Two questions I haven't seen addressed by any coverage of this change:
1. Will the ultimate removal of Manifest V2 support affect other Chromium-based browsers, or only Chrome itself?
If the support for Manifest V2 isn't removed upstream in Chromium, but only disabled in Chrome, then I would expect that we will end up in a world where other browsers (e.g. Edge, Brave, Opera) continue to allow the installation of Manifest V2 extensions, esp. from their own first-party verified-extension hosting platforms. So even if the Chrome Web Store also ceases to host Manifest V2 extensions, users of these other Chromium-based browsers could still get uBlock Origin from "Edge Add-ons" or "Opera Addons" etc.
2. Would it be possible for some random developer to put in a PR to the upstream Chromium project, to introduce one or more Manifest V3 capabilities (new strings for the manifest.json "permissions" key) that, when added, would allow the extension to do all the stuff that Manifest V2 let extensions do by default, that uBO and others depend on: increased request-filter list size, async periodic network data-file updates, etc? Would such a PR have any chance of being accepted?
My own guess is that such a PR wouldn't be accepted, because I get the impression that the nominal goal of Manifest V3 is to allow V3 extensions to run under a streamlined extension "runtime" that has fewer hook-points into the browser runtime, and so fewer places where the browser runtime must call back to the extension runtime; where adding such capabilities would require adding all these additional hook-points and callbacks back in, which would defeat the purpose. Correct me if I'm wrong!
I would also guess that even if such a PR were accepted, Chrome would still disable the use of those capabilities downstream, and also reject any extension that used them from the Chrome Web Store. So at best, such a change would just mean that uBO and friends wouldn't be stuck as "legacy" Manifest V2 extensions, but could instead just be "modern" Manifest V3 extensions with a few capabilities that Chrome and only Chrome forcibly rejects.
1. Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera have all announced they'd maintain support for Mv2 past Google's deprecation date [1].
2. Your guess is correct - one of Google's stated motivations is to make the extension review process easier and less error-prone; having a way to opt-out would be counterproductive in that regard. I strongly doubt they'd accept the PR upstream; there is a chance other players could maintain patches to modify Mv3 but the effort of designing and implementing a new spec around the Mv3 spec and convincing extensions to maintain yet another platform means this is unlikely to happen in practice. Keeping Mv2 around is a more reasonable approach (and one that is compatible with Firefox, as well).
Will you be working together with Vivaldi and Opera to maintain the fork of MV2's request interception, or will we have multiple independent implementations?
Nothing coordinated so far, but keep in mind Mv2 code will still exist behind a policy flag in Chromium until at least June 2025; there's still quite some time.
> there is a chance other players could maintain patches to modify Mv3 but the effort of designing and implementing a new spec around the Mv3 spec and convincing extensions to maintain yet another platform means this is unlikely to happen in practice.
The design has already been completed, in that mozilla has already done this in their implementation of manifest v3. The difficulty of convincing extension developers to support it should thus be no more difficult than convincing them to ship a firefox version of their extension.
> Keeping Mv2 around is a more reasonable approach (and one that is compatible with Firefox, as well).
This isn't a long term solution. Brave for example has only committed to maintaining mv2 support as long as chrome continues to support it internally. If chrome removes it, the work of continuing to support it would become untenable.
so in summary, all the clonium browsers depend on the company who is currently in the process of removing mv2 to not remove mv2 in their repo. good luck with that
Vivaldi and Brave are going to maintain the code so at least uBlock Origin can work. Nobody knows how this will play out as the forks won’t want to stray faraway from the chromium code as that would add a lot of overhead.
I tried a bunch of the forks, didn’t like Vivaldi, don’t like some of Braves crap, and won’t use the Chinese browser Opera.
Ended up moving our family back to Firefox.
I miss chromium’s better profile management and the app as a window. Rest of the family don’t miss any of those. Other than that happy with Firefox.
I've been using containers for a while, and have to say that UX wise, it needs work, it's too easy to inadvertently leave a container tab, and it's easy to get them confused.
The effect is "invisible", so there's no warning sign when you've done something wrong. My use-case is managing instagram profiles which periodically log you out, so if you forget and log in with the wrong one it's kind of game over.
In sum, it's too wonky for the general masses. Sure, Mozilla could add it just for the experts but that doesn't seem to be their approach which I can respect. After all it's not hard for an "expert" to get containers running.
One reason Google wants to remove V2 support is to make implementation changes that V2 currently prevents. This means that a Chromium fork that preserves V2 support will likely have to diverge further and further from Chromium over time (or rather, Chromium will diverge).
Gecko is not worse, though it used to be worse before Electrolysis landed. It's just that Mozilla Corp is mostly kept alive by Google so might as well remove the indirection and go straight to the browser that Google maintains
How much money do you reckon it costs for just the Firefox browser?
I know Mozilla waste a lot of effort on projects like Firefox OS, the Firefox mobile, politics, etc. But the actual browser it's self and it's hosting?
I just wonder if they end up dropping Manifest V2, if a patron model would work to maintain a fork properly...
I've heard this said a few times but no one has ever supplied any reputable source other than fanciful speculation. It's become such a meme at this point that I'm pretty sure it's just harmful disinformation.
Maybe I succumbed to that meme, I honestly don’t remember. I’m not in favor of what Google is doing. But I’m sure the implementation divergence will happen if V2 support is dropped. It pretty much always does once a public API is removed.
Does Google have veto power over what goes into Chromium?
I had always assumed the relationship between Chromium and Google was akin to the relationship between Webkit and Apple, or between any ASF-donated project and its corporate originator: a community-owned (and several-major-corporate-stakeholders sponsored) open-source project upstream, with a corporate closed-source "living patchset" project sitting downstream of it; where the corporate devs try to push as much as possible upstream, to keep the patchset they must maintain downstream as thin as possible; but where it isn't up to the corporate devs whether the upstream "steering committee" accepts the corporate work upstream.
But I guess this isn't true; per Wikipedia:
> However, in terms of governance, the Chromium projects are not independent entities; Google retains firm control of them.
Which is just bizarre to me, given the following sentence on that page:
> The Chromium browser codebase is widely used, so others have made important contributions, most notably Microsoft, Igalia, Yandex, Intel, Samsung, LG, Opera, Vivaldi Technologies, and Brave. Some employees of these companies also have @chromium.org email addresses.
You'd think these other companies wouldn't stand for Google having unilateral control over a project they're so dependent on! But I guess, as large corporations, they can always express their true concerns through more... corporate politick-y means.
As far as Microsoft is concerned, they're large enough to fork Chromium if they wanted to, just like how Google forked Webkit into Blink. Every other organization that ships a Chromium-based browser is fully at Google's mercy; Google holds the keys to the kingdom: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/
Microsoft maintained their own browser engine for decades, they had good reasons to drop them - I'm not even sure if there would be enough staff left there to actually be able to keep up with Chromium in a fork.
Ok. Goodbye chrome. I will be switching to whatever privacy-focused browser allows me to keep not seeing ads.
I do wonder how long it will be before we see browser browsers, software that takes a browser instance and sanitizes it. Maybe chrome will continue as a daemon allowed to run inside a sandbox within a browser's browser that actually displays content to a human.
And ads! Mandatory shortcuts for Nike and Amazon on the homepage! Then ads saying Big Browser Watches For You! Then ads saying we respect privacy! Then a suggestion to open a Mozilla account and synchronize all your history! Because we respect privacy!
Why not change your homepage to something you prefer? And don’t create or sign into a Mozilla account; host your own sync server instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34674569
I’ve searched for so long that I found the documentation of Mozilla saying, on the day of the release, that no, the shortcuts on the home page, can’t be removed.
Unfortunately, Firefox is still an ads machine. They keep coming up with “WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY” dark patterns to make us gobble up ads.
The worst is getting downvotes every time we point this out. Firefox defenders are extremely bad-faithed, they can’t have a rational discussion about Firefox having mere drawbacks, especially they can’t hear that Firefox misdirects users about privacy and ads.
> The worst is getting downvotes every time we point this out
I didn't down vote you.
No solution is 100% perfect in the tech world. I won't knock them for trying to make some money to keep afloat, even if they aren't (probably) the best at managing money.
I care if I can't turn them off. As you've pointed out, you can do that.
There's no date on your referenced article (pet peeve), so I can't tell when it was done. However it's been a long time (so much I so, I can't even remember) that I've seen ads that I couldn't turn off.
1- non hacker users too starting to realize corporate friendly browsers like Chrome and many derivatives can't be used anymore for painless surfing, then flocking to Firefox.
2- corporations and advertising companies pushing for a new closed HTTP standard that requires their browser, or an old browser using a closed extension that doesn't allow adblockers when using a given service or page.
Open browsers work because they still connect to open web servers, and the industry already ruined the mobile environment by forcing users to run apps instead of navigating web pages (that is, installing a hundred application for a hundred services instead of just one that speaks a standard protocol); I have no doubt they'll attempt the same in the desktop world too. We have to fight to keep protocols open.
I'll take option 3: a new browser using better technology (better design, protocols, etc) than chrome gets written by hundreds of open source advocates working together. The new browser becomes the standard for the Internet because it is not under the control of corporate interests and because of its superiority to decade old browsers.
Corporations and services are once again forced to standardize on open standards for web access or lose customers because the public (and techies specifically) will not support a proprietary software model for the public internet.
It's a cycle - corporations become big and successful, try to establish proprietary control, then lose massive market share to newly created competitors.
Once successful corporations get large, they tend to forget that eventually the frog getting boiled does jump out of the pot, and is usually angry when that happens.
> Nevertheless, Firefox said it will adopt Manifest V3 in the interest of cross-browser compatibility.
The article makes it sound like Firefox will have the same ad blocker limitations as Chrome. The article fails to mention that Mozilla is implementing MV3 APIs in Firefox, but not removing the MV2 APIs like Chrome is:
> But Google has decided that block and allow are not that easily abused so it will allow up to 30,000 rules to be added dynamically.
Can someone give an example of what a good number would be? How many dynamic rules are currently used?
> Also, extension developers are limited in what regular expressions they can use, along with other technical limitations.
Does this meaningfully impact rules? Just curious.
> According to Firefox’s Add-on Operations Manager, most malicious extension that manage to get through the security review process, are usually interested in simply observing the conversation between your browser and whatever websites you visit. The malicious activity happens elsewhere, after the data has already been read. So in their mind, what would really help security is a more thorough review process, but that’s not something Google says it has plans for.
I don't see how one follows from the other. Attackers are using malicious extensions to eavesdrop on networks... therefore we need better reviews and not restricted APIs? I get why you might want to advocate for the latter over the former, but certainly it seems like restricting APIs also has positive impact.
> I don't see how one follows from the other. Attackers are using malicious extensions to eavesdrop on networks... therefore we need better reviews and not restricted APIs? I get why you might want to advocate for the latter over the former, but certainly it seems like restricting APIs also has positive impact.
As I understand it, the APIs that are removed only remove the ability to modify network requests; the remaining APIs will still allow you to inspect requests.
(Disclosure: I work at Mozilla but not on extension APIs or even Firefox. I have written extensions myself though.)
Ah, thank you. So the idea here is that extensions will still have the read access to requests, which is all attackers care about (typically). Confirmation would be interesting - at minimum I thought that inspecting requests (read only) Was being limited, but I'm just a casual observer.
> As of Manifest V3, the "webRequestBlocking" permission is no longer available for most extensions. Consider "declarativeNetRequest", which enables use of the declarativeNetRequest API. Aside from "webRequestBlocking", the webRequest API will be unchanged and available for normal use.
So the other functionality, to inspect web requests, will still be available.
Coming to an extension store near you: AdBlockr (Part One) and AdBlockr (Part Two)! We've heard your feedback and have split our extension into two, more narrowly focused blockers. Only block what you need, without the bloat of a monolithic blocker! Or use both extensions for complete security with up to 60,000 rules!
Thanks. Has Google explained why the limit is so low? This doesn't seem like it would be super useful to an attacker, or meaningful for performance to change to, say, 150k. They've already raised it.
EasyList has become bloated with many rules being outdated or invalid. It's a system where rules are added at a much faster rate than they're removed. It's not like there's test suites or anything to shake loose old rules, so it only ever grows.
Checking 150K rules once wouldn't be a problem, but if you have to do that for 50 network requests on every single page load, that adds up. So the hope, as I understand it, is to set a ceiling to encourage developers to keep more up-to-date lists by pruning old and outdated rules. This prevents a situation where browser performance slowly degrades.
I'd like to see a system where users opt-in to allow ad blockers to collect metrics on which rules are actually applying, and have them occasionally trim anything under 0.01% usage. Which sounds like a small number, but should capture the majority of dead or unused rules. Of course, that would require a new browser API in a declarative system.
Well, I don't see how this would impact Google at all. Obviously as one of the biggest advertisers all of Google's advertising will fit within the limit and will be highly prioritized over others.
Yea, I would be okay with spending all 30k of those on just YouTube ads, and pihole for the rest. Google is the biggest advertiser, so logically their ads would go first or close to the top
If anything Google would be incentivized to increase the size, since that would impact competitors. So I'm just curious to learn more about the justifications - like I said, they've made a number of changes to the APIs already in the last two years or so.
Can anyone explain why there isn't a robust and thriving adblocking solution available at the router or OS level? Why are we all forced to grasp at the straws of the browser?
But nearly all web traffic is encrypted. And without being able to inspect the traffic more closely ad block is quite limited. So DNS blocking or router firewalls have trouble. Pihole can’t block YouTube ads. The ads still come from the same domain as the video.
Extensions have access to the live page and can do much more inspection, with finer control over the page. (Manifest V3 limits this somewhat)
On iOS it can kinda happen at the “OS” level as there is only one web browser. But that has its own drawbacks. The only adblocks are those the AppStore allows.
There is in the sense that there are robust black lists you can put in your `/etc/hosts` file, but that only blocks known senders of advertisements. But how can your OS know that this `div` is an ad and that one is content? Since the browser is the authority on what is rendered on a web page, it makes sense that it is the tool that should be utilized to block/hide rendered elements.
If the ads are hosted from the same domain or even same IP as the main web content, this is hard to do. Done effectively, it's not possible to distinguish ads from the wanted content without inspecting the web content.
With encrypted DNS queries becoming more popular, it is impossible to block something at the router level without decrypting the packets which bring up more privacy concerns.
Yeah, especially since ones like unlock origin are simple browser extensions that anyone can install in a few seconds. Hell it’s so simple I hesitate to even describe it as “installing”
Google's master plan to ditch V2 might be more than just a power move. It's like they're trying to reshape the Chromium landscape, making it a tricky playground for any V2 loyalists. We're looking at a future where maintaining V2 support is like trying to keep a vintage car running in a world of electric vehicles. Nostalgic but increasingly impractical.
* More (Advertising) revenue for Youtube streamers?
* More people switching to Edge browser to use Ad Blockers?
* People using Pi-hole style Ad blocking?
I'd like clarification on something. I've spent an hour or two trying to figure this out to no avail, so I suspect many other people might be wondering the same thing I am.
The cause of "Allow List Limits" is clear: uBO Lite will be forced to use declarativeNetRequest; and declarativeNetRequest imposes limits on the size of the ruleset you can "declare".
But I'm confused about uBO's point on "Ad Blocking Quality". It seems that Manifest V3 only restricts 1. the use of eval(), and 2. the loading of remote-origin scripts into the DOM and/or as service-worker modules. It doesn't restrict the use of remote-origin-loaded data files generally; which I would presume means that uBO would still be able to use its service-worker to periodically fetch and update its filter lists.
Is there some part of the way uBO uses these filter lists, that requires arbitrary remote code execution (and for which the only true substitute is burning in the lists locally?) If so: why, exactly? (Not a rhetorical question; I'm not doubting that they do need it. I just can't figure out where the need comes from, and I'd like to know!)
It might seem at first blush that the literal answer is this feature: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#... ... but it actually isn't, as you don't write actual JS to be eval()ed in these rules, but rather just name a function that's already burned into the extension locally as part of its "scriptlet resource library".
Is it instead, just the way that these rules get "baked down" into in-page logic? Does uBO compile the lists into a bunch of Javascript source-code, and then have the page evalScript() that code?
And if that is the blocking issue — and I'm still not clear that it is — then wouldn't there be other workarounds for this?
For example, sticking the generated JS code into a data: URL and then dropping it into the page as a <script> tag. Or even, at worst, swapping out feeding the page "JS source code", for feeding the page a (static!) interpreter, and then having that interpreter receive instructions as regular ol' data from the uBO service-worker? (Maybe that'd violate uBO's performance goals, I suppose? But it wouldn't have to do it on every page; only on pages that it knows from the ruleset can't be blocked entirely declaratively.)
AIUI it's because declarativeNetRequest only allows a small number of dynamic rules (5000). See https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/decla... . Most of the popular filter lists are much larger than that. For example, EasyList is about 70k rules. So even if you offered an option to download a list, you wouldn't be able to add most lists dynamically.
Also note that the site you linked is for UBlock, which is a different extension from UBlock Origin. If you're interested in what the UBO developer thinks the differences are, the UBlock Origin Lite (UBlock Origin for MV3) page has a write-up: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
So, manifest v3 is out there, and does allow some form of adblocking. are there any adblockers actually implemented with it, so i can see for myself what the adblocking performance is like?
But seriously, this finally forced my back to Firefox and it has been very smooth so far.
The Cloudflare overlords like to force a few more captchas to access sites, and Apple doesn’t support keychain password sharing yet, but they’re worthy compromises to push back on the domination of chrome.
Watch the already limited traffic I send to Google servers go even lower. I am not entangled in their mess. None of the faangs can touch me because I wasn't stupid enough to put my entire digital life in the hands of a company.
I'm looking ten or more years in the future, though. By that time, the Firefox/Chrome duopoly will be broken by alternatives that don't compromise between the user and business models.
It took me a bit of searching, but it's nice to know that there are desktop browsers that are not based on Chromium or Gecko, i.e. WebKit [1]. I would like to try Otter Browser [2], next time I use my Windows machine.
Apple is not on my tech radar at all due to their approaches to product design and their developer business model.
In about 6 months, I won't consider Google either. I'll simply start targeting reasonable, good, healthy Web standards and implement them with progressive enhancement.
If they support the standards, then there won't be a problem.
Well I did not know that. Perhaps that's why it works so seamlessly. Well one of the upsides then is that switching to Firefox in IOS is very painless then.
My understanding was that until next year when EU+UK legislation regulating digital marketplaces comes further into force, all of these iOS apps for browsers like Chrome, Firefox, etc. MUST be wrappers around the exact same Webkit rendering engine that Safari uses. I think it’s cool that everyone can enjoy the better UIs today (myself included), but everything other than the UI is placebo.
I see your gotcha and respond by saying I'm at least looking at other phones, but until the FCC mandates the opening of basebands, building a phone with trustable software is still a long way away.
Pine64 and Purism are making headways on that front, but again the situation is too thorny and regulations are hamstrung by the relevant companies bidding for spectrum. I've not heard of anyone having a smooth experience with PinePhone, Librem 5s, or the OnePlus line of phones.
Also, how many of these devices just run Android? So Google's got your ass there anyway. The ones that don't are foolishly following XDG and so are GNOME, KDE, or Enlightenment stans. The moment upstream changes, they'll be forced to go along because they don't fully own their UI experience.
We need portable libraries for accessing baseband stuff so that no vendor can lock a life feature (smartphone) behind their ecosystem.
I actually don't much like my phone. It's the most reliable way to find out where I am or what I'm doing, and who honestly deserves that information just because? I guess I wish I didn't use a phone at all. Despite its conveniences, on paper it's really just added a bill and a constant mental "on"ness that stresses me out.
So, not much of a gotcha because I've thought about this and it bugs me, but there's also no actually good alternative ready yet. When I'm able to BYOD with free hardware on a mainstream network and there aren't signal or reliability problems, I will. The whole point of a cell phone is remote availability, so it needs access to a reliable network to be of any use.
Please, if my understanding of free phones is out of date, correct me. It'd be nice to get one step closer to a completely user-controlled cellular device.
Even hosts that correctly implement $CURRENT_YEAR's email security dance end up on spam lists erroneously. The problem is allowing these hosts to have that much influence to begin with. The creation and spreading of those lists is pernicious to the protocol, but in absence of new RFCs and matching client behavior, I see the need to add some light 'hazing' to setting up e-mail.
The problem is when Google tells everyone your site is spam and they listen. Tech can't solve that problem.
But it is GAFAM, which seems to be more relevant when you're looking at things from an overall size perspective. The focus on FAANG never made much sense to me.
[cynic speaks: ] Sometimes it seems that a catchy acronym lends an association a degree of tacit validity, and/or experiences an almost viral spread, simply by virtue of its easy uptake by the casual reader.
tbh I'm less concerned about the order or makeup of the acronym and more concerned with the reason we discuss those acronyms and their (undue) influence over the tech world.
The structure of our markets ensures players like this will coalesce, but it's no reason to let giants of commerce dictate the terms of engagement for everyone.
It is truly unbelievable how bad it has become. Even informational articles might only have a paragraph of text between ads. Plus, the frequent animations/pop-unders/whatever.
Everyone can decry the loss of the "small web" as much as they want, but the cram-ads-into-every-pixel dystopia means why should anyone bother? Even big brands are not immune to this behavior. At least if someone stays on the Instagram/Reddit/Tiktok experience, the ads are a consistent frequency and intrusiveness.
> Even informational articles might only have a paragraph of text between ads.
The thing that made me realize how bad it's gotten was ironically an inability to use ad blockers. At one job, we weren't allowed to install any adblockers to the browser (there was a lot of bureaucracy so I never figured out why). Ended up writing my own JS bookmarklets to remove ad elements from sites I commonly visited. Also started browsing the web more in the terminal with Lynx because there are no images, it's just text. No distractions.
Taking your typical "How do you frob a xyzzy in the foo framework?" Medium article, the entire thing would usually fit on my screen in the terminal. The GUI browser had one or two lines followed by an image of ad.
> At one job, we weren't allowed to install any adblockers to the browser (there was a lot of bureaucracy so I never figured out why).
It could have been the IT department fielding too many "this web-based app" isn't working requests due to ad-blockers. A lot of time can be spent trying to troubleshoot an issue before figuring out the cause is the ad-blocker.
Edit: It could also have been a policy to disincentivize people to use their work computer for non-work-related tasks. Ads typically don't pop up on work-related web applications.
Occasionally I use a computer that's not my own (I've been using Firefox and UBO for years, and have PiHole here). I can't believe how AWFUL it is. It's just not worth bothering with any more for the most part... it's like I live in this quiet backwater town where everyone walks everywhere, and then I get teleported to the middle of rush-hour Tokyo.
IE being very advertising friendly and user hostile was the original reason for Firefox to emerge and Chrome to be created. Both blocked popups and provided more user control. Both had extensions. And ad blocking quickly became a popular application of extensions. I've not used a browser without an ad blocker for probably close to seventeen years or so. Why would I opt in to ads?
IE did not survive the competition. And Google did well with chrome. But technically it's weird that they continue to convince people that use operating systems that come with a different browser to install Chrome. Firefox has the same challenge.
It seems that Google has gotten a bit too used to that being a thing that users are eager to do. The more ads that slip through the defenses, the more market share they'll loose to other browsers. This is a classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Their ad revenue (i.e. most of their revenue) is largely dependent on Chrome being something users want to use. More ads means less users. And as MS has demonstrated with IE, having a leading position is no guarantee whatsoever of keeping that. Even their position as the dominant fork of Chromium is not guaranteed. If people get annoyed enough, they might just fork and cut loose. Happened before when Google forked Apple's webkit. Which in turn was a fork of khtml. Not saying that's likely to happen soon but it's always an option.
Anyway, I'm happy using Firefox. No ads for me. Also not on Youtube.
I thought Brave made very little sense when it was first launched. Who would want an ersatz Chrome browser? Now it's starting to look very smart. Sure, it's open source so anyone can fork Chromium. But it does take a lot of sophistication to do it properly and add back the usability bits in a nice way. And if you could basically have Chrome but without losing the ad blocking, that starts to sound pretty compelling.
Despite being made by that homophobe I will never financially support, you seem to be right. Unfortunately.
Brave funnily enough is also the only Chromium-based browser that lets you set policies to turn off their optional features, none of which I want.
Vivaldi has some downsides (no gesture navigation is a dealbreaker) and installs its bookmarks every time you sync a new browser. It also feels crowded no matter what settings you use.
Edge just does absolute asinine stuff. Yesterday it disabled my new tab page without asking (and it also asks every day) and today it asked if it could submit my Kagi search results to Microsoft to help them make Bing better, which I refused. Weirdly enough the refuse button was blue... and sure enough, Edge set my default search engine to Bing in that moment. Apparently you can switch to a non-consumer Windows SKU to turn down these shenanigans. An Antitrust needs to read that source code, badly.
Unfortunately I can't use Firefox because an app I'm forced to use wouldn't support it.
The world is ripe for a Chromium fork that just works. Maybe Ungoogled-Chromium can bring back some creature comforts eventually...
Same here. My whole approach about internet is how I can effectively block ads. If it isn't chrome, it will be something else. No value in using it then
The average user is going to open Safari or Edge and go to Google or YouTube. They'll see the "this page runs better in Chrome" popup and install Chrome. The installer asks to make it your default browser, so they do.
The idea that you can install an addon to the browser isn't even in their toolbox. They aren't aware of the anti-competitive nature of Google. To them, a browser is just the thing their OS exists to run for them.
My grandmother uses the Google app to browse the web on her phone. Not Chrome. Not safari. the Google Search app.
Because every single time she does a search, google tells her to install the app.
And I have a few friends that either uninstalled Adblock. Or stopped watching YouTube on PC in response to this new Adblock crackdown. All of them use chrome.
You're right, but you're forgetting, Chrome needs technically inclined users. Yes there's always people without enough awareness to be satisfied with the walled garden, but Firefox used to be popular because it was user, and importantly power user friendly.
Something will usurp that thrown, the power users will switch and then so will everybody else
Agreed. I look around in my office and no one else than me is running any kind of adblocker. Most people don’t care or don’t even know adblockers exist.
Can we all finally make a concerted effort to switch back to Firefox? I get it, it was slow and bloated when Chrome initially came out and everyone switched.
Well, it's not slow or bloated anymore and Chrome is now officially evil. It's time. Don't just switch your own browser. Switch the browsers of all the non-technical folks that come to you for questions.
Been using Firefox on Android for a while now and it's great. Chrome's forced tab groups thing is what pushed me to switch, and it's been mostly great since. Firefox on Android even has proper scroll/fling physics now (they used to have an awful implementation on Android).
Only complaint is text input on some sites is very sluggish and drops letters, notably many of the wikis used by games. But those sites are not exactly optimized either so no idea how much of that is Firefox vs. the site.
I don't know if I can trust you. I've heard how great Firefox is now so many times and I download it and it is hot bloated garbage. If Chrome implements this, I'll just use Brave, but I will give Firefox a try then also, based on your comment.
And acting like Mozilla is some bastion of anti-advertising freedom ranges from ignorant to aggressively disingenuous
Mozilla has shipped ads directly in the browser at least three times: pocket, the automatic installation of a Mr robot extension, and the full screen new tab ad for turning red. They've given absolutely no indication they won't do it again
Even better, can we all finally make a concerted effort and make a new browser better than Chrome and Firefox?
We only let the net get jizzed on because we allow it to be.
If Serenity can do it, imagine if all those who push repos to github collaborating together and actually making an open source project for all and everyone.
A lack of desire to implement technologies that are harmful to the Web; specifically technologies designed to usurp control from the user and/or its agent.
Remove Javascript and 90% of your challenges go away.
Remove HTML/CSS rendering and the other 10% of the challenges go away too. Skip the whole “browser" thing and just use `curl`. Zero harmful technologies, maximum user control - I’m sure all of the users will be flocking to this new approach in no time :D
Agree. Plus OP may be severely underestimating the complexity and expense related to developing a new fully featured browser. JavaScript engine, CSS rendering engine, supports for dozens of additional add-ons like WebGL, sandboxing, WASM etc. Microsoft is a case study on this given their attempt and eventually ended up forking off Chromium.
Pouring more resources into existing projects seem more realistic.
> Plus OP may be severely underestimating the complexity and expense related to developing a new fully featured browser.
Not at all. I'm just done with the drama and shite that keeps occurring over the piss battle of Chrome and Firefox. The internet is just a waste land and all those technologies you posted I have not seen one decent product come from them. Please feel to prove me wrong.
All of those technologies could be implemented in a better application away from the browser instead of throwing them in a "all-in-one" solution which ends up falling behind because some other new tech comes a long. It's your attitude which causes the internet to lack in the first place.
How is GIMP not a poorly implemented overly complex kitchen sink of incoherent features with bad user interfaces? And how are GIMP scripts any more safe and secure than JavaScript?
I mean sure, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good here. Firefox is good enough and exists right now. Let's not delay this until some perfect future browser arrives.
So your best argument is a totally implausible baseless conspiracy theory without any proof or explanation or even links to batshit crazy youtube videos?
As such a gigantic international organization with so many people, how has Microsoft managed to keep that a secret for so long?
Microsoft must really know how to do security right, if they haven't leaked such a big story.
That would be bigger than then OpenAI soap opera! Eric S Raymond would rise up from his Racist MAGA Libertarian Climate Change Denying Gun-Nut Cesspit like the Creature From The Black Lagoon and run a victory lap!
It follows from your own conspiracy theory that Microsoft must be one of the most security conscious and proficient companies on Earth, leaving Apple in the dust, to keep such a huge story from getting out for so long!
> It follows from your own conspiracy theory that Microsoft must be one of the most security conscious and proficient companies on Earth, leaving Apple in the dust, to keep such a huge story from getting out for so long!
I like using Chrome and even went back to it after trying FF and Brave 2-3 years ago. But this would really make me look for alternatives, even if those are inferior.
It's not even about Youtube. I pay for Youtube Premium. But not being able to block third party cookies would be a deal breaker.
So switch then instead of just talking about it. It's not a big deal, it takes like 1 minute, and no one can seriously tell me you have a significantly different browser experience on Chrome vs FF.
I did switch and then went back to Chrome. Didn't you read my comment?
It doesnt take 1 minute and yes the FF experience was significantly worse when I tried it.
Here's one example. I write almost daily in 4 languages on the web. With Chrome I get multilingual spell checking automatically in those 4 langguages without having to do anything. Even in the same <textarea>.
With FF you have to manually install dictionaries and there was even a 23 year old issue (yes, 23 years) about using multiple dictionnries at the same time. This issue was only closed 2 months ago:
It's very subjective, but I won't try switching again before certain things I value in Chrome are available or work similar well on Firefox. You can switch based on ideology alone but I want convenience more than that.
Ok so if you're not going to switch then don't talk about it. Google will continue to make Chrome shittier and more user-hostile much like every product they've ever released since they were founded and people like you will continue to go "yeah but what about app mode or whatever." It's not ideology, it's history.
> Google will continue to make Chrome shittier and more user-hostile
Other than this ad stuff (which I agree is tremendously hostile) Chrome has acually been getting better. The dev tools, performance, UI, and memory usage have improved considerably this year.
You want to censor me because i have a different opinion than yours?
I assume you have good intentions and want to advocate for Firefox and have it have wider adoption. I want the same thing, but it's imo not enough that Chrome gets shittier (it doesn't in my opinion btw in terms of UX), Firefox needs to become better to win.
I recently switched to Firefox and the main blockers for staying on it were a bad experience with syncing of passwords and such a across devices, the UI (i found a nice fix but it's tedious to setup), and no app-mode.
If even tech people (who could easily have multiple browsers around) prefer Chrome over Firefox for minor problems out of convenience, I don't see how Firefox is supposed to really notably gain any market share even if Google completely locks out ad blockers.
I'm one of those dozens too, but sadly, "techies" are not that great at promoting the more open alternatives. Or even ad-blocking in general: just look at how hordes of HN users insist here that everyone who blocks ads is evil and how we have a moral obligation to watch advertising.
Sometimes it’s not “out of convenience” but “we only have the resources to test on one browser and most people use chrome” - so we must cater to that even if chrome is far down the road to enshittification.
majority of the people will still use Chrome even if Google literally delists all blockers from the planet. One major reason being "browser migration". The guys on HN crying foul on most of these articles are a vocal minority. This s Google's version of "corner the market and raise the prices". They ll lost 2-5% market share at max
There's an evangelist effect - Apple benefited from it a lot way back when (less so now). Where techies lead, others tend to follow. That 2-5% might be the first few pebbles in the avalanche.
You still need a tangible reason for switching. Maybe we can push, but Firefox would need to sustain the momentum and I don't see them doing it.
My pet peeves: sync and app mode. I don't want to switch at the moment, tried many times, but it doesn't stick for me. If i ask my my aunt to do that, and she dislikes it, she won't do it again and won't trust me anymore on top of that.
If browser migration stopped the majority from changing, Internet Explorer would still dominate. But Firefox got the majority, and then Chrome.
It's a bit more fluid than the OS market. A company can't get away with just anything forever in the browser space. At least not so far. 2-5% loss is significant for one change, and denotes a chink in the armor of dominance that other players can begin to exploit; whatever dissatisfaction caused people to migrate, other players can be very good at it, which can get more people trying the other product, which if it does well in other ways, can spread. So 2-5% loss has a small chance of turning into a long, slow landslide of market share loss.=
Definitely dangerous to start throwing customer experience under the bus for short to mid-term gains without paying attention to the long term picture.
I've been using Firefox some lately because my work has a heavyhanded managed system-wide Chrome profile and one other problem is that Firefox is just buggy and slow in some noticeable ways that Chrome is not.
I often read these kinds of comments on HN and I don’t understand them. I’m using FF on MacOS and it feels like exactly the same experience I used to have on Chrome. Except that I like multi account containers better than Chrome profiles.
I would love for HN commenters to share a recording in which they show this “buggyness”
Too bad your lies have been upvoted. I am also on Linux - had to boot it up just to make sure I am not spreading bs - and what do you know, dragging tabs between windows works just fine, like it always has.
I like Firefox a lot (with Privacy Badger and uBlock) but sometimes the browser slows to a crawl. New tabs are slow to open, takes way too long to select and activate a text input field, and so on. A restart fixes this, but it's still annoying.
I think I might go back to Safari. I like the way it looks and it feels snappier all the way around.
Try installing the auto tab discard addon (It is a recommended addon so it gets checked by Firefox). I’ve noticed certain tabs may slow FF down if they aren’t unloaded in the background.
I had FF slow to a crawl and when I checked it was using 7gb’s of ram. Turns out a site I had turned off uBO in had opened up a sub frame that was blasting ads. So it is interesting to try to see what is going on with about:processes.
Safari is at a disadvantage - it's behind a walled garden and people outside of that garden don't develop or test for it. Sure, that's a trivial issue for a company but not for small team or single person projects.
Not to mention that it feels like Safari is only fast because it does its own thing and doesn't strictly follow the spec. I've often run into CSS specific issues with it when making slightly more complicated animations.
Do you use tabs as bookmarks? Use bookmarks instead, tag em for extra convenience in one go. Together with ctrl+h (history) you can go back to any site you recently visited.
I think this is a good opportunity to bypass chrome and use a standalone adblocker, if you're forced to use Google or Microsoft (ad|spy)ware as a browser.
Are you aware of how much "ewaste" is still viable and will 'lose support' for these Big Brother chip designs, but still be plenty serviceable by a normal person?
Windows 11 requiring a TPM has already locked some people out of their zeitgeist. There is more old circuitry that can get the job done well enough, they'd be competing with prior freedoms.
Don't see why it couldn't happen. Offload data communications to it's own chip, one that connects to a StarNet. Locked down running a Java Virtual Machine presenting an optical browser to your eye retina's; surveillance controlled as it's hooked to your brains cortex via Elon's animal killing NutellaLink.
The war against general-purpose computing is but one front in the class war.
Daily reminder that economics is a political theory, not a science, that capitalism is the most incidious form of oligarchy, and that the US is no longer a democracy (if it ever was).
Me: Please develop a browser that is full HTML, etc, etc compliant
LLM: No problem... download the source here.
Me: Thank you, but could you please optimize it for speed?
LLM: No problem, done.
Me: I have only 5 more minutes, could you please write a version in Rust, and two more in Go and C++? Ah, and support Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS. Don't forget to use the native WebView in iOS.
LLM: done.
Me: Could you please do me a favor? Remove all ads.
Bard: Sorry, your request infringes on the rights of content platforms to serve ads. If you make this request again your Google account will be terminated.
That is good for general queries and content reading but I don't imagine using an spreadsheet via an agent but interacting with the UI directly. I agree that a vast amount of browsing could go to a chat session.
in wake of the EU ruling that youtube isn't allowed to block adblockers, i can understand this move.
imo the eu needs to stay out of this. its a competition between people trying to block ads and trying to force you to see them, which i see nothing wrong with.
No, it’s not “people” on both sides. Google isn’t “people”. It’s one of the biggest corporations in the world. I’m not a big fan of the EU, mostly because their rulings tend to be a bit …clueless. The specific decision of getting in the way of big corp here is totally ok. They’ll probably do it badly and in an ineffective way, sure, but the problem is the implementation, not the idea.
i'm looking now, based on what i've seen the past couple days, and i guess there hasn't been an official ruling so i must been duped
but there is a discussion going on about this, a few news articles and one hn post. basically they want to determine whether its ok for youtube to check your computer's memory to see if you're somehow blocking their ads.
This is my sticking point. I understand that building and running websites isn’t free, and if ads were 468x60 PNGs I’d be willing to live with them. I’m not willing to live with you selling the ability to run arbitrary untrusted javascript on my computer to the highest bidder.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38369820
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361758
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38361758
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38301801
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38298502