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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

#141

Post by hnlmorg »

zarzavat wrote: post #115
hnlmorg wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For literally the reasons we're already discussing: to offer an alternative to Chrome. If every browser is based on Chromium then you're not really offering an alternative to Google Chrome because Google still own the supply chain. Not only in terms of your new browser's rendering engine but also in terms of website owners being vindicated in targeting Chrome. The only way to offer a legitimate counterargument to Chr…

I think that's backwards. Gecko requires constant and expensive work to keep up with Blink. And it has been falling behind. Whereas Blink gets that work for free from Google. If you want to offer a legitimate counter argument to Chrome by using Gecko then you have to find some way to bring in the hundreds of millions of dollars of necessary funding to bring Gecko up to Blink's quality. If you want to create a counter…

I do appreciate the difficulty of maintaining a rendering engine (I wrote my own browser in the late 90s) but let's not over dramatise Gecko's position, I've been using Firefox as my primary browser for years and almost never find a website that couldn't work in it (the only instances when it doesn't work is when someone throws up a demo of some unstandardised and bleeding edge Chrome API). Plus lets not forget that Mozilla are still actively working on Gecko so it's not like all responsibility falls on us tomorrow.

The bigger issue for me isn't the maintenance of Gecko; I just can't see how extending Blinks market share really hurts Google in any way. Ultimately Blink-based browsers are still tied into Google's supply chain so even if you did displace Chrome with a Blink-based competitor, Google still win.

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

#142

Post by mfo4321 »

yesenadam wrote: post #65
RheingoldRiver wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 e…

I don't want to update, when the update is to something that looks horrible. (Last update I spent hours googling for scripts to reverse the appearance changes. Seems there were 1000s of people looking for the same thing!) But in FF preferences there are only 2 choices. 1. Automatically install updates (recommended) 2. Check for updates but let you choose to install them You would think I'd choose option 2, since I do…

You can create a policies.json file with these contents:

  {
    "policies": {
      "DisableAppUpdate": true
    }
  }
Place it in the platform specific place: "On Windows, create a directory called distribution where the EXE is located and place the file there. On Mac, the file goes into Firefox.app/Contents/Resources/distribution. On Linux, the file goes into firefox/distribution, where firefox is the installation directory for firefox, which varies by distribution or you can specify system-wide policy by placing the file in /etc/firefox/policies."

from https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/READ...

EDIT: alternatively, you can install the ESR version for 91, use the userchrome link in the sibling comment, and forget about it for 18 months, wich is what I'm currently doing. And good thing too, apparently 92 broke some UI again, because of course it did.

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

#144

Post by xwdv »

mmis1000 wrote: post #138
aembleton wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because v2 extensions haven't been switched off yet. It might be different in January 2023; or maybe the limited adblocking of v3 will be enough for most people. Time will tell.

Ad providers are obfuscating domains to bypass blocks. Currently only ublock origin deobfuscate and block based on the original domain.(It is supported on firefox only anyway) But after the change... I guess no one on chrome can do. And ad blocking will be totally useless at that point. See also: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#u...

What about first party domains

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

#145

Post by Torwald »

lazybreather wrote: post #110
TeMPOraL wrote: post #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…

Make this happen and I am going to do my best to publicize this. On the other hand, chrome is making it increasingly tough to use any other browser by sheer intuitive and useful features. Grouping tabs for eg. I know other would do it one day. But there is a lag. I wonder why other browsers (OSS) do not straight up copy any good features and release. Assuming there is good enough dev resources. Or is it really that h…

Grouping tabs is already possible in Vivaldi. There are also FF extensions, who offer alternative concepts. I think TabTree or something like that it is called.

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

#146

Post by jacquesm »

maccard wrote: post #84
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d prefer Firefox, but some functionality works inarguably better in chrome. One example is YouTube, which slams my processor due to the lack of hardware decoding.

So swap to chrome for those 1-2 websites that require it and use Firefox for everything else?

This is exactly how I work and it works quite well.

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

#147

Post by irthomasthomas »

yesenadam wrote: post #129
irthomasthomas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sniff your browser traffic to figure out which url they use to poll for updates and block that on your router or firewall. If that doesn't work, maybe you can redirect it in hosts file, and spoof the response to say there's no new updates.

Thank you.

I think you can also do it with an enterprise policy flag

https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/READ...

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

#148

Post by aembleton »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #72
glanzwulf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't used Firefox in years, would need to check what's new. But I've been enjoying Brave. Built in blockers for ads and trackers, built in tor, and a very interesting rewards system to help content creators and honestly, so far I recommend it.

For the sake of fighting browser engines monoculture, I'd recommend you NOT using Brave, even for all the goodies and niceties in the world.

What's wrong with a browser engine monoculture? It'd make development simpler as you could just test against that one engine.

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

#149

Post by hnlmorg »

eitland wrote: post #130
hnlmorg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox open source. If the Mozilla foundation is as questionable as some like to claim then why isn't there any effort to fork Gecko. We have more than enough Blink/Chromium based browsers already.

Two forks exist, Waterfox and Pale moon. They work beautifully for me but I don't dare to use them on machines that I type customer data, work credentials or use internet banking on. Not because I doubt the mainteners but because Internet is an extremely hostile space - technically. One missing patch and one exploit that snuck through one ad network and you can be compromised. That said I'm happy to donate to see som…

Wasn't aware of Waterfox and I mistakenly thought Pale Moon was just a de-branding. Looking at Pale Moon's site, it's clear that it's a whole other branch now (like Blink/WebKit/kHTML).

I'm happy with Firefox (and Mozilla) personally but I'll be sure to recommend these if/when I hear people asking for an alternative to Google and Mozilla in the future.

Thanks for sharing.

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

#150

Post by soraminazuki »

axegon_ wrote: post #6

Many years ago I published a small extension for common functions I use on daily basis(hashing, url encoding and decoding) for quick access as opposed to either opening a random site or some scripting language. If my memory is correct, I can kiss it goodbye(no idea where or even if I have a copy of the source code). Oh well... As for ad-blockers, funny enough I used to be firmly against them until not that long ago -…

Considering all the shady practices that online ad companies engage in, there is zero moral responsibility for users to support it. As an example of such shady practice, here's an instance of the biggest ad company in the world caught exploiting browser bugs in order to circumvent privacy protections:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/time-make-amends-googl...

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