uBlock Origin will soon stop functioning in Chrome as Google transitions to new browser extension rules.
With this from chrome, and Reddit going paywalls do you think we’ll see another spike in Lemmy traffic…i think it’s a safe bet.
They have already been coming in over the last week since the announcement.
Yes! Vivaldi!
Built on Chromium. No thanks.
Google has been telegraphing this for months. Either switch browsers now or enjoy your ads.
They’ve literally said ad blockers are a threat to their revenue https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419000004/goog10-kq42018.htm
It’s not exactly super helpful to just link to an 86 page SEC filing. Maybe you could provide a quote?
Ctrl F for “block”. There were only 5 usages of the word and that led me to the section.
That’s nice. A quote still would have been more approachable for most, while those that were more curious could have followed the link to the document.
I have some time now, I’ll grab it and edit it in
The garbage is taking itself out
Yet another reason to use Brave, which has better native ad block than any of the other browsers.
Only vivaldi caught this issue. Brave had this api enabled, most likely on accident.
But the problem is, that chromium is just such big and complex software, when combined with development being driven by Google, it’s just impossible for any significant changes or auditing to be done by third parties. Google is capable of exteriting control over Brave, simply by hiding changes like above, or by making massive changes like manifest v3, which are expensive for third parties to maintain.
Brave can maintain 1 big change to chromium, but for how long? What about 2, 3, etc.
My other big problem with brave is that I see them somewhat mimicking Google’s beginnings. Google started out with 3 things: an ad network, a browser, and a search engine.
Right now, Brave has those same three things. It feels very ominous to me, and I would rather not repeat the cycle of enshittification that drove me away from chrome and goolgle.
No thanks Brendan Eich the CEO of Brave is a piece of shit.
Meh, Brave is still Chroium. Even if they continue to support manifest v2, even today the are selling „good“ ads to the users. That and the Crypto bullshit they tried a while ago makes them untrustworthy in my eyes.
Firefox is the only real alternative.
Brave is still Chroium
And yet, it does a better job blocking YouTube ads than Firefox, without any add-ons.
Crypto, Ads
Those features are opt-in.
You mean by building the add-on directly into the browser? No thanks. I like my browser dev to work on my browser and my ad-block dev to work on my ad-block. They are both good at what they do on their own, I don’t need them to mix.
Those features are opt-in.
They are now. They were opt-out to begin with. This is one of those “fool me twice” situations. That, and the founder of Brave is also an outspoken homophobe. He financially backed Prop 8 in California to overturn same-sex marriage, and left Firefox because it was too woke. I seriously would rather Chrome at that point. They’re just regular levels of corporate evil, not “every person who uses my browser is proving my identity politics” level of evil.
They are now.
That’s what I don’t get with the Anti-Brave crowd. Brave learns their users don’t like a feature and then they do better. This would, to me, be indicative of the way things should proceed.
Meanwhile Firefox is moving backwards.
By all means, use a browser that doesn’t work as well, but maybe don’t run a circle jerk of trolls whenever someone offers a better-working alternative.
Personally, I think I should be able to expect a company to understand their target demographic well enough to know that those “features” wouldn’t be well received. But I also personally don’t consider ads and crypto garbage to be features. I guess if you do, then it’s the perfect browser for you. However, I don’t really want to contribute to Google’s monopolisation of browser engine development anymore. Nor do I want to use a browser developed by a homophobe. So even if Brave may be slightly “better-working” I would not consider it better at all.
As well, even though I’m a Blahaj member, I’m going to take the time to point out the “Bee Nice” rule of the instance we’re currently on. It feels like you’re skirting dangerously close to violating that, considering you implied I’m a troll for calling out the prejudicial politics of the founder of a piece of software, which you didn’t at all address in your comment. I’m going to attach some resources about it here, if you care to read them at all:
- https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/04/04/javascript-inventor-gave-1000-to-support-californias-gay-marriage-ban/
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/gay-firefox-developers-boycott-mozilla-to-protest-ceo-hire/
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozilla-employees-to-brendan-eich-step-down/
- https://tim.dreamwidth.org/1844711.html
- https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/killing-the-messenger-at-mozilla
- https://tim.dreamwidth.org/1852118.html
- https://community.brave.com/t/brave-needs-to-address-brendan-eich/281044
(Some of these are older, about the push for him to step down as Mozilla CEO, some are newer and urging him to leave Brave, or for people to boycott it.)
On desktop, either use:
- LibreWolf (FireFox); uBlock Origin is installed by default.
- Vivaldi browser (Chromium); has a native ad blocker but obviously supports extensions, and will try supporting manifest V2 as long as possible—“as long as Chromium core supports Extension Manifest v2”. Also, why the “not completely open source” criticism is unwarranted.
On Android:
Google isn’t blocking one of the biggest adblockers. It’s killing chrome!
Those who aren’t using an adblock won’t notice any difference but everyone else will just migrate to a non chromium browser
This will incentivize businesses to only support chrome
I’m fine with not supporting them then.
Ungoogled Chromium
Or, hear me out, Firefox
Firefox: “I’m listening.”
Advertiser: “I know.”
I left the firefox camp about a couple of weeks ago. First, it has huge memory consumption on linux (seems more like leaks) and my RAM is 16 Gigs. The recent decisions and the light shed on mozilla priorities actually made me realize that Mozilla is on the same train as evil corporates like Google. Ungoogled chromium seems the better choice to me atm
Have you tried the various Firefox forks? If one of your primary problems with Firefox is a belief that they are “evil like Google” then switching to a browser developed by Google and further entrenching their monopoly on the market is a very strange decision.
Well, they’re only doing what they announced already like 1-2 years ago. So we knew it was coming. This is also accompanied by Google making YouTube more restrictive when viewed with adblockers. Google is (somewhat late, to be honest) showing its teeth against users who block ads. I always expected it to happen but it took them quite some time. Probably they wanted to play the good guys for long enough until most users are dependent on their services, and now their proprietary trap is very effective.
On the desktop, you should switch to a good Firefox fork right now. Firefox can also be used but needs configuring before it’s good. The forks LibreWolf or Mullvad Browser are already very good out of the box. There’s the potential issue of the forks not being updated fast enough, but so far these two have been fast. Mullvad shares a lot of configuration with the Tor Browser, so using it may break some sites. LibreWolf might be “better” for the average user because of that, but otherwise I think Mullvad is the best Firefox fork overall.
On mobile, Firefox-based browsers aren’t recommended, because on Android, the sandboxing mechanism of Firefox is inferior to that of the Chromium-based browsers. And on iOS, all browsers (have to) run on Apple’s proprietary Webkit engine anyway, but well this is Apple we’re talking about so of course it’s all locked-down and restricted. It’s one of the reasons I don’t even like talking about Apple that much, just be aware that as an iOS user, your choice doesn’t mean as much when it comes to browsers, and your browser might not behave like you think it does on other platforms.
So on mobile, I’d suggest things like Brave, Cromite or Mull. Or Vanadium (GrapheneOS). If the browser doesn’t have built-in adblocking capability which sidesteps the MV3 restrictions, make sure to use an ad-blocking DNS server, so your browser doesn’t have to do it. But you still need it. Adblocking not only helps you retain your sanity when browsing the web in 2024, but it also proactively secures you against known and unknown security threats coming from ads. So adblocking is a security plus, a privacy plus, and a sanity plus. It’s absolutely mandatory. As long as the ad industry is as terrible as it is, you should continue using adblocks. All the time. On every device and on every browser.
The ad industry is itself to blame for this. There could in theory be such a thing like acceptable ads, but that would require ads to be static images/text, not fed by personal data, and not dynamically generated by random scripts which could compromise your security, and not overly annoying. Since that is probably never going to happen, you should never give up using adblockers. Since they basically fight you by reducing your security and privacy, you have a right to defend yourself via technical means.
There are no issues with the main Firefox branches for desktop and mobile, for the average user, not sure why you’re so against them.
Reasons are the data transmissions happening by default and Mozilla’s questionable inclusion of add-on things like Pocket. See for example:
https://www.kuketz-blog.de/mozilla-firefox-datensendeverhalten-desktop-version-browser-check-teil20/
vs.
https://www.kuketz-blog.de/mullvad-browser-datensendeverhalten-desktop-version-browser-check-teil22/ https://www.kuketz-blog.de/librewolf-datensendeverhalten-desktop-version-browser-check-teil8/
You might need to translate the site to English. If you compare that, you can see why it’s easy to recommend the forks over the original. That said, you CAN configure Firefox to also behave well, but that takes an extra effort. It is far from there by default.
And why should the average user care? They use Alexa and have the Facebook app installed anyway, this is just a drop in the bucket for all the other crap that tracks every movement anyway
Yes, but my post is for the people who DO care about privacy issues. I also don’t like the defeatist’s attitude. You can always start making things better. My post is for those who want to make a better informed decision, that’s all.
Google was declared a monopoly. Next step: Let the monopoly keep doing the monopoly stuff.
Declared a monopoly only in the search engine space AFAIK. Browsers don’t have anything to do with that other than maybe setting Google as the default search engine.
The judge has yet to rule on how this should be addressed. Even after he makes a decision on that, there will be appeals. So long as the orange shitbag isn’t reelected, things look better for the industry than they have in a long time: at least something is finally happening.
I never liked Chrome and this is one more reason not to use it.
I use Brave with its built-in adblocker and I recommend it.
I’m pro-crypto enough that I tried Brave but anti-crypto enough that I had to stop.
The popup ads were melting my brain and the payment wasn’t worth it.
I wouldn’t recommend Brave for 3 main reasons:
-
Chromium-based
-
Funded by venture capitalists
-
Supported by crypto and ads
Unfortunately, Firefox and its forks are really the only alternative to Chrome.
Also the whole brave CEO being a homophobic prick. Also that adblock will probably break under v3
Nice, doesn’t excuse the CEO tho
That’s for sure, but it’s never easy to find a really good CEO.
Good, and CEO are kinda mutually exclusive
-
Fuck chrome, FF ftw.
Perhaps this will bug people who currently use Chrome and uBO to switch browsers.
They’ll switch from Chrome to Cryptocurrency flavored Chrome and think all is well in the world.
This coming down the line finally got me off of my incredibly lazy ass and forced me to switch a few months ago. It was easy, and I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.
I use Firefox everywhere except work where my only options are Chrome or Edge (both chromium). Apparently uBlock lite is supposed to work on the new version of Chrome and hopefully still functions roughly the same. Apart from block web ads, I rely on it to block YouTube ads.
I wish I could for work. But stupid corporate policy demands otherwise, Google workspace is so shit.
Oh no judgment at all, I’m also using Chrome at work and somewhat outside of work.
Google workspace
Dystopia is real
Only a few more steps until “Google Government”
If I were an exec at Google, I’d have already made a move to buy out a small country. Tuvalu, Nauru or something with a minuscule GDP. Then proclaim the Google Republic, move HQ functions over, and be free of taxes and outside influences forever.
And being their own country, they could even have a full fledged military…
I don’t think you can cancel an entire country with a couple months notice after you get bored of it.
i did read somewhere that affected chrome users are being presented with alternatives from the chrome extension ‘store’ that are mv3-ready.
whether or not they’re capable of clicking the right buttons on the right screens and windows to do it is another story.
ubo, abp and adguard all have mv3 variants. there are others, but i think those are the ‘big three’. ublock origin lite is what i’ve been moving people to here, if not to firefox. so far, so good.
I think the lite versions don’t allow scripted blocking, only static or something. So a whole lot of the adaptive blocks for persistent ads you encounter on facebook, instagram and other shitty socials that behave like viruses will be hard to impossible to kill.
I’m glad I never had to deal with that as I have never used Chrome on desktop, but I’m pretty sure there will be many folks out there who don’t know how to switch.
Looks like I’m going to use my work laptop browser a lot less.
i use firefox (and you should too) but they’re blocking ubo, which as not updated to mv2 - ubo lite still works.
Yes but that’s not the same. Because of Chrome limitation it can’t update it’s blocklist directly. You have to update the whole extension to update the blocklist and that goes through Google validation in the Chrome store. It adds delay and Google could even refuse some updates. The blocklist is also shorter because not all filter rules are supported.
Sounds like ubo lite could end up blocking everything else than Google, unless of course the ad companies pay Google to force ubo lite to remove them from the list.
