Google ramps up its campaign against ad blockers on Chrome.
  • Google is transitioning Chrome’s extension support from the Manifest V2 framework to the V3.
  • This means users won’t be able to use uBlock Origin to block ads on Google Chrome.
  • However, there’s a new iteration of the app — uBlock Origin Lite, which is Manifest V3 compliant but doesn’t boast the original version’s comprehensive ad-blocking features.
  • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

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

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

    • vin@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Nah, chrome will block “intrusive” ads to maximise Google’s revenue

    • Chozo@fedia.io
      0·
      4 months ago

      Nearly 3.5 billion people do.

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

        • Chozo@fedia.io
          0·
          4 months ago

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

            • Chozo@fedia.io
              0·
              4 months ago

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

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

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

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

              • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
                0·
                4 months ago

                Firefox breaks…

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

                Maybe our developers should make our tools more standard-compliant

                lol. So who broke it?

                • Chozo@fedia.io
                  0·
                  4 months ago

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

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

            • ShortFuse@lemmy.world
              0·
              4 months ago

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

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

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

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

  • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    4 months ago

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

  • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    Just finished migrating to Firefox this year to prep for this. See Ya later Chrome! Give my regards to Netscape.

  • mindlight@lemm.ee
    0·
    4 months ago

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

    But hey, what do I know…

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    4 months ago

    Susceptible to intrusive ads and viruses.

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

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

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

  • ElectricAirship@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    4 months ago

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

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

    • bokherif@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

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

      • Scrollone@feddit.it
        0·
        4 months ago

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

        • _____@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

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

    • PassingThrough@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

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

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

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

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

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

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

        • PassingThrough@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

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

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
            0·
            4 months ago

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

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

    • greenskye@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

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

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

      • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml
        0·
        4 months ago

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

    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

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

  • ngwoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

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

      • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Support for Chromuin backed browsers ?

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

          • hswolf@lemmy.world
            0·
            4 months ago

            short answer: No

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

      • Tja@programming.dev
        0·
        4 months ago

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

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

      • Voltage@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        4 months ago

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

          • stetech@lemmy.world
            0·
            4 months ago

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

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

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

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

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

            • If you have exclusively Apple devices, probably try Safari (for the synchronization & battery efficiency)
            • If not, Firefox!
            • If you need it because of some really messed up development/compatibility issues, the last resort is Ungoogled/de-googled Chromium

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

            Edit: fixed a link

    • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

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

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

      • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

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

        • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          4 years ago

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

          • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

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

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

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

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

            • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

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

              My Work ADP portal also misbehaves in FF.

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

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

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

              Operam I believe has claimed they intend not to enforce V3

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

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

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

      • CafecitoHippo@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        You don’t want crypto, don’t use it.

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

        • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • vanderbilt@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

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