Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled

Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled

submitted a month ago by Nemeski

www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-chr…

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MagicShel a month ago

I'm warning Google that Google Chrome may soon be disabled on my devices.

It already is on mine, no trace of chromium or it's forks.

nexussapphire a month ago

Discord, slack, bitwarden, steam, Microsoft teams, visual studio code, balena etcher . Anyone else know of any electron apps or heavily modified version of chrome?😄

qupada a month ago

Teams has switched to Microsoft's own edition of the same concept, "Edge WebView2". Now that Edge is just being Chrome wearing a rubber Scooby Doo mask, I don't expect the differences are vast.

Another fun iteration is Plex's desktop client, which uses QtWebEngine... however surprise! still the Chromium engine underneath.

Signal's desktop app is plain old Electron though.

Of the ones on your list, worth noting that Discord and Slack work fine with FirefoxPWA.

felixwhynot a month ago

Holy shit I had not heard of Firefox PWA but I will use the shit out of this

ᗪᗩᗰᑎ a month ago

I use the shit out of Firefox PWA. I just wish Mozilla would get off their asses and make it work out of the box vs having to install a third party app.

nexussapphire a month ago

I do wish there were more native apps but alternatives to electron is always a good thing in my book.

Except for Microsoft, Microsoft can stop pretending their solution is demonstrably different from electron and chromium.

sinceasdf a month ago

Discord bitwarden steam and teams all work fine for me in ff, i don't use the others

dubyakay a month ago
nexussapphire a month ago

Neat!

can a month ago

Until you do more than warn they don't care.

Beaver [she/her] a month ago, edited a month ago

Linux Phones and Degoogled Phones surge in response.

ColeSloth a month ago

What pisses me off is how many websites don't work right with Firefox now. There's been several times where I've had issues with a site functioning on Firefox and had to switch to a chromium browser.

GregorGizeh a month ago, edited a month ago

I read that most sites work just fine if you spoof your user agent to windows and standard chrome

InternetUser2012 a month ago

That's what I do and I haven't had a problem since.

ayaya a month ago

This breaks any site that uses CloudFlare's Turnstile for me. It will loop forever and never let me through if my user agent is set to Chrome.

[deleted] a month ago

I've had some sites bug out on Firefox that I'm pretty sure weren't really related to Google or Microsoft in any way. I still use Firefox obviously, but it's annoying.

GregorGizeh a month ago, edited a month ago

The point was that some sites neglect to develop for Firefox, and simply tell Firefox users to get chrome instead. Meanwhile Firefox works in most cases perfectly fine without any doing on the website's part if it is simply duped into believing that the firefox user is just a plain old chrome user as expected. Doesn't work for everything, but almost.

[deleted] a month ago

Oh yeah, I hate sites that do that.

Supervisor194 a month ago

This happens very rarely, but it does happen from time to time. When a website starts acting weird out of nowhere I keep a copy of Chrome installed just for that use and then promptly return to Firefox.

gsfraley a month ago

My insurance site (MyCigna) started working a couple months ago, but for years it failed to log in. It's those types of contracted apps that seem to fail the most for me, like apps you'd see on a company intranet.

TrickDacy a month ago

I didn't ever have trouble with that site and always used it in ff

Caesium a month ago

I have a friend who sends me tiktoks that refuse to load with firefox on my phone. I consider it a blessing

Feyd a month ago

Libredirect extension will redirect to public proxitok instances so you could watch them without going to tiktoks site directly

proxitok is such a good name holy shit

drspod a month ago

I see this FUD all the time but nobody ever gives examples. Can you point to some specific sites that don't work with Firefox?

Stoney_Logica1 a month ago

Costco Travel login page never loads for me in Firefox. Specific sites my kids use for school don't work either. I wouldn't say it happens regularly, but often enough to be annoying.

It's not FUD but there's usually more to it than just "Firefox". Usually has something to do with security plugins. There are sites that do not work properly with Ublock or Noscript installed, even when you turn them off for the site. I've experienced it many, many times. It happens to me most often ordering food, because a lot of local restaurants sites are janky as fuck, but I've also had issues with more well known sites. Southwest airlines has been problematic for a couple years now. My credit union also had issues with parts of their online banking app, but that thankfully got fixed after a year or two.

TL;DR - it's a real thing.

ArgentRaven a month ago

Walmart.com didn't work for me on FF for about a week, and it did work on edge and chrome (still broken on FF when I disabled all my add ons). However, they fixed it and it works now. I think it was just a problem with the build of the website, and wasn't intentional because it definitely works now.

I think that's what's more likely - temp problems that could affect any browser until their web dev fixes it. Not anything malicious like intentionally blocking a browser.

And then, it's just Walmart. It's nothing that really mattered.

kill_dash_nine a month ago

I was worried about this when I originally switched from Chrome to Firefox earlier this year but I can honestly say I haven’t found a single site that I personally use that I had to go back to Chrome for. Any issues I had with any site were related to ad blocking using uBlock or DNS based blocking I also do.

Dsklnsadog a month ago

It happens to me with some payments stores. Always need to go back to chromium based pos browser

AWittyUsername a month ago

The payment provider my local council uses doesn't work on Firefox, or Safari. I have to use shitty chrome on my phone. I refuse to install it on my computer.

Scrollone a month ago

Report it on https://webcompat.com/

lapping6596 a month ago

I have issues with twitch. Given I only watch every 3 months for the POE announcement live stream, I just open brave for that one site. I have not tried to figure out if it's my setup or not

noodlejetski a month ago, edited a month ago

I've been watching Twitch on Firefox for years without an issue, so it's very likely that the problem is on your end.

Restaldt a month ago

Microsoft teams

Pizza hut

Most of my utilities online sites

ColeSloth a month ago

T-mobile would be the last specific one. I couldn't navigate to certain pages within to make plan adjustments.

dialog boxes will just fuck off. I've never gotten webRTC to work properly, though that might be configuration skill issues, and or webRTC implementation skill issues, since it seems to only work on browser, not across two different ones.

I've seen sites just load asinine layouts, borked kerning, completely fucked text handling. Just goofy shit.

In some cases i've seen sites have no download buttons on firefox. I don't know why, it's confused me a few times though.

MagicShel a month ago

Something I've been on recently. Microsoft Teams maybe?

PopOfAfrica a month ago

Apple Podcasts for me

Beej Jorgensen a month ago

The local Uber eats clone here has the submit order button off screen. Reuters on Android sometimes has the top bar of the webpage shift down over the content. A video conferencing site used by my medical provider won't connect the video. The 3rd party comment section on our local news site sometimes lays out the controls off screen. The Lemmy PWA on Android used to crash on startup (recently fixed yay!!)

FF is my daily driver and 99% of things work fine, but I've definitely found a few sites where they clearly didn't test it. I still have Chrome installed for those rare occasions I need it.

And I don't even necessarily blame Firefox for this. I used to do web dev back in the day and I remember making my shit work across multiple browsers. Maybe Firefox is doing it right and Chrome is doing it wrong, but everybody targeted Chrome because it has a zillion percent of the market.

kurap1ka a month ago

Bambulab store

diffusive a month ago

Duolingo

nullpotential a month ago

I use firefox and keep Chrome on my PC for this reason. Off the top of my head:

I can't use Siyuan correctly, my main editor, in Firefox. It only registers the initial backspace key press.

I do telehealth, and the voice/video will not work in firefox no matter what I try.

Live-reloading for Ruby on Rails projects doesn't seem to work on firefox.

GustavoFring a month ago

TradingView

asap a month ago

I use this every day with Firefox and Librefox with no issues.

SynonymousStoat a month ago

Firefox has been, and still is, my primary browser since before Chrome even existed so, definitely not FUD. Also, it's generally not Firefox's fault either, but instead the developers of websites that don't work in Firefox are usually doing something that isn't standards compliant.

First to come to mind is that I can't log into the account management part of the pet boarding company I use when in Firefox. Another scenario is that a lot of movie streaming sites won't give Firefox video higher than 720p so in that case, Edge is often the only browser that can receive 1080p video. From my understanding the movie studios are the ones to blame for this.

Mubelotix a month ago

Dev tools were borked on FF for me. Entire tab was blank

zelnix a month ago

Start page

SynonymousStoat a month ago

I only have Chrome installed for the rare occasion where a site doesn't work in Firefox. I feel like we've gone a bit backwards as of lately in building websites that are browser agnostic.

DeadNinja a month ago, edited a month ago

I just read about this extension today. Seems interesting. The description says It's supposedly doing more than just switching the UA.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-mask/

mryessir a month ago

Does this happen in you work environment or on your private managed system? I raise this question because I started to realize that governing firefox apparently is a hard task. Never did I experience a faulty site on my private desktop devices but on my work stations. Im currently running firefox 115.13.0esr.

ColeSloth a month ago

My home system. I'm not doing any extra security on it, either.

mryessir a month ago

You shouldn't be required to do so. You also neglected my presumption. Thank you for replying.

Noxy a month ago

Such as?

calamityjanitor a month ago

The only problem I run into is sites that use Bluetooth or USB APIs to talk to a local device. Both Firefox and Safari don't implement them due to security concerns.

Noxy a month ago

Ohh yeah, VIA for QMK keyboards is guilty of that shit

ColeSloth a month ago

T mobiles website is the most recent I had issues with. Navigating to certain pages within t mobiles site would cause "something went wrong" or just a redirect loop.

danafest a month ago

I was recently trying to add tickets from ticketbastard to Google wallet to be able to use them offline. I have chrome disabled on my phone. Surprise surprise it doesn't work with any other browser except chrome. The ticketbastard app just throws an error and nothing happens. Took me a lot of searching to realize it was because chrome was disabled.

OpenStars a month ago

Unfortunately for work I may have no choice:-(. *Several* of our daily work products I've tried on Firefox without success. Those also don't have ads.

I wish there were better alternatives. I may try out LibreWolf but I could not imagine it somehow being easier, though with enough effort put in the end result may be all that matters. Until the first update (possibly forced on the server end even if I don't on mine) that breaks everything and I cannot do my work for the day, in which case I will *absolutely* go crawling back to Chrome, bc they have us by the short hairs there.:-(

friend_of_satan a month ago

Use chrome only where you need it.

OpenStars a month ago

Prexactly:-)

MagicShel a month ago

I went through the same thing with MSIE. Corporate mandates and stuff. Businesses are sometimes wrong.

OpenStars a month ago

No, they are always *right*! (^Especially^ ^when^ ^they^ ^are^ ^wrong...^)

CosmicTurtle0 a month ago

My company just plain old won't install Firefox without a good reason.

I'm stuck using chrome or edge. Once the ad block stops working on chrome, I move over.

_pete_ a month ago

I really hate the corporate IT.

I was at a job that was slowly transitioning from a medium sized company to a larger one, initially we were allowed just install and use whatever on our machines, but gradually IT started implementing policies where if we wanted to add something it had to go through a request system and usually it would be denied.

As a software developer this was just infuriating, it would hold up work, force us to use shitty software (like Chrome and Edge) and there would often be fuck ups where installing a new version of software would require removal of the old one and installation of a new one - which would trigger the approval process again.

Like - I get it - some people can’t be trusted, but we were some of the key devs for the companies product, we know what we’re doing.

I was rather happy to leave that part of the company behind when I left.

tal a month ago, edited a month ago

My company just plain old won’t install Firefox without a good reason.

If you have other potential employers in mind, the IT environment at your current employer and other potential employers is maybe one factor to keep in mind in making decisions as to where to work.

There are some IT policies that are no-gos for me at potential employers. I ask during the interview process.

OpenStars a month ago

Yeesh... I would reconsider working there if possible, but being able to (checks notes) pay rent and afford food and medical care may just make up for it.:-| Hopefully you don't need to surf the web much at work.

Matth78 a month ago

On my work computer I don't have admin rights but still I could install Firefox with no problems. It installed itself for local user only.

TheTimeKnife a month ago

Google needs to be broken up by government.

ArugulaZ a month ago

It saddens me to agree with this. Who knew Google would become as oppressive as fucking MICROSOFT?

tahoe a month ago, edited a month ago

« Don’t be evil »

😬😬😬😬

Zacryon a month ago

They ditched that in 2018. It was long overdue. At least somewhat honest about themselves.

Grandwolf319 a month ago

Most smart people who understood capitalism did.

voluble a month ago, edited a month ago

I hear the term 'broken up' a lot in media and discourse, but it's never explained. In your eyes, what actually happens when a government 'breaks up' a corporation? I mean, what are the steps, objectives, and outcomes?

Not being adversarial, I'm just curious.

boatswain a month ago

Not the person you're asking, but my general understanding is that different products would be required to be their own companies, so advertising, Android, and Chrome would all be separate businesses.

Verat a month ago, edited a month ago

I envision it like AT&T's break-up, where the singular Google is broken up into regional companies that will (hopefully) have to compete with each other.

NekkoDroid a month ago

It really wouldn't change anything in the long run. Any company that creates a browser is gonna need some form of income and people aren't willing to pay for a browser. What would be their incentive to continue to work on the browser when they aren't being paid?

humorlessrepost a month ago

Same as Firefox. Let search engines (including google) pay them a fair market rate to make them the default browser.

FartsWithAnAccent a month ago, edited a month ago

So, what they're saying is: Chrome will have severely decreased functionality and users will no longer be able to protect themselves from sketchy ads that contain scams, malware, and other nefarious bullshit (often hosted on Google's own ad networks)?

OpenStars a month ago

What are you expecting, a corp to... ah... uh... *not* be evil, or something? :-P

ɔiƚoxɘup a month ago

Thank you very much for summoning Jeff Goldblum's voice into my head.

OpenStars a month ago

I... uh, found a way:-D.

tibi a month ago

Google is primarily an ad company

OpenStars a month ago

It did not always used to be this way, though it was always headed here.

John Richard a month ago

Users can still use ad blockers. Users will be safer from malicious extensions sending all your web traffic to an untrusted party.

southsamurai a month ago

Whew, kinda weird to find a Google employee on lemmy. I would have thought there were rules against that in the would employee handbook.

John Richard a month ago

I don't work for Google. Are you in a cult or an anti-opensource PR firm? Why would that be your first instinct in response to facts? Go read the beginners guide to MV3. Maybe you could learn a thing or two before talking about feelings.

southsamurai a month ago

You gave no facts, just opinions.

And if you aren't aware, astroturfing is a thing.

Of course they're aware, they're doing it right now.

John Richard a month ago

I gave you facts about MV3. It is also explained at the beginning of the uBOL GitHub page which even acknowledges MV3 adds protections to users with some filtering tradeoffs. Those tradeoffs can be implemented in other ways but it is more work and would require other software. I am not here saying Google is perfect or that MV3 is perfect, but it does make installing extensions more secure for the average user. If you don't agree then be specific. This vagueness that you keep utilizing without providing any details at all to try to make a point is a clear sign that you honestly have no clue what you're talking about.

Yeah, that's not even how Ublock Origin fucking works, what a hilariously ignorant take.

John Richard a month ago, edited a month ago

Did I say that the author of uBlock Origin actually reads your traffic? No I didn't, so stop the bad faith arguments. I said that MV2 exposed users to malicious extensions that were able to do that. Most features of uBO work fine with uBOL. Not everything does though, and I do acknowledge that. I'm just saying MV3 does make a majority of users safer overall.

TrickDacy a month ago

Nope

John Richard a month ago

Yep. Facts.

You seem to be struggling with the term "facts"

John Richard a month ago

Is your feelings facts to you? Which fact specifically am I struggling with? Do you have anything concrete to say at all or are you just going to keep being vague because of feelings?

conciselyverbose a month ago

Seeing all your traffic is required for an ad blocker to function correctly.

John Richard a month ago

An ad blocker doesn't need to see your traffic to function. That is the point of the declarative APIs. It is supposed to help protect users from malicious extensions and some forms of malicious software.

conciselyverbose a month ago

Yes, it absolutely does.

An adblocker has unconditional complete control of my browser because I want it to have unconditional complete control of my browser, because it cannot do what I want it to any other way. Taking that control away from me is malicious by definition. It's more malicious when every single person on the planet with a shred of tech knowledge knows with certainty that it's for the sole purpose of boosting Google's ad revenue at the expense of their users.

Blackmist a month ago

Sadly I'm far more attached to ad blocking than I am to a browser.

Buddahriffic a month ago

Frankly, at this point I might even be more attached to blocking ads than browsing.

stellargmite a month ago

I guess you want the internet to be a place for finding useful information, and/or the entertainment you choose to access, over it being a long uninteruptable stream of infomercials for crap products you have no interest in? Then groogle is not for you. In fact groogle is not for humanity.

Hal-5700X a month ago, edited a month ago

Yeah, we saw this coming. When Manifest v3 first talked about.

Google an ad company are killing ad blockers. Yeah, that sounds right.

tiredofsametab a month ago

killing ab blockers

I might finally get a six-pack!

partial_accumen a month ago, edited a month ago

Google an ad company are killing ab blockers Chrome browsers. Yeah, that sounds right.

FTFY

DivineDev a month ago

I wish, but I don't see it happening. Most people are just content with seeing ads absolutely everywhere, I just don't get it.

Rolder a month ago

I wouldn’t mind the basic shit like a banner here or a side bar there. But the fucking obnoxious mid page ads, auto playing videos, scam link shit can go die in a hole.

Rampsquatch a month ago

I used to not mind them, now I do. They over did it and I can't go back. I will block ads untill I can't and then I'll probably climb a clock tower with an Uzi.

I won't really climb a clock tower with an Uzi.

partial_accumen a month ago

I wouldn’t mind the basic shit like a banner here or a side bar there.

Since those are semi-regularly vectors for malware now, even those are not safe to allow.

grysbok a month ago, edited a month ago

It's things like this that keep me using an ad blocker. I was researching when sunflowers develop their seeds, for crying out loud. Screenshot of a plug-in which has blocked ”127 ads" on this page Edit: this was on Opera. It's.. fine.

John Richard a month ago

MV3 doesn't kill ad blockers. uBOL (uBlock Origin Lite) blocks ads, is by the same author and uses MV3. The issue is MV2 made it way too easy for malicious browser extensions to do bad things, like read the content of every page you visit. MV3 makes it much harder for malicious browser extensions to do these things, but makes it harder to do things like intercept network requests.

Some of these "features" that classic uBO used are available in MV3 but requires different permissions. Some of them could also be implemented with native messaging. The main uBO author though feels slighted by Google and went on a trash talking campaign against Google, and to be fair had a few good points. Anyway, most people on social media now care more about how Chromium and Firefox makes them feel now irregardless of facts. They think their emotions somehow are the same as facts.

partial_accumen a month ago

The issue is MV2 made it way too easy for malicious browser extensions to do bad things, like read the content of every page you visit. MV3 makes it much harder for malicious browser extensions to do these things, but makes it harder to do things like intercept network requests.

Then allow a savvy user to choose to keep MV2 mode via an opt-in control instead of depreciating years of hard work by non-malicious extension authors. uBlock Origin is, in fact, the ONLY browser extension I use in Chrome, as Firefox is my main browser.

John Richard a month ago

I agree they should have tried to find more ways to keep the old behavior. MV3 rollout has already been delayed for a long time, and now users merely get a message. I'm not sure that the community (mostly Google contributors) won't give in or try to find a way to keep MV2. However, what was done with MV2 can now be done with MV3 with native messaging or other network tools... I think the concern is that allowing an exception makes it much easier for a malicious extension or software to get users to agree not realizing what they're agreeing to. Furthermore, the declarative approach is actually preferable by many. You get most of the same features without exposing all your traffic to an extension.

TrickDacy a month ago

And yet the likelihood of Google publishing a malicious extension is quite low. Not sure why you're so adamant about defending their shitty anti-adblock actions, making excuses for a mega corporation.

John Richard a month ago, edited a month ago

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Steam, Arch Linux, NixOS, Flathub, etc. all end up publishing malicious software in their stores and package managers. It is inevitable. If you're not worried about sandboxing then you might as well proxy all your traffic using third party software.

TrickDacy a month ago

The fact that something is possible does not make it frequent or likely.

Phoenix3875 a month ago, edited a month ago

From my understanding, MV3 kills vital features of ad-blockers in that

  1. Some filtering rules do rely on the ability to read the content of the webpage, which can't be migrated, per the FAQ linked in the article
  2. The declarative API means an update to the rules requires an update to the plugin itself, which might get delayed by the reviewing process, causing the blocker to lag behind the tracker. It might not be able to recover as quickly as uBO in the recent YouTube catch-up round.
John Richard a month ago
  1. uBOL GitHub does a pretty good job of explaining some challenges, and some of them are better tracked in the issues.

  2. Your second point isn't accurate though and MV3 does support dynamic rules.

sapporo a month ago

. Some of them could also be implemented with native messaging.

Some? Or all?

uBlockOrigin would still loose some of its features and capabilities nonetheless, even if a sub-set of them could be implemented in other ways. Not?

aesthelete a month ago

The modern Internet is completely unusable without an ad blocker. Way to remake ie6, Google!

RufusFirefly a month ago

Even with an ad blocker, it gets more unusable every year that goes by

madcaesar a month ago

DO YOU WANT TO ACCEPT OUR COOKIES OR CUSTOMIZE THESE BULLSHIT OPTIONS???

RufusFirefly a month ago

The only options I want are Girl Scout thin mints or peanut butter cookies

Missing Samoas, those are delicious.

nossaquesapao a month ago, edited a month ago

I already know a few people who were just marginally digitally literate, and now they can't read things like news articles and access several kinds of services anymore, unless someone helps them, because they don't property know how to close invasive popups and solve captchas.

The internet is literally becoming unusable for some people.

RufusFirefly a month ago

I'm in my mid 60s and know a few people that never even heard the term "browser extension" before. How they tolerate using the web with no ad blocking is beyond me.

pete_the_cat a month ago

Every time I turn off uBlock and reload a webpage I'm like "JFC this is eye cancer".

Ragnarok314159 a month ago

Got my boomer mom to finally install an ad blocker. She was tired of looking at a webpage, having an ad give some kind of script run error, and then it reloads back at the top. It’s a big problem on the cooking websites she goes to.

I would rather go back to the days of shitty pop-ups you can just close. These ads are far worse, and none of them even make sense.

dan a month ago

the cooking websites she goes to.

https://based.cooking/ doesn't have everything, but it's growing and the site is very clean.

nossaquesapao a month ago

What a really interesting initiative. I will try to contribute some things in their repo.

Ragnarok314159 a month ago

This is amazing and thank you.

katy ✨ a month ago

meanwhile firefox lists it as recommended and also lets you use it on firefox mobile.

Blackmist a month ago

It has made mobile browsing usable again for me.

jo3shmoo a month ago

Same. Firefox Mobile had been a laggy mess when I used it a few years ago, but a combination of some really aggressive advertising and the announcement of manifest v3 caused me to give it another shot about a year ago. It's a dramatic improvement in phone browsing.

LostXOR a month ago

Almost as if a browser company that's not also an advertising company has no reason to fight ad blockers.

hollyberries a month ago

I've got some bad news for you. Mozilla bought an ad company.

katy ✨ a month ago, edited a month ago

i mean they bought a privacy preserving ad company to offer an alternative for companies to google, which is what they should be doing.

because like it or not people depend on ads for their sites.

NostraDavid a month ago

Wait until people find out you can make the government ban ads - https://www.euronews.com/2014/11/26/grenoble-europe-s-first-ad-free-city/

I like their future (so far).

Railcar8095 a month ago

Ban billboards. Very different. And are there ones owned by the city.

Honestly, not a huge win.

x00z a month ago

Sadly that news isn't how it is right now. Picking a random spot in Grenoble using *Google maps* and searching for the first tram station, I find 6+ billboards.

endofline a month ago

You can always fork firefox. People used to use website not requiring javascript at all and it worked well. Some people still use even w3m f.e. when graphics card driver goes bad after update and they need to watch some docs on the internet. Most current browser have most features you would ever need

You can always fork firefox

You could fork Chromium too.

hollyberries a month ago

Forking is indeed the way forward when Mozilla loses its way a little more. For myself, I switched to Librewolf about 6 months ago, along with replacing Thunderbird with Betterbird after using it since the Phoenix days.

I cannot remember what prompted the move to Librewolf, it may have been the AI stuff they were pushing at the time, or possibly the update that forced the tabs into my titlebar without having to go into about:config to fix it. Or the fact that Firefox was constantly pushing me to sign up for an account. There were quite a few gripes that added up over time lol

Betterbird restored some removed things I liked pre-supernova as well as a native systray icon under Linux and that was enough motivation to make the switch.

It *is* time for a new browser to enter the market. Either Ladybird or something built with Servo seems likely.

DragonTypeWyvern a month ago

And my nerd bros try to get me to donate

ArchRecord a month ago

Adblockers are the largest *consumer* boycott in history.

Google isn't just disabling an extension, they're attacking a boycott comprised of 200,000,000+ people, all around the globe, standing up to forced manipulation of our beliefs and habits by profit-hungry corporations.

Ragnarok314159 a month ago

If Google presented me with ads for things I might be interested in and in a non-invasive way, wouldn’t mind looking at them at all.

Instead I get ads for the seemingly random shit I have absolutely zero interest in buying. How they are consistently wrong about my spending habits is unbelievable. I have two fucking hobbies! I don’t see ads for anything relating to them. Ever.

madcaesar a month ago

Ad blockers block more than just shitty ads. They also block malicious ads.

pete_the_cat a month ago

Also, there's like 10 per webpage, and then you have the damn pop-ups when you scroll 🤬

theoretiker a month ago

Sounds like you need to give Google more private information

irreticent a month ago

I never thought about it that way. Interesting. Thanks!

TCB13 a month ago

You're correct, and now people will boycott Chrome. Firefox and Brave are good / accessible / easy to get for most people so...

itsnotits a month ago

a boycott comprising* 200,000,000+ people

viking a month ago

Firefox my beloved.

JohnDClay a month ago

Anyone else been having issues of not being able to load YouTube videos past the first few seconds on Firefox using ublock? I couldn't find any recent information online. I don't know if this is part of the war on ad blockers, or unrelated.

viking a month ago

It's been a side effect of the server side ads apparently, but reloading the page fixes it for me.

snooggums a month ago

I watched several videos today on Firefox with ublock origin and no issues. Haven't run into issues with ads yet.

errorlab a month ago

Yeah, yesterday. I just kept refreshing. FF + unlock + not signed in, seems to trigger it

TrickDacy a month ago

Haven't had that issue, nope

Imgonnatrythis a month ago

Saying this about any corporation's product is guaranteed not to age well.

parpol a month ago

Deleted by author

pivot_root a month ago

Chromium (Google Chrome's base) is also open source.

And yet, we're still at a corporation's mercy as to whether everything Chromium-based gets ruined by Google's fuck-what-the-users-want policies. Like with Manifest V3. And JXL support. And extensions on mobile.

parpol a month ago

Deleted by author

AWittyUsername a month ago

Except now you have to maintain a branch that's missing everything after that release upstream.

John Richard a month ago

Users do want MV3. The people complaining about it are in the minority.

halcyoncmdr a month ago

Users don't know what the fuck Manifest is period. They just click the internet button. And for the longest time that meant the E with a loop around it. Now that means the multicolored circle.

The Quuuuuill a month ago

Why the hell would a user *want* MV3?

umbrella a month ago

the minority of people complaining about it are the only ones who know what it even is

AWittyUsername a month ago

So is Android. So is Chromium. So is React, and Flutter. So is Java.

Open source doesn't mean FOSS.

bamboo a month ago

Open source does mean FOSS. It doesn’t mean community-oriented.

AWittyUsername a month ago

No it doesn't. Different licenses dictate what you can and can't do with open source software. Some are more restrictive than others. Open source simply means that the source code is freely available.

Boozilla a month ago

I'm grateful for FF, but they also annoy me at times. Just little stuff probably not worth bitching about in detail. But also a peek at the potential for problems that you're talking about.

So of course I'll bitch about it.

I call it the "stop whatever you *think* you'd rather do right now and pay attention to *our product*" type shit.

Imagine you have a combination wrench and whenever you take it out of the toolbox it starts yammering at you about how great of a wrench it is and all if its shiny features. Fucking ridiculous, right?

So why do we tolerate software that does that?

Way too much software does this pushy shit. Just stay outta my face and do your actual job, software.

Blaster M a month ago, edited a month ago

Because people have the attention span of a goldfish and if you aren't reminding them every 5 seconds of the features they have available they'll forget they do in fact use them and then complain to support because they can't spend 5 seconds on the help page.

I say this, not in defense of mozilla, but in frustration at having to deal daily with these kinds of issues. You can put giant screen-size arrows on where to go / what single "do the thing" button to press and people will still forget 5 seconds later.

Boozilla a month ago

Good point. That's true, there is definitely that side of it. I think what you're talking about is less obnoxious than the stuff that feels forced and make-the-boss-happy promotional. Push notifcations for no reason, etc. It's a spectrum from necessary to uneccessary, and there's too much of the latter IMO.

The Quuuuuill a month ago, edited a month ago

We're so fucking used to ads we don't even always realize we're getting pushed propaganda

Lost_My_Mind a month ago

Mmm mmm mmm, Bill Cosby tells me to love my puddin' pops!

........i feel sleepy......

viking a month ago

Firefox is a foundation, not a corporation. And I'm already using Fennec instead of the official release.

Imgonnatrythis a month ago

No. Firefox is a product. Mozilla is a corporation AND a foundation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation

Chozo a month ago, edited a month ago

Yeah, it's strange just how readily the blinders go up wherever Mozilla is concerned. They're a corp, just like any other; if they had the money and leverage, they'd be just as aggressive as Google. Have people already forgotten that time they laid off 200+ employees and then gave all the execs bonuses?

E: Apparently y'all *have* forgotten. In 2021, Mozilla laid off a few hundred employees. CEO's salary doubled that year. Fuck Mozilla, they're no more your friends than Google or Microsoft; they're the same evil, just *smaller-scaled* evil, is all.

snooggums a month ago, edited a month ago

But they haven't threatened to undercut ad blocking yet, so as a *comparison* they are better.

Imgonnatrythis a month ago

Absolutely, but Mozilla is pretty much owned by Google anyway, and falling in love with these companies as wide eyed fanboys never looks good when they eventually turn.

Sordid a month ago

It's okay to like them while they do good and then change your mind when they turn evil.

OpenStars a month ago

I wouldn't say "owned", but the rest... yeah:-(

John Richard a month ago

You forgot to also mention that they are a cult where you get attacked if you say anything negative about Mozilla.

Beej Jorgensen a month ago

Looking around, I don't think that's true. Lots of bad things are freely said about Mozilla and the people running it.

TrickDacy a month ago

You forgot to not shill for an actual corporation

John Richard a month ago

I'm not shilling for anyone. If you want to discuss actual technical details I'm happy to do so. If you're here just to share your feelings absent facts then I don't care what you have to say.

Chemical Wonka a month ago

1000023325

rtxn a month ago

Librewolf, my beloved.

Lost_My_Mind a month ago

This is the first I've heard of LibreWolf. Is it compatible with Windows 7? And also, why is it good?

ivn a month ago

You really shouldn't connect windows 7 to the internet.

jrgd a month ago

https://librewolf.net/

A summary from its site and known technical details:

  • no telemetry by default
  • includes uBlock Origin
  • has sane privacy-respecting defaults
  • prepackages arkenfox user.js
  • relatively well-maintained fork of Firefox that keeps up with upstream
  • No major controversies AFAIK

As for Windows 7, nobody should really need to install Librewolf anyway on such a device. No device running Windows 7 should have access to the internet at this point. If you are asking about compatibility intending this use case, you have bigger problems to worry about than your choice of browser. If you just need to view HTML files graphically, even Internet Explorer or an older firefox ESR will do.

can a month ago, edited a month ago

Looks like it should run on Windows.

Edit: sorry, didn't read far down enough. It's only built for Windows 10, but they recommend this?

Main features: ... Continued support for NPAPI plugins like Silverlight, Adobe Flash and Java

Picture this in your minds eye: a Windows 7 machine running a browser with still working Flash and Java plugins, connected to the internet in 2024.

what do you see?

i see a flourishing ecosystem of worms, viruses and rootkits, all trying to be the one species to get to be the one who does the most damage to the prey species, the common user.

Chemical Wonka a month ago

Empricorn a month ago

You're overreacting. Firefox knows their users. I am a huge "stan" for Firefox, but I will delete it like a time traveller if they make it impossible to ignore ads. I will salt the earth and poop on Firefox's grave and actively avoid it everywhere... *However.* If I'm wrong, there will be a Next Thing...

viking a month ago

Yeah I'm using Fennec, which doesn't have that. But as long as it's a flick of a switch to disable, I don't really mind. Still a million times better than manifest v3.

pwalker a month ago

At least link the full article and not just the headline... smh. Here is also the follow-up article with comments from Firefox's CTO. https://www.heise.de/en/news/Firefox-defends-itself-Everything-done-right-just-poorly-communicated-9802546.html

TerkErJerbs a month ago

If you use a DNS solutions you can block all the telemetry shit. Frankly FF has been phoning home in a lot of undesirable ways for many years even before this, like most browsers.

Chemical Wonka a month ago

Firefox is no longer an adversary to Google for the browser market, if it ever was. FF has become a vassal of Google that with its tyranny is dictating the course of the internet, such as WEI that as far as I know it was abandoned at least for now.

dohpaz42 a month ago

Not entirely true.

Matriks404 a month ago

Besides the fact that Mozilla sucks, Firefox is an amazing piece of software. It's PITA that it's about to be enshittified.

VantaBrandon a month ago

Could turn out to be a good thing. All power users will dump Chrome practically overnight, a huge boon to the alternatives, that could actually give them enough momentum to compete with Google for a change. I'm sure they've considered this, probably an empty treat.

JackbyDev a month ago

I'm not sure how wide the intersection of power users that use uBO but also haven't heard of the manifest v3 deprecation coming since like 2019 actually is, but that could be because I'm the type of person to randomly recommend browsers to people and discuss them a lot.

pyre a month ago

me too. a long time ago i practically forced everyone around me to switch to chrome. now I'm doing the opposite.

ghterve a month ago

I for one have been in denial and probably won't switch away until it literally stops working. So, there's hope.

trafficnab a month ago

Every browser is either chromium (open source captured by Google) or exists because of a Google search contract (this represents 80% of Mozilla's revenue), Google can't lose

GoogleSellsAds a month ago

That's pretty optimistic, as tons of power users are still eating that Windows crap, too.

Thanks for reaffirming why I refuse to use Chrome.

ChonkaLoo a month ago

Thank you Google I hope shitty moves like this drives enough people away to better browsers like Firefox. It desperately needs a bigger market share.

Plopp a month ago

Not only a bigger market share. What's keeping Firefox alive is the financial support they get from Google. If enough people move from Chrome to Firefox without Firefox also securing finances from elsewhere, Google could easily kill Firefox by just not giving them money and we'd all be left with just Chromium.

lemmyhavesome a month ago

I think the real reason Google is funding Firefox is because they're afraid of being targeted in antitrust lawsuits. As long as Firefox is around, they have someone they can point to, to say they're not a monopoly.

SaharaMaleikuhm a month ago

This 100%. You could maybe argue that Safari exists, but that is Apple exclusive I think, so it would probably not work as an argument.

moitoi a month ago

I'm using Firefox or forks.

GoogleSellsAds a month ago

With the direction FF is taking it's gonna be forks for now.

The only thing that held me back from using LibreWolf over Firefox was that it disabled (automatic) dark mode on websites. I understand this is part of the "resist fingerprinting" configuration. There's a workaround now ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1732114).

In about:config update these 3 preferences:

  • privacy.resistFingerprinting = false
  • privacy.fingerprintingProtection = true
  • privacy.fingerprintingProtection.overrides = +AllTargets,-CSSPrefersColorScheme
Chakravanti a month ago

Dark Reader

Queen HawlSera a month ago

Oh no *uses Firefox* Anyway....

pissclumps a month ago

Good riddance then. Fuck chrome

Zink a month ago

That’s a funny way to say “you should uninstall chrome rather than leaving it unused” but I hear you Google. 🫡

Persen a month ago, edited 3 weeks ago

Well, I'm forced if I want to use casting to androidTV or chromecast. Edit: fx-cast exists.

girsaysdoom a month ago

Yeah, there isn't a very good alternative other than occasionally getting lucky that it's compatible with VLC streaming.

Persen a month ago, edited a month ago

I think it usually works with VLC (but usually not performant), but I don't think there is an alternative for cast on android (without gapps)

buddascrayon a month ago

I guess it's a good thing I'm on Firefox now instead of Chrome.

VantaBrandon a month ago

IT guys will stop using it...

Which means they'll stop deploying it as the default browser on some large enterprises, it won't ship as defaults in pre-baked images going forward.

Average joes and janes will use Safari and Edge depending on OS.

Where is their growth going to come from after this change? Chromebooks? lol.

I hope they do it, it will hurt them in the long run.

You can bet 300 new uBlock replacements to spring up practically overnight, some of them scams, reducing trust in the Google ecostystem.

unrelatedkeg a month ago, edited a month ago

You can bet 300 new uBlock replacements to spring up practically overnight, some of them scams, reducing trust in the Google ecostystem.

Unfortunately it's a bigger problem.

Google doesn't plan to block uBlock Origin itself, but the APIs it uses to integrate into Chrome in order to function. This will effectively disable all adblockers on Chrome. uBlock won't be removed from the Chrome extension store, it will just have 90% of its functionality removed.

Additionally, this isn't a Chrome-only change, but a change in the open source Chromium, an upstream browser of Chrome all other Chrome-based browsers use (essentially everything aside from Firefox and Safari themselves).

The change itself is involved in changing the browser's "Manifest", a list of allowed API calls for extensions. The current one is called Manifest v2 and the new one was dubbed Manifest v3.

Theorethically Chromium-based browsers could "backport" Manifest v2 due to the open source nature of Chromium. However that is unlikely as it's projected to take a lot of resources to change, due mostly to security implications of the change.

Vendors of other Chromium-based browsers themselves have little to gain from making the change aside from name recognition for "allowing uBlock", which most users either wouldn't care for or already use Firefox, so the loss for Google isn't projected to be large, just as the gains for other vendors.

TLDR: uBlock won't be removed from the Chrome extension store, but the mechanisms through which it blocks ads will be blocked. The block isn't a change in Chrome but in Chromium and affects all Chromium-based brosers (all except Firefox and Safari). Other vendors could change that to allow adblockers but it's projected to take a lot of time and resources.

erwan a month ago

There is already a "lite" version of uBlock origin that conforms to the new manifest and will still work.

There are still a few features missing, some can't be implemented but others will be.

Axum a month ago

The 'block element' picker is the big one that can not be implemented in the lite version.

Also included block lists can't update unless the extension itself updates.

ipkpjersi a month ago, edited a month ago

Those seem like really big hurdles. How can those be worked around?

Is it not possible to trigger a manual block list update?

Axum a month ago

It's not something that can be worked around. It's specifically a design feature of manifest v3 to restrict these types of things.

Your options are to accept this or use a different browser.

Railing5132 a month ago

Is it by the same author? Nik Rols, iirc?

Plopp a month ago

Raymond Hill (gorhill) is the author of uBlock Origin, uBlock Origin Lite, uMatrix etc.

Railing5132 a month ago

I remembered... poorly.

cmhe a month ago, edited a month ago

IT guys will stop using it...

No, they will not, if they didn't already. Because convenience it key.

The browser war is over, and humans lost, corporations won. Google and other huge corporations control the biggest websites and most of the access to content on the internet.

They just need to make it inconvenient to use ad-blocking browsers.

They built their business on advertiser gambling, which seem to be flawed concept, because they keep on squeezing that tube for every penny more and more, in a race to the bottom.

But they are still in control of both browers and content so they have options to keep squeezing more.

So you want to use a ad blocker? Well, the browser that supports them might not be white listed (anymore) by the bot detector, and you have to solve captchas on every site you visit, until you come to your senses and use a browser, where ad blocking is no longer possible.

Oh, and all that is ok, because of "security". Because letting the users be in control of their devices and applications is "in-secure". They are just doing that to protect you from spam and scams, just trust them! Trust them, because they don't trust you!

Railing5132 a month ago

I'm looking into the possibility of moving my organization to FF. Office of about 200 endpoints. The sticky wicket that I don't fully understand is Auth passthru to 365.

LainTrain a month ago

You're absolutely right.

That said at least I'll take this as my cue to peace out of the mainstream web and only use Links2.

WhyFlip a month ago, edited a month ago

"IT guys"? Chrome has a 66% market share globally.

VantaBrandon a month ago

Its not the IT guys themselves, its the aggregate influence. One large school campus flips the switch to Firefox on their next image deployment its a drop in a bucket, but when 1000 schools, 2000 government agencies and 5000 businesses all suddenly stop using Chrome the graph starts to move, because laypeople just accept the default.

IT guys are like browser-influencers, they tell their parents what to use, friends, and so on. We all used to recommend Chrome, I don't anymore.

ohlaph a month ago

Google Chrome is about to be disabled? Got it.

CoffeeJunkie a month ago

...Oh, no! Anyway. Just giving people one more reason to *finally* make the switch to Firefox or something different.

Google Chrome warns about disabling uBlock Origin. I warn Google Chrome that they're being a little bitch & they're going to lose users.

Tja a month ago

Oh no, they are about to lose the $0 that uBlock origin users bring!

They know they will lose users and they don't care. They will make much more per user selling ads than before. Google is an ad company. They're not a browser company, or a mobile OS company, or an office suite company. It's all about ads.

Olgratin_Magmatoe a month ago, edited a month ago

Not necessarily. They still get money from selling user data. So they likely still care about losing users who use adblocking to at least some degree.

person420 a month ago

Google doesn't sell user data, they sell user eyeballs. There's no incentive for Google to sell user data since they're an ad company and the only people who would buy the data are competitors.

Olgratin_Magmatoe a month ago, edited a month ago

Maybe you're right, I don't have any certainty in this. But I don't buy google's word on this for a second.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/tech/google-ai-lawsuit/index.html

https://www.tampabay.com/news/2021/05/07/google-selling-users-personal-data-despite-promise-federal-court-lawsuit-claims/

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/05/07/google-selling-users-personal-data-despite-promise-federal-court-lawsuit-claims/

Corpos like to lie, and their promises to not sell data is worthless. Even if they're not outright selling data directly, or "anonymizing it" before selling it, at a bare minimum they're still abusing the hoard of data they have to make a buck. They want that data and get large amounts of it through people's broswers, even with adblockers installed.

person420 a month ago

Your first link talks about Google consuming data for its AI

Your next two links (which are talking about the same thing) talks about how other companies are abusing Google's adbid system to try and collect correlated data against their own.

Love it or hate it, Google has been pretty transparent that they use your data for advertising, but nothing there talks about Google selling your data to third parties.

CasualPenguin a month ago

Good point, but also it's not that they will lose all of the user data they sell if people switch off Chrome, just the parts that chrome collects.

If they were blocking ublock users from accessing any google products then it would be purely a 'we only care about ad revenue'

It would be very interesting to see the internal data they use to make these decisions, but also knowing tech these decisions were probably made by a series of mid level managers sufficiently sucking the air out of the room until a critical mass was hit to make this happen

They absolutely also get data through means other than their browser. But they data they get off of the browser directly is probably a shit load.

but also knowing tech these decisions were probably made by a series of mid level managers sufficiently sucking the air out of the room until a critical mass was hit to make this happen

1000%

I'm sure a bunch of bean counters were involved as well.

snugglesthefalse a month ago

They also gain people spreading word of mouth advice to never use chrome

Tja a month ago

If you also spread the word about uBlock, same rule applies.

Bluetreefrog a month ago

Sounds like another reason not to use Chrome.

archchan a month ago

Google sneezes and your future is stolen by an ad that's selling it back to you. Google is too big to exist.

FangedWyvern42 a month ago

🖕

occhionaut a month ago

🖕🖕

backup has arrived

🖕🖕🖕

Hmm, not sure how I managed that...

hamburgers a month ago

Eww

Angel Mountain a month ago

Let this be my warning to Google that I will never go back to their browser when they do. Challas! ✌️

Summzashi a month ago

I reckon they're absolutely shaking with fear by your warning.

WhatYouNeed a month ago

I am user. Hear me roar!

linearchaos a month ago

I honestly can't wait to see how this plays out. Only Chrome, chromium and edge in their pure forms have dedicated to doing this. Most of the Chrome forks have said they're going to fork and keep it running. It's certainly going to give Firefox a shot in the arm, but there's no lack of other competition either.

Scrollone a month ago

I don't know how long the forks will be able to backport new features to their forked codebase.

I think the only sensible solution is to just switch to Firefox.

ipkpjersi a month ago

Eventually Firefox will switch to V3 anyway so it's kind of just delaying the inevitable.

It sucks that this is the future of the Internet.

mint_tamas a month ago

Manifest v3 is already supported in Firefox (they must support it to keep the extension ecosystem alive), but they implemented it without the user-hostile restrictions.

ipkpjersi a month ago, edited a month ago

Oh, I wasn't aware of that, I thought the user-hostile restrictions were inherent to Manifest v3 and they were unavoidable.

Okay, maybe just maybe Firefox squeaks by unharmed then.

edit: I literally just had someone else tell me just now that "It’s not something that can be worked around. It’s specifically a design feature of manifest v3 to restrict these types of things."

So which is it? I'm kind of getting mixed signals here.

edit 2: Oh, it sounds like Google has additional arbitrary restrictions on content blocking functionality, beyond what Manifest V3 itself has.

olympicyes a month ago

It’s probably 95% of windows users then who are affected by this.

OhmsLawn a month ago

Especially those at work who can't install their own software.

linearchaos a month ago

Oh yeah easily.

jol a month ago, edited a month ago

What I'm scared is publishers taking this as a reason to simply start banning Firefox and other browsers.

tehWrapper a month ago

Or google to lock parts of its ecosystem behind chrome only.

SendMePhotos a month ago

Yeah but can't you just get a thing that tells things that you're using chrome when you're not

Fashim a month ago

Yeah I've got an extension for it, it just changes the user-agent string.

I use it on YouTube because for some totally not suspicious reason Firefox won't play videos but when I spoof it to Chrome everything works fine.

TJDetweiler a month ago

I've noticed significant YouTube quality degradation when using Firefox, but no issues with Chrome.

Got a link for the extension by any chance?

dan a month ago

User-agent is being deprecated, so it won't work forever.

Also note that if people keep their UA as Chrome permanently, hit counters will count them as Chrome users, and the number of Firefox users will go down.

SendMePhotos a month ago

What is that relevant to? Genuinely curious.

dan a month ago, edited a month ago

The comment I replied to was mentioning user-agent. User-agent is being deprecated (replaced by client hints) so changing the user agent will eventually stop working.

At the moment, the stats for browser usage rely on user agent as recorded by stats software used by various sites, so if you make Firefox pretend to be Chrome, you'll be contributing to the Firefox user percentage going down.

dan a month ago, edited a month ago

Not always doable as they could be relying on non-standard features that are only in Chrome.

Not exactly the same thing, but my employer requires us to use Chrome for all internal stuff, as they're using Chrome Enterprise Premium as part of their endpoint security solution, and of of course that only works in Chrome.

jol a month ago

It takes more than changing your user agent to msk which browser you use. It's trivial to know which browser you're really using if they really want.

madcaesar a month ago

I'm pretty sure it's much easier to mask your browser than detect the correct browser. In the end you're just hitting a server for data, you fully control the call that is made.

jol a month ago

There are things you can't do with extensions alone, like change how certain JS and CSS internals work.

Maiznieks a month ago

Oh, publishers don't want my traffic? Oh, nooo...

jol a month ago

Publishers don't care about traffic thay only costs them money.

WhatYouNeed a month ago

An ecom site decides to block 5% of web traffic and potential sales?

Now tell the marketing team you are turning away 1 in 20 potential customers because (well, not really sure why) and see what they have to say.

Jarmer a month ago

There's already plenty of business web apps that require chrome. I specifically use a business focused web app that not only requires Chrome, but ONLY CHROME ITSELF and no chromium derivatives. That's the first time I've come across that. I had previously seen chrome requirements, but they worked just fine on ungoogled chromium. Not this one, nope. Regular Google Chrome and nothing else. wtf is that garbage.

jabjoe a month ago

You can get past these with a user agent, lying about which browser it is. However, they aren't testing for other browsers, so their site maybe as buggy as hell. As yet Firefox doesn't do a WINE and match Chrome, bug for bug, so sites work as intended. Google have cause IE6's return.

Jarmer a month ago

It was indeed buggy, which was when I reached out to support. They immediately asked if I was using not Google Chrome itself, but a Chromium offshoot like Brave or Vivaldi. I was using ungoogled chromium, so they told me it won't work. I switched to regular google chrome and it worked great. I wonder what on earth they're using that's part of Google Chrome that makes it work and not part of any other chromium projects.

jabjoe a month ago

Monoplistic web hell scape.

Oneironaut21 a month ago

Glad I've finally migrated to firefox...

arthurpizza a month ago

They started putting ads in Windows, a few users switched, but most still continue Windows.

Google will roll this out and a few users will switch, but most will just keep using Chrome.

We've already established that most users don't seem to care.

trafficnab a month ago

Seeing that half of my extensions (it was seriously like 10 of them) were going to be disabled is what pushed me to finally switch to Firefox because if I have to find alternatives to them it might as well be on another browser

StormWalker a month ago, edited a month ago

I am one that switched. I have Linux Mint which I use 99.9% of the time, and a windows 10 laptop that I use 0.1% for that one windows program.

I think more people are wanting to get out of the grip that google, apple, and Microsoft have over them. Many are overwhelmed because they are in so deep. It took me months to get out, which I did about 6 years ago. I never looked back though. I know people that want out, but are not strong enough to commit to switching all their services and apps.

pete_the_cat a month ago

The reason for this is because switching from Windows to Linux is a lot bigger change, requiring a fair amount of technical know-how, and even knowing that Linux exists in the first place. Swapping browsers is easy in the technical sense, it's breaking the habit that's the hard part, but if they piss people off enough all it takes is uninstalling it in order to break the habit, not a drastic paradigm shift. I'm a long time Chrome user, like over a decade and with the recent "unverified download" nonsense unless you enable their invasive tracking has put me over the edge. I had both the Chrome and Firefox icons pinned to the taskbar and just out of habit kept clicking it, I finally removed it last week

golden_zealot a month ago, edited a month ago

I'm not so sure about that. Windows despite its ads is still generally usable or at least readable, but adblockers affect almost every website, and in a much more extreme way, without which renders some websites virtually unusable. As someone else said, installing another browser is also far easier than taking backups, installing an entirely new OS, implementing your backups, and learning an entire new OS which may not readily support the software you have licensed from windows for most users.

Users care a lot about convenience. I expect that they weigh installing and learning linux etc as less convenient than the ads in windows which is why they would not switch, but I expect when it comes to this case, they would weigh installing a different browser with adblock as much more convenient than using the internet with ads on every single website.

stevegiblets a month ago

Then it's goodbye Chrome.

suction a month ago

"This destroys the Chrome"

Aisteru a month ago

"We used the Chrome to destroy the Chrome"

Mwa a month ago

I rlly hate how some sites don't work on Firefox

Shatpoz1288 a month ago

The more people use Firefox, the more web devs will be forced to ensure their website works on Firefox.

Mwa a month ago

True

Enekk a month ago

I'm showing my age, but back when IE was basically the only browser and Firefox (Firebird back then) launched, people often lamented that things didn't work in Firefox. The solution? People used Firefox and web developers were forced to make their shit work in Firefox. When Chrome came out, suddenly we had three real options and the way to make everything work? Open Standards.

Now, Chrome is in the position IE was back before Firefox came around. How ever will we make sure things work in Firefox??? Use Firefox. If enough people dump Google's malware browser, the web has to go back to supporting multiple browsers through open standards.

Mwa a month ago

Real

Squizzy a month ago

Thing is Google's influence on Firefox is making it a worse company and browser as AI and privacy invading features take over.

dan a month ago, edited a month ago

Have you reported issues for them? It's in the menu somewhere. If Mozilla get a lot of reports for particular sites, they reach out to the webmaster and try to work with them to improve Firefox support - usually by removing proprietary Chrome-only features or by removing reliance on Chrome bugs that don't exist in Firefox.

You can also report the issue at https://webcompat.com/, just search to see if it's already been reported first.

Mwa a month ago

You can do that?

dan a month ago, edited a month ago

Yeah. Just double-checked on my computer. Open the menu then click "Report broken site" near the bottom.

Mwa a month ago

Oh okay

Akareth a month ago

Same. For me, the big one's my bank that requires its users to use Chrome, else it won't let you log in. I got around this by using an agent-switcher extension in Firefox.

Retrograde a month ago

Which sites?

Mwa a month ago

Snapchat

BruceTwarzen a month ago

And nothing of value was lost.

Mwa a month ago

I need it for one of my irl friends

InternetUser2012 a month ago

User agent switcher. I have zero issues since using it.

Mwa a month ago

Gonna try later

Beaver [she/her] a month ago

There it is. Firefox and Librewolf will guide us out of this mess.

irish_link a month ago

Glad I have firefox as well but also looking forward to a cool new project called Ladybird. https://ladybird.org

Not sure if its the right one but glad there are more projects out there trying to jump into the game. (I know extensions are a long way off for it but i see it as hope.)

Also please consider running pihole or adguard home. Or any other full home DNS add blocker. It will help.

Jarmer a month ago

Ladybird looks great! Very much looking forward to an alpha linux release so I can use it and give all kind of feedback.

Ace T'Ken a month ago

Looks like what I'd want to use, but to reach broad support it needs a Windows client as well.

itsnotits a month ago

if it's* the right one

downpunxx a month ago

laughs in firefox

shortwavesurfer a month ago

Google Chrome warns of a drop of users. There, I corrected the title.

wildncrazyguy138 a month ago, edited a month ago

*Yuge!* > here, you forgot this.

yoshisaur a month ago

that’d be great but i’m pretty sure like 90% of chrome users don’t even know what an extension or even an adblocker is. they’ll just keep using chrome because that’s the browser everyone else uses unfortunately

TropicalDingdong a month ago

Very firefox, very legal very cool.

Phegan a month ago

Please just us in using Firefox.

Mwa a month ago

Google copying mrkrabs lol

GoogleSellsAds a month ago

If you use anything Google, you are the product. This has been pretty obvious since the early 2000's, yet people dive right into all the crap they release.

Tja a month ago

Counterpoint: so what? I'm not going to start paying for a search engine, or maps, or the dozen other Google services. Yeah, if I search for a lawn mower I will see lawn mower ads everywhere... and that's actually better than seeing dishwasher ads or dating site ads.

I use Google since the beginning, and the o ly thing that would make me stop is if the quality of the product goes down (like the recent AI summaries that apparently they show in the US).

pete_the_cat a month ago

Agreed, people always forget that Google is a company or to make money, they don't provide all of these services out of the kindness of their hearts.

StormWalker a month ago

Actually if everyone paid for software instead it would be very cheap. Maybe like $1. Think about it, it only takes a tiny fraction of the people that use free open source alternatives to make a donation to keep those products going. I use all the alternatives to google. The only google product I use is YouTube. And I find alternatives VERY affordable and voluntary donations mostly. Take for example Microsoft Word and Excel, I switched to LibreOffice 6 years ago. It's 100% as good. We are here on Lemmy instead of Reddit. And Firefox is every bit as good as chrome. I get it that once your are in the google system it's hard to get out, and is a lot of learning and work to move over, but daym it feels good once the only google you use is YouTube. Supporting a load of little projects instead of the mighty google feels good also. The alternatives have come a long way. I made I list of alternatives and as a project switched over one by one. I have never looked back and don't miss all the google demands for phone numbers etc. I am now in control instead of google.

Tja a month ago

I use Firefox (and chromium and even chrome at work) and lemmy, but nothing comes close to Google search, maps and YouTube content. I tried ddg and openstreet maps, not even close. Partially because of crowd sourced, privacy invading features like location tracking for traffic info. I even pay for YouTube premium, easily the cheapest entertainment around. The ads in the free version is crap because how disruptive they are, and I prefer to pay the creators than use an ad blocker (although new pipe is on my phone and yt-dlg on my computer for videos I really like and want to preserve).

For email Google has features that other clients just don't, even tho I ran my own server, DNS domain with dkim, etc, I still prefer Gmail for 90% of my emails. Only friends and family get my non-gmail account. Spam filter, calendar integration, mobile Client, threads, consistency, customization...

Same for office. While I do have Libre office installed (and Next Cloud on my server) I mostly use Google Docs. I never know who I will need to share a document with, or open on mobile or somewhere else, Google docs just works.

I also loved Google Reader and used Google domains, but I don't want to talk about that :D

StormWalker a month ago

Wow you use a lot of tech! Good share, thanks. I'm with you with Google maps, however check out "Organic Maps" I was very impressed with it (here in the UK) it finds shops and businesses, but no reviews obviously. I still use Google maps most of the time (on a separate phone that lives in the car), but Organic is really impressive, way ahead of the other map apps, definitely one to watch. Paying for YouTube is a great idea. I may do that also actually. I run a server with Mail-in-a-box for email. Yes it is just email basically, but I personally do not need or use more than that. And I love having unlimited aliases that all point to my main email. Also NextCloud is amazing yes. I love NextCloud. The other services you use I just don't have a need for. But yes google = convenience. I bet there are good alternatives to document sharing. And I use Hover.com for domains.

time_fo_that a month ago

Firefox ftw.

I've actually been using Waterfox lately though because for some reason there's a video codec issue on Firefox that makes YouTube videos not play correctly.

TheColonel a month ago

I watch YouTube just fine on Firefox.

Some plugins to Adblock but that’s it.

time_fo_that 4 weeks ago

I'm not sure why it happens. It happens on every PC I have Firefox installed on (three of them). I should probably try and reduce my extension count to see if it works lol.

masquenox a month ago

Chrome who?

jol a month ago

It's an outdated fork of Safari, i think.

Madis a month ago

For other Chromium browsers or those who don't see this yet, enable chrome://flags#extension-manifest-v2-deprecation-warning.

Sadly, this won't stop Google from killing off Manifest V2.

GoogleSellsAds a month ago

Google's core business is selling ads. So anything that aligns with selling ads is the path they'll take. Their users are the product.

trafficnab a month ago

Chrome really needs to be broken off from Google, the largest ad company owning the largest browser is clearly a huge conflict of interest

daniskarma a month ago

Google needs to be ended.

figaro a month ago

When people say things like this, I wonder if they understand how impossible it is. Google is not just a company. It is a 2 trillion dollar *entity*. Even if Google search entirely fails, it will still persist. At this point, you may as well say, "The wind needs to be ended." You don't end the wind. The wind already won. It will outlive you, me, and our children.

What we can do is protect against it. We can deal with it. We can contain it. We can redirect it and repurpose it to be helpful. But ending it? That doesn't happen.

calcopiritus a month ago

IBM fell. Ford fell. Facebook (the social media site, not the company) fell. Yahoo fell.

Sure, they haven't stopped existing, but their relevance is nowhere near their peak. There's no such thing as "too big to fall".

AhismaMiasma a month ago

They said the same about the divine right of kings.

Excrubulent a month ago

When people say things like this, I wonder if they understand how impossible it is. The King isn't just a powerful man. He is *a divine being*.

I mean money is just as made up as the divine right of kings, and it will end one day.

GoogleSellsAds a month ago

Most people here have a device in their pocket with either Google hardware or Google software. If even the nerds with a passion against ads can't not buy something from the biggest ad company, who can?

kittenzrulz123 a month ago

Proprietary software sucks, use an open source browser like Librewolf.

Gemini24601 a month ago

Chromium is technically open source, but yeah, screw Google chrome

kittenzrulz123 a month ago

I'm aware, however Chromium (or rather Ungoogled Chromium) should only be used if a website doesn't work on a Firefox based browser.

cmnybo a month ago

Thank goodness there is more than one browser available.

Persen a month ago

And most are chrome.

Flying Squid a month ago

I know everyone is doing the "use Firefox" thing, but please remember that Acer alone sold almost a million Chromebooks globally in 2023.

Sure, many of those people probably weren't going to use it anyway, but plenty were. I installed it on my daughter's Chromebook that she was forced to use for school.

wesley a month ago

I'm pretty sure you can install Firefox on those too can't you?

Flying Squid a month ago, edited a month ago

Looks like you can, but if you have an older Chromebook (which most schools definitely have), it takes more work than I think a lot of people would be willing to do.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/chromebook/

Also, at least in the case of my daughter's school Chromebook, the Play Store was disabled.

Flying Squid a month ago

Sorry... are you suggesting people install Linux on their kids' school Chromebooks? You know we don't own them, right?

aidan a month ago

You know we don’t own them, right?

As long as you reset them before returning them it should be ok ;p

seaQueue a month ago

And a hearty Rest In Piss to Chrome as well

DudeImMacGyver a month ago, edited a month ago

Good thing I stopped using Chrome

BassTurd a month ago

I use chromium for one thing, and it's casting live sports to my Chromecast. My plans to implement a HTPC have just been expedited.

Lightsong a month ago

I use Firefox but when I watch twitch or wherever, I need Google chrome's live caption to see what streamers say.

Firefox please get this feature asap. So I can delete Google chrome for good.

scrion a month ago

No idea where you'd like to use live captions, but n maybe this helps:

https://github.com/abb128/LiveCaptions

x00z a month ago

*Laughs in Librewolf*

chalupapocalypse a month ago

Will a pihole fill this void?

Wiz a month ago

Switching to Firefox might!

chalupapocalypse a month ago

I'm already on Firefox, I just meant in general

its also available on firefox, de manifested version of chromium are likely to crop up, idk. Depends on how cancer it is to rip that shit out.

TheOneCurly a month ago

Re-manifested? To fix it you have to reenable manifest v2. That should be simple for a while but will get more problematic over time.

de v3 versions, obviously. Mozilla has no intentions of implementing it, and if chrome kills v2, it's not impossible that mozilla can hit them with an anti trust case and win, considering this is arguably what that would be.

But it will probably start to break on individual shitty websites over time, as per usual unfortunately.

iturnedintoanewt a month ago

Not at the same level. Ublock can remove way more granular spam and ads than pihole, which is limited at DNS requests. I use both... Running Firefox of course.

JovialSodium a month ago, edited a month ago

To an extent. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if sometime in the near future they force the use their own DNS servers within their browser instead of respecting your network configuration.

The best solution to circumventing Chrome's bad behavior is to not use it.

Edit: speiling

dumbass a month ago

Man you gotta edit this again, you miss spelled spelling.

MutilationWave a month ago

You misspelled misspelled.

dumbass a month ago

I'm just living up to my username!

adarza a month ago

i've got a few using the mv3 'lite' version of ubo here. seems to be sufficient--for now.

ronalicious a month ago

I only use chrome for things that require my Google account.

katy ✨ a month ago

use google container for firefox :)

cheeseburger a month ago

Neat!

roofuskit a month ago

Good thing I ditched Chrome the moment I heard about their plans.

drdalek a month ago

Never a better a time to join Mozilla Gang.

-Message brought to you by Mozilla Gang

peopleproblems a month ago

Now what would be impressive is if they ban uBlock origin from working on firefox mobile. That would be a whole new kind of sinister

ArugulaZ a month ago

Gee, what a shame. Good think I switched to FireFox. Hey, does anyone know how to make chat work on FireFox?

spiderman a month ago

chat?

NauticalNoodle a month ago

Some of us never left Firefox.

superkret a month ago, edited a month ago

Is "chat work" something like sex work but clothed?

Praise Idleness a month ago

80% of the websites saying *we only support Chromium* can be used without any problem by chaning Useragent header

Matth78 a month ago

About that you can check this new extension : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-mask/

Yet I feel it's better to avoid using it and report web compatibility problems. Always masking user agent could led to believe only supporting chrome is sufficient.

unrelatedkeg a month ago, edited a month ago

it's better to avoid using it and report web compatibility problems

It would be if sites were truly incompatible, but developers know Chrome/Chromium dominates the market and instead of bothering checking compatibility with firefox, they just preemptively block Firefox since that's an easier "fix".

That's assuming the vendor isn't Google and doesn't have a vested interest in Chrome hegemony.

Still. Finding a site that doesn't work and reporting it absolutely is the way to go.

tinfoilhat a month ago

I'll just side load it. Fuck you Google

circuitfarmer a month ago

Cool, just let me know. My girlfriend uses chrome. I'm happy to set her up with Firefox whenever y'all want to jump the shark.

EngineerGaming a month ago

I cannot really be happy about being on Librewolf, because I am very afraid Firefox might eventually ditch MV2 as well. Mozilla is dependent on Google and is known for questionable choices, so...

Pasta Dental a month ago

Firefox supports MV3, with some tweaks such as the WebRequest limitations added by Google's MV3 being removed from the Firefox implementation. I don't think they will remove it

jbk a month ago

Google forcing Firefox to do such a move sounds very anti-competitive. I don't know if that would ever happen.

endofline a month ago

How do they force them? Just curious so asking

Avatar_of_Self a month ago

Google pays Firefox hundreds of millions of dollars a year to be their default search engine. In 2021, this accounted for 83% of Mozilla's revenue.

EngineerGaming a month ago

They don't! Mozilla "by themselves" just "agrees" that MV2 is obsolete because they "prioritize security".

hitmyspot a month ago

Would there likely be a fork at that point for those that wish to continue?

EngineerGaming a month ago

This would be the same problem as in Chromium - you theoretically can, but in practice maintaining it with zero support from the original company would get increasingly hard.

paraphrand a month ago

Safari is ok too…

Beaver [she/her] a month ago

Apple Products get flak in these parts

TrickDacy a month ago

Safari is trash. Especially on iOS.

2xsaiko a month ago

If only it was also available on Linux. I really like using it on my Mac.

jackyard a month ago, edited a month ago

Their new UI made the browser unusable anyway. Looks like a child toy to me.

I don't really love Firefox's default UI but I can customize it with about:config and userChrome.css to fit my taste.

pyre a month ago

what's a google chrome

remer a month ago

What’s a computer 🥴

Piranha Phish a month ago

I know this reference

LainTrain a month ago

Just wait till they do this again with vision pro 2. Oh wait it hasn't sold well enough. Lol!

hogmomma a month ago

Could a grease monkey script do something similar? I'm probably just talking out of my butt, but it seems like GM can sometimes do things easier or better (or just at all) that extensions can't or won't do.

Natanael a month ago

If GM can do it then uBlock can do it. The problem is restriction of APIs

hogmomma a month ago

Ah, gotcha.

jay a month ago

The one and only thing keeping me on Chrome... well, Ungoogled Chromium... is the webassembly performance which is just abysmal in comparison on Firefox, sadly.

Etterra a month ago

Lol like anyone smart still used Google.

shimdidly a month ago

I'm not worried about this at all. I don't use Chrome anyways. I use Brave. It has a built-in ad blocker that works pretty well and I don't see that going away.

person420 a month ago, edited a month ago

Here's the concern with Brave since it's Chromium based:

For as long as we’re able (and assuming the cooperation of the extension authors), Brave will continue to support some privacy-relevant MV2 extensions—specifically AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix

source

My emphasis, not theirs

Evilcoleslaw a month ago

I don't really use Brave as I don't want to support the Chromium/Blink/V8 monopoly, but aren't it's built-in "Shields" functionally equivalent to uBO but not reliant on the extension APIs?

person420 a month ago

Probably, hopefully, who knows for sure. That's the problem with using an open source project run by a corporation.

Grandwolf319 a month ago, edited a month ago

How could they even allow this? Isn’t ublock an independent plugin?

Also, how about other chromium browsers?

EDIT: click bait headline, chrome is just deprecating a dependency it uses and ublock isn’t using the new version yet.

Edit 2: I didn’t realize v3 was nurfed intentionally,

Fuck google

Johanno a month ago

This was all about the news probably 2 years ago. Chrome uses a new api manifest that does not allow for changes in websites like blocking specific type of content. Once manifest v3 is fully implemented and enforced there will be no way for ublock origin to work correctly anymore.

Grandwolf319 a month ago

Didn’t realized v3 was nurfed on purpose, should never give google the benefit of the doubt.

ghterve a month ago

The word "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your edit. The replacement for that dependency doesn't allow an extension to work as an ad blocker as effectively as the thing they are deprecating. This is deliberate.

Grandwolf319 a month ago

Added a second edit :)

brucethemoose a month ago, edited a month ago

Daily plug for Cromite: https://github.com/uazo/cromite

Chrome, but it doesn't suck, doesn't track you, and it has good, fast native adblock.

Also in some linux repos now. I know its in CachyOS. And it's on Android, too.

jet a month ago

Have they committed to maintaining manifest V2 into the future?

brucethemoose a month ago, edited a month ago

Not sure about that, but the built in adblock and privacy featurres won't be killed by V3.

ArbitraryValue a month ago

Bring back Internet Explorer.

tiredofsametab a month ago

As someone who started in tech support in 2000 and is a software developer now: absolutely not.

KrapKake a month ago

I don't think I've seen that sentence.

Death_Equity a month ago

It's 2024, madness rules these times. Witness the fall of Rome, heralded by a blue "e".

Zier a month ago

You spelled Netscape Navigator wrong.

ArbitraryValue a month ago

Netscape Navigator is spelled "Firefox".

Zier a month ago

I tried to look that up on Alta Vista but kept getting a 404 for that site.

cactopuses a month ago

I mean that’s just Firefox :p

cm0002 a month ago

I would rather eternally sign my soul over to Chrome-hell than spend 5 minutes with Internet Explorer ever again

John Richard a month ago

That's one way to say that you like the smell of lead-based gasoline.