• Butterpaderp@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I just got firefox yesterday, cause I noticed youtube started baking unskippable ads into their site.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The creator(s) did not give direct advise. Probably so they have the time to slowly get people to switch instead of instantly getting shut down by Google.

      But people that are going to be using the lite version will definitely get bombarded by Google/Youtube ads very soon and will make the change regardless.

    • Bonesince1997@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I switched somewhere in the early 2000s, from Internet Explorer (Microsoft), and never looked back. (Using IE and now Edge as alternatives only, when I get the rare non-functional Firefox issue.) Never created an account either. I manually save and port my bookmarks!

  • vga@sopuli.xyz
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    5 months ago

    I’ve been using Chromium because it has excellent profiles support built-in. Firefox’s profile separation works via a plugin and is just awkward, unless something has improved recently.

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        5 months ago

        Those don’t exactly do what I want – which is clear separation of different work accounts. I’m not sure if this is what I need though, so perhaps I should take another look at what you suggested.

        • BEYOUBlåhaj@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          In firefox, type “about:profiles” in the search bar and press enter. (Please note that this shouldnt open your search engine) This will open a menu in that tab that claims: “This page helps you to manage your profiles. Each profile is a separate world which contains separate history, bookmarks, settings and add-ons.” I hope this is close enough to the solution youre after!

  • watson387@sopuli.xyz
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    5 months ago

    I only use Firefox and have for the past few years. Yesterday I tried to schedule an appointment to get my oil changed at the dealer but was unable because the process on the site just flat-out breaks on Firefox. This is not a complaint about Firefox, but the fact that Chrome is so popular that some websites only work with Chrome. I don’t have a Chromium-based browser installed (besides Edge, which I’ve never opened intentionally) and I despise being on the phone (which is why I was trying to schedule online in the first place), so I just didn’t make the appointment. I’ll go somewhere else to get my oil changed. Sorry for the rant but it was extremely frustrating.

    • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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      5 months ago

      Chrome is so popular that some websites only work with Chrome.

      It’s the Internet Explorer problem all over again, but this time from an even more invasive company.

      The more people choosing non-Chomium browsers, the better. It’s the only way to preserve what little agency users still have on the mainstream web.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Are you sure that it was Firefox itself? I find the few times something like that has come up, it was because of extensions (like adblocl, actually).

      Delta’s website started blocking me due to using Dark Reader, apparently something about detecting that the contents of the page were being altered. And another site worked fine when I disabled unlock; I assume because it was blocking loading some .js that was actually being used for something other than just ads.

    • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Man, you never worked for a large corporation that that had internal web based apps that only work on Internet Explorer and refused to update it.

      • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I worked somewhere like that back in the 2008-2010 time frame. Thankfully, there was a extension, I believe the name was “IETab”, that would spawn a new tab in Trident (IE’s browser engine). So you could set certain sites to launch in one of those tabs and everything else would use standard Firefox. None of the people I supported were any the wiser. They just thought everything worked in Firefox.

        Granted it was only that seamless because Windows already had that rendering engine built in. There are some extensions that do something similar with Chrome, but because of more modern security standards and whatnot you have to install extension helper applications which is gross.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Not necessarily. The problem is often that chrome JavaScript implementation can be ever so slightly different from FFs. Or just that the web devs wrote fragile code that is barely working on chrome and doesn’t work on other browsers, where they failed to test.

        • Prison Mike@links.hackliberty.org
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          5 months ago

          Adding to this, Firefox’s JavaScript is much more strict than others (which I love). As a web developer I prioritize testing it in Firefox because it’s helped me find bugs other browsers just plow through.

          Personally I use Safari daily and the number of websites that are broken due to poor security (but function fine in Chrome) is alarming. Chrome doesn’t even check content type on <iframe> last time I checked.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I tend to agree with you. Normally if something doesn’t work in firefox it makes sense, but less often is that the case in chrome.

            I am fascinated by the idea of a web developer choosing to use Safari, honestly, though. Can I ask why? For me, the hesitancy of adopting new web standards, the lack of a real extensions, and lack of support for non-Apple OSes… combined with lots of random bugs that I only ever see so often in Safari, I absolutely loathe that browser. And I feel like being a web developer conditioned me to feel this way. And then there’s the business practice concerns (Apple selectively supporting new web features with the intention of keeping native apps seen as superior, because it makes them money)… but even ignoring this, I’m a Safari-hater through and through. It feels like Internet Explorer 7 vs Firefox to me.

            On iOS I have to support a few major versions of Safari back and it’s nightmarish at times. For certain featuresets, you absolutely cannot assume things will probably work like you can with FF/Chromium browsers and it makes me so ragey sometimes. I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to workaround an issue in various Safari iOS versions, and it’s not the first time I’ve been in this situation.

            I’m curious – what versions of Safari are you required to support on the job?

            • Prison Mike@links.hackliberty.org
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              5 months ago

              Personally

              This was my poor attempt to mean “as an end-user.” I just love that it’s tied in to the Apple ecosystem and the UI is so much cleaner than other browsers.

              I’ve tried to make the switch to others but they always feel very clunky. I love Firefox to death but it looks awful (at least on macOS). I’m not a big extension guy because I’m filtering DNS and IP traffic at the network layer — if we’re talking about ad blocking, tracking and the like it doesn’t make sense to only protect against it in the browser, as apps tend to send traffic to the very same domains as the websites.

              I actually hate the trend of apps being nothing more than a wrapper around web applications. It comes off as lazy development, and I miss native apps (regardless of platform) instead of these creepy wrappers around web applications. So I actually have to agree with Apple there.

              As for browser support, my team works on an internal-only app and our security policy doesn’t allow outdated browsers, so there’s no hard rules when it comes to browser support.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Out of principle, I refuse to pretend I am not browsing with Firefox. 🦊❤️✊ Let website statistics show! And I will boycott sites that break due to not testing on multiple browsers!

            • dmtalon@infosec.pub
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              5 months ago

              That works until it’s your bank or credit card website. I cannot use Capital One’s (CC) “pay bill” any longer.

            • teft@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I thought like that until youtube started intentionally slowing firefox identifying clients. As soon as I changed my user-agent to match chrome’s the speed was back to normal.

              • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Lol I blocked all but essential JS on YouTube with NoScript and never faced any problems at all. Videos load just fine without extra penalties.

    • mke@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Oh, how I get you! I managed to switch to Firefox after a while, but it took some adapting, and still I miss some of Vivaldi’s features. That sidebar is simply fantastic.

  • ShortFuse@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’ve been using uBOLite for about a year and I’m pretty happy with it. You don’t have to give the extension access to the content on the page and all the filtering on the browser engine, not over JavaScript.

  • numberfour002@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Understatement, I know, but I find this so annoying, and it certainly feels malicious.

    I was just commenting the other day how ridiculous it is that google search results literally serve up malware to people via paid ads. My neighbor was running into issues where her computer kept getting “infected” and a full screen scam would take control, blaring out a loud message that her computer was infected with a virus, that it was infecting microsoft’s servers, and she had to call them now to fix it.

    After investigating, I found out that these types of scams are stored as blobs on Microsoft’s cloud service, but the links are spread via ads in google search. When I tried searching for the exact search terms my neighbor was using on my own devices and my own network, I found out that google was serving me the exact same ads, aka sponsored links. They look like legitimate results for things that people search for, like showing what appears to be a link to Amazon when searching for a product, even the links will say “www.amazon.com”.

    Obviously I told my neighbor not to use Chrome and suggested some browser alternatives. I installed uBlock on all the browsers (including chrome) just to be safe. Then I showed her how to tell when things are ads, even when they are deceiving, and to never click on ads or sponsored links under any circumstances.

    But it’s definitely infuriating that they are serving up malware in their ads, don’t respond to reports in a timely manner, are getting people caught in scams that they allow to advertise on their network but then somehow object to people managing those risks by blocking ads from untrustworthy sources, like google.

    • knight@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      I just did a cleanup on someone’s computer that got this. They actually called the number and got scammed out of their whole life savings. The usual Indian scammers.

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      5 months ago

      They did? Never used that garbage. Switched from Netscape Navigator to Opera to Firefox.

      I used chrome on mobile since in the old days, Firefox mobile was unusable, but that’s been years ago.

      Now for the 3 websites that stubbornly refuse to open in FF I use Edge on desktop, and kiwi on mobile.

  • Mars2k21@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    This has been a long time in the making…hopefully Firefox will see a market share increase. Google is doing this right as they get slapped by an antitrust ruling ironically lol. If you haven’t already just go ahead and switch, if you like Lemmy you’ll probably like Firefox as well.

    Side note: I try not to be negative here, but this would be a great time for Mozilla to get their act together as an organization. Love Firefox and the idea, but Mozilla has been pissing off the FOSS space for a while now with their decisions. If they’ve improved in recent years, disregard this.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The tricky part is that Google isn’t wrong about Manifest v3 increasing security for some people. Just allowing any extension to access the full URLs from a webpage is honestly pretty sketchy for most things that aren’t adblockers. Think about Beth in accounting who has 27 bloatware toolbar extensions installed on her home PC, which are happily collecting her full browser history and sending it off to gods know where. Manifest v3 is targeted at increasing security for those users, by making it more difficult for extensions to track you.

      The issue is that it also makes ad blocking virtually impossible, because the blocker is forced to just trust that the browser is being truthful about what is and isn’t on the page. And when the browser (developed by one of the largest advertisers in the world) has a vested financial interest in displaying ads, there’s very little trust that the browser will actually be honest.

      The issue is that there’s not some sort of “yes, I really want this extension to have full access” legacy workaround built in. Yes, it would inevitably be abused by those scummy extensions, which would just nag idiot users to allow them full access. And the idiot users, being idiots, would just do it without understanding the risks. Even if Chrome threw up all kinds of big red “hey make sure this extension actually needs full access and isn’t just tracking your shit” warning flags, there are still plenty of users who would happily give bloatware full access without reading any of the warnings. But it would also allow ad blockers to continue to function.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        The single biggest security improvement you could make for Beth in accounting would be to install UBO. Where do you think she gets all those shitty toolbar extensions? That’s right, from ads.

        This is targeted at destroying adblockers because Google is, first and foremost, an ad serving company. That’s their business model. It incidentally improves security for certain users in certain edge cases, because they need some kind of figleaf of legitimacy.

        • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Ads and crappy installers, all though that seems less common than it used to be. I can’t say if that’s a general trend or tunnel vision due to me not installing crapware.

      • x00z@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        If it was about security then they should simply block Manifest v2 extensions from their store or at least start doing some actual verification of the extensions they host. Taking away freedom claiming it to be for security is almost always a lie.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          It should be noted that the advertisers get zero personal information, neither does Mozilla, and it has been designed in a way so that the data is impossible to fingerprint in a way that can tie it back to any individual person, machine, or specific location.

          It’s a way for advertisers (and like it or not, a decent amount of the content we want has to be paid for somehow) to see how effective their ads are without anybody’s privacy being encroached on.

          Should it have been turned on without informing the user? Fuck no. But there’s a lot of misinformation going around about this.

          Personally I’ll still be using uBO regardless so it doesn’t matter though.

            • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I suggest you actually look into how their system works. This kind of strategy is not possible with Mozilla’s system.

              In fact, your very link points to ‘Differential Privacy’ as a very effective foil to re-identification, and that’s basically how the Mozilla system operates.

              This is not a matter of Mozilla having a load of data about your account or IP, then Mozilla scrubbing that information then sending the database to advertisers.

              • smayonak@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I appreciate your informed response but no system other than advertising-abstinence is fool proof.

                Im saying this as a supporter. My browser of choice is firefox and I send them money regularly. And I understand their need to generate more revenue. But there has never been a company who has sold customer data discretely. My understanding is that every piece of data that’s sold can be de anonymized when combined with other data sets. And the data is horsetraded until it gets into some very marginal actors’ hands.

                Mozilla’s need for money is largely driven by massive mismanagement. It should have been fully funded in perpetuity through establishing a foundation that operates off interest payments but they decided to try and build a headquarters in Mountainview. They also operate offices in some of the most expensive cities in the world. They have made expensive software aquisitions. These are not necessary and have only whetted mozilla’s thirst for other revenue sources. It’s guaranteed that they will look for more customer data to sell because that’s the path of least resistance.

                I wish them luck but I also wish they’d not chase advertising money.

                • claudiop@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  As for the “no system is foolproof”, you’re thinking of implementations, not algorithms. An algorithm can indeed be something-proof. Most “known” algorithms are built on top of very strong mathematical foundations stating what is possible, what is not and what is a maybe.

                  As for the ads thing, Mozilla is not making a dime off this. It is not monetizable. They’re basically expecting that by giving advertisers a fairly “benign” way to do their shenanigans they will stop doing things the way they currently do (with per-individual tracking).

                  The absolutists might say that there’s no such thing as benign ads, however truth is that the market forces behind ads are big enough that you’d get website-integrity-bullshit rather ad-free web. Having tracking less ads is better than having a “this website only works in chrome” or “only without extensions” internet.

                  Is there any other possibility? Maybe. Is is reasonable to think that the moment tracking starts getting blocked em masse, we risk a web-integrity-bullshit +wherever-said-tracking-can-exist-only internet? I think so.

  • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 months ago

    ive gotten almost my entire friend group using either the same fork as me or the original firefox, they all used chrome before. all because google was dumb enough to overstep some peoples boundaries.

      • sparkle@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        not the original commenter but FLOORP, BABYYYY!!! let’s go let’s get this floorp action come on floorp is the best reign supreme for a thousand years floorp woooooo

      • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 months ago

        I use waterfox. They are independent again since last year and their big thing besides privacy is that they carry over a lot of stuff from Firefox that was scrapped with the proton design.