I avoid Chrome based browsers for a long time now. Firefox (I use Floorp right now, but if they sell out it’s easy to switch back to pure Firefox) is not perfect but I never missed a single thing. If there is an interesting service or plugin that only works with Chrome, I press x (Surfingkeys) and move along.
Although I remain a strong advocate of Firefox and Librewolf, the statistics for browser marketshare tell me that the vast majority of users does not care about blocking ads.
How can Google get away with this behavior legally? I am so disappointed that the most recent antitrust lawsuit that they "lost" regarding their search engine monopoly basically forced their hand to defund their only real competitor, thus making sure that they cannot get into trouble for killing it off to cement their other monopoly on the browser market. This vertical integration of being both a browser vendor and having a massive stake in how much browsers allow users to control how content is processed should have been stopped a long time ago by forcing them to split development of Chrome into a separate company.
„Google’s new rules will likely affect all Chromium browsers, including Chrome and Microsoft Edge (a support page from Microsoft shows that Edge is losing access to the Web Request API).“
Safari: I would love to use it, but Apple moved all plugins to the AppStore and killed the ecosystem.
Safari is much more limited than even manifest v3. Gorhill's mv3 extension, uBlock Lite, can't support Safari because Apple refuses to support half the web APIs necessary, despite constant requests and appeals, including directly by Gorhill to Safari's DevRel person.
Works fine for basic ads but more tracking goes through, which is silly.
Yes, but they have vowed to maintain manifest V2 support, at least until it becomes unfeasible. It also comes with its own ad blocker.
Then again, Brave is an advertisement company, same as Google. And the CEO is Brendan Eich, notorious for two very evil and despicable things: being homophobic and creating JavaScript.
Every now and then I download Firefox and try to gaslight myself that it's actually a good browser now. It usually doesn't take long before I'm using a chromium based browser again.
I'm not the person you asked, but I could have written the exact same comment. For me, SSB and chromium's much better profile functionality are the biggest hurdles when trying to move to Firefox or a Firefox-based browser.
I also encounter way too many bugs and weird behaviours in Firefox web dev tools. I hate chromium dev tools too, but I find it a more consistent bad experience.
The closest I've been to fully switching has been Zen browser. The ability to completely hide the browser's UI so you only see it when hovering is almost good enough to forget all other issues I got with Firefox. That "focus mode", vertical tabs, and side-panels, are the best UI elements to come to browsers since tabs, and I hope and expect all browsers copy them soon enough.
I want to thank you for your service. It is courageous and principled people like yourself that supplies enough eyeballs on chromium that incentivizes bigcorp adtech to keep things slightly less worse.
Alphabet as globe-spanning empire of mediocrity is on the way out: it might take a year or a decade, but it’s too far along to reverse.
The hard-core of Google excellence will remain, by that name or another. It was called DEC (and Bell) before, and it will be called something in a decade.
These institutions have been so kind as to rebrand themselves when they went from excellent to awful: Google became Alphabet, Facebook became Meta, Twitter became X, OpenAI became, whatever they’re going to call the awful thing.
You fight back by waiting, and by voting for people who won’t fire Lina Khan.
Use Firefox. It's not much of a difference given the big picture, but makes sense to me.
I avoid Chrome based browsers for a long time now. Firefox (I use Floorp right now, but if they sell out it’s easy to switch back to pure Firefox) is not perfect but I never missed a single thing. If there is an interesting service or plugin that only works with Chrome, I press x (Surfingkeys) and move along.
As a user, I prefer Firefox more than any Chrome or chromium based browsers. As a developer, chrome dev tools is just more soother to make use of.
Although I remain a strong advocate of Firefox and Librewolf, the statistics for browser marketshare tell me that the vast majority of users does not care about blocking ads.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/545520/market-share-of-i...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Can we have a month per year without ads? Like Stoptober, but for ads?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/stoptober-campaign-will-e...
The only way of fighting back is stop using Chrome and preferrably chromium based browsers.
I recommend using https://librewolf.net/
How can Google get away with this behavior legally? I am so disappointed that the most recent antitrust lawsuit that they "lost" regarding their search engine monopoly basically forced their hand to defund their only real competitor, thus making sure that they cannot get into trouble for killing it off to cement their other monopoly on the browser market. This vertical integration of being both a browser vendor and having a massive stake in how much browsers allow users to control how content is processed should have been stopped a long time ago by forcing them to split development of Chrome into a separate company.
Google might still be about to get broken up, and that might be a good thing. Not betting on either, though.
How can they get away for not providing you free services ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
It’s entirely possible to be illegally anti-competitive while giving shit away for discount/free.
I think the sentiment was that without ad revenue Google could not afford to provide free services. As a rule, "stuff" costs someone something.
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> Google's changing the ways ad blockers work on Chrome, but there are ways to get around it.
Yeah. Just use Safari, Firefox or Edge. I did not use Chrome for years now.
It’s mentioned in the article. But they also mention Edge will follow along with deprecating Manifest v2 so it’s no help.
From the article:
„Google’s new rules will likely affect all Chromium browsers, including Chrome and Microsoft Edge (a support page from Microsoft shows that Edge is losing access to the Web Request API).“
Safari: I would love to use it, but Apple moved all plugins to the AppStore and killed the ecosystem.
Doesn't Safari massively gimp ad blockers?
A good way to test the adblocker is with this website:
https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock
For me, Firefox and uBlock Origin on Linux and on Android both block 99-100% of ads.
AdGuard Pro for safari on iPhone got 84%. It works well enough for me - the sites that are so aggressive that ads get through I don’t visit.
I must be doing good because that site is broken for me. Null not/blocked and null total. (Ninja edit: Safari btw)
Safari with AdGuard and NextDNS here: 134 blocked, 1 not blocked. Ad blocking on Safari is just about perfect.
Yeah, Safari is on manifest v3 for some years now. Please that recomend it over Chrome for adblocking are clueless.
Safari is much more limited than even manifest v3. Gorhill's mv3 extension, uBlock Lite, can't support Safari because Apple refuses to support half the web APIs necessary, despite constant requests and appeals, including directly by Gorhill to Safari's DevRel person.
Works fine for basic ads but more tracking goes through, which is silly.
Safari’s existence (in iOS, at least, for now) is what keeps Chrome from unilaterally determining the future of the web.
That's a fallacious argument: https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow...
Use brave, a browser that's actually private by default.
Isn't it Chromium based?
Yes, but they have vowed to maintain manifest V2 support, at least until it becomes unfeasible. It also comes with its own ad blocker.
Then again, Brave is an advertisement company, same as Google. And the CEO is Brendan Eich, notorious for two very evil and despicable things: being homophobic and creating JavaScript.
Every now and then I download Firefox and try to gaslight myself that it's actually a good browser now. It usually doesn't take long before I'm using a chromium based browser again.
Ok, I’ll bite. What is your experience like on Firefox? What things convince you back to Chromium?
I'm not the person you asked, but I could have written the exact same comment. For me, SSB and chromium's much better profile functionality are the biggest hurdles when trying to move to Firefox or a Firefox-based browser.
I also encounter way too many bugs and weird behaviours in Firefox web dev tools. I hate chromium dev tools too, but I find it a more consistent bad experience.
The closest I've been to fully switching has been Zen browser. The ability to completely hide the browser's UI so you only see it when hovering is almost good enough to forget all other issues I got with Firefox. That "focus mode", vertical tabs, and side-panels, are the best UI elements to come to browsers since tabs, and I hope and expect all browsers copy them soon enough.
I want to thank you for your service. It is courageous and principled people like yourself that supplies enough eyeballs on chromium that incentivizes bigcorp adtech to keep things slightly less worse.
Fighting Google, what a good idea and great way to spend time hacking my life into pieces
Alphabet as globe-spanning empire of mediocrity is on the way out: it might take a year or a decade, but it’s too far along to reverse.
The hard-core of Google excellence will remain, by that name or another. It was called DEC (and Bell) before, and it will be called something in a decade.
These institutions have been so kind as to rebrand themselves when they went from excellent to awful: Google became Alphabet, Facebook became Meta, Twitter became X, OpenAI became, whatever they’re going to call the awful thing.
You fight back by waiting, and by voting for people who won’t fire Lina Khan.