Google looks to be fully shutting down unsupported extensions and ad blockers in Chrome – which might push some folks to switch to Firefox
www.techradar.com
Manifesting a future where Firefox is more successful?

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).

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1805·
    28 days ago

    I downloaded Librewolf today - the privacy oriented fork of Firefox!

    Good to see there are browser variants that aren’t just Chrome.

    • Album@lemmy.caEnglish
      323·
      28 days ago

      yep firefox with arkenfox for me, same deal as librewolf. And Mull on mobile.

      Switched about 2-3 months ago thinking it might be difficult or impact me negatively or something but its been easy and great.

      • kitnaht@lemmy.worldEnglish
        298·
        28 days ago

        You know the problem I have with Librewolf? – Fuckall nobody knows how to spell it.

        The beauty of Firefox is that even the densest idiot knows how to spell those two words. And with attention spans the equivalent of a gnat, people need to have things simplified for them as much as humanly possible.

        Fortunately enough, Firefox is about the only one with a renderer that isn’t controlled by Google, but - even now they’re shifting to a pro-advertising stance and backing off of the privacy orientation that they took just a year or two ago.

        • Supervisor194@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2014·
          28 days ago

          Yes, and we will drop Mozilla when it drops uBlock as well. We will all get behind whatever open-source browser stops ads, and it will very quickly become the most widely used browser. Why? Because everybody despises fucking ads and you can’t curb-stomp them into liking ads, that’s why.

          Google can spend all the money it likes trying to piss on users and tell them it’s raining but at the end of the day, a new king will be crowned and if it isn’t Chrome and it isn’t Firefox, then it will be something else.

          And no, FOSS doesn’t need money behind it. FOSS needs a dedicated community behind it. Assertions to the contrary are FUD constantly being seeded by Google, Microsoft and their ilk to destroy competition. This is an existential necessity for Google, you can bet they are doing everything in their power to maintain the status quo.

          • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            26 days ago

            And no, FOSS doesn’t need money behind it. FOSS needs a dedicated community behind it

            how do you imagine a Linux-sized community getting built around firefox in a few days? and even that is a bad example, because a lot of linux devs are paid by their employer from a company anywhere on the world

            • Supervisor194@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              26 days ago

              Nice straw man. Nobody said the community was going to “Linux-sized” nor that it was going to be built in a “few days,” nor that it was going to have paid devs. It’s like you’re being intentionally obtuse.

              There are already multiple supported forks of Firefox and while it doesn’t take much to maintain such forks when they are being fed a large part of the codebase by Mozilla, if you think such a project would not pick right the fuck up where Mozilla left off if Mozilla tried to pull a Google and get behind Manifest V3, you are, I believe, mistaken.

              Mozilla itself owes its existence to Netscape’s failure in the face of unfair competition by Microsoft’s Explorer. Netscape released its source code, Mozilla was founded and the power of open-source created Firefox. Chrome’s halfhearted support of Mozilla is itself owed to the fact that they don’t want to get spanked over Chrome like Microsoft was over IE.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2010·
      28 days ago

      Until you actually need a chromium based browser. I get so annoyed when this happens.

      • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
        303·
        27 days ago

        Almost 20 years and I’ve never needed a Chromium browser for anything. I’m sorry you were forced to use such garbage ass software.

        • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
          81·
          27 days ago

          I have chromium installed for the sole reason to cast some streams to my remote TVs. Otherwise it stays closed. I tried some work around with FF, but I couldn’t get it to work. It’s only once or twice a week for live sporting events, so I can stomach it.

          • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
            144·
            27 days ago

            I understand where you’re coming from. It’s never happened to me, but if a website didn’t work with Firefox, I would just assume it’s a shit site ran by rookies who know nothing, and move on to a different site. I understand most people don’t have that kind of principle though.

            • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
              132·
              27 days ago

              It’s not that the site doesn’t work in FF, it’s that casting the stream from that site to a remote TV in the house is only possible in chromium, at least with my current device setup. If I just watch on my computer, I watch in FF.

              • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
                41·
                27 days ago

                Ah, you did say that. I’m sorry for my misunderstanding. I’ve never tried that, and you’re the first I’ve seen to mention it. I concede to your argument.

                • BassTurd@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  5·
                  27 days ago

                  I’m in the slow process of replacing devices with HTPCs then I won’t need to cast anything. Unfortunately computers and time don’t grow on trees.

      • Supervisor194@lemmy.worldEnglish
        111·
        28 days ago

        As if installing and using something else means you can’t have Chrome lying around for that one stupid website.

        • Kbobabob@lemmy.worldEnglish
          31·
          28 days ago

          And I do. Sometimes I’ll just fire up Edge if Chrome isn’t installed since it’s chromium based.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        144·
        28 days ago

        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.

        • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.mlEnglish
          191·
          28 days ago

          Several government websites for the state of Pennsylvania complain and refuse to work if they detect that you aren’t using chrome/edge/safari.

          • bitwolf@lemmy.oneEnglish
            8·
            27 days ago

            You can spoof your useragent to appear as chrome. And you should as it makes your browser less “unique”

            • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.mlEnglish
              39·
              27 days ago

              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.

              • bitwolf@lemmy.oneEnglish
                3·
                27 days ago

                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

                • datavoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  5·
                  27 days ago

                  Imagine the government coming after someone, demanding they give Google their fair share

                  • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.mlEnglish
                    11·
                    27 days ago

                    Yeah, because career-minded prosecutors and judges never fuck over little people for minor, technical, harmless violations of the law. 🙄

          • poke@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            6·
            27 days ago

            Do the sites work if you use an extension that lies to them about what browser you are using?

        • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
          12·
          27 days ago

          I also use Firefox on my work computer, I need to quickly authorize a login in the browser before the local “app” opens (“app” because it’s just a webpage pretending to be an app) and I just recently got a notification that slack won’t support Firefox anymore so please switch to chrome. The fucking animals.

        • Evkob@lemmy.caEnglish
          4·
          27 days ago

          I use Librewolf on desktop and Mull on mobile. I have a few extensions on both, which could definitely contribute to issues. When I have issues (usually government sites or financial stuff, sometimes DRM-related stuff for media) it’s easier to just use a Chromium-based browser with no extensions than try to troubleshoot specifically what’s causing the issues. I keep Falkon (desktop) and Vanadium (mobile) installed for this purpose.

          I get the feeling a lot of issues people are having in Firefox might be due to extensions or settings, which gets “fixed” by using another browser (which happens to be Chromium-based because most browsers are) and they blame the issue on Firefox itself.

        • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
          56·
          27 days ago

          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.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        63·
        28 days ago

        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.

      • warm@kbin.earth
        42·
        28 days ago

        If people used other browsers, then the market share would change and this would become less and less of a problem.

      • Fonzie!@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        1·
        21 days ago

        I’ve had that once, as well as some websites running inexplicably slow on FF.

        I changed my user agent to a recent Chrome one and that solved it issue.
        Moral of the story? Websites are discriminating.

    • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      27 days ago

      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.

      • Fashim@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        27 days ago

        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

      • quissberry@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        1·
        27 days ago

        Yeah, I have noticed it too. I sometimes just use mpv instead to play YouTube videos instead, but that also has its limitations

      • Maeve@midwest.socialEnglish
        11·
        26 days ago

        Oh? I noticed that issue last couple of days using invidious on librewolf, and thought it was YT doing invidious shenanigans again.