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Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

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Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#521

I am not surprised. If you look at the direction in which browsers have been "evolving" (or perhaps devolving ...) especially over the last decade, especially after Google first introduced Chrome, the message has been pretty clear: gradually hide and remove functionality that helps users take control of how they consume content, and silence opposition by explaining that it's "for your security". Chrome isn't the only…

As always, I think it's appropriate mention Brave here. They are very much going in the opposite way of other browsers. They've now for a long time had features such as being able to change scripts/third party cookies/tracking/etc on a per site basis with a single click. As an example, you can get rid of all bait and switch paywalls (such as NYT) by simply disabling scripts. In Brave that's a two click change - Lion Icon -> Toggle Enable Scripts button.

They've also added features like built-in TOR support. Right click a link and one of the context options is 'Open link in private window with Tor'. You can then change 'identities' (Tor exit node -> IP/country) with a single click as well. Absolutely awesome for geoblocked content or even just seeing what users from other countries would see. Kind of fun to play 'Google Roulette' and perform the same search from various places around the world.

And obviously there's built in ad blocking and all that good stuff. It's like a Chrome that runs absurdly fast (in part because all the rubbish is removed) and has put privacy as a #1 consideration. Of course the downside is that, as mentioned, it uses Chromium as the renderer. If Google starts bringing this stuff over to Chromium, which is probably a non-zero possibility, that's going to pose major issues to browsers like Brave.

Incidentally I was also a long time Proxomitron user!

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#522

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How many tabs do you consider to be too many tabs? Most of the time I open up to 10 tabs, and Firefox is performing fine. But I have also seen people opening 40 tabs.

More like 40. I usually try to run < 10, but sometimes it gets out of hand...I tend to have multiple "tasks" of research going on at the same time. Like if I start researching at home at night I'll sometimes leave it open through a whole workday until I can return to it at night. Then multiple things at work, etc. So yeah...probably my browsing habits that may need to change.

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Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#523
post #66

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I use Brave and have never bought any cryptocurrency, nor do I intend to. I think it will be a net positive if every targeted ad company stops using that model, so Brave shutting this down is a huge plus for me. Note, I used a similar setup in chrome and Firefox that some might find gross as well as it removed the ability for websites to monetize me using ads or data from surveillance.

> I think it will be a net positive if every targeted ad company stops using that model So you want an internet dominated by large players only and full of subscription walls everywhere?

No, certainly not. I want an Internet with lots of business models including paywalls and large players, but also OSS, amateur bloggers, publicly funded sites, etc.

I remember an Internet back when there were only university sites and personal sites. It had a lot of flaws, but was better, I think than our situation where our data are sold and resold with no way of customer control.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#524

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I came back to Firefox a while back - maybe a year or two? - and have never regretted it. It's a fast, modern, respectful browser. Maintained by a non-profit. I do all my front-end dev work in Firefox, and also test in Chrome. Never had a problem. Come on back folks!

My experience exactly. The dev tools have caught up to chrome and in some ways surpassed it.

The only thing I miss is the ease which you can create and use different profiles in Chrome. Facilitates testing web apps. Firefox's support of multiple profiles is kludgy.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#525

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My experience exactly. The dev tools have caught up to chrome and in some ways surpassed it.

The “workspace” and “blackbox script” features in Chrome devTools are real paradigm shifters and a huge productivity boost for me when developing/debugging in JS/TS or SCSS/CSS. With Workspaces, most changes to source files are reflected immediately without reloading (no LiveReload-type tooling is needed). Firefox has yet to release either of those features, as far as I know. I’ll switch dev browsers as soon as they…

There will always be a trinket to keep you on the plantation.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#526

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The only thing I'm missing on Firefox is when I am on my Macbook, is that fling when using my touchpad. It's essential to any MacOS app and it feels weird not to have it. I'm used to it on Linux and Windows though.

By fling, do you mean the two-finger horizontal scroll to move back and forward through history? If so, I miss it too.

That's in macOS System Preferences. I use it all the time. Go to Trackpad / More Gestures and check "Swipe between pages". You can also control how many fingers you want to use. I set it to three fingers so that it doesn't conflict with horizontal scrolling.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#527
post #134

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The problem is the only way to combat Google in this regards would be for smaller players to come together and form an open-source working group based on a chromium fork. (The train has already left the station for anything besides WebKit or Blink, since the lack of accessibility of Gecko means it will never be adopted by anyone else.) But most of them are directly financed by Google and have almost no common ground…

Is that true? IE was incumbent and Firefox unseated it. They had the legacy of Netscape, sure, but they didn’t throw the towel and reskin IE the same way other browsers of the time did. Besides that, at which point does the dominant search and advertising company of the internet get an antitrust case for this? People think google is trustworthy yet they do nothing to earn that trust.

Firefox never unseated IE as the dominant browser.

It managed to get to around 20% marketshare[1] before Chrome surpassed it[2] and then also surpassed IE.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Th...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#W3...

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#528
post #98

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This is why it’s so unfortunate and frustrating that people are depending so much on Chromium/Blink. Electron, various browsers that are just skins over the embedded framework... We were still dealing with legacy IE6 (and IE 7/8 by that point also) in 2013! Almost a decade since we got Firefox and the first version of Chrome. The web has empirically suffered through homogeneity and the lack of strong competitors in t…

If it doesn't work in Firefox I don't use it. I've been using Firefox for as long as I can remember, probably shortly after it was made and Netscape died. And would never use Chrome. Chrome users are now going to be betrayed and just didn't see it coming. I look forward to Firefox' upcoming rebound which I have every faith this news will spur on.

Same here, once I started using Firefox in the late 2000s I never needed anything else. Even when Chrome was the new hotness, I never considered their speed benefits beneficial enough to abandon the privacy-conscious, open-source player I grew to love. Admittedly, I even contributed to their Fire Stick project on Kickstarter and don't feel even a little disappointed that they couldn't deliver.

I never needed anything more than a kick-ass web browser.

Re: Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

#530

Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problem…

Firefox doesn't even properly support hardware acceleration in Linux.

Neither does chromium unfortunately, although Fedora now incorporates the out of tree va-api patches for chromium by default. This is one of the biggest things keeping me on chromium, video acceleration in the browser significantly improves battery life.
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