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Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

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Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#171

Post by SadErn »

maxloh wrote: post #139
polairscience wrote: post #40

And I won't even notice. Firefox is probably the most divisive topic on this website. Mozilla gets ripped to shreds any time they're discussed, but they keep the open internet alive. I don't see how any self-respecting Hacker could choose anything else. I'm a big fan of critique, critiquing the scaffolding of our lives is the best thing we can do. That said...... we have nearly lost the browser wars and if we do it w…

Because Mozilla allocates far too much of their budget to executive compensation, which has led to the layoff of many Firefox maintainers, including the entire Servo team. A self-respecting hacker would choose a piece of tech that is well-maintained, not one that only recently added profile support after all these years, or one that still offers an ancient bookmark and history UI.

[dead]

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#172

Post by maxloh »

capitainenemo wrote: post #169
maxloh wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that Mozilla spends so much of their budget on their CEO's compensation that they actually had to lay off the entire Servo team?

Cite? I think the timeline has issues there. That predates the CEO controversies AFAIK. They did ditch a lot of R&D as their userbase kept shrinking due to chrome growth. 'course this sort of thing keeps coming up - yeah, I do think their CEO is overpaid ... and? Solution is what. Kill firefox off completely, hand internet over to chrome? Basically, where is this point going?

In 2018, Baker received $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla. In 2020, after returning to the position of CEO, Baker's salary was more than $3 million. In 2021, her salary rose again to more than $5.5 million, and again to over $6.9 million in 2022. In August 2020, the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues after laying off roughly 70 employees in January 2020. Baker stated this was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite revenue rising to record highs in 2019, and market share shrinking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Mozilla_Foundat...

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#173

Post by daveshistory »

lom888 wrote: post #158
water-data-dude wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of WaterFox! I switched when Firefox decided to add a ton of AI crap without providing a "turn this crap off" button (you could force it, but I don't want to fight my tools). Really good experience, been recommending it to all my friends. Librewolf is also good, and I use that on one of my other machines. I like Waterfox a bit more, but that's probably just personal taste. Both are solid and both cut th…

I've been using Waterfox on deskop for years and adore it. Firefox for mobile does great. I don't grasp how anyone uses Chrome as their daily driver willingly aside from just inertia.

Most computer users have very few real demands to make and it suffices.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#174

Post by glenstein »

maxloh wrote: post #139
polairscience wrote: post #40

And I won't even notice. Firefox is probably the most divisive topic on this website. Mozilla gets ripped to shreds any time they're discussed, but they keep the open internet alive. I don't see how any self-respecting Hacker could choose anything else. I'm a big fan of critique, critiquing the scaffolding of our lives is the best thing we can do. That said...... we have nearly lost the browser wars and if we do it w…

Because Mozilla allocates far too much of their budget to executive compensation, which has led to the layoff of many Firefox maintainers, including the entire Servo team. A self-respecting hacker would choose a piece of tech that is well-maintained, not one that only recently added profile support after all these years, or one that still offers an ancient bookmark and history UI.

This is confidently repeated but extremely misleading claim that seems to pop up ad nauseam in the comment sections. They spend more now on development than they ever have in their history, and the CEO spending is something like 1.6% of the budget, which I don't love, but which is not enough to sustain the narrative of all the money being siphoned into executives.

They also break down spending into a pie chart of different types and development gets more than anything. If you look at their actual budget or the published changes to new releases it tells a different story than vibes based internet comment sections. But you have be approaching conversations in an open-to-new-information kind of way.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#175

Post by OkayPhysicist »

markstos wrote: post #84
sheept wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you alluded to, many Chromium forks (notable exception is Ungoogled) are backed by tech companies. There's already plenty of intentional changes they maintain in their forks, like Privacy Sandbox,[0] so I don't think preserving support for v2 is a large hurdle for them. [0]: https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/10742158329613-W...

Google described Manifest V2 as significant tech debt with new bugs still found there. Either they are lying or it's a non-trivial feature set to continue to support. So will be interesting to see how many other browsers actually do keep this support alive.

A trillion dollar company? Lying? That's beyond the pale. Google has never done anything against my interests. They're always sooooooo honest in their communications.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#176

Post by GrinningFool »

maxloh wrote: post #168
_flux wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression MV3 is stricly less capable in terms of blocking ability than MV2?

Yeah. MV3 is a faster but less capable version. With MV2, every request must be filtered with slow, JIT, garbage-collected JavaScript code. In MV3, filtering is handled by native browser code using the list provided by extensions. UserScripts could be used to modify the DOM, but that requires power users to manually enable it. There is a limit on how large the list can be, depending on the browser.

I also thought under MV3 you could block ads, but not the tracking that they do.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#177

Post by entropie »

dizhn wrote: post #75
rpdillon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave has an interesting approach where they have added core support for four key MV2 extensions to the core of the browser engine, bypassing MV3 entirely. > Update: As of v1.81, we host the following Manifest V2 (MV2) extensions on Brave’s backend: AdGuard, uBO, uMatrix, NoScript. These extensions operate independently from the equivalent versions that are currently present on the Chrome Web Store, and have to be do…

The extensions are in addition to their own included ad and other nuisance blocking features. I've been testing migrating from Firefox to Brave Origin (the paid fork with no crypto features that has a free linux build) and it works pretty well without any extensions. Yesterday I wanted to get a brave search api key on the free tier and they require a credit card even for that. That pissed me off a bit but still gonna…

I used brave a bit and really liked it.

But its obvious that these guys are semi shady and they will show sooner or later. I liked chrome derviates and used them over a decade. I got tired of feeling forced to switch after vivaldi/brave so I went the firefox way last year.

The circle is completed.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#178

Post by jdiff »

vovavili wrote: post #94
polairscience wrote: post #40

And I won't even notice. Firefox is probably the most divisive topic on this website. Mozilla gets ripped to shreds any time they're discussed, but they keep the open internet alive. I don't see how any self-respecting Hacker could choose anything else. I'm a big fan of critique, critiquing the scaffolding of our lives is the best thing we can do. That said...... we have nearly lost the browser wars and if we do it w…

>I don't see how any self-respecting Hacker could choose anything else Brave and Vivaldi strike me as being at least not worse.

They're built on Chromium, they still reinforce the Chromium monoculture and expand Google's influence.

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#179

Post by SadErn »

maxloh wrote: post #168
_flux wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression MV3 is stricly less capable in terms of blocking ability than MV2?

Yeah. MV3 is a faster but less capable version. With MV2, every request must be filtered with slow, JIT, garbage-collected JavaScript code. In MV3, filtering is handled by native browser code using the list provided by extensions. UserScripts could be used to modify the DOM, but that requires power users to manually enable it. There is a limit on how large the list can be, depending on the browser.

[dead]

Re: Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers

#180

Post by spankalee »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #136
spankalee wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think calling the Mv3 versions "secure adblockers" would be more accurate.

Secure for whom?

Browser users. Pre Mv3 extensions were a huge vector for malware. My in-laws were hit by that.
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