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Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

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Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#21
if you haven't already use Firefox and recognize that this is a fundamental question of freedom and whether you want the internet to be controlled by dystopian corporate advertisement monoliths or institutions that care about your rights.

Every time this comes up and 80% of discussions is about whether the tab bar in firefox is flat or three pixels wide instead of five makes me more depressed

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#22
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla annoys me. Truly it does. However, it's the organisation. Firefox as a browser, especially dev tools, seems better in every day use than Chrome does. I am really not sure why they keep losing users. I do remember being massive performance issues in the past, but that's really not the case today (at least in my experience)

>I am really not sure why they keep losing users. Because, number one, they keep constantly making radical UI/UX changes that frustrate and alienate their long term users who would rather they keep the "older look" which they got used to and works just fine for them, and number two, most websites are lazy so their devs only optimize for Chrome, even going the extra mile to explicitly state that "For best experience u…

> Because they keep making stupid UI)UX choices than alienate their users

Cannot overstate this enough. They keep randomly changing their UI constantly, and it's especially frustrating when you have a bunch of custom CSS. I'm a bunch of versions behind & dreading updating because I don't want to spend the hours it'll take to fix my shit for their new version. I honestly hate this browser so much at this point, but everything else (i.e. Chrome) is so much worse that I'm stuck....

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#23
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is v3 an horrible solution or the deprecation of v2 in 2023? I ported one of my extensions to v3 and while the process was not completely trivial it did not took more than a few hours, in my opinion the change is worth it this makes extensions more secure. As far as I know Firefox is also moving to v3, maybe not enforcing it for now, but they will probably deprecate v2 at some point.

While they're interested in maintaining compatibility with Chrome's v3, there's no standard that forces them to make every single v3 change Chrome does. v2 also already differs in some ways in which Firefox thinks it makes sense. I'm not scared at all that they're gonna deprecate webRequest.BlockingResponse in favour of declarativeNetRequest, which is the specific API function that adblockers rely on. After all, that…

In the context of `webRequest.BlockingResponse` being a performance bottleneck due to filter lists becoming absurdly long, it does in fact become a security issue.

Filter lists are as long as they are because that is the amount of domains that have demonstrated an interest in harming our security (and for many people, online privacy _is_ physical security). Filterlists are blacklists, not whitelists, so they only grow when well-known entities play foul.

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#24
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla annoys me. Truly it does. However, it's the organisation. Firefox as a browser, especially dev tools, seems better in every day use than Chrome does. I am really not sure why they keep losing users. I do remember being massive performance issues in the past, but that's really not the case today (at least in my experience)

They just can't compete with Google and their massive marketing budget and shady bait & switch business practices.

Almost all wounds Mozilla has are self-inflicted.

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#25
I have a stupid idea. But first, a bunch of questions:

- Can you legally advertise a product you're not affiliated with? Is this OK by the ToS of major ad networks?

- Is it possible to target ads by user's browser?

I'm thinking, maybe we should crowdfund a public interest ad, targeted at people browsing from Chrome, with some attention-grabbing art or distracting colors, and a clear message: "Want to stop seeing this ad? Stop using Chrome, install a different browser and an ad blocker. Click here to learn more.", which links to a site directing people to install Firefox and uBlock Origin (and linking to crowdfunding campaign to keep the ad going). Alternative for A/B testing: "Don't click this ad, it costs us money."

Come to think of it, maybe someone like EFF should do that - they're well-known and reputable enough that people wouldn't immediately assume it's some weird Firefox ad, avoiding the effect being the opposite from intended.

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#26

I have a stupid idea. But first, a bunch of questions: - Can you legally advertise a product you're not affiliated with? Is this OK by the ToS of major ad networks? - Is it possible to target ads by user's browser? I'm thinking, maybe we should crowdfund a public interest ad, targeted at people browsing from Chrome, with some attention-grabbing art or distracting colors, and a clear message: "Want to stop seeing this…

Even if it's not against TOS I would imagine most ad network just refusing to serve ads that encourage people to install ad blockers.

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#27
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only browser that's been losing users for years is Firefox. That already tells Google all they need to know. (It also tells Mozilla what they need to know; pity they are deaf.)

I wonder why. It's not like Firefox is a bad browser.

Not only is it not bad, it’s pretty good. I have been using it for a decade and its fast, superior privacy above Chrome, devtools do everything I need.

I test on Chrome, and I personally don’t think switching is that big a deal that some commenters make it out to be. It’s just as fast as Chrome or faster, the UX is similar enough not be stalled for long if you need to switch. It’s really worth a shot!

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#28

I have a stupid idea. But first, a bunch of questions: - Can you legally advertise a product you're not affiliated with? Is this OK by the ToS of major ad networks? - Is it possible to target ads by user's browser? I'm thinking, maybe we should crowdfund a public interest ad, targeted at people browsing from Chrome, with some attention-grabbing art or distracting colors, and a clear message: "Want to stop seeing this…

Even if it's not against TOS I would imagine most ad network just refusing to serve ads that encourage people to install ad blockers.

Yeah, I guess. But I imagine there's so much volume of ads that they can't all go through human review. Maybe it could sneak in undetected and work for a short while, until the first tweet mentioning it goes viral.

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#29
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla annoys me. Truly it does. However, it's the organisation. Firefox as a browser, especially dev tools, seems better in every day use than Chrome does. I am really not sure why they keep losing users. I do remember being massive performance issues in the past, but that's really not the case today (at least in my experience)

They just can't compete with Google and their massive marketing budget and shady bait & switch business practices.

They could, if they stopped doing all of their hobby stuff.

Re: Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

#30

if you haven't already use Firefox and recognize that this is a fundamental question of freedom and whether you want the internet to be controlled by dystopian corporate advertisement monoliths or institutions that care about your rights. Every time this comes up and 80% of discussions is about whether the tab bar in firefox is flat or three pixels wide instead of five makes me more depressed

Fair criticism of Firefox is that it is dependent on Mozilla 'the org' which is a pretty shaky foundation to base such a critical component on. Witness the exodus of even die hard supporters over the last couple of years. That has nothing to do with minor UI details.
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