What could go wrong when you let an ad company dictate the browser standards/rules.
I know we have Firefox and some forks like librewolf, but percentage wise it feels like a lost battle ( even if I am on Firefox ).
If only people switched en masse to Firefox for the ad blocker. Wouldn’t that be something… One big collective FU to Google.
Oh well. One can dream I guess.
There comes a point where one realizes that those around you cannot be relied upon to leverage solutions. Psychopaths get ahead because they’re willing to play dirty. So much of the world can be summed up as large swaths of population being induced to behave or think certain ways by psychopathic manipulators.
shrugs in Firefox
Careful, there are some edgy people out there who don’t want to use more than one browser because Firefox doesn’t work with their cameras /s
Meanwhile, I’ll still be using Firefox too
Who needs to give their browser access to their camera?
People who have to use their browser for telehealth and virtual teller banking access.
Sadly these are also things that require better security.
I do this with Discord and Zoom as an alternative to installing their actual apps. 99% of the functionality is there anyway, and the 1% is stuff I don’t want anyway
I use MS teams for meetings every day at work, in Firefox, in Linux. It’s nice that even the camera works when I need it to.
People who use Webex, zoom, etc for one use in try browser and don’t normally use those links. Happens at work when an outside vendor doesn’t use what we do.
May be bad phrasing, but Firefox doesn’t support h.265 so there’s limitations with streaming video on some camera platforms and other sites.
TIL Firefox doesn’t support HEVC. Hadn’t really noticed that before, I guess it’s why some Jellyfin streams started transcoding for me.
It is supported in the nightly build and full support is in the works currently.
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/hevc-support/idc-p/63424/highlight/true#M36557
You say that like they didn’t just remove several other adblock extensions themselves
No they didn’t.
They’re still there. Ublock origin is the god-tier adblock, and it’s still there. It’s even a Recommended by Mozilla extension.
I know people on Lemmy often, for some reason, hate Mozilla more than Google or Microsoft, but Mozilla very much still caters to people who want to block ads, despite the disinformation on Lemmy.
From what I’ve heard, they only “removed” uBlock Origin Lite. Normal uBO is still up.
Actually, they flagged UBO Lite and the dev removed it himself in a fit of pique.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2474353/popular-ad-blocker-removed-from-firefox-extension-store.html
and they only flagged it because it violated privacy rules
No. It didn’t. That’s why he was upset. Mozilla even admit this. Did you read the article or what?
“Mozilla later admitted in an email that they had made a mistake regarding the extension, but Hill has ultimately decided to cease development of the uBlock Origin Lite add-on for Firefox.”
And what? If someone can live with ads, they can stay. Otherwise anyone can install Firefox. I was all-in Google since the beginning of Gmail. And switching to Firefox was completely painless. Everything works the same, times of website incompatibility are long gone.
What if websites decide that chrome users earn much more ad revenue and start forcing users to switch with those “This website only supports Chrome” error messages? What if this practice gets popular? I’m sure there are ways to get around it, but the average users who bothered switching to Firefox at all, will just conclude that anything except chrome has a bad browsing experience.
Can’t you have your Firefox browser just report itself as chrome?
You certainly can. They don’t know what you’re doing.
Then apple would whip out their giant throbbing cock and smack them with it because they want people using safari.
Visit about:compat. Sites already do that. Firefox can deal.
Because Google is trying to turn the internet into a walled garden where only people with Chrome can visit the majority of websites.
I’ve been been a full time Firefox user for three years now. Haven’t experience a single problem like that. Haven’t really experienced any problem at all to be honest
Unfortunately that has not been the case for me. Some sites for buying concert tickets don’t seem to like Firefox.
I’ve had problems with several Microsoft sites we use internally for work ever since Edge went to Chrome.
It’s not Firefox’s fault. Mozilla is abiding by web standards.
If you find any websites that don’t work with firefox, you should report them to Mozilla. Firefox has a list of known bad websites, and has fixes for them, usually just a user agent override.
Your past experiences with Firefox are irrelevant because we’re talking about the future.
I know. My experience with Chrome used to be good too. And we all know what’s up now.
If Firefox fucks up, I’m fine with abandoning ship and moving on to the next thing. I’m not sure what that would be, but I’m sure I’ll figure that out once we get there.
Thats the thing.
There is basically no alternative. Firefox exists on the mercy of google which is its biggest donor.
There are very few attempts at a truly open source browser and neither can tackle the biggest problem, which is google pushing websites to adopt their standards, weaponizing ad income to guarantee compliance.
Currently more then 80% of internet users have a chromium browser while websites creation for many entities is often outsourced out of lack of own IT knowledge. When firefox dies there will be no economic insensitive to build sites accessible by anything but chromium.
Low key i wish this fires back into anarchy. I hate the corporate web and the only sites i like to see are those free of economic insensitive and all in on an ethical free digital world.
Incentive
That’s the problem. Google is working so that there’s not going to be a next thing.
That is concerning, but Internet Explorer used to be the only option too. Of course things are different now, but I have faith (for lack of anything else).
try changing your user-agent to mock chrome in Firefox while you visit YouTube.
you should see a drastic difference in UX.
I tried YouTube in Chrome on desktop (for about 2 minutes) and I didn’t notice any difference. I’ll just keep using NewPipe on my phone though.
it takes a whole 10 extra seconds for the interface to be usable for me in Firefox. but not when I spoof the user-agent as chrome.
at least that’s how it was about 4 months ago.
Do you use YouTube?
NewPipe exclusively. YouTube has been unusable long before I fully moved back to FireFox.
Maybe part of the monopoly ruling will have chrome taken away from them.
times of website incompatibility are long gone.
cries in dev
Yep so happy with Firefox having switched back a couple years ago.
times of website incompatibility are long gone
I wish I could agree with that. Hell, I have to use Chrome to download my phone bill from Virgin, and a couple of others don’t work.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming FF. It’s these lazy web developers that only target Chrome. I’m sure Safari users get the same shit experience.
I really wish Firefox implemented easily switchable browser profiles. I am use Firefox mainly but for work I’ll still use edge so I can use this feature.
I don’t know exactly what part of a separate profile you are after, so this may not be a 100% substitute, but I found container tabs in Firefox to work quite well (with some extensions to improve UX). It’s still the same profile though, so passwords and history are shared.
firefox.exe -P -no-remote
some people dont want firefox bcs its kinda slower then chromium based tbh but it aint bad am not saying firefox is bad
They’re not that different any longer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36770883
Oh
I suspect this will soon be followed by a renewed effort by google to kill firefox compatability.
How many times has this been announced already?
Yes
Think of it as an iceberg & Chrome users as a boat.
Assuming no changes, this is landing in Chrome Canary now, so we’re watching the Chrome Canary boat hit the iceberg. The Chrome Beta boat is going to hit in a few weeks. Finally the Chrome Stable boat is scheduled to hit in mid November.
Now Google may choose to hold back actually enabling this flag immediately. It wouldn’t be the first delay. But likely in mid November is when all the posts will start to appear of people asking where their ad blocker went.
(Although I’m guessing it actually is delayed until after the holidays and in the new year, but that’s just wild speculation.)
Looks like time to find a new browser!
I used to recommend uBlock as a no-brainer, now folks really need to change towards a better browser.
Or get network wide blocking. Doesn’t prevent everything but it does prevent most ads. Makes the internet tolerable at least.
nah, lets get them switched away from chromium based spy machines.
Not everyone can. Work machines for instance.
Can’t install extensions on a work machine but you can add a network wide blocker?
Possibly, if you work from home
We’ve known this was coming for a while now . . . but I suppose not everyone reads tech news.
one might say that this piece of news is the… canary… in the coal mine?
I mean… Even if everyone knows it’s coming, you still need to have notice when it actually happens right?
Are Opera and it’s derivatives affected by this?
Yes. There’s only 3 major browsers. Chromium (Chrome), Firefox, WebKit (Safari). Nearly every other webbrowser is a fork of one of these, most are forks of Chromium, including Opera. As such, most webbrowsers will be affected by the change.
Chrome browser = chromium plus Google
Samsung browser = chromium plus garbage
Brave browser = chromium plus crypto and homophobia
Should probably add this info about Mozilla funding almost exclusively from Google but at least they haven’t disabled mv2 extensions yet. Even though they put in a fucking opt-out ad telemetry setting in recent releases.
I don’t think it should’ve been opt-out, but Mozilla’s ad metrics development is very much the direction ads on the web should go in. It is impossible to determine who you are from the data. They’ve truly done a good job on creating an ad model that’s privacy friendly, and would be a material improvement to the web.
It’s a way to still have ad revenue funding the content we all consume, while also still maintaining privacy. It’s a good thing. It’s just the opt-out aspect for existing installs that’s bad.
That said, I’m personally a proponent of just using adblock lol
Is Chrome’s ad telemetry opt-in?
No it’s not. But if we’re hoping Firefox will be better in some way we’d expect more from them. Wouldn’t we?
What’s duck duck go’s browser?
DuckDuckGo’s webbrowser is somewhat unique, in the sense that it isn’t its own browser at all. It’s a “WebView”, using the OS built-in webbrowser with a coat of paint.
This means it’s Blink/Chromium on Android and Windows, and WebKit on iOS and macOS.
Why would you use a Chinese browser?
what does the browser being Chinese have to do with anything?
You really don’t see a problem installing software from an authoritarian regime that spies on basically everyone and everything and has 0 privacy protection?
the chinese government isn’t behind every software that’s made in china lol
like yea, opera is spyware, but so are chrome, safari and edge, and none of these are made in china
Are you talking about America lol
I’m being downvoted heavily on Reddit for suggesting thorium instead of Chrome.
My guess is bots as thorium is way faster and the dev hates the thought of a chromium browser without Adblock.
Moronically I think the Reddit hive mind is following that opinion and I may have to delete the comment or face site wide blacklisting which is what usually happens.
Didn’t thorium had some drama the other day though?
i am pretty sure it was resolved and explained , crisis Titus also had a video but ever since its members only and i cannot find a reupload.
I’ll take your word for it but between all the nonsense Google and Mozilla have pulled I’m not sure where to place my belief.
I’m sticking to thorium for now because it’s fast and does what I want in a browser
Alr ig
Hopefully wikipedia recognizes this as the official Canary in the Chrome mine. I was first impressed with chrome book because of seeing them used for education, getting my own laptop during school would’ve been mindblowing to kid me. I was unimpressed with the strangulation process of the OS but again shocked when they added a linux boot mode. There needs to be better alternatives by now, I would be ok with an OS developed by the department of education in conjunction with higher educational institutions. Could have a decent non-profit approach to a browser and ad blockers could legitimately be built in as a “protect the children” aim of approach.
I take it you’ve never been involved in such an endeavor? What you propose would take a decade a minimum due to the sheer number of nested advisory committees that would be required for those groups to interface. Better a non-profit group begins the work and then solicits these group’s input at the design stage.
I think super-apps are the way to go, only way to prevent one company from monopolizing click-stream data for advertising.
some apps already do this and their users don’t suffer from the same issue (granted, they have different issues)
