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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

#221

Post by elliekelly »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #61
chii wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't have to mention adblockers in the ad. The ad could imply a cleaner browsing experience, faster, and your activities won't be tracked!

yeah, people really trust those sites that offer to install something to improve your browser performance and keep you from being tracked.

I heard a Duck Duck Go ad on the radio over the weekend and I thought it was so odd. But now having read your comment I realize it’s probably one of the most “trusted” ways to advertise privacy software/webapps because it relies on potential new users going to their site whereas online ads would probably (rightly) be looked at with suspicion.

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

#222

Post by mmis1000 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #171
mmis1000 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will protect user data from potentially malicious extensions. No, they won't. You can still log requests however you want. The only difference is you can't modify/stop it. So the privacy concern is pure BS.

How so? From what I've read, the whole point of the declarative API is to tell the browser what you want done so that it can do it without letting the extension actually touch any data. If this doesn't work, then there's no point to the new API.

That's why it is pure bs at first place.

The webrequest api didn't got removed completely, only the part for modify/block request.

Only ad blockers will stole your data and others that logs them however they want will log them nicely? What world are Google's team lives in? Are we even on the same time line?

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

#223

Post by estebank »

yesenadam wrote: post #157
estebank wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wanting to install browser updates is no different to asking "how do I turn this yellow light in my car's dashboard? I know! I'll put tape over it!". Granted, the update might come with UI changes. Changing oil in your car won't do that. That can be annoying, but whether something looks "horrible" is completely subjective. That's fine. You can rely on userChrome.css[1] to customize things more in Firefox than in…

I take issue with almost everything you said. Sorry my reply is too brief. It's "no different to"..what?! I don't agree that whether something looks "horrible" is completely subjective . I've never tried to customize things for customization's sake, if you're implying I do? Not sure. I used userChrome.css once I think, and as I didn't know about its existence beforehand, it took me hours to fix FF.

> It's "no different to"..what?!

Having an out of date browser is as "dangerous" to you and those around you as driving in a car with flat tires. Declining to upgrade software because of aesthetic changes seems shortsighted to me.

> I don't agree that whether something looks "horrible" is completely subjective.

Let's agree to disagree.

> I've never tried to customize things for customization's sake, if you're implying I do?

I'm not saying you have, I'm saying I have customized things for change's sake, and since I stopped doing that and being overly annoyed and fighting changes "forced" on me, I adapted to most of those changes. I dislike when customization options are taken away. But I also understand that customization comes at the bottom of priorities of developers, and that is likely the right call to make for most applications.

It is a problem that upgrades aren't always an improvement on every axis, but staying on old network connected applications is manifestly not a reasonable solution.

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

#224

Post by quesera »

innocenat wrote: post #196
jraph wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 years ago, Firefox 25 was released. I don't know your needs but a lot as changed underneath. Notably, Firefox is now using multiple processes, the Javascript engine is probably a lot faster, the web engine too. I don't like every change, especially the latest revamp of the UI, but it is still the best browser for me. You could try, and them move if conclusive? If you consider switching anyway. Moving everything bef…

As I said, I was bitten twice. It's hard to even try now. Back then I try for a few week before committing, but when I move my session (of 200+ tabs) onto Firefox, it's dead. And back then I was told the exact same thing I was told this time, too.

FWIW, I have 3668 tabs open in Firefox right now. Looks like it's using about 1.6GB of RAM. (Notes: most of those thousands of tabs are unloaded, I block JavaScript rather aggressively, and yes I do recognize the absurdity but I confess my sins here to illustrate my point!)

I have no experience migrating from Chrome to Firefox, but FF can certainly handle lots of tabs. Vertical tab layouts are very helpful for navigating them.

My limited experience using Chrome says that Firefox requires vastly less RAM to handle multiple tabs (anything more than a dozen!).

Re: Conspicuous tab consumption: If I pared down, I'd be more like 50-100 active tabs. I appreciate that Firefox remains completely usable even when I do not pare down. Chrome fails for me at about 20 tabs due to lack of usable vertical tabs layout, even before RAM becomes an issue on this machine.

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

#225

Post by NoGravitas »

saurik wrote: post #219
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.

Around which time Firefox is intending to make the same changes, having deprecated v2 manifests (this post seems to use that term to mean the actual removal) and doing all the API swaps to service workers and the such. Firefox just makes all the same decisions Chrome does, the good and the bad. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2021/05/27/manifest-v3-updat...

Mozilla does plan to support the old request-blocking APIs indefinitely, though, even after the Manifest v3 switch, until an alternative that meets the needs of extension developers is developed.

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

#226

Post by rastafang »

joelthelion wrote: post #114

I don't understand why this (and all the rest) is not driving people back to Firefox. Are we really going to wait for Mozilla to die, and then lament that Google has taken over the web?

Firefox mobile did the same kind of stuff... They disabled most extensions, there is only about 15 left... I still have Firefox Mobile v68 installed for this reason.

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

#227

Post by OldTimeCoffee »

zorr wrote: post #109
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #14

This is great news for Firefox. I switched a year ago and was forced to use Chrome once or twice (lack of call support in Teams web app; I'm unwilling to install the native (?) app). The main difference between Chrome and Firefox is that Chrome feels passively (and sometimes actively) user-hostile with things like not-so-intuitive Chrome-vs-Google login and many other things that may seem trifle details but are in fa…

To address the (?) in your comment: The downloadable Teams app is electron-based.

Not for much longer, it's moving to Edge Webview2 instead.

https://twitter.com/rishmsft/status/1408085784016539653

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

#228

Post by NoGravitas »

j-bos wrote: post #179
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…

Duckduckgo had been running similar ads on Texas billboards. Not specifically regarding ads, but about the value of not being tracked. Offline anti-ads may be the means to get around the FAANG wall. Edit for clarity

DDG is also doing heavy radio advertising. I don't normally listen to commercial radio, but my kids like these morning DJs for the ride to school, so I get to hear it.

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

#229

Post by gnomewascool »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #220
make3 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you can be certain of this

Mozilla's main source of revenue has always been the money Google gives them to have Google as the default search engine. They could stop this at any time to effectively kill Mozilla. So, why haven't they? Because there's this case called United States v. Microsoft Corporation that deals with this very issue of browser monopolies. Now usually a lawsuit wouldn't mean dick to Google because they already have a litany o…

"Money-wasters" like FirefoxOS were a gamble to get onto the mobile phone bandwagon, to reduce Google's Android/Chrome moat. If they had worked, it'd have been a huge gain both for Firefox and for users.

> And then there's stuff like acquiring Pocket, something completely antithetical to Firefox's core values.

Pocket itself isn't antithetical to Firefox's values. It not being open source is, but from what I understand they're still working on making the server open source, though at disappointingly low priority.

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

#230

Post by sharps1 »

innocenat wrote: post #197
vlod wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe just dip your toe in? It's okay to use Chrome for X and FF for Y. i.e. Use it exclusively for HN (say for a few weeks) and see how it goes.

Not going to help when my session is 200+ tabs. Previously it's dead after moving my main session.

You can use Bulk URL opener to move tabs between browsers.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bulkurlopener...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-url-opener/kg...

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