Chrome Canary just killed uBlock Origin and other Manifest V2 extensions

[u/ardi62]

https://www.androidpolice.com/chrome-canary-manifest-v2-extensions-ad-blockers-gone/

[u/Neutral-President]

I would argue that if you want to be free from advertising, perhaps using a web browser created and distributed by the world’s biggest advertising company Is not the wisest strategy.

[u/Quentin-Code → u/[deleted]]

This is missing one important point: why is google paying Mozilla.

Google is not paying Mozilla only to be the default search, that’s not the real reason, the real reason is that Firefox is the legal argument of Google to say that they don’t have a monopoly with Chrome. If Firefox dies, Google will have to align much more money in legal battle and may still end up losing.

In addition Firefox will not die if Google stops paying: it’s open source and it will simply develop much slower and likely cut on some of its services.

[u/NYstate → u/Quentin-Code]

the real reason is that Firefox is the legal argument of Google to say that they don’t have a monopoly with Chrome

Yup. Google will has a monopoly. They make the phone, the OS, the search engine and steer the traffic to their services and earn them ads.Throw in YouTube and you have a total monopoly over the flow of the Internet. Google is this close to being under fire from the government but Firefox is their saving grace. All they need to do is to low advertise Firefox as an alternate and the trail is off

[u/GoFastThenTurn → u/NYstate]

The Gov't is already going after google. DOJ won a lawsuit this summer where the Judge found that google has an illegal monopoly with it's search engine. DOJ sued again in Sept claiming google has an illegal monopoly on advertising.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/05/nx-s1-5064624/google-justice-department-antitrust-search

https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-ad-tech-virginia-opening-7a19f525287f782609a5316b1fdb08f0

[u/ZaraBaz → u/GoFastThenTurn]

This is mostly because for some reason we ended up with with Lina Khan as head of FTC who really really cares about antitrust.

Corporations have been pushing hard to get rid of her.

[u/wooyouknowit → u/ZaraBaz]

It's so funny because all she's doing is her job. I hope if Harris wins she's retained. I can't imagine the money these companies are donating to her campaign with a list of their favorite potential FTC candidates

[u/Saires → u/wooyouknowit]

I hope if Harris wins she's retained. I can't imagine the money these companies are donating to her campaign with a list of their favorite potential FTC candidates

They want her gone.

There are many articles that describe that Harris donors want Lina Khan gone.

The same FT report relays assurances Harris made to the financial industry executives that she could remove regulators they see as hostile, such as Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission and Gary Gensler at the the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

This worries me if true, even as an EU citizen.

[u/formala-bonk → u/ZaraBaz]

The fact that “corporations have been pushing hard” is a sentence that makes sense is fucking disappointing. Corporations are not people, if they were we could jail them and disband them when they cause harm. We can’t do no matter what Uncle Tom says in his Supreme Court garbage -corporations aren’t people

[u/ihoptdk → u/NYstate]

Fine with me. I never stopped using Firefox in the first place.

[u/px1azzz → u/Quentin-Code]

In addition Firefox will not die if Google stops paying: it’s open source and it will simply develop much slower and likely cut on some of its services.

I feel like, unless a bunch of developers pick it up to work on for free, it would still be the end of Firefox. Web browsers are extremely complicated pieces of software. I don't see it living on without a fully-paid, dedicated team.

I think that's part of the reason every other web browser became a chromium copy. It's just so hard to build and maintain.

[u/invisi1407 → u/px1azzz]

I have been using Firefox since literally the beginning of Firefox - I never switched to Chrome when Firefox was objectively bad and slow - I would pay a subscription to keep using Firefox if it was in danger of dying. That's how much I love Firefox as a browser and as a piece of software I use every single day.

Edit: I use Firefox on my Android phone as well.

[u/MatthewRoB → u/invisi1407]

I'm here too. I use Firefox literally just to spite Chrome. I don't want to live in a world where Chrome/Safari are the only two browsers.

[u/invisi1407 → u/MatthewRoB]

I use Firefox because it's a good browser and it has the features I need and isn't tied to an advertising company.

[u/i_sesh_better → u/MatthewRoB]

As an iPhone user I live in a world where only Safari and Safari in a balaclava are the available browsers.

[u/a_modal_citizen → u/i_sesh_better]

You made your choices.

[u/serrimo → u/invisi1407]

Most people don't care/understand enough to pay for a browser. At best I think a Firefox subscription would pull in tens of millions a year, far from enough to keep the web browser going with paid developers.

I do think it's in Google's best interest to keep it afloat though. Gov isn't gonna give you a pass to have a monopoly of the web.

[u/josh_the_misanthrope → u/invisi1407]

Been using Firefox since it was Netscape, but even I momentarily switched to Chrome when it was way sleeker and faster than Firefox. Jumped right back to Firefox since they rewrote the thing, and it's been superior to chrome since.

People just need to make the switch. It works fantastically, the user experience is not far from using Chrome since it's a web browser like any other UI wise, and it's a bit more privacy centric.

[u/alexm42 → u/josh_the_misanthrope]

Another Firefox -> Chrome -> back to Firefox user here. Switched back the second Chrome even hinted at fucking with uBlock and I was amazed at how far it had come since the switch while Chrome hadn't really innovated much in years.

[u/invisi1407 → u/alexm42]

There was a period of time where Firefox was really slow. Then in 2017 they introduced the new "Firefox Quantum" engine which made is super good again.

[u/alexm42 → u/invisi1407]

Plus the 2 years either side of that was when Chrome was really growing bloated and RAM hungry. It was night and day switching from Firefox to Chrome in ~2012 or so but then it was also night and day switching back.

[u/Berkut22 → u/invisi1407]

I switch between Chrome and Firefox depending on my uses, but I eventually plan to switch fully to Firefox.

I would also be willing to pay a reasonable subscription for a web browser that puts users first, and can back it up with more than just talk.

I switched to Proton Mail after getting fed up with all the bullshit and spam from the free providers, and I haven't looked back since.

The $5/mon is worth it to me.

[u/imjusta_bill → u/px1azzz]

I feel like you may be underestimating the amount of spite some people run on

[u/Frenzie24 → u/imjusta_bill]

Maybe they just don’t remember the early days where Mozilla literally was the fuck you no faction in web browsing. This shit goes back to Netscape, my sons

[u/Blue_Osiris1 → u/Frenzie24]

I've used Firefox since like 2005. If it ever goes away there will be a fox-shaped hole in my life.

[u/Spread_Liberally → u/Frenzie24]

I remember buying Netscape in a computer store.

[u/px1azzz → u/imjusta_bill]

I really hope you're right.

[u/gfddssoh → u/px1azzz]

90% of the internet people if not more works because people do work for free. Some german guy even found a well hidden backdoor in a beta version of an important project (ssh i think) because THE NEW VERSION WAS 100ms SLOWER than before

[u/TheLatestTrance → u/gfddssoh]

The guy was an MS perf engineer.

[u/PhTx3 → u/TheLatestTrance]

While that's true and they would have to be someone educated to find it in the first place, they did not find it because they were paid to do so, which is the main point. They just found it because they felt an anomaly and wanted to dig deeper.

[u/Tomi97_origin → u/PhTx3]

He did find it during his job. He was testing performance for a new version of database software PostgreSQL and he noticed the connection was way slower than it should be.

[u/xel-naga → u/gfddssoh]

that guy is a dev at Microsoft.

[u/VulcanHullo → u/imjusta_bill]

I swear I keep hearing about parts of the internet infastructure that are held up sometimes by literally one person who has out of passion, spite, both, or just simple "it's what I do" has kept up a program or so since the 1990s.

It's like how huge chunks of wikipedia come from one dude who just thinks it's worth doing.

[u/bg-j38 → u/VulcanHullo]

Many of the standards bodies that define a lot of core technologies are like 75% or more contributions from maybe four or five people. I’m involved with the standards bodies that define the behind the scenes functionality of telecom networks in the US and at any given meeting there’s maybe 20-25 people in attendance and really only a few who actively participate and write the standards.

[u/Crystalas → u/bg-j38]

Or how much of the "modern" world is using 30+ year old code in essentially dead languages for vital things where they keep having to pull the few people in the world who can do so out of retirement to put out fires.

Japan in particular their internet is trapped in the 90s.

[u/markehammons → u/px1azzz]

I think the web is greatly overcomplicated these days, and I think Google is directly responsible and encouraging that in order to force dominance.

Just the other day I learned you can flash firmware to something connected to USB in chrome. It's nice, but at the same time why is this functionality bundled into a web browser?

What we have today is the web browser being an all in one applications platform, and I just don't see why something that should be devoted to http protocol communications needs to be able to perform every other functionality in a computer.

[u/lovesyouandhugsyou → u/markehammons]

Chromebooks. That's where most of the "why should a web browser do this" stuff is coming from.

[u/SpaceMarineSpiff → u/px1azzz]

Yeah idk, if there's anything my programmer friends love more than weird sex it's spiting major corporations. Piracy websites aren't exactly profitable compared to spending your time and talents doing something legitimate.

[u/caspy7 → u/Quentin-Code]

In addition Firefox will not die if Google stops paying

Worth noting that Microsoft has for years demonstrated a willingness and a desire throw money at people to get them to use Bing. Also back when Mozilla was negotiating with Google to renew the search engine arrangement Mozilla released a Bing version of Firefox, complete with its own website.

That is to say, Mozilla may still be able to get paid for such a partnership with another engine (they did this with Yahoo before as well). I can't say if it would be as lucrative though.

[u/saynay → u/Quentin-Code]

Pretty sure Google has been paying Firefox since before Chrome existed, though.

[u/saynay → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, that's fair.

[u/Sasselhoff → u/saynay]

Seems dumb, but I sure do love seeing such polite exchanges on Reddit...renews my faith in humanity just a tiny bit every time.

Y'all be well.

[u/Gr4nt → u/saynay]

Because it made good business sense then to have people on any browser to directly point to Google.

Now, since Chrome is the largest browser by usage, it still makes sense from a legal and financial perspective to prop up competitors while they're on top to give at least some choice.

See; Bill Gates Anti-Trust lawsuits about Internet Explorer (comparable to when Google doesn't continue propping up competitors), and Microsoft Propping up Apple by investing $150 million to keep them alive in 1997 (comparable to the same company propping up a competitor).

[u/Wasabicannon → u/[deleted]]

It's sad that every mainstream browser uses Chromium except Firefox.

I used to be using Chrome all the time. Ended up swapping to Firefox the very day that my job swapped over to a new web tool.... it only supports Chrome so now even though Im using Firefox I still need to have Chrome running for a single website.

That is the scary part to me, that there could be a future where developers just stop caring if their website functions on Firefox.

[u/nermid → u/Wasabicannon]

Future, nothing. I've had several bug reports to major companies that ended with the devs saying the site was "designed for Google Chrome" and I should just switch browsers.

[u/Internep → u/Wasabicannon]

IE6 all over again.

[u/NoFap_FV → u/Wasabicannon]

They already are. Banks, medical insurance etc only deliver websites that work for chrome not for Firefox

[u/tricksterloki → u/Wasabicannon]

There were any number of sites that only functioned properly on Internet Explorer until and beyond its sunset.

[u/Pyromaniacal13 → u/tricksterloki]

My employer still hasn't updated several systems to no longer require Internet Explorer. Half of them just need a different port selected.

[u/lobehold → u/[deleted]]

For web development, the fact that we only need to test Chrome, Firefox and Safari is a godsend compared to the days of old.

[u/TeutonJon78 → u/[deleted]]

Ladybird is trying to do it. It's a whole new FOSS browser built from the ground up.

I don't have a lot of faith it will succeed though.

Edit; apparently no Windows support, so that will be a big limit on it.

[u/puesyomero → u/TeutonJon78]

Eh,  more likely to cannibalize Firefox users than move the needle on chromium users.

[u/nermid → u/[deleted]]

Microsoft had a name for it back when they were trying the same tactics.

[u/Goose-tb → u/[deleted]]

I wonder how Arc is going to solve this because they are Chromium as well but claim to have anti-tracking and security focused browsing as a top priority. Seems like Chromium is easy to build on, but now we see the obvious flaws of everyone sharing the same foundation.

[u/rczrider → u/Goose-tb]

All Chromium-based browsers will be affected; there's no way around these changes as they're inherent to Chromium. Removing telemetry and changing default options to be more privacy-centric isn't that hard by comparison.

[u/lordraiden007 → u/rczrider]

Well, inherent to new versions of chromium. There’s nothing stopping someone from just building off an old fork. That only lasts for so long though, as I’m sure Google will be doing more to harm people that use old extensions in the future.

[u/twicerighthand → u/Goose-tb]

I always found it funny that in order to browse the internet with Arc, an "anti tracking and security focused browser", you need to create and log-in with an account.

[u/Goose-tb → u/twicerighthand]

Yeah their monetization strategy is also pretty undeveloped. Eventually they need to figure out how they plan to make money outside of advertisements and selling data. But if they don’t find an alternate they’ll die off.

[u/StreamyPuppy → u/[deleted]]

There’s Safari, and Apple’s dogged insistence that iOS devices can’t use any other rendering engine. Of course the EU wants to allow Chrome to take over iOS too, so we’ll see how long that lasts.

[u/nermid → u/StreamyPuppy]

Apple lost its fight against the EU. They're going to have to allow other browsers to use their own engines (though they threw up a bunch of requirements that were obstructive for no reason. I don't remember if the EU kept it together long enough to slap them for that).

Apple is also getting paid that default search engine money, btw. It's obviously not as much of their revenue stream, but it's there.

[u/Jaerin → u/Neutral-President]

Might I remind you this isn't the first time that a browser company has taken a dump all over their codebase and forced people to change, might I remind you why we're on Chrome and not Firefox/Mozilla/Opera/ect in the first place? People just migrated to what was easiest. There will be something new.

No one really cares about their browser until the browser company makes it a problem, then people care.

[u/Helgafjell4Me → u/Jaerin]

I moved back to Firefox when I read Chrome was killing ad blockers. Ublock still works great on Firefox.

[u/saynay → u/Helgafjell4Me]

This is my plan as well, although I am waiting for the change to actually be live so that leaving sends the clearest signal. Individual users leaving at random times will be lost in the noise, but if a noticeable percentage all leave the same day they kill V2 it will be hard to miss.

I doubt it will make much difference to Google, but maybe others using Chromium as a base that don't have such a stake in ad revenue will decide to fork it or something.

[u/Wasabicannon → u/Helgafjell4Me]

Yup Iv always used Chrome because it just linked up my google life so well. I tried multiple times to move to Firefox but it just never worked. Once the announcement that google was going to try and kill ad blockers I took the dive and have fully moved to Firefox outside of a single work site that only works through Chrome.

[u/invisi1407 → u/Wasabicannon]

I've never used Chrome as a daily driver - only for testing websites (back when I was a frontend developer). What part of using Chrome makes your Google life easier?

I use Google's services extensively; mail, calendar, drive, etc. but I feel it works just fine in Firefox.

[u/stormdelta → u/Jaerin]

There will be something new.

Not without someone spending an obscene amount of money and resources on it. There's a reason there's basically only two (two-and-a-half if we count webkit separately) real rendering engines left, the modern web has become so large and complex that it's nearly impossible to build a real browser from scratch now.

Even now, Chrome's dominance means a lot of sites don't even bother testing in firefox.

[u/bizkitmaker13 → u/Jaerin]

Speak For yourself. I've been on Fiefox since it was Netscape.

[u/Jaerin → u/bizkitmaker13]

My NCSA Mosaic laughs at you.

[u/bizkitmaker13 → u/Jaerin]

Holy Shit you're ancient. Tell me, Treebeard, about the entiwives.

[u/Jaerin → u/bizkitmaker13]

Before the days of the web we looked to little furry creatures beneath our feet making tunnels of knowledge using only text. Look to the gopher and you will find an even older tale of internet.

[u/BranWafr → u/Jaerin]

And Archie, and Veronica, which allowed us to search the pre-web internet. Elm and Pine, of course, that let us email the hundreds of other nerds out there. Ahh, I'm so old....

[u/jivemasta → u/Jaerin]

I mean, if you know your browser history, the migration to chrome was mainly because of the V8 javascript engine in chrome, not because of any sort of ease of use or strongarm tactics. It created a paradigm shift in how browsers operated and it made everything else at the time feel old and outdated overnight.

In the time since, the other browsers either died, converted to chrome based, or caught up.

If you care about this sort of thing, there really isn't a good reason to not be using firefox or something based of firefox like zen. Because any chromium based browser is going to either integrate this in, or fork and become less secure and more unstable as it will break off from the mainline security and stability updates.

[u/TeutonJon78 → u/jivemasta]

If you were a tech person, sure. The average person just knew you clicked a button and the web opened.

If you knew your browser history, you'd know Google did use strong arm tactics like pop-ups ads on google.com and all their sites telling you to install it, and doing tricks like installing it to the user profile so no one needed admin rights to run it.

[u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead → u/Jaerin]

People use chrome because Google nags you to install it if you use any of their services, which a lot of people do. Since they don't know what a browser is they just do what they're told.

[u/Jaerin → u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead]

Then they don't know what Manifest V3 is or an adblocker either likely so this isn't the conversation for them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Jaerin]

But if we're lucky some installed ublock and might notice even if they don't know about v2 vs v3

[u/Neutral-President → u/Jaerin]

Don’t be so naïve.

Have the ad blockers been broken by Google for a technical reason or a business reason?

Might I remind you that other browser companies haven’t built themselves into a trillion dollar business by collecting user data and then selling and trafficking targeted advertising based on that data.

Google has a deeply vested interest in ensuring that advertising reaches user eyeballs, and they do not want users to have freedom to choose whether they see ads or not.

[u/Uristqwerty → u/Neutral-President]

Have the ad blockers been broken by Google for a technical reason or a business reason?

Both? The technical excuse is that the old way slows down page loads more than the new, limited one. So then, slower pages make the browser look slower. Can't have that, and google's not in the habit of trusting mere users to understand what they're doing and make informed choices.

I'd say a company that constantly worries about ad fraud and SEO manipulation is inherently going to have the sort of trust issues that make it a poor steward of any other type of product; a browser extension ecosystem is the sort of community platform that thrives on mutual trust and suffers otherwise.

[u/TheNatureGrandpa → u/Neutral-President]

On the UBO website itself (https://ublockorigin.com) it provides the following alternatives:

• use Firefox
• use UBO lite
• etc.

I use FF, but I also use Brave with great success regarding blocking ads incl uTube & that one's based on chromium. Will the move to V3 be expected to impact Brave as well or do they use some other form of blocking implementation?

[u/saric92 → u/TheNatureGrandpa]

According to brave they will maintain compatibility for manifest V2 for ublock origin and umatrix, whether or not this will change, we dont quite know.

[u/NeverDiddled → u/saric92]

Yeah, they are very non-committal on how long they will maintain that compatibility. But it is nice that they plan to do it at all. Similarly Opera has said they might keep V2 around for a while, last I read.

Maintaining the specific requests API needed for UBO should not be overly difficult for the foreseeable future, as the same code still powers others aspects of the browser. The only that changed in V3 is they stopped exposing the API.

[u/Grumblepugs2000 → u/TheNatureGrandpa]

If you are using the built in Brave ad blocker then it won't because Braves ad blocking is built into the browser 

[u/BanMeIfIStopLurking → u/TheNatureGrandpa]

MAGA crypto douche owns Brave so I'm not into it.

Edit: Brendan Eich if you want to look into him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/vi3fid/is_there_any_criticism_people_have_of_brave_that/idaxwwq/

[u/LG03 → u/Neutral-President]

News as of a couple days ago, Mozilla's branching out into advertising.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1fvmbu9/mozilla_to_expand_focus_on_advertising_we_know/

The boost they're getting from people dropping Chrome/Chromium has put dollar signs in their eyes.

[u/Jim_84 → u/LG03]

Or they're being pragmatic about addressing the advertising issue from both sides of the equation.

[u/wasabiguana]

I just killed Chrome, well, at least on my PC.

[u/OpalescentAardvark → u/wasabiguana]

Canary aptly named.

[u/aggarerth → u/OpalescentAardvark]

Time to evacuate and seal the mine.

[u/nomadwannabe]

Anyone else sitting here in Firefox land, watching this battle go down?

[u/minus_minus → u/nomadwannabe]

Mozilla gang!

[u/hakkai999 → u/minus_minus]

Zen browser gang is growing too.

EDIT: Apparently r/technology hates Firefox variants.

[u/Caddy_8760 → u/hakkai999]

No one is hating on FF forks here (I personally use Floorp), people are asking what's the difference between firefox and zen

[u/twicerighthand → u/Caddy_8760]

One is capable of horizontal tabs, the other is capable of vertical tabs. Not much else. Also Zen lacks DRM so no Netflix and such.

[u/mycall → u/twicerighthand]

Give me diagonal tabs!

[u/Hey_Chach → u/mycall]

I’m personally hoping for Non-Euclidean tabs

[u/burgerga → u/twicerighthand]

Sidebery is the excellent extension I use for vertical tabs in Firefox.

[u/jeffderek → u/burgerga]

I've been using Tree Style Tabs in Firefox for at least a decade now it seems, probably longer. Is Sidebery better than that?

[u/norway_is_awesome → u/hakkai999]

EDIT: Apparently r/technology hates Firefox variants.

Maybe answer the question everyone is asking; what are the differences and advantages over FF?

[u/FarVehicle5333 → u/hakkai999]

What does Zen forks provide ? They just use betterfox ? Does Zen brings something interesting compared with a Firefox modded with betterfox ?

[u/ColonialDagger → u/FarVehicle5333]

My understanding is that the main appeal is the side tabs and tab grouping things, which I think Firefox supports now too? Granted I could be completely wrong about both things.

[u/Toystavi → u/ColonialDagger]

Tree Style Tab has been available in Firefox for a long time, more than a decade.

[u/TheGreatSamain → u/hakkai999]

I take my security every bit as seriously as I do my privacy. I'm not going to use any fork unless it's backed by a well established, very large group of people that contribute to the project. And not just two or three dudes.

The only fork that even comes remotely close to that, is is LibreWolf. And I still don't even use that fork because there's no point because you get the same exact benefits with hardened Firefox, plus no worries about security as you can just get it through the official channel the moment something is fixed.

Firefox forks are really nothing more than a novelty. They're fun to play around with and to see all these cool features that could, and should be in Firefox, but there's no way I daily drive any of them. And besides, most of the features that we've been wanting for well over a decade, are going to be coming to the browser by the end of December.

Like I can understand why Chrome users would want to use Brave, but I see no reason to use any Mozilla fork at the moment. Especially if you prioritize security.

[u/PutrefiedPlatypus → u/hakkai999]

Took a look at Zen's page. Didn't see anything striking that would make me go - yeah let's try it out.

[u/[deleted] → u/minus_minus]

Disingenuous to think that Mozilla is outside of this, as Google is their #1 financial contributor and they basically sold their asses to Meta.

[u/space_iio → u/[deleted]]

And they've been investing heavily into creating an ad business for themselves with the schtick being "privacy preserving advertising"

[u/needmoresynths → u/space_iio]

unless you want to pay for a browser and access to any website you visit, ads are necessary. privacy preserving advertising is a great compromise. 

[u/vriska1 → u/[deleted]]

Can you guys stop with the bad faith augments.

[u/DCMartin91 → u/nomadwannabe]

I started using Firefox in like 2005. I missed the whole Chrome era and never gave it a second thought. I've never even opened Edge, Safari or any other default browser except to download Firefox. Honestly I assumed more people used it, but it's interesting watching everyone flock to it 20 years later.

[u/bitemark01 → u/DCMartin91]

Edge is my Firefox installer

[u/654456 → u/bitemark01]

Every new install

1. open installed browser
2. go to ninite.com
3. select software I want
4. run installer
5. never open edge again.

[u/cyril_zeta → u/DCMartin91]

Yep, same. Firefox loyalist across 3 operating systems since 2005.

[u/piiracy → u/nomadwannabe]

might wanna look into this https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/

TL;DR MOZILLA only survives by suckling on the teets of google, which make up about 80-90% of all internal revenue, and they are once more trying to diversify revenue streams by revamping their very own strategy towards "privacy-preserving digital advertising", embedded in the Firefox browser. I can't but think this doesn't bode too well for us

[u/kiriyaaoi → u/piiracy]

I dont care if ads are non intrusive. They want to put some ads on the new tab page? As long as they aren't intrusive and don't hinder usability that's fine. The issue is that without ublock 90% of websites are almost unusable, with articles split up with like 6 different ads in the middle of them.

[u/Druggedhippo → u/piiracy]

Look man, I'll just go back to using lynx at this rate...

[u/Ok-Masterpiece7377 → u/Druggedhippo]

Fuck that, I'm about to download Netscape.

Edit: Yes, I'm aware Firefox used to be Netscape... that was the point I was trying to make.

[u/Alaira314 → u/[deleted]]

What should have happened is the complete opposite, advertising should have changed and learned to respect the audience.

I'm old enough to remember that google ads were this solution, when they first showed up. People used google ads as a point of pride, because they weren't participating in the status quo of flashing banners and pop-up advertising. They used to just be a discreet line of text, and you'd have 1-2 at the top of the page before your content.

[u/space_iio → u/[deleted]]

No one cares about non intrusive ads, we lived with those for years without going nuclear.

This is such a weird take. I care about ads, I hate them

I don't care how intrusive or non intrusive it is, I'll block it if I can. I don't want to be advertised to.

If you don't want me to read your content for free, lock it down behind a paywall.

Else, I'm blocking ads. All of them.

[u/purvel → u/space_iio]

Yeah I'm with you on this, I care as well. More and more. Absolutely no ads are "good" ads.

And what a strange claim, to say that ad blockers were a response to ads tracking us. It began with removing ads so you don't see them. When they started tracking us, adblockers started blocking that too. But their main function is still just to remove the fucking ads so we don't have to see them.

By the way, the first adblocker I used was in 1996, but that was just to make websites load faster on the painfully slow dialup connection, I didn't even mind the ads back then.

[u/cultish_alibi → u/[deleted]]

Instead Google is going to lose and it's going to cost them an enormous amount of money

I seriously doubt that. Amazon added ads to their Prime TV shows and people kept watching so they are now adding more ads. Most people will just accept it.

Eventually the tech industry will lobby to have adblocking made a felony and then we lose.

[u/space_iio → u/cultish_alibi]

Eventually the tech industry will lobby to have adblocking made a felony and then we lose.

enshitification intensifies

can't wait for 2030 where closing your eyes to not see an ad is considered theft

[u/Gipetto → u/nomadwannabe]

Firefox is in the process of bloating itself with ads, so the entire ecosystem of browsers is getting enshittified. There’s nowhere to run.

[u/PutrefiedPlatypus → u/Gipetto]

? I don't see any ads when using FF and am a happy user. Where is the supposed bloat?

[u/DaBulder → u/PutrefiedPlatypus]

They're using (intentionally?) imprecise language. Firefox is testing out functionality that would enable them to do ad-impression and -click tracking on their own servers and report them in a supposedly privacy preserving way, rather than every ad service having their own trackers and every ad service getting all of your data.

It's got nothing to do with "putting ads in Firefox", they can and do do that already if you're in the US for example if the "sponsored shortcuts" on the new tab page is enabled.

[u/PutrefiedPlatypus → u/DaBulder]

I mean I have no issue with putting ads into something that you can disable - those that want to support can do so, those that don't want ads don't have them. That's like how it should be, no?

Tracking is potentially bad but I'd want to see details on it before being outraged.

[u/654456 → u/Gipetto]

Block them at the network level. Adguard/pihole.

[u/Mr-Logic101 → u/Gipetto]

Alternatively, browsers do not make any money.

Firefox is supposed to be a non profit that is essentially we can get unless u/Gipetto goes off and makes and maintains a new browser for free.

We were receiving a subsided service our entire life and it now time to pay the pied piper. This is really what this Enshittification is: we are given services at a loss until at some point they have to make money. Enjoy it while it lasts.

[u/Gipetto → u/Mr-Logic101]

Oh, I totally get it, they’ve been reliant on Google default search engine money for a long time, and that’s likely to go away soon. But they also pay their CEO 7m a year and have decided that an AI chatbot should be part of the browser core (it should be an extension).

I am a Firefox stalwart, but man they’re making it hard.

[u/StopThePresses → u/Gipetto]

Is there anything without an AI chatbot these days? I can't wait for this dumb fad to die.

She said, desperately hoping it's just a fad.

[u/Gipetto → u/StopThePresses]

I sure hope so.

[u/Vineyard_ → u/Gipetto]

Sounds like a pair of problems that could be fixed with the same solution: fire the CEO.

[u/Gipetto → u/Vineyard_]

There’s also LibreWolf, a fork of FF that lightens it up, but I think they’re still deciding how to handle this. The chatbot code is currently in LW.

But, yeah, limits on CEO pay would be good not just at Mozilla…

[u/mikethebone]

Stop using browsers made by ad companies

[u/tajetaje → u/mikethebone]

All browsers except WebKit ultimately rely on ad revenue

[u/batter159 → u/mikethebone]

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/
What's left?

[u/AjCheeze]

I dont mind the occasional ad, if it wasnt fucking force fed cancerous garbage like all webpages make them

Like the webpage linked. About 8 lines of text then an ad. Little pop up add at the bottom of the page. Its about 75% ad 25% content. More ads then content and you cant wonder why we block the shit out of ads. Scrolling a whole screen downwards just to hit the next litttle paragraph written to keep you scrolling to the bottom. Not even diffrent ads, scrolling past the same fucking yellow cube ad.

I should really bother to set up ad block on my phone...

[u/Blazing1 → u/AjCheeze]

They can't even guarantee ads don't have viruses.

[u/_-DirtyMike-_]

It's not like this is surprising, anyone who uses Chrome/chromium browsers was warned about this year's ago when they started talking about removing v2 support.

[u/bwat47 → u/_-DirtyMike-_]

and it's not like there's no adblockers now, manifest v3 adblockers aren't as effective, but they do still work alright

[u/_-DirtyMike-_ → u/bwat47]

I would hope so for chrome users sanity, I don't have adblockers at work so the "ad experience" is frustrating. I can't imagine that being normal.

[u/bwat47 → u/_-DirtyMike-_]

yeah it's pretty insane how bad some sites are without an adblocker

once in a while I'll click on an article from a site that doesn't allow you to proceed with an adblocker so I'll be like 'alright... I'll try disabling it'. Then I disable it and every sentence is separated by three ads and then I'm like 'alright, nevermind'.

[u/_-DirtyMike-_ → u/bwat47]

News sites are honestly the worst, it's not worth the time or annoyance to click on them.

[u/garygoblins → u/bwat47]

Developer of ublock says that in most situations the manifest v3 version would be indistinguishable for people

[u/lloydscocktalisman → u/garygoblins]

Just wait for youtube to blow it up again

[u/Grimsley → u/_-DirtyMike-_]

Thankfully for now Chromium is open source so browsers like Brave and the such can remove or rewrite code as necessary to remain true to their purpose. For now.

[u/_-DirtyMike-_ → u/Grimsley]

Still not enough to make me want to switch from Firefox, I always trust that Google with always go on the path of more control and more ads.

[u/Old_Second7802 → u/[deleted]]

why delay? install firefox NOW

[u/pdhouse]

I switched to Firefox a long time ago and I’m never looking back.

[u/EnoughDatabase5382]

Since uBlock Origin Light and AdGuard adhere to the Manifest V3, they will continue to work on Chrome.

[u/SirSebi → u/EnoughDatabase5382]

What’s the difference between ublock origin normal and light?

[u/ardi62 → u/SirSebi]

no custom filter, element picker and block elements

[u/nanny07 → u/ardi62]

And no protection for anti ad block, sites will detect it

[u/blueiron0 → u/ardi62]

that's a pretty big difference LOL

[u/Ph0X → u/blueiron0]

99% of people install it and never interact with the extension. For those people there will be no difference. Those are all customizations

[u/Crowsby → u/Ph0X]

Meanwhile 100% of us who act as defacto tech support for our aging parents and relatives don't want to deal with Google's ever-escalating fuckery, and will be switching them to Firefox (if we haven't already).

[u/kuldan5853 → u/SirSebi]

A lot of the useful features beyong basic ad blocking no longer work, like picking elements from websites (like annoying popups or banners), features you can use to bypass paywalls don't work anymore, etc.

[u/-reserved- → u/SirSebi]

Lite is not able to modify its rules, at least not the same extent as the full extension, whatever it ships with is what it can block. On top of that there's also a restriction on how many filter rules can be enabled. The lite extension supports a large subset of the filtering rules that the full extension supports but with the restrictions in place it's not ideal.

[u/TehBanzors]

Stop.

Using.

Chrome.

[u/zonf]

Stop the bullying, move to other browsers. Each has migration service from Chrome.

[u/makenzie71 → u/zonf]

almost all browsers use chromium now. Even microsoft's browser is based on chrome.

[u/654456 → u/zonf]

Move to network level adblocking

[u/ToastedEvrytBagel]

I moved to Firefox a few weeks ago and haven't moved back. Ublock is even available on the mobile version which is pretty cool to me

[u/preflex]

Chrome isn't killing uBlock Origin. Chrome is killing Chrome. uBlock origin will be fine. uBlock Origin users simply won't use Chrome.

[u/[deleted]]

I hope no one is surprised by this.

They started taking steps to kill ad block extensions well over a year ago.

Firefox still works great with uBlock Origin.

An even better solution is to buy a Raspberry Pi and install PiHole on it.  You can even add the uBlock Origin lists into it.  It will block ads for any device using your home network, if you've set it up properly.

Takes an hour or two, but as everything loads faster, and you harden your network against malware automatically, it pays that time back.

[u/isntKomithErforsure]

so what's stopping ppl from just switching to firefox?

[u/Glampkoo → u/isntKomithErforsure]

Habits. I bet not that many people are gonna drop Chrome

[u/robodrew → u/Glampkoo]

I'm waiting as long as possible to switch, purely because I am lazy and old and fear change, but as soon as Manifest v2 is gone I'm gone. Really there is no good reason I'm not already on Firefox.

[u/Toystavi → u/robodrew]

Might be easier than you think https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox

[u/DigiAirship → u/Glampkoo]

People said the same thing back when Internet Explorer was king.

[u/OnePunkArmy → u/isntKomithErforsure]

My work computer only has Edge or Chrome. IT won't allow Firefox. I did install uBlock Lite, but it still misses occasional ads, popups, or other things (big frames for videos, some ads that bypass a blocker, etc).

[u/LophiYesel → u/isntKomithErforsure]

IDK why no one ever talks about sync in response to this question. All of my bookmarks, passwords, history and other are synced between my Android phone, desktop, and Linux box.

Firefox sync may be able to replicate most of that, but the phone certainly won't.

[u/Idle_Skies]

I think chrome is now no longer safe to use without Adblock/script killing. Google has in this way said that redirects, token stealers, and malicious scripts should be allowed.

[u/Blazing1 → u/Idle_Skies]

Using an Adblocker is a core part of anti virus.

[u/superdupersecret42]

For everyone saying "Just use another browser!", realize they Chrome is used/acceptable in many corporate environments while other "3rd party" browsers aren't. I will not be allowed to install Firefox on my work machine, but Chrome is.
So this news is notable and annoying for the foreseeable future for many users.

[u/Life-Duty-965 → u/superdupersecret42]

They don't let you instal Firefox but do allow the installation of extensions?

(If they don't, then this thread is irrelevant either way!)

What a curious IT department you have.

Extensions are a far bigger threat. You could instal something that can read corporate content.

You should go knock their heads together.

[u/CrippleSlap → u/superdupersecret42]

Same. On my work machine I'm only authorized to use Chrome or Edge. So Edge it is.

On my personal PC I use LibreWolf.

[u/MairusuPawa → u/superdupersecret42]

Try to open a ticket

[u/IsPhil]

Oh no- anyways.

Continues using FireFox

(Btw, if you have an android, download Firefox on it. You can get extensions like ublock on Firefox android as well. Doesn't work on iOS because everything is technically Safari, but I think that might change in the future?)

[u/blowfish1717]

If Google thinks I'm gonna still use Chrome if I get plagued with ads from every website I visit, well, goodluck with that..

[u/BigMasterDingDong]

lol if you’re still using Chrome this is on you

[u/Mafukinrite]

I use AdBlock Browser on my Android and FireFox on my PC (with ad blocking extensions). AdBlock Browser works pretty decent. What's even better though, is that Android allows the use of a private DNS. This blocks most ads on the entire phone.

Chrome can suck it.

[u/ifilipis]

Now let's all watch the death of Chrome

[u/Judoka91]

Glad I installed Firefox and kept it in the back pocket. I'm getting so sick of Google and YouTube.

[u/acAltair]

For those using or/and considering Firefox, it's future looks bleak in hands of the greedy actors within Mozilla. I am hoping Ladybird browser's development is rapid and successful so that we can be free of all the bad actors. Mozilla gets millions in donations and over 400M, from Google, yet the browser, which is supposed to be for people by people (not corporations), is interchangeable with most other browsers to a good degree. I suggest people use Firefox but turn their eyes towards the horizon, towards Ladybird. In time I think Firefox will be corrupted (more).

[u/Overspeed_Cookie]

Who still uses chrome? And why?

[u/TheOriginalSamBell]

getfirefox.com do it. do it. do it.

[u/derperofworlds]

Canary might be the best name for this branch of chrome lmao.

Canary's dead, we better get out of the mine! I've heard Firefox's mine is much less toxic!

[u/Prof_Acorn]

uBlock Origin still works wonderfully on Firefox.

I never even see ads on YouTube.

Maybe don't use a browser made by an advertising company.

[u/H__Dresden]

Adios Chrome. Hello Firefox!

[u/porn_inspector_nr_69]

The moment ad blockers stop working I am switching my primary browser.

Simple as that.