Firefox users right now:
This is gonna be so bad because now there is only uBlock origin lite and “uBlock”, if you couln’t guess: the 2nd one is a scam that google never tried to remove(it’s been up for some years IIRC) and i am sure that everyone will try to install this scam because they can’t find the original uBlock origin (and everyone just refers to uBlock origin as uBlock which makes it worse)
the 2nd one is a scam that google never tried to remove
It’s a little more complicated. uBlock was the original name, gorhil handed it off when he felt the maintenance burden became too high. Then he forked it to make his own uBlock Origin version.
At some point later uBlock was bought up by the AdBlock people, who in turn were later bought by the AdBlock Plus people.
So it’s not a scam exactly, more like an inbred sideline of the royal family.
It’s a scam because it specifically goes out of its way to not block an ad, as long as that ad pays a bribe to them. It should be called uAd.
Holy shit, seems to be watching a soap opera tf
1 million users…
“1 million deceived users”.
There, I fixed it for you. You’re welcome.
company which makes most of it’s revenue from advertising fucks with their browser’s ability to remove ads. Go figure!
i am surprised it took this long, but i know that getting everybody using chromium, or at least webextensions, was part of the plan that had to exist first. and the path down mv3 started not long after both mozilla and microsoft were both roped-in.
I have to say I’m not surprised. No one wants to pay for a browser.
The irony is that Chrome’s rendering engine was a fork of WebKit, which was a fork of KHTML, a free and open source rendering engine created by KDE for Konqueror. They basically took something free, used Microsoft’s “embrace, extend, extinguish” tactics on it. Now KHTML is vestigial, only found in the UserAgent string.
But we could have had a truly free open source cross platform browser with Konqueror.
Best we have now is Firefox, but the bulk of Mozilla’s development funding comes from setting Google as the default search. So it is also hijackable.
I think it’s the shear cost of operating a browser. I would hope Mozilla are looking to diversity there income but without ads or sales to end users I’m not sure where it can go.
We could maybe have done that. But Konqueror has never been that good every time I tried it.
If you pay, do you get a say or is it the same play but you paid?
And i removed Chrome from my devices
I think I’ll be switching to librewolf at home. It can install mozilla extensions and comes with ublock origin baked in. Pulling a stunt like this is just going to drive people away from the Chrome environment. Corpos can’t help but shoot themselves in the foot.
Most people I know simply don’t care. They will use it because it’s convenient and they don’t care about the privacy dangers. I can’t comprehend it myself though. Drives me up the wall.
They will use it because it’s convenient
Using web without ublock is amongst the most inconvenient things I’ve experienced
I think most people who don’t know better just think that’s “the internet” and that it’s the same no matter how you access it. The whole concept of browsers and extensions is just not in the realm of concern.
I’ve seen some shift among the tech illiterate in my immediate vicinity, but most are still in the “I got nothing to hide” category of clueless twits.
Funnily enough my two kids have expressed hatred of AI. It’s mainly people around my age or higher that can’t let any sort of convenience go even if shown the dangers.
Otherwise I’m just “scaremongering”.
The kids are alright, then.
My 14yo hates the current AI but says most peers are using it and can’t understand how to write an essay or such without it.
I think only some of the kids are alright. Many, if not most, are in trouble.
The problem is that everyone’s internet experience is very different these days. Your friends might be boring and actually have nothing in their lives that need compartmentalized/obfuscated. It’s unlikely but not impossible.
The easiest way to demonstrate the problem would be when they show you something on an unprotected device you note the ads and give them shit for it. Those ads are likely targeted, and so your jabs would be targeted and personal too. Then point out that those ads are tied to THEM. Just ask every time, “have you been looking at X? Gross dude.” It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s the point that they are uncomfortable with your guess and it’s an opening to explain that, yeah it’s not just those ads buddy.
People who share every intimate detail of their life online don’t care about privacy.
ublock origin lite, the natural replacement but not automatically enabled by google or microsoft. you have to go get it. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home
an alternative is adguard’s browser extension. it is free to use and open source (gpl). https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardBrowserExtension#installation
No you get Firefox
Google’s going to lengths and bounds to make people leave it.
Google is all in on evil.
Time to degoogle
Install Firefox with https://adnauseam.io/, it’s basically ublock origin but internally clicks on every add destroying your adds profile and damaging economics of adds and conversion.
Doesn’t this just track the shit out of you? Does it also click malicious ad banners?
Well, it anonymizes you by “faking” the tracking. I would hope it takes steps to sandbox the ads.
What does it fake about the tracking? The tracking is very real and the tool is clicking every tracking link available on the site like its life depends on it
Step 2: install Privacy Badger
And Facebook Container is another useful one.
Don’t, privacy badge and adnauseam will interfere eachothers and as result you will get worst results, you are better off using a DNS level adblocker (eg: Pihole or NextDNS if you don’t/can’t self host) alongside uBlock/adnauseam
Ublock already does the job of privacy badger… Well as far as I know…
They overlap; Ublock does it through lists, and badger does it through heuristics.
Running just badger, it can miss things, if you can use both, you get all the lists and heuristics, but they’re probalby not both necessary
It’s best not to use multiple ad blockers at the same time. They’ll conflict with each other and you’ll be worse off. uBO alone is probably enough.
Conflict with each other how?
I’ve used them both for years and never noticed any sort of conflict, but I’ve heard that potential conflict mentioned several times with no clarification
When will people switch away from Chrome to other browsers? I get it, Chrome sets the standards and it’s hard to switch away from them, but it’s necessary to ensure the survival of the Internet.
They wouldn’t set the standard anymore if nobody used them.
The W3 spec is dominated by Google’s submissions afaik.
Because everyone uses them.
I doubt most people even know you can change it. Edge is the default browser on windows. Chromium. Chrome is the default browser on android (though I suppose Samsung has a custom browser and they’re the main android device people are buying)
Ugh, any Samsung app is equivalent to internet explorer. Gross
Idk, I think I’d rather use IE than any Samsung app. At least IE tried to do some interesting things and tried to be customer focused…
A lot sooner than you think hopefully
Damn it.
Gotta use chrome at work.
Firefox “isn’t secure and isn’t supported” - my it director
isnt secure… tell you dont understand security without telling me you don’t understand security.
They’re probably using google workspace and accounts, you can do a lot of monitoring with that
Work at a larger organization and the only browser we’re allowed is fucking Edge. All other browsers are blocked as malicious processes.
LOL. from one data mining company to another data mining company.
This guy?
Company hardware isn’t checked by user agents but actual running processes
You’re saying they have some sort of app that actively blocks firefox from running on their laptop? I fortunately never worked in a company that did something like this. I would say it’s more likely that the web application simply checks user agent and blocks unsupported browsers.
Yes, companies have software running on company property usually that checks what you’re running and installing. I can’t even get admin perms on my work machine without asking IT with a good reason. They can also see your browser history and what websites you go to, as an fyi to not browse anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to your boss and HR about on a work machine.
I know of people that also had a no activity log, just in case you didint input something on your PC for 2 min
Yeah that is also done in some places but afaik it’s not legal to do so in most places without letting you know what is being monitored. It’s a pain in the ass
I once saw a company block Firefox through its corporately mandated antivirus software.
It’s called Microsoft
Company Portaland it’s the worst
Not using firefox should automatically brand you as not knowing what you are talking about in IT. wtf
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Don’t blame Firefox, some sites don’t comply with industry standards.
Then just use vanadium at work
EDIT I no Loguer recommend brave
Fuck Brave. Their CEO is a homophobic transphobe asshole who actively donates money to help take away peoples rights, they are shills for a bunch of AI and crypto BS that is inbuilt in the browser, and they at least used to steal affiliate links.
Prove it
Thanks I’m now going to uninstall brave fuck they ceo
Brave has been severely disappointing not because of Brave company or the browser itself, but because it marked a point of tech illiteracy. The affiliate link insertion should have and would have in the past been enough to end them all together.
Pretty sure Vanadium is mobile only, so unfortunately not really an option.
Vanadium is not just mobile only. I am pretty sure it’s GrapheneOS-only, because it relies on some of the security features that Graphene implements.
My bet is that a company, that doesn’t trust Firefox, probably doesn’t trust Graphene either. So, Vanadium is not an option either.
Sing it with me:
Chrome, huh, yeah.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uhh….so it
beginscontinues…Edge will soon follow. They announced it. Polly will switch to helium or brave
People need to stop using brave
People are not looking this deep into switching browsers lol.
They should tho
Brave is kinda shady with their whole cryptocurrency thing, Helium seems fine but it’s still based on Chromium. I’ve been recommending people check out Librewolf
Simple Firefox is perfectly fine.
Ungoogled Chromium is my standby for the instances when a Blink browser is needed, though it’s not entirely simple to set up.
Librewolf doesn’t do anything that Firefox can’t do with extensions + tweaking settings, but it’s nice to not have to install all the extensions
Yeah that’s why I’m debating brave. Firefox is good to especially after the huge engine overhaul a few years ago.
Yeah, I’ve been on brave for a few years but switched to Firefox because it’s a different base. I don’t think it’s necessary better, but if that’s the way the wind is blowing on chromium browsers the it’s the best option.
Or better yet LibreWolf
Or better yet LibreWolf
I cannot count how many things I had to change in settings to get the browser to just work right, I mean I appreciate them locking everything down to the nth degree but… damn. Finally switched to waterfox, the out of the box experience is a lot friendlier.
I tried LibreWolf for a little while, but too many sites just wouldn’t load at all with it, so I went back to Firefox.
Maybe give waterfox a look-see too
I get the frustration. It could have a tutorial / wizard to make it easier to set and understand.
If some parts are not loading, check the top left of the address bar for some icons, by default LibreWolf blocks canvas and anything that can identify you, and you have to press on them to allow them to render the elements.
Security unfortunately implies more inconvenience, which is what companies like Google love, but if it was a lot friendlier it would probably be less safe.
Zen-Browser
I’m using Zen now. it took me a while while to get the hang of the UI. But once I did I found it to be very nice to have those spaces that I can organize for different tasks.
I’ve used Zen for about 9 months, possibly more, and have had a largely positive experience.
It has crashed a few times recently for no obvious reason but not enough to bother me. There’s probably new release version again even though I updated my Linux instance a couple of weeks ago.
First time hearing of Helium, thanks for mentioning. Sounds interesting, will be keeping an eye on it.
firefox became bloated so switched to chrome because faster/better. back to firefox last year. too old to keep fighting ads. thinking off button will be next. yeah addons mostly work
What’s “bloated” about Firefox?
Distant past. Few of us recall.
I remember! 2.0 to 3.0 switch wherethe GUI slowed down dramatically. 2.0 felt like driving a sports-car.
I think it was still called Phoenix when I originally dropped it. Before it got renamed Firefox. Came back around last year after adblock stuff in chrome finally chased me away.
nobody ever seems to detail what kinda bloat they mean when they say that, i don’t think they actually thought about it that deeply. nobody complains about anything specific like XUL support, for example.
In my experience, there was a period when Firefox crashed all over the place, especially under heavy load. Tabs shared the same process back then, one tab could take down whole the browser session when crashed. I vividly remember how it felt so silky when i switched to chrome. Now I am back to Firefox since 3 years. Firefox is the sexier now with all the shiny addons
Maybe in like Firefox 4 days
Yeah Firefox was kind of a hog around 2013. I have a netbook that I’ve kept around since like 2014 and I remember when I first got it, it couldn’t really run Firefox. Firefox would freeze up and crash. Funily enough today Firefox runs better on that 2014 netbook than chrome does.
I also had a high end gaming PC at the time and Firefox always ran fine as long as you had the reaources to run it.
Well, that was 2011, so…
I guess right before Firefox Quantum?
I switched to Chrome back then because it ran tabs in separate processes. A tab crashing in Firefox would take the whole browser down.
The final straw for me was the plugins. Flash, Java, Acrobat, etc. Chrome kept them up to date for you. Firefox made you just through hoops, which eventually lead to a rogue site injecting crap onto my machine which took me a day to clean up. Plugins are pretty much dead now, but back then you needed them for half the web to work.
Chrome really was a great browser back then (and MS were still in the “what’s wrong with Internet Explorer?” era), and it’s a shame that they’re now working so hard to fuck it up again.
Chrome did a bunch of things absolutely wonderfully in the beginning. Fast JavaScript engine, removed title bar (tabs on top), simple settings page, sandboxed tabs, and they made some of the functionality of the most popular Firefox extensions the default (such as the downloads bar, instead of a separate window).
It was basically a pre-modded Firefox, but supercharged. Now it’s corporate slop.
that’s how I remember switching to chrome in the 00s. it had become unstable.
It was back before enshittification of the internet, when things were better. Was just big and clunky, chrome came along and ran very fast, until last few years, they swapped places.
And Google was still ‘nice’.
Microsoft, at least in my lifetime, invented the ‘embrace, extend, extinguish’ method, but google was certainly taking notes.
One of the many little compromises.
