- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
- google@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
- google@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.world
Clearly, Google is serious about trying to oust ad blockers from its browser, or at least those extensions with fuller (V2) levels of functionality. One of the crucial twists with V3 is that it prevents the use of remotely hosted code – as a security measure – but this also means ad blockers can’t update their filter lists without going through Google’s review process. What does that mean? Way slower updates for said filters, which hampers the ability of the ad-blocking extension to keep up with the necessary changes to stay effective.
(This isn’t just about browsers, either, as the war on advert dodgers extends to YouTube, too, as we’ve seen in recent months).
At any rate, Google is playing with fire here somewhat – or Firefox, perhaps we should say – as this may be the shove some folks need to get them considering another of the best web browsers out there aside from Chrome. Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, has vowed to maintain support for V2 extensions, while introducing support for V3 alongside to give folks a choice (now there’s a radical idea).
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I downloaded Librewolf today - the privacy oriented fork of Firefox!
Good to see there are browser variants that aren’t just Chrome.
Until you actually need a chromium based browser. I get so annoyed when this happens.
As if installing and using something else means you can’t have Chrome lying around for that one stupid website.
And I do. Sometimes I’ll just fire up Edge if Chrome isn’t installed since it’s chromium based.
In what situation do you need one?
I’ve been using Firefox for over a decade and have literally never once needed to open a different web browser. For anything, ever. This is a very common complaint that tons of people seem to have that I have never seen happen even once out in the wild.
Several government websites for the state of Pennsylvania complain and refuse to work if they detect that you aren’t using chrome/edge/safari.
You can spoof your useragent to appear as chrome. And you should as it makes your browser less “unique”
While you can do this, it’s not clear to me that you should. There are a number of additional laws having to do with perjury and misusing goverment sites and while I would undoubtedly agree with you, were you to assert the application of those laws to the utilization of a user agent switcher is a ridiculous overreach, I am just as certain I have no desire to be in the hot-seat on the day we all find out.
Oh wow I didn’t know that. I’ll have to double check for the states that are relevant for me.
I imagine many people naively install a privacy extension and unknowingly have altered useragents
Imagine the government coming after someone, demanding they give Google their fair share
Do the sites work if you use an extension that lies to them about what browser you are using?
Flashing ESPhome devices. I just had to re-flash one via serial the other day and it requires chrome AFAIK.
Firefox is getting so small it’s starting to disappear out of the testing matrix. Confluence has issues with it, you can’t always log into Vanguard on Firefox, many news website layouts have overlapping elements on Firefox, quite a few shopping websites too (H&M in Europe has a long-standing but with putting stuff in the shopping basket until they revamped their website a couple of months ago). Etc etc. I see it ALL the time.
constantly, to be honest
There’s still Vivali which is Chromium based and still supporting V2 extension (like uBlock) until June 2025. Its not a full fix, but its a stay of execution. That said, I’m a FF primary user.
I’ve been using librewolf for a several months. Be careful because streaming doesn’t always work on it due to DRM features, and YouTube has been spotty AF. With YouTube it might start the video a couple seconds into it, buffer for no discernable reason, or just skip a few random seconds.
I use firefox but I have to change my useragent string to chrome with an extension to get YouTube working.
Might be worth having a look to see if it fixes your issues
We’re going to have a serious problem on our hands soon with compatibility. I’m a software dev and I’m already seeing a few issues here and there where Chrome is being treated as the default expected browser and features don’t work on Firefox.
Firefox doesn’t support a fair few Chrome features because of security and privacy reasons, such as WebHID, WebUSB, etc.
Devs, please stop using those features. I know it’s tempting, but they’re basically bribes to encourage you to sell out to Google. Don’t do it.
Most “Chrome-only” web applications I have to use I can get around just by changing my user agent string and everything works fine. I try not to use that stuff when I can, though.
This is my experience. They are just taking your default agent and throwing up a message because they can’t be assed to do minimal testing in FF.
Some of the older stuff is indeed that way, but there are more and more features which Firefox can’t support. Web-based custom keyboard configuration tools, tools to flash phone firmware, and one niche MiniDisc tool all are chrome-only things I’ve had to open Chrome to use
we are really really better off without features that grant any website such deep access to our systems just by a single click, trust me. this is a security nightmare, especially looking at people who don’t understand computers and those who instant allow permissions by reflex.
tools to flash phone firmware
Yep. Forgot I had to use Chrome on Windows to flash GrapheneOS.
you don’t have to, there’s no need for that. they have a normal flashing tool too
Teams calls for example :( I have chromium on my Debian only for teams.
Teams works in Firefox, I sadly have to use it almost every day interacting with clients who use teams for comms.
idk what to tell you, calls have no sound.
I’ll try again, though.
I’ve not had either of those issues on my laptop, using teams through Firefox. I wonder if there is something else going on there.
I’m using Firefox as my only browser. If everything works in Firefox that’s fine for me.
That’s the best advantage of only making websites / web applications for fun (for friend groups, video games, family etc)
Yeah, but that’s my point, not everything works in Firefox now - even though admittedly it’s relatively niche stuff - and my prediction is that if we continue on our current course Firefox will either have to compromise their commitment to privacy and security or will become more and more unusable.
I saw this quote a while back “if you only make code that works in chrome you aren’t a web developer, you are a google developer.”
Firefox doesn’t support a fair few Chrome features because of security and privacy reasons, such as WebHID, WebUSB
I’m very serious about my opinion that we are better off without them. If the feature does not exist, it cannot be activated by a bug in the permission system, and also the lesser technically inclined people won’t allow them by reflex/accident
Google’s working on fixing that for you right now. That’s more people switch to Firefox and there’s futures don’t work they’ll start complaining to the developers and then to Firefox. Microsoft road the it only works in IE train for a long time and it eventually buried them
There’s no need to wait. Just switch to Firefox now. All the cool kids have already done it.
Some of us never left.
I was pretty sure manifest v3 had already happened - but when I knew it was coming, I went ahead and switched ahead of time. Came with the extra bonus that now I’m ad free on mobile too! Mobile websites are absolutely filthy with popovers and 2 sentence paragraphs with an ad between every paragraph. I’m sick of it. And unfortunately I spend so much more time browsing the web from my phone these days than my desktop - so when I swapped on pc to Firefox, it was such a relief to have browser extensions on my phone now too.
I don’t understand seemingly intelligent people who still blindly use chrome at this point…
I kinda have to at work. Our classroom computers reset between classes and Chrome is the only browser installed. I might ask IT about that, moving forward, given uBlock getting neutered soon.
when you ask them, don’t only mention ublock, but the privacy aspects of only allowing the browser of the largest data collection fueled ad company
Honestly, our IT peeps aren’t idiots. They’d probably agree with me. It’s admin who make the overall decisions. I might be able to swing “also Firefox” to be included when they inevitably update the repo.
I have a similar issue at my school as well. Chrome is the only allowed browser, and each of us have to use our own school email as our login session in chrome, so we get that much of user space, and that actually works quite decently. I had ublock installed on my user account so far, but if it breaks, I’ll just have to suffer. Although, the real problem is that the school I work in uses some digital books that only work 100% in Chrome, and all show some form of weird behaviour in non-chromiun based browsers. And there’s a 0 chance they are changing it.
And the only place I can think of where uBlock is not getting neutered anytime soon is in LibreWolf.
Firefox is fucking with uBlock Origin, too? I was not aware.
I didn’t say anything about Firefox fucking with uBlock Origin, but was merely suggesting to try LibreWolf as its a hardened Firefox fork that comes with uBlock Origin preinstalled.
You’d be amazed at what seemingly intelligent people will do or say or believe.
I know people who I thought brilliant until they said they were voting for trump. Way to shatter my opinion of you, jagoff.
I’m only using it atm for extensions that are, ironically enough, blocked on Firefox… Though thats only one website in particular.
blocked? that sounds weird, can you give a few examples?
Unrelated one- https://www.neowin.net/amp/ublock-origin-lite-maker-ends-firefox-store-support-slams-mozilla-for-hostile-reviews/
The two in I use are for twitter-
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blue-blocker/ - Blocked in Firefox since after 0.3.5, which makes it useless since 0.3.5 was prior to the forced change to x, iirc.
https://github.com/dimdenGD/OldTwitter - Removed from Firefox entirely. Still available on Chrome.
Combined those two make the site look like old twitter, lets me save videos with a right click, and blocks twitter blue users automatically.
Man fuck google
While this will drive some users to Firefox, we all know it won’t be enough. Too many people simple don’t know, or don’t care, it won’t affect their lives in any meaningful way, or so they will believe. Google will be harming the tech illiterate and normies (sorry for the slur) because money, bullshit, and to drive the stake deeper into the monopoly. If you have older family members using chrome, sit them down and explain to them the dangers of the internet without adblock.
It gets me thinking. Tech literate people are the types to install blockers, and would be the same type of people both motivated and knowledgeable about how to switch browsers. On the line of thinking it seems like it is just going to drive them away from Chrome. Tech illiterate people remain unaffected since they are getting ads anyway.
But then on the other hand, if someone is tech literate then why are they even still using Chrome? Does such a person value whatever advantage Chrome theoretically provides over their ad-blocking?
as a chromium browser user - i’ve been meaning to switch to firefox, and i know it’ll take me maybe a day, but it feels like so much workkkk. In a similar fashion i’ve been meaning to switch to Linux for ages too. I guess it just hasn’t gotten bad enough for me to take action
as long as my adblockers & script blockers work, i’m not forced to upgrade to win11, and win10 still has security updates i don’t think it’s pushing on my discomfort buttons strong enough. I know the day will come, but like with a lot of things in my life - why do something today when i can do it tomorrow?
if that helps, switching browsers is a lot easier than switching your OS. the automatic import brings over most of your data (bookmarks, passwords, history, …), and you only need to handle the addons, if you had any, and the browser settings if you need anything from there
I use Opera for myself, but I have to use Chrome for work reasons (user profiles for different work areas based on whatever email is being used at the company computer). Thing is, Firefox also lacks the feature that makes me use Opera: speed dial. My Opera starting page is my speed dials, and speed dials are 10x better than just bookmarks, and I wouldn’t want to go through all the trouble of transfering literally hundreds of saved pages to standard bookmarks. But, if ublock fully stops working, guess I’ll have no choice.
I don’t know what exactly speed dialsare in opera, but firefox’s homepage can show website tiles in multiple rows
That’s some procrastination going on. Sometimes you should force yourself to start doing something for a minute or so and things will eventually change.
If you have older family members, you could try just installing Firefox for them and tell them it’s their internet now. This worked for me parents.
Good thing I’m on LibreWolf that comes with uBlock Origin.
It’s good that I use Firefox and will continue to be ad free then, eh?
I switched to Firefox over the summer and have been mostly happy with my decision.
However, there have been a LOT of issues with video playback on certain sites and I really don’t know how to fix them. Searches have been just about useless in regards to finding a fix. The worst one is Nebula. The video often just freezes while the audio just keeps trucking along like nothing is wrong. This has happened to a more limited extent with some YouTube videos as well. And the TAB crash on some sites is quite infuriating.
I find it funny how so many people are switching back to firefox but its been my default since I was like 10. I had crappy laptops when I was young and it was the only one that worked, it works amazingly for my modern computer.
Google, fuck you and your ads too:
It’s going to be internet explorer era again. I wonder which will replace chrome in the future.
I have hopes, that servo as a little more independent web engine, will thrive in the future
How? If you would have said Chromium based era, then sure, possible. Internet Explorer for 64 bit was officially retired June 15, 2022 and permanently disabled through an Edge update.
Chromium based era is what I think we had around 2012 and today. But lately Chromium is not exactly equal to Google Chrome now they been getting divergent.
“Might.”
The Fox has been re-promoted to my daily driver as of this year. Chrome still in play for work stuff & sites don’t have ads.
Comeon 0.0001%! Let’s get those last 5 people who know what an extension is but were holding out for…???
Yeah… These articles are like reading the tally marks on a prison wall. Let it go.
Some? Some you say?
