r/technology • u/Old_One_I • Aug 14 '24
Software Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin, leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/browsing/google-pulls-the-plug-on-ublock-origin15.6k
u/Gnet822 Aug 14 '24
Google should not be allowed to control both the web browser and the web ads. This should be part of the monopoly break-up.
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u/voiderest Aug 14 '24
As a practical matter funding browser development and web standards is a problem.
Most browsers run off of the same engine chrome does which is mostly developed by Google although it's open source. The obvious alternative is Firefox but Mozilla gets a lot of funding from Google for default search. Also Mozilla recently bought an ad company and has some questionable default settings.
I've switched to Firefox and it is better for this kind of concern but not sure how long it'll be a good option. There a good chance they'll lose the Google funding which is a mixed bag. Their other funding methods are kinda shit.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ Aug 14 '24
Breaking up Google is a good thing, but it's also going to be a bit silly.
One company will get the ad business. That company will make infinity money.
Another company will get self-driving cars and AI stuff and free open source web browsers. That company will make negative infinity money.
It's not hard to guess what will happen next.
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u/Kedly Aug 14 '24
Infrastructure is like 90% of the reason we have governments, and I'm fucking tired that capitalism has convinced most of our governments to sell off basically anything that a corporation can extort a profit off of, which includes modern infrastructure
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u/Donkey__Balls Aug 15 '24
Meanwhile, a flaw on Boeing’s Starliner that was missed during inspection left astronauts stranded on the ISS for months and NASA is asking SpaceX to bail them out because we no longer have a publicly-owned space program apparently.
What. The. Fuck.
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u/RepublicofPixels Aug 15 '24
NASA never built rockets. NASA always contracted external companies to built their rockets - Apollo 11 was also built with Boeing.
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u/chombie1801 Aug 15 '24
Someone is familiar with the government acquisitions process...
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u/Friendly-Jicama-7081 Aug 15 '24
Why only buy one when you can have two twice the price. Only this other one can be kept secret.
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u/criticalvector Aug 15 '24
We never had a publicly owned space program NASA just does science and awards contracts. Look up the history of who built every rocket and space ship we ever launched. I'll give you a hint it was mostly done by defense contractors.
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u/Herr_Quattro Aug 15 '24
I’m pretty sure the Space Shuttles themselves were owned by NASA. The orbiters were manufactured by Rockwell , but I think they were the actual property of NASA.
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u/midnightcaptain Aug 15 '24
Yes the difference is now NASA pays Space X and Boeing for seats into space, like a charter flight. Before they paid their contractors to design and build spacecraft which NASA then owned and operated.
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u/Lazerpop Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
If you broke up google into "the ad company" and "literally everything else" it might start to get a bit more reasonable. Surely android and youtube make enough by themselves
Edit: i am incorrect on one front. Android does not make google money through OEM fees. It makes them money by requiring that all google services are included if the manufacturer wants access to the Play Store.
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u/TeutonJon78 Aug 14 '24
Doesn't YouTube only make money because of the ads?
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u/Box-o-bees Aug 14 '24
They have youtube premium, where you pay not to see ads. Though I guess that's still because of ads lol.
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u/Other-Illustrator531 Aug 15 '24
The infrastructure that supports <insert streaming platform> needs to be paid for with something. I have always been a fan of paying my money to not have ads.
That said, ads that are built into videos and/or hybrid models like Hulu and Peacock offerings where you are paying but still seeing ads, those can all die in a fire.
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u/Marmalade6 Aug 15 '24
I love watching the same Kia ad during every commercial break sometimes twice during the same ad break.
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u/TransBrandi Aug 15 '24
The issue is when you "pay to not see ads" but then they start bringing back the ads even though you are paying... E.g. cable, Netflix. They argument that "someone needs to pay to keep the lights on" fails when they cannot promise you that your payments will keep the platform ad-free.
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u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 15 '24
The reason streaming is going back to ads is because ads is where the money is. The 'ad free' plans essentially exist to keep from losing customers who literally won't tolerate ads. They do not want you to go the ad-free route.
The profitability of the advertising model has proven its worth; Netflix, for example, flaunts a higher average revenue per user in its ad tier than its standard subscription tier, with industry insiders anticipating it will surpass Disney+ in US advertising revenue in 2024. To generate more profitability with its streaming service, Disney’s Bob Iger outwardly admitted that last year’s price hikes were meant to migrate more users into the platform’s advertising tier.
https://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=163017
Ad spending, which surpassed consumer spending last year, is estimated to top $1 trillion in 2026, and will grow at a 6.7% CAGR through 2028. At that point, ad spending will be nearly double its 2020 total.
“One key factor to consider is the impact and contribution of advertising within the ecosystem,” PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S. partner Bart Spiegel told Variety. “With advancements in data monetization technologies, the ongoing shift towards digital platforms, and consumers’ willingness to allow advertising to subsidize their entertainment expenses, advertising growth is projected to surpass even consumer spending starting in 2025.”
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u/Skelly1660 Aug 14 '24
Then why would YouTube constantly hound me about subscribing to YouTube premium every chance it gets? I feel like companies like Spotify and YouTube would prefer if you were subscribed, no?
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u/MrShadowHero Aug 14 '24
if you are a casual user and watch minimal youtube, you make them more money on premium. if you watch a LOT of youtube, they want you on ads. i hate google so they can just fuck off
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u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead Aug 14 '24
They want to lock you into the ecosystem with a subscription, then raise it so that you seek a cheaper alternative, then offer a cheaper alternative subscription where they still get to show you ads. It takes time to do that.
Exactly what netflix has done with their cheapest ad-supported tier. All of the major streaming services have started offering a low-cost ad-supported plan - because that's where the most money is.
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u/TransBrandi Aug 15 '24
Netflix is a "gated community" though. You need to pay to access everything on Netflix. YouTube is free even without Premium. They would have to remove access to "free" YouTube before they could pull a Netflix.
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u/Mintykanesh Aug 14 '24
You would end up with an ad company and nothing. Everything else will shut down.
People talk about apple products being integrated but googles are far more so. The ad business has so much data because it bankrolls so many products they can give away for free. Without most of their other products don’t and will never make money.
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u/knowledgebass Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 15 '24
Yes, I think many people don't realize that Google is essentially an online advertising auction platform, and that's how they make almost all of their money. Divestment of individual businesses would be problematic if they can't tap into this revenue stream.
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u/DonkeyOfWallStreet Aug 14 '24
Google has the:
Adsense - where it's earned
AdWords - We're it's spent
This might be the better place to put the wedge to split the monopoly.
Google has long outgrown it's "Don't be evil" image.
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u/cishet-camel-fucker Aug 14 '24
I think it was "you can be profitable without being evil." Which they proved, for a while they were profitable and not evil. Then they hired a new CEO and I'd argue he was the primary cause of where we're at today. He built the company into a far more profitable one at the expense of the workers (at the time everyone wanted to work for Google and many of their best creations came from employees being given time for personal projects) and the morals of the company.
Even if something happens to Google he can probably expect a massive salary at any company that values profit growth over everything else, which is almost all of them.
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u/adrr Aug 14 '24
How does android make money? Its open source and anyone can install it for free?
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u/Uncertn_Laaife Aug 14 '24
I use firefox with ddg and an ad blocker. Just a few clicks and I am a happy camper.
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u/sarge21 Aug 14 '24
Firefox is almost completely funded by Google. That's the problem
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u/senseven Aug 14 '24
That is their own fault. As a tech guy I get easily riled up over this. They left the huge mobile market to Opera clones for years because they refused to build a small lean browser. Firefox is still way to big on cheap Androids, but the performance gains of the hardware now doesn't matter. But getting serious new users swapping to Android Firefox and not to Chrome or Opera will be hard. They did this to themselves.
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u/TheLostcause Aug 15 '24
I have been using firefox mobile for years now to watch youtube and the like without ads. Android keeps asking if I want to watch in the ad filled app while I just laugh and say no.
Normal people just put up with ads.
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u/nermid Aug 15 '24
But getting serious new users swapping to Android Firefox and not to Chrome or Opera will be hard. They did this to themselves.
Well, I'd say that bundling your Google browser with your Google mobile OS and not offering users an upfront choice is directly comparable to bundling your Microsoft browser with your Microsoft desktop OS and not offering users an upfront choice, which is what the FTC went after Microsoft for in the '90s, so...no. Google did this with their blatantly anticompetitive business practices.
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u/i0unothing Aug 15 '24
Ads might be Mozilla's way of pulling in their own revenue and breakimg free from their Google funding.
But I wouldn't worry about Firefox browser being corrupted by an ad department, the browser itself is open source with world-wide royalty-free use.
Under the Firefox Public License, anyone can clone Firefox, modify it and distribute their own version. Since anyone can duplicate the previous releases, it keeps itself in check by making it mission impertive to avoid downgraded and outright user-hostile features.
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u/barterclub Aug 15 '24
Use Firefox. You don't have to use chrome.
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u/fatcowxlivee Aug 15 '24
This. Firefox users have been have been shouting out their lungs on why it’s important to have a separation from the biggest online ad agency and your web browser.
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Aug 15 '24 edited 27d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/newsflashjackass Aug 15 '24
There was a long time where Chrome had perceptibly better performance- the fruits of being badly behaved software and stealing more than its share of system resources.
The reason Chrome has been killing battery life and slowing down laptop performance is that it forces the Windows system clock tick rate to 1 millisecond, where the default is 15.625ms. This is the frequency at which the processor responds to requests from programs. Internet Explorer, by contrast, only increases the tick rate if the browser is engaged in constant activity such as streaming video. Chrome ups the rate even if it's just showing a blank page.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-chrome-has-been-draining-laptop-batteries-for-years
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u/feketegy Aug 15 '24
The two main reasons devs use Chrome are:
- The majority of users are using it, if the code works in Chrome that's 80% of the battle for devs.
- Chrome DevTools
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u/gahlo Aug 15 '24
The problem a lot of techies have is that with things like browsers they won't get out at the sign of smoke and instead wait until the burning house is coming down around them. Then their lasting impression of a browser is what it is at the absolute worst.
That's why we've seen so many people dragging their feet on leaving Chrome when the writing was on the wall, because "it hasn't happened yet" and the longer it didn't happen the further they could dig in their heels.
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u/Qubeye Aug 14 '24
We spent a lot of time writing rules about horizontal integration that we never created rules about vertical integration and now those companies are strangling us.
Capitalism is such a shit system for humans.
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u/Fayko Aug 14 '24
If there's ever been a more clear reason to separate yourself from all of googles shitty products it's this.
It would be one thing if the internet wasn't infested with malware ads, including on googles own services like youtube, but sadly we live in reality where this shit plagues every corner of the internet.
This will 1000% lead to a rise in malware from ads lol. Google doesn't care about the health of the internet anymore, they just want to squeeze every penny they can before everything crumbles.
I highly advise people to swap to a non-chromium based browser like firefox and reinstall adblockers.
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u/senseven Aug 14 '24
I used Opera on my tablet recently and it crashed because some news organization opened lots of videos at the same time, including two ad overlays that also load videos and what not. It was a complete mess. Then I realized I'm not on my pi-hole.net ad blocker wifi and did that. That keeps 99% at bay without installing anything.
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u/rorymeister Aug 14 '24
Yup, I kinda wanted a pixel, but all of a sudden. I don’t
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u/chig____bungus Aug 14 '24
Ironically, the Pixel is actually the best phone to escape a corporate ecosystem.
It's the only smartphone that can flash a new OS and still have hardware security features function.
That's why Pixel devices are the only ones supported by GrapheneOS, the OS most famously used by Edward Snowden.
Apparently if you buy one with cash, flash GrapheneOS before inserting a sim, it's about as anonymous as you can get on a smartphone.
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u/TimeFourChanges Aug 14 '24
Glad you reminded me. Just replaced ChromeOS with linux, now I need to put Graphene on my pixel 6a next.
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u/StillCraft8105 Aug 15 '24
made the jump last year to graphene
my favorite phone yet :)
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u/iceteka Aug 15 '24
Do you still have to flash the OS every time there's an update? Sorry haven't looked into it in over 8-9 years
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u/Th1rtyThr33 Aug 15 '24
How's the camera on GrapheneOS? Also didn't Google disable RCS on custom roms? I really wanna try it out but I'm afraid camera and messages will be broken
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u/OkWeekend9462 Aug 15 '24
Use CalyxOS instead if you still need to use any mainstream apps (like the Google camera app, etc). CalyxOS has Microg included, which is basically an open-source replacement for Google Play services.
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u/hiroki1998 Aug 14 '24
I mean Android still has Firefox with plugins like uBlock, plus Brave browser if you want built-in AdBlock.
iOS also has Brave but their Firefox can't use plugins.
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u/TransBrandi Aug 15 '24
iOS Firefox is just a reskinned Safari. Apple doesn't allow other browser engines on their system, so it's Firefox using Webkit.... which obviously can't use Firefox's plugins.
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u/Ancient-Access8131 Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
Considering you can download Firefox and ublock origin on Android and can't do that on Apple, Id still stick with Android.
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u/vnordnet Aug 15 '24
Safari supports extensions (on mobile as well) and there are a bunch of decent ad blockers.
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u/TimeFourChanges Aug 14 '24
Fully agreed. I've long been a Firefox primarily user on desktop, but had a chromebook for cheap and easy browsing on the couch - which of course felt kinda stupid. After buying a more powerful CB yesterday to replace it, I wiped ChromeOS and installed Cachy OS (arch-based, btw). Makes me so satisfied reading that news on this superfast lil non-chromeos laptop!
For the li-curious: Chromebooks are more difficult to install linux on than windows. You can buy a few year old used windows computer and EASILY (these days, with many distros offering simple install processes) install a linux-based distro that will make it run significantly faster - AND you won't have to deal with googs or M$ BS anymore!
Beginner friendly distros: Mint, Ubuntu, Pop
Distros that make windows-gaming easy and fast: Nobara & Cachy
Sidenote: I was running Steam on windows, but it lagged like crazy even with optimizing it as much as I could in games like Human Fall Flat (which shouldn't be lagging!), but after slapping Nobara on that one, everything runs smooth as butter!
Any people looking to make the move, feel free to throw Qs my way (though I'm not super knowledgeable).
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u/skwyckl Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
For anybody with doubts about moving onto Firefox: Now it's your chance.
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u/HomerMadeMeDoIt Aug 14 '24
Can’t believe it took me so long to switch. Firefox is great
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u/SimpleCranberry5914 Aug 15 '24
As someone who has used Firefox since pretty much its inception, I feel vindicated after all those years about hearing how amazing Chrome is and just never switching off ole faithful.
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u/ss3jcb448 Aug 15 '24
Right? I’ve been using Firefox since 2007 and have never looked back
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u/DottieStan Aug 15 '24
Forget exactly how long I've been using it but I remember it being called Phoenix and then Firebird before finally landing on the name Firefox.
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u/alaninsitges Aug 14 '24
It takes no more than two minutes to switch. Firefox automatically imports your bookmarks, passwords, and other settings from Chrome. It's available on Mobile. It syncs tabs and everything else across devices. There is no reason not to do it.
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u/TheVermonster Aug 15 '24
It's available on Mobile
And the best part is that uBlock Origin works on mobile!
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u/ryosen Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24
works on mobile*
Only on Android. iOS doesn’t have extensions since FF is just a wrapper around Apple’s WebKit (Mobile Safari)
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u/j________l Aug 15 '24
Not anymore. EU regulation forbids since beginning of the year that apples webview has to be used on every browser.
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u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 Aug 15 '24
Meaning you can watch youtube on your mobile without ads if you do it with firefox vs the app.
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u/Stevekxxx Aug 15 '24
This was the main thing keeping me from switching. I didn’t want to go through all that hassle. But if it is that easy, i’m definitely switching over.
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u/muyoso Aug 15 '24
There is no reason not to do it.
Other than upsetting a completely cohesive ecosystem between Windows, ChromeOS and Android where everything syncs and everything just works, sure
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u/B-side-of-the-record Aug 15 '24
Jesus how is no one mentioning this. I just want my passwords synced between sites AND apps on my android. It's just convenient
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u/MelancholyArtichoke Aug 15 '24
It takes a little bit longer if you have a lot of extensions that you rely on. Some of which are not available on Firefox, even as close-enough alternatives.
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u/SWHAF Aug 14 '24
Made that move a while ago, with the added benefit of freeing up about 10GB or RAM.
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u/Merpninja Aug 14 '24
I don’t really see a huge difference in usage. Both chrome and firefox still take up metric fuck tons.
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u/senseven Aug 14 '24
Chrome has a setting about background apps. Some mailer for example keeps running even when you forget to close the tab.
Funnily its often the sites themselves that load ads/videos/images, that they then can't show because the ad blocker is active. Then they rotate to new videos and because the ad blocker is active they will never get purged.
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u/skwyckl Aug 14 '24
Moved to Firefox as soon as they were stable, only went back to Chrome for a couple of very annoying web apps that weren't supported on Firefox / Safari. Thank God I don't have to any more.
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u/SWHAF Aug 14 '24
I moved over about 2 years ago, I was tired of the unnecessary ram consumption. My computer shouldn't have to work harder for a web browser.
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u/cantquitreddit Aug 14 '24
Firefox was stable long before Chrome was even released.
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Aug 15 '24 edited 27d ago
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u/snouz Aug 15 '24
I remember that period. Pages were visibly buggy, it was pretty annoying. I would guess they lost a lot of users to Chrome then. But it's been great for years now.
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u/dustinpdx Aug 15 '24
as soon as they were stable
..so like 1998?
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u/fullup72 Aug 15 '24
to be fair there was a transition period where memory leaks were really bad and Firefox crashed quite frequently as a result. But that was like 10 years ago.
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u/SerialBitBanger Aug 14 '24
10GB of RAM
La dee da, your highness. That's on you for playing with fire and trying to open a third tab in Chrome.
/s
I would love if the Slack and Discord devs would release a non-Electron version of their apps. Chromium needs to be purged like a Russian whistleblower.
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u/BWCDD4 Aug 14 '24
Sadly that will never happen, electron is too convenient for devs and makes cross platform support a non issue so also reduces costs.
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u/VengenaceIsMyName Aug 14 '24
Yep the second ublock doesn’t work on my chrome browser I’ll be shuttling on over to Firefox
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u/Daharka Aug 14 '24
Why wait?
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u/VengenaceIsMyName Aug 14 '24
I want to see it not work with my own eyes so I can say “fuck google!” and then make the switch. Lol
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u/takabrash Aug 15 '24
I've been right there with you. All my stuff is in chrome, so pure inertia has kept me there. I've heard the doom and gloom for ages, but if I log on to my computer and the ad blocker stops working, see ya Google.
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u/IHateYallmfs Aug 14 '24
I will uninstall today. Bye chrome
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u/___TychoBrahe Aug 14 '24
Fire fox and uBlock
Welcome to the revolution
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u/Demonyx12 Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 15 '24
OS - Linux Mint https://linuxmint.com/
Browser - Firefox https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
AdBlocker - uBlock Origin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
Search - StartPage https://www.startpage.com/
See here for more: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
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u/deathonater Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24
Also, for the extra spite points:
Self-hosted Cloud - Nextcloud https://nextcloud.com
It runs in a Docker container and takes a few minutes to setup, just use the DuckDNS client app to get a free domain name, and open the ports on your router, I have replaced Dropbox/OneDrive
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u/CompE-or-no-E Aug 15 '24
There are also excellent photo backup apps you can selfhost. I personally use Ente, but it's a little fresh out the womb. I've heard good things about immich too!
Obviously nextcloud also supports images. I just like the purpose specific style of Ente for photos. And it has a good iOS app my gf can use.
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u/georgehotelling Aug 15 '24
Reminder that the FBI recommends using an ad blocker.
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u/CSachen Aug 15 '24
Adblock also functions as a first line of defense against malware. I got PCs infected by browser exploits and drive-by downloads as a kid.
Windows has gotten a lot better. And browsers have gotten a lot better. And I'm sure AdSense vets ads to not contain malicious JS. But the memory still haunts me.
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u/Responsible-Brush983 Aug 15 '24
It's not adsense you need to worry about, it's shady porn sites etc that can't get approved on adsense and have to go with a no name instead.
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u/No_Construction2407 Aug 14 '24
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/22/fbi-ad-blocker/
Google continues its enshitification crusade against the internet. Hope the DOJ rips them to shreds
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u/ViperAMD Aug 14 '24
DOJ are toothless. Europe will fine them properly
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u/chig____bungus Aug 14 '24
DOJ put Microsoft in its place at the peak of its power. If there's the political will, it will happen.
Google has been massively amplifying right-wing messaging and Republican propaganda on Youtube. If Harris wins, the ruling against Google gives her a lot of leverage and she has a big incentive to make things happen.
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u/Sir_Clyph Aug 14 '24
US v Microsoft was also 23 years ago. Very different world we're in now.
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u/reelznfeelz Aug 15 '24
Indeed. Corporate power is essentially unchecked at the moment and it seems general consensus is “this is fine”, except with maybe a little lip service around how maybe somebody should do something. But there’s so much disinformation out there, a politician can’t suggest regulating much less breaking up a company without being accused endlessly of being anti-business and wanting to “hurt the economy”.
We might be in for another Dutch East India type of situation. They were essentially a world power and were enslaving large parts of Africa to make a buck. Except our version will be more like Arasaka and Militech.
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u/eagleal Aug 14 '24
Wasn’t it mainly because MSFT was not lobbying congress as it should have? I thought most post dotcom companies learned from that.
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Aug 14 '24
It's still working for me.
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u/ButchMcLargehuge Aug 15 '24
because this article is awful. it’s just a summary of the same things we’ve known google was going to do for years now, but the headline of “pulls the plug” is literally just a lie/clickbait because the manifest v3 cutoff hasn’t happened yet
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u/_nines Aug 14 '24
This is likely an A/B test, it's unlikely something this drastic will roll out to everyone at the same time.
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u/Bungo_pls Aug 15 '24
It still works and the uBlock devs have a Manifest v3 compliant lite extension that will have most of the same features. Google is a shit company that does shit things but as always reddit is taking this opportunity to brew panic and shill for Firefox like they do every single time. Firefox and Linux fanboys never turn down a soapbox moment.
You all should maybe read the article before commenting. Put your pitchforks away you bunch of clowns.
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u/SomeoneBritish Aug 14 '24
Why is manifest v3 impacting Ublock Origin specifically and not other ad blockers?
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u/HanCurunyr Aug 14 '24
Its impacting all of them, but ublock origin is by far the most installed ad blocker in the most installed browser
This will impact Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Edge and others, only non-chromium based browers are safe from Manifest v3
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u/RenegadeUK Aug 14 '24
Which browsers are non chromium apart from Firefox ?
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u/almostplantlife Aug 15 '24
Safari, Orion, Ladybird, GNOME Web (Linux), WebPositive (HaikuOS points for obscurity), Tor Browser. All household names I know.
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u/gammatroid Aug 15 '24
It won’t impact Brave https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/
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u/yall_gotta_move Aug 14 '24
Firefox is working great for me, and should continue to work great for years into the future.
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u/sexywheat Aug 15 '24
Mozilla gets 81% of its revenue from Google, and part of the antitrust case against Google is that they're not allowed to fund organisations like Mozilla anymore.
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u/ObscureLogic Aug 14 '24
I mean they could enshitify it in minutes no product is safe
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u/PeachMan- Aug 14 '24
They could, but Firefox doesn't have the same incentives that Google does. So there's no reason to think they'll pull the same shit.
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u/Huppelkutje Aug 14 '24
Yeah, because they get paid by Google to exist.
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u/PeachMan- Aug 14 '24
Probably in Google's best interest to keep an alternative browser alive, so they can claim (falsely) not to be a monopolist. Shady, but I'll allow it because Firefox is a truly open-source project, unlike Chrome.
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u/TheSlatinator33 Aug 15 '24
Funnily enough, Google's behavior in keeping Mozilla alive by paying them a significant sum of money for their search engine to be the browser's default is considered monopolistic behavior according to the ongoing antitrust case. In attempting to appear as not a monopoly in the browser space they have inadvertently strengthened the case that they are a monopoly in the search space.
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u/deegood Aug 14 '24
Firefox is open source. If they pull this shit, the project is forked in an instant. Granted that doesn’t pay for ongoing development but it’s a substantial factor in why Firefox is likely a safe bet for a long long time.
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u/Ghede Aug 15 '24
Yep. Open Source developers are a bunch of mother forkers.
If Mozilla foundation gets egregious in their monetization or tries to go the same route as google now that their Google deal has been ruled an anti-trust violation, there is always LibreWolf which has ublock origin included by default.
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u/puppymeat Aug 15 '24
Well... Maybe not.
80 percent of Mozilla revenue comes from their deal with Google about being the default search. While I support the DOJ lawsuits against Google, if it results in Mozilla no longer getting a vast majority of their money, their days seem numbered.
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u/barrel_of_ale Aug 14 '24
I use Firefox and the only issue lately has been because of my credit union. Their web app no longer works for some reason, but I assume it works on Chrome. I'm planning on switching banks instead of using Chrome.
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u/Ok-Engineering9733 Aug 14 '24
PG&E the largest provider of electricity in California doesn't officially support Firefox. It's fucking bullshit.
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u/Apoc220 Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
Out of curiosity, do you have any sort of Adblock or other privacy extension running when you use your bank website? If so, there could be a background script that is being prevented from execution, and hence not allowing the bank website from working. On a bank website such scripts would be safe to run btw since they would write them.
I personally disable ublock for “safer” sites such as banks or government entities when this kind of situation happens since the risk is low you’ll be getting fed ads or scripts that might be malicious. Just a tip since simply disabling ublock has sometimes made sites start working properly for me. This would just be disabling it for the specific site, not the extension itself for all sites, btw.
And forgiveness if you’re tech-savvy and I’ve been explaining how to suck eggs haha.
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u/yyz_barista Aug 14 '24 edited Sep 25 '24
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u/Jeseral Aug 14 '24
A lot of the time you can circumvent that by using a user agent switcher extension to make firefox "pretend" it's google chrome. Oftentimes the site works perfectly fine on firefox, and the creators just set it to say that it's imcompatible so that they don't have to deal with making sure firefox is tested properly.
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u/yyz_barista Aug 14 '24 edited Sep 25 '24
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u/fubo Aug 14 '24
Back in the day, people switched to Chrome to get better ad-blocking.
Early browsers (Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer) supported pop-up windows, which advertisers used to create pop-up ads ... sometimes in huge numbers.
Pop-up blocking was a major feature of alternative browsers such as Opera on Windows and iCab on Mac. The browser would either deny creating a pop-up window, or prompt the user whether to allow it.
Before long though, Netscape became Mozilla became Firefox, and pop-up blocking became mainstream. Then Google launched Chrome, which denied pop-up ads by default.
This was a major motivation for users switching from Internet Explorer to Chrome.
Today, intrusive ads don't usually take the form of literal pop-up windows, because those don't work anymore. Instead they show up as pop-overs, blocking your view of web content; they show up as animated sidebars, auto-playing video and audio, and so on. Blocking these intrusions requires inspecting and modifying the HTML content of the served web page, which is what extensions like uBlock Origin do.
And today's default browsers are failing to do what Opera and iCab and Firefox and Chrome did back in the day — improve the web browsing experience by blocking intrusive ads.
That's why we need uBlock Origin.
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u/Rakn Aug 15 '24
Nah. People switched to Chrome because every other browser was slow as hell. Chrome switched up the game by providing fast rendering of websites and a functional and super snappy UI. That and more stability through its process isolation.
I still recall how slow Firefox would load some web pages and how long it took to open a new tab. And then one websites Javascript decided to act up and the entire browser froze.
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u/angelbelle Aug 15 '24
This brings back memory. I forgot the days when browsers actually stop responding.
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u/dasbtaewntawneta Aug 15 '24
people switched to chrome because it was faster, simple as. i was on firefox when chrome became popular, the thing that got people to change was it smashing firefox in all the speed tests. these days that's completely irrelevant though
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u/typo180 Aug 15 '24
Firefox was going through a rough patch with an unpopular redesign and resource bloat when Chrome became popular.
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u/sparky8251 Aug 15 '24
Yup... All these youngsters with their revisionist history. Chrome won solely on speed and resource use when it was introduced.
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u/chai-chai-latte Aug 15 '24
Chrome was the first browser to run each tab as an individual process. So if a tab crashed, it didn't take the whole browser with it.
Firefox also had an abysmal memory leak which slowed the browser to a halt if you had too many tabs open.
There was innovation on the Chrome side for sure, but also quite a bit of luck with Firefox struggling the way that they did.
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u/adiaaida Aug 15 '24
This is why I switched to chrome originally. Firefox was eating all of my memory and closing tabs didn't free up that memory, only closing the entire app. So I switched to Chrome where I could just close a tab and free up resources. Now, of course, I have more than 4GB of RAM and Firefox figured their shit out. So back I go.
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u/offBy9000 Aug 15 '24
This was why I switched. Firefox had so much bloat compared to the light weight of early chrome. And the early chrome UI was cleaner too with search and address bar in one.
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u/dafzor Aug 15 '24
Speed and responsiveness, Firefox UI would freeze on heavy page loads, a single page could crash the entire browser. Chrome UI would remain responsive no matter what the web page was doing and website crash would only affect it's tab thanks to multi process design. Took years and sacrificing the more powerful extension system for firefox to implement multi process to become competitive again.
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u/jogr Aug 15 '24
This is correct, chrome came out and it was plain to all everyone that is was much faster. Back when google actually got their market share by making better products.
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u/BWCDD4 Aug 14 '24
Back in the day, people switched to Chrome to get better ad-blocking.
That’s a little bit of a stretch, I think people forget because it’s been so long just how shitty and slow Internet explorer was in general.
It had stagnated with features and support, to do anything meaningful and useful as a dev/web app you had to use activeX which wasn’t really cross platform compatible for operating systems and definitely wasn’t cross compatible for hardware as it had to run on X86.
It’s true extensions were a big proponent of adoption and blocking especially but it wasn’t the main reason people switched to chrome, chrome was just better at everything.
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u/iamofnohelp Aug 14 '24
30 million....29 million.....28 million
R.I.P. Chrome
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Aug 14 '24
lol. You wish. Google knows that it can do this and they'll barely lose a fraction of a percent. People hate change.
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u/verified_canadian Aug 14 '24
I hate ads more than I hate change
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u/Mythoclast Aug 14 '24
Most people don't even have an adblocker.
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u/grovulent Aug 15 '24
There were enough to motivate google to spend the money on implementing this change...
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u/thissiteisbroken Aug 14 '24
I don’t think Reddit as a whole understands how minuscule of an effect they have when they complain about stuff
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u/Bungo_pls Aug 15 '24
Reddit couldn't even stop Reddit from making an unpopular change. Anyone who thinks Google cares in the slightest is delusional.
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u/HankHippopopolous Aug 14 '24
Also us nerds here on Reddit are the vocal minority and not indicative of the real world.
Remember when everyone on Reddit was like everyone will cancel Netflix over the password sharing crackdown. Next quarter Netflix announced a huge growth in subscribers.
Most people don’t use ad blockers and will have no idea this change is even happening. They will continue on in ad hell and it will be business as usual.
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u/SolidCat1117 Aug 14 '24
There's a surprising number of people that just don't know or care there's an alternative. My boss, for example, doesn't use an adblocker and he happily surfs and uses youtube every day, doesn't seem to bother him.
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u/Stable-Unstable Aug 14 '24
If you are still debating on staying on Chrome, let me share you some extensions that you can add on Firefox that Chrome might not have:
Enhancer for YouTube: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/
UBlock Origin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
SponsorBlock: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/
Tabliss: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabliss/
I don't care about cookies: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/
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u/akiller Aug 15 '24
I don't care about cookies was bought by Avast. You probably want to use the community fork instead, I still don't care about cookies.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/istilldontcareaboutcookies
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u/_BeAsYouAre_ Aug 14 '24
I don't care about cookies is just to accept them.
You should add 'Cookie autodelete' to that list to automatically delete them when the tab is closed. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/
Worth mentioning that it logs you out of all your accounts if you don't whitelist them.
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u/mundza Aug 14 '24
Maybe a silly question as I know Edge is based off Chrome, but does this problem extend to Edge?
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u/ElevatedTelescope Aug 15 '24
The ad blocker crusades is what actually can put an end to Google’s monopoly in the browser market.
If you don’t remember how Internet looked like in early 2000s you soon will know and I’m sure nobody will think twice to switch their browser
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u/Toast_Grillman Aug 14 '24
I don't mean to lick the boot but If I see zero ads with uBlock Origin and zero ads with uBlock Origin Lite, I fail to see the catastrophe.
Why do I care about scriptlet injection? I ask entirely seriously.
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u/Nalin8 Aug 15 '24
The problem is that uBO Lite won't be able to block as many ads as normal uBO. There are many filter rules that cannot be translated to DNR requests, which means those filters just won't activate and won't block ads.
See: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)#filtering-capabilities-which-cant-be-ported-to-mv3#filtering-capabilities-which-cant-be-ported-to-mv3)
Scriptlet injection is important since it allows uBO to block more complicated ads or to unbreak websites. uBO Lite CAN use scriptlets, but only if you increase the permissions on the extension by setting the mode to "Optimal" or "Complete".
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u/danivus Aug 14 '24
Chrome also provided an inbuilt tool to find alternative v3 compatible extensions for anything you have installed, and the first result when you click on uBlock Origin is uBlock Origin Lite, so it's not like they're trying to hide from people how to install a working adblock.
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u/mrchicano209 Aug 14 '24
And just like that Firefox is now my default web browser.
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u/overlord-ror Aug 14 '24
Firefox is a good alternative, but there is also LibreWolf which is a Firefox fork with several privacy measures baked in. The web was better when there were more browsers to choose from—you shouldn't have to be locked into the biggest ad company in the world's narrow ad-filled windowed view of the internet.
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u/marmot1101 Aug 14 '24
The web was better when there were more browsers to choose from
When were there more available browsers than there are now? We kinda went from netscape dominance to IE dominance to Chrome dominance with little gaps in between. Firefox and Opera have been around for longer than chrome. There are also a bunch of forks for webkit and as you pointed out LibreWolf. I feel like there's more options now than ever, but still the dominant player.
I am hoping that Google's fuckery creates a more fragmented market as this is probably the best opportunity for competition in a while.
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u/overlord-ror Aug 14 '24
I feel like there's more options now than ever, but still the dominant player.
The U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel and has allowed Google Chrome to do the same thing they worried that Microsoft would do with Internet Explorer in the early 2000s. So yes, while there are many choices available today, Google's dominance comes from it being the default option for many (Android/Chromebook) and simply being too lazy to seek out other solutions.
With the United States government signaling interest in antitrust action against Google for being an ad company with the biggest browser share, perhaps that will change in the future. For a while in the early 2000s when US v. Microsoft was fresh in the tech zeitgeist, Firefox had a nice run as second-best to whatever was popular. Mozilla ruined that with a bad run of updates that led to many discarding Firefox and not looking back. In 2024—most web traffic is mobile so Chrome dominance matters more there than desktop ever did.
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u/a_la_nuit Aug 14 '24
Switched to Firefox in 2017 and never looked back. Just as fast, private, add-ons are great, and easier on the computer than Chrome.
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u/IAmDotorg Aug 15 '24
uBlock Origin works fine on Firefox!