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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

#711

Post by tomatocracy »

avaika wrote: post #670
icefo wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has its own service to do that and it works well. I don't know if you can migrate your passwords easily though.

It's not just their service. You can run self-hosted service for sync [0] and fully control it. From privacy point of view that's far more interesting than any other solutions I've seen. [0]: https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...

I've been doing this for a while but the part I haven't managed to solve is that using your own sync server on Firefox for ios seems to require you to also run your own Firefox accounts server - which is much more painful to set up. Is there a similar easy guide for setting that up?

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

#712

Post by hallihax »

eternalban wrote: post #617
nerdponx wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people act like this is all some great big accident, the result of eternal human fallibility? It's not. This was planned. It was the objective all along. Why else do you think Google Maps is free? Gmail? Why did they drive around 1,000s of cities with cameras on a car taking photos for Street View? Was it really just to become the world's most comprehensive search engine? Hell no, it was to get people into the…

Regarding those "why"s: both of these companies are in my opinion outsourced Total Information Awareness projects. This is not "surveillance capitalism". It is surveillance in guise of capitalism.

It's more or less just capitalism in the tech era.

Google became 'evil' as soon as it realised that exploiting user data was the route to profit. We live in the information age - any for-profit business is going to pursue that which makes it the most profit.

Since most people are used to the idea of online services being 'free' - they got used to the relationship imbalance, and few companies ever really inform their users about exactly how much value their usage produces.

The surveillance aspect is definitely real - but I suspect it emerged over time as Google was forced to work with law enforcement, security services etc as its reach and power grew.

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

#713

Post by avaika »

tomatocracy wrote: post #711
avaika wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just their service. You can run self-hosted service for sync [0] and fully control it. From privacy point of view that's far more interesting than any other solutions I've seen. [0]: https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...

I've been doing this for a while but the part I haven't managed to solve is that using your own sync server on Firefox for ios seems to require you to also run your own Firefox accounts server - which is much more painful to set up. Is there a similar easy guide for setting that up?

Try this one: https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run... It's not as detailed as for sync, but has all the links to very detailed guides (even for a docker-based one). Hopefully it helps.

upd: typo

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

#714

Post by bad_user »

pps wrote: post #707
jasonhansel wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uBlock should really just instruct users to "switch to firefox for a fast, up-to-date ad-blocking experience"

How about Vivaldi? Or Opera with built-in ad-blocker (which I'm currently using and it works great, at least with uBlock Origin installed too)? Unfortunately I can't use Firefox on my system ( https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a42xei/state_of_fi... nothing changed for years with these problems and I believe it will unfortunately stay that way)

Aren't Opera and Vivaldi just a re-skinning of Chromium?

If yes, then it probably won’t save you.

And here you have the actual problem with Chrome — unless you fork it and have resources to maintain that fork, its open source nature is absolutely irrelevant. And even if you manage to fork it, you’re not operating at Google’s scale so your fork will be irrelevant.

PS: I use Firefox on top of MacOS and works just fine for me ;-)

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

#715

Post by roca »

user17843 wrote: post #675
roca wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "lack of accessibility of Gecko"? Did you mean "lack of embedability"? Gecko's embedability sucks ... on desktop. But that's not inevitable, it's just a matter of priorities and resources. On Android it's getting a lot better and something like GeckoView on Android could be made to work on desktop too ... if there's demand and perceived benefit. (Mozilla's in the middle of upgrading Gecko's multiproc…

What i've read is that Gecko is a bit more difficult to understand when it comes to the entire code base, compared wo WebKit or Blink.

That might be true. They're all incredibly complex beasts. I don't think it matters much for adoption in terms of embedding or forking to create a new browser; the engine internals can and should mostly be hidden behind an API.

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

#716

Post by Liquix »

eternalban wrote: post #617
nerdponx wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people act like this is all some great big accident, the result of eternal human fallibility? It's not. This was planned. It was the objective all along. Why else do you think Google Maps is free? Gmail? Why did they drive around 1,000s of cities with cameras on a car taking photos for Street View? Was it really just to become the world's most comprehensive search engine? Hell no, it was to get people into the…

Regarding those "why"s: both of these companies are in my opinion outsourced Total Information Awareness projects. This is not "surveillance capitalism". It is surveillance in guise of capitalism.

Bingo. Deanonymize the majority of users to the point where only privacy activists, power users, and grey/blackhatters are running adblockers, compile a comprehensive list of such users, and then either find another way to track them or straight up ban adblockers because "only the bad guys use them, what do you have to hide?"

Their concern about losing the ability to "personalize" ads smacks of NSA/GCHQ concern that they can't reliably track X percent of the population (UBO/pihole/etc users). Sure, Google makes a ton of money from ads, but with their stranglehold on the search, mobile, navigation, and video markets, do they really need to make such a controversial change just to squeeze a few extra million a year out of Ads?

No. There's plenty of other ways to make money for their business, there aren't many other ways to remain in good standing with and funded by the surveillance state. There's something else at play here.

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

#717

Post by michaelbazos »

toddwprice wrote: post #449
behringer wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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!

Something I miss in Firefox, is that the webextensions `management` api does not allow to toggle off/on extensions other than themes. It's no secret that some of the most popular browser extensions require a wide range of permissions to work, while being useful only occasionally. This restriction prevents to have on Firefox a quick toggler without leaving the page like (author here) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-manager/...

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

#718

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

finder83 wrote: post #309
ravenstine wrote: post #269

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…

I just switched to Firefox today after a few years hiatus, and I agree that it is hugely improved, and rendering speed is at least on part with Chrome if not faster. They've done a great job with it, and the dev tools seem greatly improved in the developer edition as well. The issue I have with firefox on both Linux and Windows is not speed, but stability. I think it's the process model. Windows freeze if I open too…

Another gripe I have with Firefox (which I only use on the Lubuntu laptops I have) is that when it wants to update it insists that you restart it and won't let you open another page until you do.

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

#719

Post by Piskvorrr »

bubblewrap wrote: post #599
nerdponx wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people act like this is all some great big accident, the result of eternal human fallibility? It's not. This was planned. It was the objective all along. Why else do you think Google Maps is free? Gmail? Why did they drive around 1,000s of cities with cameras on a car taking photos for Street View? Was it really just to become the world's most comprehensive search engine? Hell no, it was to get people into the…

"because sucking you into the ecosystem is just that profitable." Nevertheless, they offer good products. I'm not sure the negativity is really warranted. I've yet to hear about a case of anybody being hurt by Google collecting data to them and serving ads?

Just Google it! ... oh wait. (See the problem yet? For a significant part of the world, Google is Internet, or at least keeper of all the gates)

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

#720

Post by dhimes »

finder83 wrote: post #309
ravenstine wrote: post #269

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…

I just switched to Firefox today after a few years hiatus, and I agree that it is hugely improved, and rendering speed is at least on part with Chrome if not faster. They've done a great job with it, and the dev tools seem greatly improved in the developer edition as well. The issue I have with firefox on both Linux and Windows is not speed, but stability. I think it's the process model. Windows freeze if I open too…

I'm wondering if Google degrades performance on its properties, like youtube and gmail? I use Chrome for GSuite and that's all. I'm fine with FF's performance on YT, but I'm not very picky about such things.
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