let's step through this. If I use a towel placed over the computer to block ads, that's morally the same as using blocking software, I think? If I block the ads by putting my fingers in my ears and staring at the ceiling, also the same thing, morally. If I block them by watching them in a negative frame of mind, saying that I dislike ads and won't do what they suggest, I'm still doing the bad thing, the same as using an ad blocker - if it is a bad thing. My obligation, if it is an obligation, is to be receptive. Otherwise what, it's a sort of mind-fraud?
If someone gives you an ad filled magazine, you can rip out the ad pages and throw them in the trash, leaving only the articles you actually want to read. Same principle applies here. If some random person on the street gives you a propaganda pamphlet, are you obligated to read it just because some businessman paid for it? Of course not.
And yes, attention is absolutely a currency that can be used to pay for things. Like any other voluntary transaction, no one is entitled to my attention unless we both voluntarily agree to it.
I do. I think it's a form of mind rape. You're trying to read something and suddenly you've got corporations inserting their brands and jingles and taglines into your mind without your consent. That's unacceptable.
> attention is absolutely a currency that can be used to pay for things
No. Attention is a cognitive function. It has none of the properties of currency.
These corporations are sending you stuff for free. They are hoping you will pay attention to the ads. At no point did they charge you any money. You are not obligated to make their advertising campaigns a success.
They are taking a risk. They are assuming you will pay attention. We are entirely within our rights to deny them their payoff. They sent you stuff for free with noise and garbage attached. You can trash the garbage and filter out the noise. They have only themselves to blame.
Ads are so powerful that they've even managed to twist the truth about plenty of horrific shit happening to the point of affecting the health and safety of real people, sometimes literally on a global scale. Chiquita bananas, De Beers, Nestle, Oil & Gas companies, and must I remind you of Tobacco companies (and surprise surprise, the same people who were doing the ads for Big Tobacco are the ones doing ad campaigns for O&G companies now)? There have been SO MANY examples from all these companies of using advertisements to trick and manipulate people & politicians, oftentimes just straight up lying, like the Tobacco companies lying about the adverse health effects despite knowing for decades what the adverse health effects were, Or Oil & Gas companies lying about climate change via comprehensive astroturfing & advertisement campaigns [1].
This all barely scratches the surface, too, especially these days where you have platforms like Google and Meta enabling genocides, mass political interference and pushing things like crypto scams, gambling ads and other similarly heinous and harmful shit to the entire internet.
The TL;DR of all of this is that yes, advertisements absolutely are psychological warfare. They have been and continue to be used for absolutely vile and heinous activities, and the advertisers employ huge teams of people to ensure that their mass influence machine runs smoothly, overtaking everyone's minds slowly but surely with nothing but pure lies fabricated solely to sell people products they absolutely do not, and will never need.
They're giving their stuff away for free instead of charging money for it. They gambled on the notion that people would "pay" by watching ads. Unfortunately for them, attention is not currency to pay for services with. We will resist their attempts to monetize our cognitive functions. The blocking of advertising is self defense.
They have absolutely nobody but themselves and their own greed to blame. Instead of charging money up front like an honest business, they decided to tap into that juicy mass market by giving away free sfuff. Their thinking goes: if I give them free videos with ads, then they will look at the ads and I will get paid. That's magical thinking. There is no such deal in place. We are not obligated to look at the ads at all. They don't get to cry about their gamble not paying off.
They’re one of the most profitable media platforms on the planet. They’ll be fine. Nobody is crying. There are just willing participants—as you say, on both sides—in what I consider a pretty silly battle one can opt out of with a small amount of money.
Youtube isn't free, and unlike a simple blog, requires tons of infrastructure and content creation. None of that is free, and people wanting that to be free is why we're in adscape hell.
Edit: I'd love for a competitor to youtube, but there isn't. Rumble isn't a real competitor, and none of my favorite channels place their content there either.
I wish there was a youtube alternative that was more of a federation, but every attempt I've seen of federations have been mess.
Then charge for it like the other streaming services. If they send me ads, I'll block and delete them, manually or automatically, and I won't lose a second of sleep over it.
> requires tons of infrastructure and content creation
Not our problem. It's up to the so called innovators to come up with a working business model. If they can't, they should go bankrupt.
I can't possibly go back to non-Premium YouTube, and if they mess around with Premium I'll probably be moving on from YouTube.
And that's not to mention pretty much every single creator stuffing sponsored sections into their videos now. We have Sponsorblock for now, but I imagine Google will try to introduce random offsets at some point which will render Sponsorblock mute. Maybe an AI blocker will rise up in the future?
At any rate, fight fire with fire. Just use every bit of adblocking on desktop, Revanced on Android and hope that Revanced or Youtube++ comes to iOS 3rd party stores at some point.
[0]https://imgur.com/a/3emEhsF
Edit: since people are too lazy to click on the link and instead ram the downvote button in blind rage, image 1 and 4 contain straight up ads, unconnected to creators.
Adtech cannot be trusted. I refuse to support their empire whether that's financially or with my data and attention.
Good job.
Let's do a thought experiment: if OP hasn't reported it, what do you think would happen then? Even if different ad blockers would find it later and use it, Google would have still removed this. Maybe they'd even remove extensions that have (ab)used it from Chrome Web Store.
Perhaps a hobbyist would code “MV2-capable” MV3 adblocker for the fun of it, forking UBO or something, as a proof-of-concept. How much time would anyone spend on its development and who would install it when the max runway’s a few days, weeks, or months?
So now it's abuse to make the user's browser do what the user wants, for the user's benefit, to protect the user from, you know, actual abuse.
>snitches to Google
cool, thanks man
Oh wait he got nothing at all anyway ;)
> But I don't know how to make an adblocker, so I decided to report the issue to Google in August 2023.
So why not go to someone that does know how to make a blocker? Nice snitch.
I haven't made up my own mind about it yet, just that this might be a factor in why one would move the facilitating technology backwards in this way (and forwards in other ways, apparently: some people in the thread are reporting that uBlock Lite is faster. Not that I can tell the difference between a clean Firefox without add-ons (I regularly use that for work reasons) and a Firefox with uBlock Origin (my daily driver) except if the page is bogged down from all the ads)
Even ignoring the adblock issues, Chrome isn't worth it... Google themselves spy on you with it. Cockblocking adblock just puts extra emphasis on what you should have already known.
Do you even try to use software you are using? Click shield icon and turn off...
GL with whatever.
I'm not aware of a Blink-based browser that isn't dropping manifest V2. That would be a soft fork, and wouldn't survive long.
Nothing comes close to Safari battery life on MacOS, followed by chrome, followed by firefox in last place (with all its other issues - those claiming otherwise have stockholm syndrome). I've tried taking Orion for a spin which should offer the battery life of Safari with the flexibility of running FF and chrome extensions - but it hasn't stuck yet. As much as I'd like to use FF, I really don't want to shave 10-20% (?) off a battery charge cycle when I spend 90% of my day in the browser.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1lx59m0/resto...
They own the web.
I can build my business brand, own my own dot com, but then have to pay Google ad extortion money to not have my competitors by ads well above my domain name. And of course the address bar now does search instead of going to the appropriate place.
Google is a scourge.
All day every day my computer works fine.
That difference in battery, if it exists, doesn't actually materially manifest anywhere. But the difference between FF and anything else matters basically every minute all day.
On top of that, even if I ever did actually run into the difference, needing to plug in before I would have anyway, it's an annoyance vs a necessity. The ability to control my own browser is frankly just not negotiable. It doesn't actually matter if it were less convenient in some other way, it's simply a base level requirement and anything that doesn't provide that doesn't matter what other qualities it might have.
You might say "a computer that's dead doesn't work at all" but that never actually happens. I'd need an 8 hour bus ride with no seat power to get to the point where that last missing hour would actually leave me with no computer for an hour, and that would need to be a commute that happens twice every day for it to even matter.
For me that's just not the reasonable priority.
What issues? Works just as well as Chrome ever did (before they started blocking extensions at least) for me.
Why does this keep getting repeated? It's not true.
Anyone can use uBlock Origin Lite with Chrome, and manifest v3. It doesn't just work fine, it works great. I can't tell any difference from the old uBlock Origin in terms of blocking, but it's faster because now all the filtering is being done in C++ rather than JavaScript. Works on YouTube and everything.
I know there are some limits in place now with the max number of rules, but the limits seem to be plenty so far.
Doesn't seem true to me. If it's true, then why is uBlock Origin Lite functioning properly as an adblocker for me?
> Why do you think it is called Lite?
Because it's simpler and uses less resources. And they had to call it something different to distinguish it from uBlock Origin.
Maybe it's less effective in some theoretical case, but not anything I've seen. People talk as if it's only blocking 10% of the ads it used to, when the reality seems to be 99.999% or something. And it's faster now.
And they removed stuff like the element zapper but that has nothing to do with Manifest v3. It's because they literally wanted it to minimize resources. You can install a dedicated zapper extension if you want that.
I genuinely don't understand where this narrative of "adblockers don't work anymore on Chrome" is coming from. Again, it's just not true, but keeps getting repeated like it is.
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
Okay. Sure.
> About "uBO Lite should be fine": It actually depends on the websites you visit. Not all filters supported by uBO can be converted to MV3 DNR rules, some websites may not be filtered as with uBO. A specific example in following tweet.
You can read about the specific differences in the FAQ:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
My personal take is if you're a pretty unsophisticated user and you mostly don't actually interact with the add-ons at all, Manifest V3 will probably be fine.
If you understand how ads and tracking work and you are using advanced features of the extension to manage that, then Manifest V2 will be much, much better. Dynamic filters alone are a huge win.
I also agree that these discussions can be frustrating. In my opinion, that's because people claiming that Lite isn't good enough only seem to post super vague stuff, like links to the FAQ that list a bunch of technical details about what it can't do, when I don't understand the practical upshot of those things. Or vague assertions that it's not doing something which is allegedly important, where it's never actually explained what that thing it's not doing is and why it's important.
I have yet to see anybody show a specific example of a website where Lite doesn't actually work well enough. Or of any other specific thing it's not doing. I don't think I should have to read a series of 20 web pages dense with specialized technical details to understand what it's supposedly not doing. If it can't be explained simply and clearly what it's not doing that's so important, maybe it's not actually missing anything important at all.
I suppose I am a unsophisticated user of web browsers. I never got around to understanding or interacting with all the details of what "proper" uBO can do. Yet I still seem to browse the web just fine, and even build webapps sometimes, and I don't see any ads. So what's this great thing that I'm missing?
Not being able to block remote fonts is a vague technicality? It's a feature I use, a user-facing setting, not an under-the-hood technicality. (Budding web designers have a tendency to pick overly thin fonts because it looks fancy/unique at a glance and being interested in the actual text on the webpage was not their job description)
I'm less familiar with the other things. Clicking one experimentally, it mentions:
>> The primary purpose of dynamic URL filtering [is] to fix web page breakage
Webpages break on adblocking not infrequently. I'm not a blocklist developer so I can't say how useful this particular function is, but I'm also not going to assume that, just because I don't know the technical details, that it's just handwavey technical details nobody needs to care about and everything will be the same regardless of what the most qualified person on the topic is saying
> I don't think I should have to read a series of 20 web pages dense with specialized technical details to understand what it's supposedly not doing
Consider that you're not paying for someone to produce marketing material; it's a free thing. Sometimes that means that finding out information requires reading source code, or in this case, it's probably some files somewhere contains these dynamic thingies so you could see the list of what mitigations will stop being possible and on what kinds of sites those are. If you (or someone else) do a writeup that fills the information gap you are looking for, I'm sure a lot of other people also appreciate that existing
This is demonstrably false, ublock lite proves that adblockers can work without it.
Whether or not ublock lite is missing functionalities because of MV3 is irrelevant to the original statement that adblockers need webRequestBlocking.
It can be relevant depending of how you define properly. If it depends on any of those functionalities that are missing, then it’s relevant.
uBO Lite is missing plenty of features: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
Now I'm on Android, and Ironfox is pretty good and Firefox is also available. The browser story on Android is leaps and bounds ahead of iOS.
Also names like "Adblock Plus" scare me. I don't want someone I don't trust getting my web activity.
Sorry to break it to you, but yes, they are.
Otherwise, though, Safari still supports MV2. Everyone seems to think webRequestBlocking is the only relevant change in MV3, but it's not. Equally important IMO is arbitrary JavaScript injection into web pages, which MV2 allows but MV3 does not.
MV3 is so locked down that you can't even use String.replace() with a constructed JavaScript function. It's really a nightmare.
Google's excuse is that all JavaScript needs to be statically declared in the extension so that the Chrome Web Store can review it. But then the Chrome Web Store allows a bunch of malware to be published anyway!
George Carlin: "You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. These people went to the same universities, they're on the same boards of directors, they're in the same country clubs, they have like interests, they don't need to call a meeting, they know what's good for them and they're getting it."
The interests of APPLE (who makes money on hardware, and credit card processing) don't align with the interests of Google (who makes money on ad's). I am all for open source, I'm all for alternatives. But honestly if you own an iPhone and a Mac then safari makes a lot of sense. I happen to use safari and Firefox on Mac and am happy to bounce back and forth.
I also keep an eye on ladybird, but it isnt ready for prime time.
And I'm still going to have a chrome install for easy flashing of devices.
You have a point about iPhones, though. It's almost pointless, but not quite: it does get a few features, like cross-platform sync. "Real" Firefox is one of the things that keeps me on Android.
I have always been able to.
1) Apple would never force "Chromium" on any of their platforms. You might be mistaking it for WebKit, but browsers are not required to use Apple's shipping version of WebKit on a Mac either.
2) Firefox on every single platform not on the iPhone & iPad uses and has always used Gecko. I'm not aware of any other exceptions besides those two platforms, but the Mac definitely isn't one of them.
1. These can all be disabled by advanced users (largely without consequence)
2. They dont prevent things like installing apps or even gaining root access in the first place.
The very fact that you can install Linux is evidence of the different approach taken with macs (you can't easily install Linux of ios devices)
Most of them also work with Linux, although it's a little more spotty on the more recent ARM-based ones ("apple silicon").
Macs are essentially "real computers" that you can run whatever software you want on, whereas iPhones and iPads are much more locked down. (Even when they have the same CPU.)
I'm on a mac and happily use Firefox. Have done for over a decade. It would take a lot to encourage me to move to a proprietary browser (Edge, Chrome, Safari).
Maybe I'm out of touch, but the attachment to Chrome that some people seem to have (despite the outright privacy abuse) is baffling to me. I mean, ffs, are a couple of minor UI compromises (not that I experience any - quite the opposite) enough to justify what I consider a frankly perverted browser experience? I'm inclined to conclude that some people have little self respect - being so willing to metaphorically undress for the big G's benefit.
I swear - people have such a hard on for hating Mozilla because it fails to live up to an impossibly high standard, while giving all the other corporations doing actual harm a free pass.
I know pwa is coming back to Firefox soon-ish.
* uBlock Origin
* Privacy Badger
* Multi-Account Containers
* Flagfox
* Cookie Autodeletehttps://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-...
Many years ago I used to run the Firefox NoScript extension exclusively. For sites that I trusted and visited frequently I would add their domains to an exceptions list. For sites that I wasn't sure about I would load it with all scripts disabled and then selectively kept allowing scripts until the site was functional, starting with the scripts hosted on the same domain as the site I wanted to see/use.
Eventually I got too lazy to keep doing that but outside of the painstaking overhead it was by far the best web experience I ever had. I started getting pretty good at recognizing what scripts I needed to enable to get the site to load/work. Plus, uBlock Origin and annoyances filters got so good I didn't stress about the web so much any more.
But all this got me thinking, why not have the browser block all scripts by default, then have an AI agent selectively enable scripts until I get the functionality I need? I can even give feedback to the agent so it can improve over time. This would essentially be automating what I was dong myself years ago. Why wouldn't this work? Do I not understand AI? Or web technology? Or are people already doing this?
find that hard to believe. but even if you find something using an api not implement by firefox, chances are you definitely do not want that feature anyway, the firefox gave in to really awful stuff and only drew the line on obviously egregious privacy violation ones.
I definitely run into pages broken in firefox desktop or especially firefox mobile. Extra especially on proofs of concept advertised here on HN.
The argument that "Google still controls Chromium so it's not good enough" is exactly the kind of FUD I'd expect to back up this kind of psyop, too.
That is very different than a world where every browser relies on Google for the core of their browser… and those who don’t rely on Google for funding (as they pay a lot of money to be the default search option in major browsers). Even Microsoft gave up on making their own browser, and now depends on Google. They used to own the entire market not so long ago.
People are saying this is a psyop, but I’m not sure what Google stands to gain from giving off the impression that they are seeking to control the entire market so they can steer the direction of the web for their own profit. That doesn’t make them look like the good guy, and should keep them neck deep in anti-trust filing from various governments. Where’s the upside? People feeling like they don’t have an option, so they give up and settle like Microsoft? Is that the angle?
Aside from Ladybird and Servo, it mostly is one wallet. Chrome and Firefox are both funded by Google, and Apple also receives significant funding from Google for being the default search engine in Safari.
Btw, some informal estimates at team sizes (full-time employees) of the various browsers (by people who have worked on them / are otherwise familiar):
Chrome: 1300
Firefox: 500
Safari: 100-150
Ladybird/Servo: 7-8 (each)
Which gives you an idea of why Chrome has been so hard to compete with.
I find this notion completely baffling. I use Chrome, Firefox and Safari more or less daily cause I test in all 3, and other than Safari feeling clunkier and in general less power-user friendly, I can barely tell the difference between the 3, especially between chrome and FF (well, other than uBlock working better in FF anyways).
Whole portions of the Verizon website, for example. Or the website of a well known kindergarden I was researching recently.
I think it's a case of yes, it does work, but web developers don't think so, so they implement checks just for kicks.
Indeed, even in the codebase at $JOB that I'm responsible for, we have had some instances where we randomly check if people are in Chrome before blocking a browser API that has existed for 2 decades and been baseline widely available. These days 99% of features that users actually care about are pretty widely supported cross-browser, and other than developer laziness there's literally no reason why something like a banking app shouldn't work in any of the big 3.
I guarantee you that if you set your `userAgent` to a Chrome one (or even better yet, a completely generic one that covers all browsers simultaneously, cause most of the time the implementation of these `isChrome` flags is just a dead simple regex that looks for the string `chrome` anywhere in the userAgent), all problems you might've experienced before would vanish, except for perhaps on Google's own websites (though I've never really had issues here other than missing things like those image blur filters in Google Meet, which always felt like a completely artificial, anti-competitive limitation)
I made some other changes, but I forget what. At least FF still has the full uBlock Origin.
I didn't, for decades, but it was a mistake.
Except the YouTube thing but that's because I'm not even sure what you're talking about: I leave YouTube windows open in Firefox for weeks.
News to me.
If this is even true, in the end it's still "so what?" Meaning, the alternative is even worse so, let's say granted there is this problem. Where is the better alternative that does not have this problem? Chrome doesn't have other equivalent or worse memory problems? Even if not leaking, it simply uses so much it's the same end result.
I've never consciously noticed a problem with youtube so if there is a problem, it's not one that necessarily matters.
His point was that there isn't enough time to again develop Firefox (or ladybird) as a competitive browser capable of breaking the Chrome "monopoly". I don't know if I really agree.
Evidently, Google feels like the time is right to make these kinds of aggressive moves, limiting the effectiveness of ad blockers.
The internet without ad blockers is a hot steaming mess. Limiting the effectiveness of ad blockers makes people associate your browser (Chrome in this case) with this hot steaming mess. It is difficult to dissociate the Chrome software from the websites rendered in Chrome by a technical lay person. So Chrome will be viewed as a hot steaming mess.
I guess we will soon see if people will stay on Chrome or accept the small initial pain and take the leap to a different browser with proper support for ad blockers. In any case the time is now for a aggressive marketing campaign on the side of mozilla etc.
I am in no way affiliated with Google. So if you still think this is a PsyOp, please consider Hanlon's Razor:
> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Although, please also consider that Hanlon's Razor itself was coined by a Robert J. Hanlon, who suspiciously shares a name with a CIA operative also from Pennsylvania. It is not unimaginable that Hanlon's Razor it in itself a PsyOp. ;)
Everybody choose convenience over efficiency and standards, because apparently nobody understood what “being lazy” actually is.
The FTC / DOJ should strip Google of Chrome.
Honestly, they should split Google into four or five "baby Bell"-type companies. They're ensnaring the public and web commerce in so many ways:
- Chrome URL bar is a "search bar"
- You have to pay to maintain your trademark even if you own the .com, because other parties can place ads in front of you with Google Search. (Same on Google Play Store.)
- Google search is the default search
- Paid third parties for Google search to be the default search
- Paid third parties for Google Chrome to be the default browser
- Required handset / Android manufacturers to bundle Google Play services
- Own Adsense and a large percentage of web advertising
- Made Google Payments the default for pay with Android
- Made Google accounts the default
- Via Google Accounts, removes or dampens the ability for companies to know their customer
- Steers web standards in a way advantageous to Google
- Pulls information from websites into Google's search interface, removing the need to use the websites providing the data (same as most AI tools now)
- Use Chrome to remove adblock and other extensions that harm their advertising revenues
- Use Adsense, Chrome performance, and other signals to rank Search results
- Owns YouTube, the world's leading media company - one company controls too much surface area of how you publish and advertise
- Pushes YouTube results via Google and Android
... and that's just scratching the surface.
Many big tech companies should face this same judgment, but none of the rest are as brazen or as vampiric as Google.
Because that has worked so well so far...
I agree exploiting a bug isn’t a sustainable solution. But it’s also unrealistic to think switching is viable.
Additionally: you would be surprised how infrequently you have to switch to chrome
History shows mere boycotts to always be abysmal failures one after another. The only few examples of ostensible outcomes were critically meaningless and necessitate zero-friction alternatives, like when bud light was encouraged to spend a bit of its marketing budget differently — wow, really showed them!!
There's no detour for politics.
More concerning is that social fixer was turned off: https://socialfixer.com/
MFGA Make Facebook Great again ;-)
E.g. www.cnn.com/ads.js
I prefer having multiple layers just in case anything drops off:
1. VPN DNS / AdGuard local cached DNS 2. uBlock Origin
It's like wearing two condoms (but it feels better than natural).
When this became adversarial, which was a battle that lasted the last year of inconvenience I ended up dumping every Google thing I have. So the Pixel is GrapheneOS now with no Google crap. Browser is Firefox. Email has moved from Gmail to Fastmail with a domain.
My Google account is closed after 20 years. The relationship is dead. They can do what they want. I don't care any more.
They just did everything to make sure I watched the ads and burn all my bandwidth, which can be somewhat limited and expensive as I travel a lot.
More seriously, I'm a Firefox user since ~2006 but I'm about equally surprised by the statement that Firefox should blow Chrome/ium out of the water as that Firefox supposedly sucks. They're both browsers. I think Chromium is a bit faster in page rendering, whereas Firefox is more open, privacy-friendly, and customizable. Similar to how I wish consumers would not choose an anti-consumer organization (anyone who values a free market and general computation1 should not choose iOS), I think nobody should choose Chrome but, still, I can understand if someone does choose it because they've gotten used to how it works and they're not willing to change. It's about equal in practical functionality that 95% of people use, wouldn't you say? Or in what way is Firefox blowing Chrome out of the water?
¹ https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/the-coming-war-on-general...
I switched to Firefox again back in 2017, I have 0 issues with it. If anything it's faster and less resources hungry than chrome in my usage. The extension ecosystem is now arguably better with MV3 being rolled out to chrome.
Probably the only annoying thing was learning where the buttons are in the devtools. They're all still there, just laid out differently. It took about a week to get to grips with that.
What exactly makes you say it's an awful browser?
At work I use Edge (MS integration w SSO and all). Edge has some nice features like vertical tabs and copilot. (yes, email writing with AI is nice)
We are allowed Chrome and FF so have those too with ublock on FF. Chrome is 3rd choice if a site really needs it and for testing.
Too bad the work one is still locked to 128 ESR :(
Well, thanks for nothing?
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
I remember when Firefox was getting traction, it had a killer feature: speed.
A chromium fork could come with a simple killer feature: bringing back the possibility of blocking requests.
I’m pretty sure it would quickly gain traction.
soo will this still just work if we give uBo webview permission?
:( but maybe Vivaldi and Brave could remove this check just for fun.
I have found a 3rd party extension that claims to facilitate this (0) but still feel uncomfortable to use this for privacy reasons.
(0) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwas-for-fire...
Although using Firefox increasingly means a worse experience, including:
* infinite loop of Cloudflare verification * inferior performance compared to Chrome (page loading, large page scrolling) * subtle bugs (e.g. audio handling) * WebUSB support
I have personally run into all of them. Some are under Firefox's control but others are not. I do still use Firefox for most websites unless it's technically not possible, but unfortunately the exception is happening more and more.
2) Aside from the Page/Brin stealing tech salaries thing (yeah it really did happen) what happened to Google? They've always been a bit incompetent but their behavior (ie Chrome and increasing censorship on Google/Youtube the last few years) has been really bad, I thought they were basically founded off idealism
daft_pink•5h ago
j45•4h ago
If other chromium based browsers didn't have this issue, that would be great, but likely in time Youtube won't support browsers that don't have MV3. Probably still have some time though.
SSchick•4h ago
j45•4h ago
I tend to oscillate back and forth every few years gradually.
Lately not Chrome proper, there are some neat browser takes worth trying out like Vivaldi, Brave, Arc, etc that are Chromium based.
dwedge•3h ago
j45•3h ago
Brian_K_White•3h ago
Let them take google money for as long as it flows. You can switch to librewolf at any time if FF itself ever actually goes bad in any critical way. But there's not a lot of reason to do so until the minute that actually happens. Go ahead and take the funded work and updates as long as it exists.
dexterdog•3h ago
shakna•14m ago
perching_aix•4h ago
This workaround was fixed the same year in 2023 and yielded a $0 payout, on the basis that Google did not consider it a security vulnerability.
The conclusion then is that uBO (MV2) stopped working for me today after restarting my computer, I suppose.
smileybarry•41m ago