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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

#321

Post by imbnwa »

chii wrote: post #74
progval wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also hate they had to kill XUL addons, but they had good reasons to do so: https://yoric.github.io/post/why-did-mozilla-remove-xul-addo...

Those aren't good reasons from the user's perspective. Those reasons were good reasons from a technical, and maintenance perspective (which, as a software engineer, i understand). Those reasons are what engineers give to product management in order to get a green-field rewrite. But firefox's value add is their addon system - even if it is old, and difficult to use. It enabled some really great addons that weren't pos…

Not to mention XULRunner/XPCOM was Electron before Electron. I remember using the Songbird app, as well as an IM client whose name I can't recall now, across Windows and Linux back in the 00s. So They literally decided to cede the cross-platform browser-based desktop software framework du jour to Chromium.

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

#322

Post by marssaxman »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #9
erklik wrote: 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…

I have come to dread that little firefox update notification because of the relentless, pointless UI churn. I wish they would just leave well enough alone. There's no way I would use Chrome, though, so I'm stuck with it.

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

#323

Post by sp332 »

abruzzi wrote: post #296
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?

I moved from Safari to Firefox a year ago (never used Chrome as my primary browser.) The reason I moved may sound really really dated, but I discovered that I can configure Firefox with separate search and URL fields. I //HATE// that UI and wanted my separate boxes back. I wish I could find a extension that removes all motion on a page (video, js animated stuff) but I suspect that would be too difficult to do. I do u…

SuperStop at least stops animations and videos, and some other things. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/superstop/

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

#324

Post by smaddock »

ghostwords wrote: post #307
smaddock wrote: post #19

As someone who is intimately familiar with the Chrome extensions internals and is not employed by a big tech company, I believe most of the changes seem like a step in the right direction.* I've been working towards implementing greater support for Chrome extensions in Electron which has involved reading and interacting with Chromium code [0]. - Using service workers instead of a hidden background webpage is more idi…

>idiomatic >less resources Are you an extension developer? Here is a list of issues that extension developers have with requiring Service Workers: https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20servi... Just take a look at this work-in-progress MV3 version of a fairly popular webpage-saver extension called SingleFile: https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile-Lite#readme

I am an extension developer, but have resigned from engaging with development in the ecosystem. One of my extensions has >300k subscribers on the Chrome Webstore which will be killed by MV3.

Many ongoing changes are being made in extensions and the web in general to improve security while reducing capabilities in existing applications.

At this point, for more complex use cases such as one of my own, the only hope is building your own web browser with complete control over its systems. I've changed focus to improving Electron for this reason.

Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support.

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

#325

Post by marssaxman »

estebank wrote: post #140
yesenadam wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 have also given up tweaking the interface, long ago. I wish Mozilla's devs could learn the same lesson.

You might tape over the warning light on your car's dash too, if you knew there was a good chance it would come back from the shop painted a different color and having had a racing spoiler bolted onto the trunk.

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

#326

Post by marssaxman »

estebank wrote: post #223
yesenadam wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 implyin…

> 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.

If the browser designers think it's so important for people to update, then perhaps they should stop driving people away with relentless, needless, irritating aesthetic changes! They're the short-sighted ones here.

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

#327

Post by hendersoon »

zwaps wrote: post #267
azalemeth wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, once Apple made that decision, I started migrating away from Safari, and I haven't tried your product. I note that it does have a pro subscription option -- which I'm not opposed to -- but I do also note that this seems to be much more common than the "donationware" licensing model of most other browser extensions. Out of curiosity, can Magic Lassoo present a detailed list of domain connection attempts by cat…

No matter what all these adblocker advertisements tell you here on HN: Safari only allows these extensions to have a single blocklist and then your choice is whether to enable or disable the adblocker extension, with all its fixed and non-dynamic rules, on the website in question. From that perspective, Safari adblockers are virtually identical, simply because they are all using the same interface and (I would suspec…

Not exactly, you can have multiple blocklists limited to 50k entries apiece. Many Safari content blockers support that.

Safari content blocking (and thus Chrome v3 manifest blocking) basically works OK at blocking ads today. The problem is this is an arms race, and as the advertising agencies come up with inventive ways to evade these strictly controlled content blocks, they have no real way to adjust.

At that point we'll need to rely on Apple or Google to add new features specifically to support blocking ads. Google seems particularly unlikely to do that. To say the least.

And even if they do, there will be long periods before new browser releases are available with those features, and then the blocker developers need to support them.

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

#328

Post by hendersoon »

postalrat wrote: post #277
klibertp wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Webpages only load nearly instantly Which ones? HN does, but a large part of the other sites I frequent need around a second or more to load. With or without ad-blockers - some load faster with, some faster without, but they never enter the "nearly instantly" range, which (last I checked) was 0-250 ms.

What's an example of a site that loads slower with an ad blocker? I've never observed that in my browsing.

I'm sure you can find examples with particularly poorly written adblockers but everybody should be using uBlock Origin and it is extremely efficient.

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

#329

Post by sp332 »

captaincaveman wrote: post #80
Barrin92 wrote: post #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

I was put off by Firefox by some questionable opinionated decisions they made. I don't want a browser with a political agenda, just want one that that follows the specs and performs well.

Why would anyone make a browser if they didn't have a political agenda? You're looking for a massive software project with no motivation?

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

#330

Post by ghostwords »

smaddock wrote: post #324
ghostwords wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>idiomatic >less resources Are you an extension developer? Here is a list of issues that extension developers have with requiring Service Workers: https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/labels/topic%3A%20servi... Just take a look at this work-in-progress MV3 version of a fairly popular webpage-saver extension called SingleFile: https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile-Lite#readme

I am an extension developer, but have resigned from engaging with development in the ecosystem. One of my extensions has >300k subscribers on the Chrome Webstore which will be killed by MV3. Many ongoing changes are being made in extensions and the web in general to improve security while reducing capabilities in existing applications. At this point, for more complex use cases such as one of my own, the only hope is…

>Ideally, I'd like to see MV3 continue supporting the persistent context use case as well as maintaining webRequest blocking support.

Same, which is why I engage with browser representatives in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group.

Unfortunately, the status quo is grim with Firefox seemingly uninterested in standing up to Chrome and citing compatibility as the main reason for following Chrome into mandatory Service Workers.

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