181–190 of 962 posts
I remember when Firefox was getting traction, it had a killer feature: speed.
A chromium fork could come with a simple killer feature: bringing back the possibility of blocking requests.
I’m pretty sure it would quickly gain traction.
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I find switching from chrome to safari essentially doing nothing. If you switched to a non-big-company owned browser, it would make sense but Apple has plenty of lock in which is as bad as chrome lock in.
I'm a huge fan of Orion by Kagi: you should have a look! It's a little rough around the edges but the extension support on iOS is amazing.
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I find switching from chrome to safari essentially doing nothing. If you switched to a non-big-company owned browser, it would make sense but Apple has plenty of lock in which is as bad as chrome lock in.
Apple isn’t selling my data, and they make the best consumer hardware, so at this point there aren’t many downsides to Apple lock in.
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I agree, there's little to no friction in switching to Firefox and I have never, not even once, noticed a difference with websites. The same is not true for Safari.
There are definitely website that do not support Firefox, especially in the US. Whole portions of the Verizon website, for example. Or the website of a well known kindergarden I was researching recently.
I think it's a case of yes, it does work, but web developers don't think so, so they implement checks just for kicks.
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Orion is the only viable option on iOS IMO. The fact that, to this day, Safari has no way to block ads on iOS means it's just awful. Before Orion, I avoided using my web browser like the plague, because the experience was just bad. Now I'm on Android, and Ironfox is pretty good and Firefox is also available. The browser story on Android is leaps and bounds ahead of iOS.
Actually there are several adblockers available for Safari on iOS; the functionality was introduced in 2015. Adblock Plus and Adguard are some of the larger extensions available, and now uBlock Origin Lite is now being beta tested for Safari on iOS.
Also names like "Adblock Plus" scare me. I don't want someone I don't trust getting my web activity.
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I switched to Firefox and it's been wonderful. I wonder why I didn't switch earlier. It's only been a couple of months, but I can't imagine going back to a browser without multi-account containers.
The only time I've used anything but firefox for the last. Well probably since netscape honestly? I am so old. Is to get the in flight entertainment to work on american, but firefox has worked for that for a few years now. People say chrome is faster and in the early 2000s I might have agreed, but now I really don't understand why anyone not on a mac or iphone isn't using Firefox. It is great.
I'm on a mac and happily use Firefox. Have done for over a decade. It would take a lot to encourage me to move to a proprietary browser (Edge, Chrome, Safari).
Maybe I'm out of touch, but the attachment to Chrome that some people seem to have (despite the outright privacy abuse) is baffling to me. I mean, ffs, are a couple of minor UI compromises (not that I experience any - quite the opposite) enough to justify what I consider a frankly perverted browser experience? I'm inclined to conclude that some people have little self respect - being so willing to metaphorically undress for the big G's benefit.
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Firefox is great on Mac too. You have a point about iPhones, though. It's almost pointless, but not quite: it does get a few features, like cross-platform sync. "Real" Firefox is one of the things that keeps me on Android.
Can you still get real Firefox on mac? I thought they forced chromium on there now too? The only time I got MacBook I put linux on it within a few months.
I have always been able to.
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It is true though. Like, literally. Why do you think it is called Lite?
The statement was: "Adblockers basically need webRequestBlocking to function properly. " This is demonstrably false, ublock lite proves that adblockers can work without it. Whether or not ublock lite is missing functionalities because of MV3 is irrelevant to the original statement that adblockers need webRequestBlocking.
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Paying to avoid ads just makes your attention even more valuable to them. Always block them unconditionally and without any payment. Ads are a violation of the sanctity of our minds. They are not entitled to our attention. It's not currency to pay for services with.
That’s quite a stretch. I loathe ads as much as anyone else here, but I don’t consider being exposed to them as violating the sanctity of my mind (is my mind even sacrosanct, such that it could be violated?) it’s just something I don’t like. And yes, attention is absolutely a currency that can be used to pay for things. Like any other voluntary transaction, no one is entitled to my attention unless we both voluntaril…
Ads are so powerful that they've even managed to twist the truth about plenty of horrific shit happening to the point of affecting the health and safety of real people, sometimes literally on a global scale. Chiquita bananas, De Beers, Nestle, Oil & Gas companies, and must I remind you of Tobacco companies (and surprise surprise, the same people who were doing the ads for Big Tobacco are the ones doing ad campaigns for O&G companies now)? There have been SO MANY examples from all these companies of using advertisements to trick and manipulate people & politicians, oftentimes just straight up lying, like the Tobacco companies lying about the adverse health effects despite knowing for decades what the adverse health effects were, Or Oil & Gas companies lying about climate change via comprehensive astroturfing & advertisement campaigns [1].
This all barely scratches the surface, too, especially these days where you have platforms like Google and Meta enabling genocides, mass political interference and pushing things like crypto scams, gambling ads and other similarly heinous and harmful shit to the entire internet.
The TL;DR of all of this is that yes, advertisements absolutely are psychological warfare. They have been and continue to be used for absolutely vile and heinous activities, and the advertisers employ huge teams of people to ensure that their mass influence machine runs smoothly, overtaking everyone's minds slowly but surely with nothing but pure lies fabricated solely to sell people products they absolutely do not, and will never need.