Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin, leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 1115 points – Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin, leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads
windowscentral.com
  • Google is transitioning Chrome's extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the V3.
  • This means users won't be able to use uBlock Origin to block ads on Google Chrome.
  • However, there's a new iteration of the app — uBlock Origin Lite, which is Manifest V3 compliant but doesn't boast the original version's comprehensive ad-blocking features.
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I'd just like to reassure everybody that you can quit using Google Chrome. I switched to Firefox a year ago. You can switch to something else too. Give it a try.

Wait, I don't need to nudge anybody. After all the ads start invading their browsing experience I doubt anybody will need much prodding.

Yep... when ublock quits working for me on Chrome then I will migrate.

Why wait? Migrate now. There's even Firefox for mobile with ublock

There is?

Yes my main mobile browser

Same here. Haven't seen an ad in I don't know how long.

That doesn’t really answer my question. How does one get ublock origin on mobile?

Same as on desktop. You go to the Mozilla extension site or the author's site and click add.

You use Firefox as your mobile browser

And to add to that, set all your programs and links to open in Firefox by default, instead of the YouTube app, etc. then you're blocking ads just like a desktop on every site you visit.

Why stop there? uninstall the youtube app. It's garbage. FreeTube has an Android fork now too.

There's an extensions menu in the firefox app, uBlock is listed as one of the recommend ones, all you have to do is click the plus sign to add it.

Not in mobile

Everyone is leaving out that this is Android only.

That's what you get for using an apple product.

It's definitely one of the reasons I left.

On the other hand, Google fucking SUCKS and I expect Apple to be doing way less questionable-to-evil stuff with my data.

That's because "firefox" (or "chrome" too) on apple products is just a reskin of Safari. Apple does not allow 3rd party browser engines in its app store.

That's because 3rd party browser engines might not suck ass, which would allow OWA apps in your browser whcih would circumvent Apple's 30% cut on everything. So they kneecap their own browser and don't allow any other browser on their devices.

This is Fennec, a fork of Firefox for mobile, though mobile Firefox has this same menu. c: Extensions are very much supported on mobile and it's great.

Though I should add: I'm not an iOS user, so the story is likely to be different there, Apple being Apple and whatnot.

A screenshot from an Android phone, showing Fennec, a Firefox fork, listing extensions, including uBlock Origin.

On Android, Firefox for iOS doesn't have addons because Apple.

The Orion browser has rudimentary support for Firefox extensions. UBlock origin seems to work for me. Best I’ve found for iOS

For real the votes here have so much “well it works on my machine so you must be wrong”-energy

It it because apple doesn’t want addons, or because firefox is forced to use webkit?

From what I understand, it's mostly because they're forced to use WebKit, and building a compatibility layer to make the existing addons to work within iOS constraints on top of WebKit would need a significant amount of work.

My guess is that Mozilla is waiting on the engine restrictions to be lifted, but so far that will only happen in the European market with their alt stores.

Only on Firefox Android.

As far as I know, Safari is the only browser with Adblock on iOS.

Also third party browsers on iOS are forced to use a janky slow WebKit WebView instead of the accelerated WebKit on Safari.

In the EU, things are different and third-party rendering engines have been forced upon Apple, so people there may have more options.

This is true, however, Firefox focus has a built in blocker that’s pretty good, and the Orion browser for iOS actually supports Firefox extensions (even though it’s built on top of safari), and is also pretty good. I run bothe Firefox focus and Orion with ublock on my iOS devices.

I just installed Orion thanks to this post and I'm really impressed. I usually stick to safari, but I'm going to sit on this for a week and see how I feel about it.

2 quick questions; Do you know if it's possible to get YouTube videos to run in PiP on iOS/iPadOS? And is there a dark mode for the app's interface?

Yes, you can do pip, you need to first expand the video to full screen, then tap the screen to bring up the on screen controls, and you should see a pip button in the upper left of the video.

Orion doesn’t have a dark mode that I’m aware of, though it mostly respects iOS dark mode (with annoying exceptions). Though with firefox extensions, you can install dark reader, or you can install the dark reader iOS app, to get dark mode on all websites.

Edit: I’m not certain that dark reader iOS app will work with orion. I don’t use the app, I use the firefox extension with orion.

I use Firefox Focus on iOS. It blocks quite a bit without addons.

Blocks ads in YouTube too, and if you add sponsorblock you it'll skip in video ads too

Yes. You can install extensions on firefox mobile just like you can on the desktop version. IIRC it's the only mobile browser that does this.

Mull is a Firefox fork with even more privacy features. There are others that I'm sure people will chime in with.

Firefox mobile allows you to install extensions just like a PC version of the browser.

low key that's why I switched. ads on mobile are so incredibly intrusive

Or better still firefox focus. Ad blocking built in and it drops all the cookies as soon as you close it.

I keep firefox on mobile for when I need to go to a trusted site, firefox focus for everything else.

I just wanted to drop in to say I do the same!! Especially on iOS where regular Firefox is kinda so-so (but better than Safari) Firefox Focus meanwhile is King

I personally enjoy Ecosia. They're the ones who plant trees whenever you use their search engine, and while not the best, at least their mobile app has a built in ad-blocker that imo seems pretty decent.

You can use FireFox and set your default search engine to Ecosia's. Best of both world's.

There is also a FF extension called Search For Trees that defaults to Google's search engine instead of Ecosia/Bing where you don't have to pre-load each search with #g, unlike Ecosia. The Google search in this extension is a little wacky though so not perfect. Search For Trees donates to Trees For the Future btw.

Mostly inertia and other priorities...

Hopefully it will break badly enough to move people past their inertia so then there can be a more serious competitor to Chrome, or maybe even multiple competitors to Chrome.

I tried but for some reason certain websites can't play any videos on Firefox without buffering every like 5 or 10 seconds for a few seconds. It happens on 100% of videos on YouTube and like 50% of videos on any other website. It's super annoying, so back to chrome I went and I guess I'll stay until ublock bites the dust and I have to move.

Thats Googles fault. Firefox has an user agent switcher -addon. Flip it there to appear as Chrome, and suddenly Youtube bufferring problems drastically lessen.

Also if you are in EU, consider making a complaint about this assholish and anti-competetive behaviour to your country's competition/trade authority. Also EU's, if you feel like being an extra responsible EU citizen. These assholes at Google need to be fined to extinction.

Rocking Firefox even from my Android phone. It works great!

Firefox with NoScript is better than any adblocker I used. It blocks the 'disable adblocker' popups alongside ads and most sketchy shit in general

It also blocks everything else on the website.

It's definitely more of a hassle than most people will want to deal with. But I still prefer to have it and selectively enable things as needed, because quite frankly I'd rather deal with predictable hassles of my own making than be bombarded with new bullshit every day due to ever worsening trends in enshittification.

Tip: its not better if you know its to much hassle for most people. But dont let that stop you from posting your ideas. The more power to those that such is not a hassle.

People have different tolerances for these kinds of things. Some people never bother to even get an ad blocker. Some won't touch settings no matter how simple. And some want to tweak and modify endlessly.

iirc some hardened firefox configs, including arkenfox, recommend using ublock ONLY. other privacy extensions like noscript aren't worth using because ublock replicates all of their features plus more

Why not both?

Because it can ruin your browsing experience all together. It'd be like installing multiple anti-virus programs on your Windows PC

look into umatrix, it's a better noscript, made by the same dev as ublock.

Formerly made by the same dev. Not because somebody else took it over, but because he deprecated it entirely.

You can basically use uBlock Origin as NoScript (or I think ScriptSafe? or did they change back?) if you put it into "hard mode."

I personally like "medium mode". I guess I get why they hide it behind several obscure steps, but I feel like they should advertise it more. It's a nice middle ground. Still breaks every website the first time you go there but meh. Small price to pay.

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Firefox reader mode is the champ, especially when combined with uBlock

I don't understand the inertia if I'm honest.

Easy to understand. People don't like change.

Despite 25 years in IT, and knowing better, I only recently switched back to Firefox. I expected a fair bit of hassle, and I won't say the transition was seamless, but I was astounded.

Those of us in the know aren't doing any good circle jerking ourselves over our superior browser. We need to get our friends, coworkers and relatives engaged. And that should be easy if we contrast our ad-free experience with theirs.

On that note: Anyone wanting the same look and feel of Chrome without ads should try Brave. No add-ons or plugins necessary.

Nobody that cares about seeing ads is still on chrome. I bet they don't lose more than 8-10% market share in a year even that is probably super high

I've always used Firefox on every other device I own, but now I need to do something about my Chromebook.

Do you know if brave browser is better than firefox? they claim to prioritize user privacy more than firefox

I'd use Firefox over brave. The company behind brave will still sell your data.

They're selling the tor feature of brave. You can install tor in FF.

I like brave because it's staffed with developers full-time to block YouTube. I don't love their crypto, but I don't use it, and it does pay their devs.

brave is based on chromium, so it's not 100% safe from google

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I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that even the United States FBI recommended using ad blocking extensions to protect yourself online.

https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221

I always wondered about this and how all the ad blocking apps have complete access to every webpage you visit.

Also to add to this, its made a little weirder considering ad blocking makes you more susceptible to fingerprinting.

Yea, that is what gets me too, when I look at the blockers to use; Ad blockers have access to all keystrokes, forms and pages. They have access to my banking and other codes when I use them .

While I am sure the more popular blockers do not abuse this, and the code most likely checked line by line. It’s still possible for a handful of mistakes to allow supply chain attacks or a dozen other things to happen.

It worries me, so I don’t use them as extension and use security elsewhere

Firefox is the bomb.

YouTube isn't playing on Firefox with Ublock for me either. I'll need to go through and reinstall my extensions, but I couldn't find the root cause so far, I'd just been using chrome with ublock for YouTube and Firefox for everything else.

Make sure jnn-pa.googleapis.com isn't blocked anywhere in your network. It may perhaps be blocked in a filter list you have activated in uBO, DNS, VPN, Firewall, anti-virus, Firefox enhanced tracking protection, etc.

Try NewPipe or a fork of that for YouTube on Android.

It doesn't have recommendations or ability to comment does it? And ReVanced is still working for me on Android.

FreeTube is available for Windows and Android. It has SponsorBlock built in as well.

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Yea, I'm just waiting for the bomb to go off when Mozilla inevitably ends up following Google's example.

Thankfully, Firefox is open-source, so we can just use one of the forks, or perhaps Ladybird will be ready for general release by that time.

Firefox already adopted manifest V3 but specifically kept the features needed for adblockers

Yep, I'm watching intently with the shit they've been doing.

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Susceptible to intrusive ads and viruses.

My Windows computer was infected more than once by virus spreading ads on legitimate websites. The site owners denied any responsibility for the viruses saying it was the fault and responsibility of the ad companies. Never again.

The site owners are correct. And if the ad companies can't be bothered to vet their ads, I can't be bothered to look at them.

13 years ago I got a virus from a justin.tv ad. That was the last time you ever allowed an ad on my machine.

KilledByGoogle up next: Chrome. You mean they pulled the plug on Chrome.

A lot of momentum to dissipate but the ad blocker defines a bearable web experience.

Use Firefox. If something you use ABSOLUTELY needs Chromium yell at whoever makes the thing. If that still doesn't work use Brave. But then go back to Firefox for everything else.

I've switched to Brave. I only use it for general internet use. What am i missing out on if i don't go back to Firefox?

I know its everyone's personal choice and all that but in my opinion people should stop using chromium engine browsers. It was a good engine however the fact that chromium has the majority users is the only thing holding lazy developers from porting websites to work with other browser engines gives google more control.

So what are the better options. I don't know much (anything) about web engines. Privacy is my top priority.

Most “browsers” being marketed out there are based off of Google’s Chromium project. They are effectively re-skins of it (simplifying a little). Examples include Brave, Vivaldi, Opera I believe.

Firefox is completely separate and independent from this ecosystem (which is also why there’s a separate extension store for Firefox).

The third and last major (>a couple % market share) engine is WebKit, which is the basis of Apple’s Safari.

There’s tons of cool stuff out there, but it’s either niche (platform/use case), unstable to use, and/or both. Examples: Servo, Ladybird, Orion

To sum it up, if you’re a normal, average user:

  • If you have exclusively Apple devices, probably try Safari (for the synchronization & battery efficiency)

  • If not, Firefox!

  • If you need it because of some really messed up development/compatibility issues, the last resort is ungoogled/de-googled Chromium

While on the topic, here’s some cool browser extensions:

Edit: fixed a link

What you are missing out on? Probably not much. Some sites might even work worse if you switch, due to lazyness or sabotage by devs.

Using Firefox is good for the ecosystem in general, to have a counter balance to Google. I use both Firefox and chromium and see very little difference. Some extensions might be worth it (like the title says), so that might be a difference for you.

fuck brave. use librewolf.

Cool, I'll give it a shot.

Edit: is there a mobile version?

short answer: No

long answer: Most people just like to shout-out what they like, and don't want to know your use case. If you need pc/mobile sync, Firefox will be your best choice here.

Support for Chromuin backed browsers ?

I keep Throriim there for the odd shit ball site thear refuses but then thats the point.

What’s the general consensus on Arch? I really like the UX, although I stuck to Firefox on mobile.

Screw that. Use Firefox, but if you need Chrome, use brave, use Vivaldi, use Opera for all it mattwrs. Asanything that still works is fine.

This brave paranoia is just insane. You don't want crypto, don't use it. You don't trust brave use Vivaldi, but spreading fake fear is BS.

Brave altered URLs clicked to add their own affiliate links. Browsers should go to where you click. That's like their whole job. There are reasons to dislike Brave apart from crypto.

4 years ago

Also Firefox sends all of your browser data to Google for safe browsing checks Right now.

Are you talking about this? They say it only calls out to get updated lists and when you actually arrive at a phishing page to check if the page is still marked as suspicious.

Source: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-malware-protection-work#w_what-information-is-sent-to-mozilla-or-its-partners-when-phishing-and-malware-protection-is-enabled

Also, I agree it was 4 years ago. That's a fair point. To me it's super important and they've probably permanently lost my trust (or at least it's always going to be besmudged). If you believe they've changed in that time period (or it's not as critical to you) then that's fine.

For what it's worth, when I need a Chromium based browser because the site has a bug and won't work with Firefox my (current) go to is Brave. I use it on a semi regular basis because dndbeyond.com works poorly with Firefox. So every 2 to 4 weeks I use it for that.

You can also disable FF from connecting to safe browsing with flags. I prefer to let my DNS handle that list.

My Work ADP portal also misbehaves in FF.

I've also made FF stop using Google search for anything.

I advocate people use whatever works for them. I'd advocate for Edge, but they have already clarified they intend to follow Chrome to the letter.

Vivaldi has claimed they intend to fork and not enforce V3, but acknowledge it's no small feat and they may fail.

Operam I believe has claimed they intend not to enforce V3

Brave goes as far as saying that they're immune to it even if they turned it on.

I don't trust any browser 100% Firefox was close and is still my most trusted.

I'm down with pushing everyone into Firefox, but I'm not loving the chrome variant hate. Use whatever works unless the browsers are currently acting bad.

You don’t want crypto, don’t use it.

I use Brave as my Chrome based browser when not using Floorp but there were other issues with Brave in the past like injecting their affiliate links unbeknownst to users so they could make money off them. They have reverted that decision but that they thought it was acceptable in the first place leaves some to question, rightly, what other shenanigans they might pull. They've also had issues with paying out Creators BAT tokens.

Yep company's not totally trustworthy neither is Google neither is Microsoft. By the way, Firefox still sends all of your websites to Google to get safe traffic prompts.

Brave also got and slapped by the SEC for the handling of their crypto sales.

The link issue you're speaking of was 4 years ago. The CEO issued a formal apology.

They're a funded company they are trying to make money to pay the developers to stay solvent.

On the upside they're using that money to fight Google's ad blocking and to keep manifest V3 optional.

The way they block the ads happens outside of manifest so even if they take the manifest code they still won't have ads. Of the chromium ancestry browsers they are the most likely to continue running long-term. They're also the fastest solution for YouTube blocking when YouTube makes changes.

I main Firefox but still use brave over edge or opera.

Right now, we need all the boats we have. Not everything works in Firefox you need to have a backup,

FYI TELL YOUR LOVED ONES ABOUT THIS

If you are on here you're probably like me "the it guy of the family"

Mom and dad aren't going to switch themselves, remove chrome for them as the default install Firefox and tell them to use that unless something absolutely refuses to work. Pick your battles.

I can't even get my mom to stop believing that her bank would text her asking for her account info.

Sometimes people just refuse common sense and have to be left to ruin their own lives, no matter how much you love them.

Cause theres no point drowning yourself, trying to keep idiots that refuse to swim above water.

If you are the IT guy just buy a raspberry pi or a cheap mini pc and install pi-hole at your parents place that you can access remotely. That way their entire network is blocked from ads and you can troubleshoot from anywhere.

And then it gets blamed every time something doesn't work right with the internet

I gave my parents 3 "The internet stopped working so I reset the router"s before I stopped trying. If you can't follow the simplest instructions you're on your own. Enjoy your adds and paying for subscription services.

Yeah that's what happened with my wife. Had to scrap PiHole because she didn't want to deal with it.

Honestly that's way too much work. Keep it simple imo.

It is simple. Probably simpler than educating a stubborn boomer to use a different browser.

Hopefully the DoJ case against Google includes getting bent over a barrel for abusing their position as a market maker to force their revenue model.

Intrusive ads and...

MALWARE!

Yep, the main reason I started using adblockers in the first place is because I was tired of the weekly disinfection routine of my pc.

Hiding ads wasn't my main motivation to start with, I just wanted to keep my system safe and shit free.

To be fair, some add-ons are the worst malware you can have. Google is trying to combat that

Bullshit, they are trying to kneecap ad blocking to protect their bottom line. They could have protected people from sketchy add one without fucking up ublock

If you want to avoid ads it might be a good idea to not use products from a company which primary goal is to make money on ads...

But hey, what do I know...

I have said this in other threads about this issue in response to all the "use Firefox" comments.

Thousands upon thousands of school children are currently using Chromebooks they get from their schools. Now they will be forced to look at ads.

Now they will be forced to look at ads.

I'm pretty sure they would've been seeing ads anyways. I doubt that school IT administrators had uBlock Origins as an extension that was being installed and I really doubt they didn't have the chromebooks locked down so students could install whatever extensions they wanted.

Good, smart IT would have installed ublock and locked that shit down. Saves bandwidth and protects the kids.

But you're probably right, most IT departments are useless.

Yeah, I'm not saying it's not a good practice, but I just don't see them doing it.

Don't think it saves bandwidth unless it's a DNS level block, which IT should also do but separately from uBO

They're forced to look at ads anyway, as the IT dept blocks installing extensions

The IT department at my daughter's school allowed me to install the uBlock Origin extension last year. Granted, some extensions (and websites for that matter, no PornHub) were blocked, but not that one.

I'm willing to bet you're the exception and not the rule. I can confirm from my own experience that we couldn't even alter the system settings of the individual device.

I would personally push adblockers in a professional environment. They eliminate a lot of unwanted threat vectors.

There is a very rare occasion where it breaks things just one ticket later and a little education and it's good.

Definitely! It's just unfortunate that many times the people in charge of doing that don't know that.

Around the time the FBI quietly updated their security recommendations to include recommending adblocking a couple of large local colleges in the very conservative area I live started pushing uBlock Origin to all of their computers. And if I were higher on the foodchain at my place of work I'd be pushing to enact a similar policy update

Altering system settings wasn't possible when I was in school, but browser settings weren't so locked down. Extensions were freely available to install on the school computers.

That wasn't the case for us, we couldn't download anything that didn't come pre-installed. If the teachers wanted to use a website that was blocked by the cartoonishly restrictive web filter they had to wait upwards of a week because all of the IT was done by one guy who was also a teacher.

Our IT team was pretty cool I think.

I had a technology class when I was there that only had 6 students in this little computer lab in the back of the cafeteria. There were way more computers than than students though, so the few of us that were there started unplugging monitors from the unused computers next to us and giving our computers multiple monitors. We couldn't rearrange the monitors since they were physically attached to the tables, and they couldn't be reordered in Windows since system settings were locked, so we just had to remember that to get to the left monitor we'd actually have to move the mouse to the right for example.

Not even a week later, someone from IT showed up to check on things. We thought that would be it for our multi-monitor setups and they'd make us put them back, but not a beat was missed between them noticing what we had done, realizing that the monitors were in the wrong order, and offering to fix it for us in the settings.

Yeah our IT guy was cool and always tried to be helpful, it's just that he was given the job of a whole team on top of being a full time teacher, while also constantly facing criticism from the school board for being unable to keep up. You could tell he was only there for the students, because his bosses treated him like shit.

Except he was also a big time trump supporter and ended up losing his job after (from what I heard) bringing a gun on a school trip.

So nobody's perfect I guess.

Tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t a goal of the chromebook project

Thousands upon thousands of school children are currently using Chromebooks they get from their schools. Now they will be forced to look at ads.

I don't want to be "that guy", but the ads school-aged kids are viewing come from the apps they are using, not their web browsing on Chrome.

And they are even more heavily impacted when their favourite content creator hucks sponsored products, which can't be blocked with an adblocker.

I feel like I've dodged a bullet by not being exposed to 99.9% of the ads out there, but that's only because I don't use toxic social media apps or YouTube in its designed form.

Except no they don't because they have to do things like research for their essays, which requires using the web in general.

Maybe it depends on the school system, but my kid's Chromebook was locked down, so they couldn't really explore the full internet. Many sites are either white or blacklisted, so they were researching from a website designed to be used by students - not many ads, but yeah, going off script would get them into ad territory.

Still, they aren't seeing the majority of ads from the few minutes they need to look up a research topic.

I was done with school before giving out computers to students was the norm, but my brother's school district seems to be issuing Surface Laptops instead of Chromebooks. With Firefox preinstalled.

It must be a wealthier school district because Chromebooks are far cheaper, even in bulk, than Surface notebooks.

https://discountcomputerdepot.com/shop?product_listings=Chromebooks+For+Students

Wow those things can really get down in price. I think the district is issuing the original Surface Laptop Go, which went for about $500 when they were new and bought individually. No idea what kind of discount they could get for buying in bulk though, educational institution pricing is hidden behind having to "contact sales".

given the typical IT inertia, that will be a problem when they update chrome in 5 years.

Next week: Over 30 million users pull the plug on Chrome, leaving Google execs to make the surprised Pikachu face and wonder aloud why millennials hate web browsers.

The sort of person who would sit through a Youtube ad or is still on Reddit won't change. They'll just get angry or perhaps not even notice.

That type of person didn't use ublock to begin with. Anyone that did is going to be a Firefox user today.

Even if only a fraction of those kinds of users switch, that's still millions of users chrome loses, and no longer get to make a buck off of.

I agree that every one counts but it won’t break Google’s profit margin.

Doesn't have to. I'm quite content with google's profits getting hurt even if it is a little bit.

Normal people are too lazy to care they are just going to get another ad blocking extension, even if it’s not as good as ublock.

Yeah, it takes some mental effort to change your habits, people are more likely to just install a new extension.

BUT, those extensions are probably next, dropping uBlock is part of a long-standing war by Google against ad blocking of all kinds. So at some point Chrome users won't be able to escape ads, and then i do wonder if they'll switch.

I feel like normal people who are too lazy to care would probably just use the default browser that came with their device. It will be Chrome if it's an Android, but it will be everything but Chrome if it's any other OS, it will be Edge or Safari.

Now i haven't installed Chrome in a minute, but how many devices is it the default for? My understanding is that a lot of Chrome users specifically looked for it and installed it to use instead of the default, especially Windows users. And for that public, i do think it matters, i do think they would consider switching.

I used Firefox when it first came out. Google and Mozzila got into a hot race to make the best browser and they both did well. Somehow I ended up using Chrome a lot more even though I thought that by the time the race ended they were pretty even. Both were very fast and had great plugin libraries. Chrome looked nicer out of the box, but Firefox is highly customizable. Since the end of that race, Chrome has gotten worse and Firefox is about the same. I've switched back fully to Firefox, and the only thing I miss is the "Piss off publisher frames" plugin, that I haven't found a replacement for. It's a nice browser.

I switched to chrome for several years. Back then I was using Gmail and google docs et cetera. I naively thought Google were the good guys.

At that time the chrome ui was better. As an example, Firefox still had a separate search bar and address bar, although you could search in the address bar if you wished.

More recently I think the "nice ui" thing has tipped back towards Firefox. Chrome seems to have evolved some extra buttons.

As an example, Firefox still had a separate search bar and address bar, although you could search in the address bar if you wished.

The advantages of that was you could set the URL bar and search bar to different search engines. I would do a Google search with the URL bar while keeping the search bar set to Wikipedia. Eventually this feature was removed, and then the search bar itself (since there was no reason to search from the URL bar and a dedicated search bar.) It's a feature I missed for a while, but I got over it.

You know you can set up custom strings to use different searches, right? E.g. typing w: and then your search string to search Wikipedia.

I'm aware there are probably a hundred different ways to do what I want in Firefox, and that 99 of them are probably easier than the way I do them already. Now I just keep a Wiki tab open for when I want to search something.

I have never understood the desire to combine the search and the address fields. I occasional search a url when I forget the rules for what it thinks is keyword. It just seems like a scheme to collect more data by bouncing your intended site to google and increase your reliance on them rather than being a real UI feature.

Yeah, it's ironic that one of Google's selling points was that Chrome didn't have a lot of clutter. It's even where the name comes from. Now it looks messy. It's no Microsoft product yet, but it's definitely one of the ways it used to be better.

I would be on Firefox myself except that I need Webassembly that functions at a decent speed and It's about 30-100 times slower on Firefox than it is on Chrome and hasn't changed in yeeeeears.

Not trying to troll or anything, but what can Chrome do that Firefox cannot?

I've always felt like Firefox has more useful features like screenshotting, etc.

Even if it didn't have superior functionality, I'd still support & use firefox over chrome just because I don't care how fast the sports car is: if it's not going where I tell it to, I ain't gettin' in.

Some websites intentionally break Firefox for some reason. I’ve had numerous issues on Firefox which were resolved by switching to Chrome. These could potentially be fixed by a User-Agent string change, but instead of dealing with it I switched to a Chromium based browser.

What if we stop using User-Agent altogether? It would increase privacy and prevent browser discrimination. Too bad for the Analytics services, but after all... who cares?

Ding ding. This header is bullshit and only exists to exploit users.

I only break out Chrome(or Edge) for two reasons:

One is access to serial ports to flash ESP devices, or update the firmware on my XR glasses. Firefox can’t do that.

The other is to automate Twitch drop collection. The addon I found to reload broken streams and collect drops while I’m at work only has a Chrome version.

The addon I found to reload broken streams and collect drops while I’m at work only has a Chrome version.

The question is, is it gonna have a Manifest V3 version?

Looking at it, seems not. Google store page says it doesn’t follow best practices and may soon no longer be supported. AFAIK it’s a single dev hobby project so this might be the end of it. Ah well. I’ll just no longer have as many free skins for games.

I’ll just no longer have as many free skins for games.

Yeah, that FOMO is a bitch. I had to break myself of obsessively clicking for drops for games I don't own or haven't been playing.

Last time I checked: tab groups. Yes there are extensions for it, but all the ones I tried were either really over complicated or buggy. Chrome tab groups are pretty simple and seamless to use.

But I'm going to have to figure something out because I'd rather lose tab groups than ad blocking, so I'll have to switch to something.

Didn't know about those in Chrome. Sounds good, though I've always just grouped my Firefox tabs by having a browser window of tabs per logical group

Firefox native tab groups are coming soon!

To be honest, the Lite version is working well enough for me right now that I don't feel like I need to switch.

Waterfox has a native sidebar/vertical tab feature along with container tabs that might fill your tab group needs (I stopped using chrome before they added tab groups so I watched a 4m video on them and seems like you could get all the features and more out of the sidebar).

uBlock Origin Lite, which is Manifest V3 compliant but doesn’t boast the original version’s comprehensive ad-blocking features.

Then what is the purpose/value of it?

Its able to block some ads. However, from a security perspective this basically means google chrome is no longer a web browser that should be used in a professional setting, let alone for your private and personal work

I'll let corporate worry about corporate... I don't want the ads at home.

100% don't use it at home. I'm saying if you wouldn't even use it at work (and you seriously shouldn't anymore, its a total liability) you for sure shouldn't use it at home

It's not as comprehensive, but it still blocks ads. Personally, I've not noticed a difference. If you are a power user with custom rules and third party lists then your experience will vary.

I went ahead and switched to Firefox which I can also use on my phone and now block ads there, too.

Stop making you extensions/site only work on chromium based browsers

okay, opera only, heard.

what do we do if a user isn't running iOS? can it involve spiders?

Chromium got opera bruh…I’m sorry.

right but can we still have spiders pop out of the phone of anyone who visits our website on an OS other than iOS? or did they put that off until HTML6?

All the webdev companies' across the planet at their sprint planning in a few weeks: "So, shit, we finally need to support Firefox correctly."

This is as good a place as any to challenge firefox users: what are you doing to support the project?

Using their software doesn't support them, unless you search with Google and I doubt many users reading this do.

Mozilla may be deserving of criticism, but criticism alone does not support them.

I fear that one day we will lose firefox.

What's even worse is every time someone mentions Firefox, some chucklefuck has to go hardcore negative on everything Mozilla does that is 1/10th as shitty as Google. Just shut your piehole if you don't like the only somewhat private open source browser.

Let's be honest, Mozilla is only 1/10 as shitty as Google because they're 1/100 the size. If they had the resources, they'd be just as awful. They've already shown us how awful they can be at their current size, I can't imagine how bad they'd be if they were at Google's scale. Firing your employees and giving your execs bonuses is 100% a Google-like move, and the only reason they stopped at a few hundred employees was because they didn't have more to give.

Just because they make a good open source product doesn't make them immune from criticism.

You severely underestimate how shitty Google is. I highly doubt Mozilla would try to pull shit like Web Integrity or making their sites work worse on competitor browsers on purpose even if they were as large as Google. (Though, maybe to become as large as Google they would have to start doing this kind of shit so you might be right in some way.)

I pay for Mozilla VPN and relay throwaway email addresses. And I seldom use either it's basically just a donation.

My biggest worry about Mozilla is that most of their revenue comes from Google. What's stopping Google from demanding that Mozilla does certain things to Firefox, like forcing them to reduce the ad blocking capabilities, just like Chrome?

I think that specific concern is unfounded, but it's obviously problematic that their revenue fines from Google.

That said, everyone has been trying to find an alternative for the last decade, yet here we are.

The only thing that runs Chrome is my work computer only because they installed it and who gives a fuck if they get hacked? I don't even discern search results because I don't get paid enough to care.

Just make sure your router is updated. I recommend gl.inet routers if you're a beginner - easy to keep up to date and their version of OpenWRT has AdGuard installed. Malware can affect more than just the computer you use

I never do personal stuff or even search for non-work related stuff on the machine, and when I'm at home it's on a guest network by itself on a different subnet. Outside of work hours I manually turn off wifi on the machine and block it on the router.

My work has edge and chrome. Everything else locked.

Will be seeing ads at work now. Cool.

Moved to Firefox years ago. I wish they could diversify their income though

Charade you are, monopolistic asswipes! I switched to Firefox months ago!

Firefox is a very nice experience. If you're still hanging onto Chrome, I strongly suggest you at least try Firefox. I suspect most people have very little reason to stay with Google products.

Aw man. I really like Vivaldi for its productivity and customisation. Guess I'll have to go back to FF and try trick it out some.

I've started using Ecosia and i honestly have liked my results far more than on chrome

I just use safari. With other options.

Could use Brave, built using chromium but has ad block built in.

Edit - have been made aware that brave is not ideal - Link

Edit edit! - Yeah, Brave's CEO sounds like a grade a dick. I've switched to Firefox for sure. Not been here in a while.

No thanks. Brave got some serious problems and you might as well use Edge or something that isn't owned by a bigot.

Oh shit, I've only got a few lines into the article but will read the rest soon. Ty.

Does anyone still use chrome? lol.

Nearly 3.5 billion people do.

"Does anybody still use [literally the most popular product in its industry]?"

They deserve what they get.

Your elitism is showing.

I’m so elite because I choose to use a browser that respects my privacy lol.

Thank you, I guess?

I deserve ads because Firefox won't render any of the web apps I use for work? Damn.

What websites do you use for work that won’t work on Firefox?

Firefox, unfortunately, has been lagging behind. Safari is close to surpassing Firefox if they haven't already. Safari really made a big shift for actually implementing web standards around 16.4.

  • No HDR - relevant for me because I mod PC games for HDR
  • Dropped PWA on desktop - even Apple went full 180° and embraced it now on Mac OS X. Chrome really gets a good push from this from Microsoft constantly helping push more app manifest stuff since it appears one of their goals is to render more things over Edge PWAs (eg: like the title bar), and resort less to having to use electron.
  • No masked borders - can't do custom element borders like corner cutting or perfect squircles. Rounded edges only

Chrome is still the absolute best for accessibility. Neither Firefox nor Safari properly parse the aria labels when it comes to how things are rendered. Chrome will actually render text in accessibility nodes as presented on screen (ie: with spacing). Safari and Firefox only use .textContent which can have words beingmergedwhentheyshouldn't.

Chrome also has Barcode and NFC scanning built right in. I've had to use fake keyboard emulators for iOS. Though, Chrome on Mac OS X also supports it. Safari has native support for Barcode behind a flag, so it'll likely come in the future. Barcode scanning is still possible with Firefox through direct reading of the camera bitmap, which is slower but still good. There's no solution for NFC for Safari, but if Chrome ever comes iOS, that would possibly be solved. I believe Face Detection is similar, but I've never used it.

Sounds like chrome is going the way of Internet Explorer. Totally ignoring the W3C, and doing whatever they want. That won’t end well.

What? They all have W3C specs. Firefox just chose not to implement them.

You think you're trashing Chrome, but you're trashing Firefox instead.

Well, done of the drafts count. Because they’re drafts.

Even line-height in CSS3 is draft. Saying no drafts should be implemented is a ridiculous standpoint: a standpoint not even Firefox aligns with:

Standardization requirements for shipping features

What evidence is necessary will vary, but generally this will be:

W3C - the specification is at the Candidate Recommendation maturity level or more advanced; shipping from a Working Draft or a less advanced specification requires evidence of agreement within the working group that shipping is acceptable

https://wiki.mozilla.org/ExposureGuidelines

But keep moving those goal posts.

🤷‍♂️ whatever you say. I’ll keep on having zero issues with Firefox.

Firefox breaks Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, Jira, and several other internal/proprietary platforms I use. Many of our tools are integrated into each other (sometimes on the backend through the API, sometimes on the frontend through an iFrame), and Firefox really doesn't play nicely with these interactions. Either it doesn't like the fact that our apps are accessing multiple sites at a time and throws security errors, or it just doesn't render some parts of the page properly, making them unusable.

For instance, one ticketing tool we use is completely inaccessible in Firefox, because the page breaks after the header and loads the rest into a 10px-wide column that stretches for miles. Works fine in Chrome, Edge, and even Safari somehow.

Some of this could be fixed by using these platforms with their out-of-the-box software which may be more compatible with Firefox, without our modifications. But our mods are there because these integrations drastically improve our workflows, so that's unfortunately not a feasible option for our business.

A lot of this is due to Firefox having stricter standards, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe our developers should make our tools more standard-compliant and that might be better in the long run. But until then, I gotta use what works.

Firefox breaks...

(Long unnecessary nonsense that isn't applicable to anyone else)

Maybe our developers should make our tools more standard-compliant

lol. So who broke it?

(Long unnecessary nonsense that isn't applicable to anyone else)

I was answering a question that was asked directly to me, genius.

The news source of this post could not be identified. Please check the source yourself. Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

Switching back to Firefox in the next few weeks. Fuck you google

What did the fact checker bot ever do to you?

Fact checker bot is BS. It should be banned.

Just block it and you won't have to see it any more.

That doesn't fix the problem. MBFC is firmly biased, and presenting it as unbiased is positively harmful.