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Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

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Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#341
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would Chrome, Android, and YouTube be viable companies without the money-printing engine that is Google’s ad business? Short answer? Yes. Long answer? Definitely. > I wonder whether a good balance could be struck between great services like these versus how they actually make money. I see you have an unconventional definition of the word "great". I'll take that to mean you're an outside-the-box thinker, so you're i…

I'm all for breaking up Google, but how do you see Chrome making money without ads? If they charged users directly, everyone would just switch back to Firefox.

Search licensing would be one of the big ones

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in a tough place. They dont have the advantage of owning the OS (android/chrome and iOS / Safari) nor the advantage of advertising on the google home page like chrome. The "customers" they are courting are security/privacy zealots who constantly want them "just work on the browser" but never seem to have an answer on how to pay for that. I am hoping the advent of LLMs allows more entrants into the space at a…

> how to pay for that I would not mind to pay for the browser, but they will not let me.

This is a consequence of browser monopolies, established by Microsoft in the 90s: everyone should have to pay for a browser and make a deliberate choice in vendor. The fact that they're free and subsidized by large businesses in other markets, rather than being a product you choose to buy, is a concrete example of monopolistic market distortion.

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#343

I know Firefox's share of browser share has dwindled to almost nothing. I know sooner or later, well within my lifetime, it will be gone. But I will keep using it until they pry it from my hands. And if they do, I'll use forks until those break down too. I can't stand Google, or what Chrome has become. No single company should have such unilateral control over the internet and its information.

> I know Firefox's share of browser share has dwindled to almost nothing. I know sooner or later, well within my lifetime, it will be gone.

Market share appears to be hovering around 4%, which sounds small but that is still a massive amount of people, over 200 million users. It is even more impressive considering it doesn't have an OS with a large market share feeding it users, people overwhelmingly just use what is already installed. That's a huge number of users earned rather than inherited.

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#344
I’m irrationally angry with Mozilla for the way they’ve handled Firefox over the past few years. Clearly we need an independent, safe browser and there are no major alternatives for the common folk. Just let me pay a monthly fee to keep Firefox lean and fast instead of jamming AI tools and 3rd party integrations.

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#345
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better thing would be to hold Google directly accountable for every malicious ad they allow through their network. If they cannot do that, they should not be in business selling ads then. Yes, that means amending the law (in the US). But the law as it is written facilitates crime.

Idk if apple can validate each and every apps before publishing to appstore, why can't google and facebook validate each and every ads?

Define "validate". App Review is really only good at catching things that make Apple uncomfortable for financial reasons, or make their attorneys worried (trademarks, copyright, etc.) The sandboxing is what makes the App Store pretty unsuitable for distributing actual malware (the kind that can do stuff to your device without you knowing).

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#346
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would Chrome, Android, and YouTube be viable companies without the money-printing engine that is Google’s ad business? Short answer? Yes. Long answer? Definitely. > I wonder whether a good balance could be struck between great services like these versus how they actually make money. I see you have an unconventional definition of the word "great". I'll take that to mean you're an outside-the-box thinker, so you're i…

I'm all for breaking up Google, but how do you see Chrome making money without ads? If they charged users directly, everyone would just switch back to Firefox.

Why does 'Chrome' need to survive as a standalone company? It never had a business model besides "support Google's monopolies", so it shouldn't survive (IMO). Lots of browser vendors already use Chrome's open source codebase, so those orgs can fork it, or they can collectively come together to fund development, or apply for government grants or something.

I think that Chrome development team members will have plenty of new job and business opportunities available to them if this ever happens. New markets will open up for browser tech that didn't exist before, and I think everyone will come out winning in the end, even users who would never even consider paying money for a web browser.

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#347
post #60

The solution is to use Firefox. uBlock Origin always worked best in Firefox anyway: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

AFAIK firefox also will remove MV2

No, they do not: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manif...

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll immediately fall for the next such guy. Republican voters aren't actually reconsidering their views. Corporations and oligarchs have known no major blowbacks in decades and keep winning on every front, further eroding the Republic and its institutions little by little. And they won't stop until all that's left of America is an empty shell, a dead state like Russia, a sandbox for the Epstein class.

You are painting with extremely broad strokes here.

Painters with broad strokes have done extremely well the past few decades.

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#349
post #174

Ad blocking has become a safety issue. My parents are at an age where they fall for things. If a malicious ad pops up and offers to install McAfee, some other form of crapware, or outright scamware, they'll click that ad and install the thing. Then I'll get called over when the computer starts acting screwy. If Google, MS, etc. had ever gotten together and developed a way to filter malicious ads out of their own ad s…

> My parents are at an age where they fall for things. If they're falling for things that they didn't used to fall for, that's sounds more like dementia than age.

Or maybe there are more things using the same tactics / scammer's reach keeps increasing.

My parents "fell" for fundamentalism early (as kids - raised in it), for televangelists in their 40s, and Fox News in their 70s/80s. Fox News so recently only because they didn't get it very often until about 10 years ago when they moved into a retirement home (didn't have cable before that).

Re: Google Has Removed MV2 Extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Including UBO

#350
post #174

Ad blocking has become a safety issue. My parents are at an age where they fall for things. If a malicious ad pops up and offers to install McAfee, some other form of crapware, or outright scamware, they'll click that ad and install the thing. Then I'll get called over when the computer starts acting screwy. If Google, MS, etc. had ever gotten together and developed a way to filter malicious ads out of their own ad s…

Get Chromebook for them, I know it is backwards, but at least they won't install viruses.
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