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A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

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Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#121

Is anyone really surprised? Google makes all its revenue from ads. A couple months ago there was an incident where if I recall correctly, someone published a browser on the play store which allowed users to install desktop browser extensions, one of which was an adblocker for YouTube, and it was removed with vague reasons? Google has been taking steps for a long time to make it harder for adblockers to work on Chrome…

Not surprised, but a bit baffled why they allowed for uBO for such a long time in the first place? It looks as if they misused the community's products and trust to build their monopoly and then kick us out once it's gotten hard enough to compete. Perhaps this is a good thing in the long run, because now people will finally have to switch and maybe contribute to improving Firefox. I am hopeful, but also I must say in…

>baffled why they allowed for uBO for such a long time

potential "10,000,000+ users" pissed at Google is the reason, but why if we made it look like extension author was dodgy/to blame? ... :(

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#122
Wow, this scares me a lot. So if you upload an update to an existing extension that has many users, if a human reviewer arbitrarily decides to reject the update, the entire extension is removed from the store? Or just the recent update?

If the entire extension is removed that makes updating an existing app a terrifying process. Do they apply the same standards to top paid extensions like LastPass and Grammarly?

I run a freemium SEO Chrome extension (https://www.checkbot.io) with 30K active users - if the extension got taken down suddenly it would anger + confuse existing users and directly impact sales. As a backup, you could ask users to download and install the extension in developer mode but this would crush the conversion rate for the free version and you'd lose all organic traffic via the Chrome Web Store.

Google already killed Chrome Apps (taking with it functionality you couldn't do in Chrome extensions) and Manifest v3 is going to introduce yet to be decided restrictions. At least these restrictions don't rely on the whims of human reviewers though.

Right now, my stomach drops whenever I see a Chrome extension development announcement.

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#124
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When IE had a monopoly it was bad because Microsoft made a shitty webbrowser and everyone built websites for IE. Even today I have devices which are "best viewed on IE6", thanks to modern browsers they still tend to work somewhat. Chrome will not be bad because it's a shitty browser, it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. It's not the develope…

> it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. Again, not the way it worked with IE 1-8 > Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist. Well I don't and I'm not.

And again, that's what Google is already doing, I'm not saying they're doing the exact same things that happened with IE1-8 but a browser monopoly is still equally bad regardless of how badly a browser is maintained.

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#125

time to bring out the anti-trust hammer and separate chrome and other google entities from the search and ad business. It really seems like they're asking for it.

Seems like wishful thinking given that there's been no significant anti-trust action taken by the U.S. government in years.

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#126
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the Android version of Firefox is unusably crashy on my phone (moto z play) and noticeably slower. I gave it a hard try, but it just wasn't workable. Still using Firefox on all desktop/laptop devices, though.

I see this all the time and I think it is unhelpful to make these kinds of statements. I can make a counterpoint that I've used FF on Android for years and never experienced any issues whatsoever. I am not trying invalidate your experience, but want to point out anecdotes don't really paint a fair picture for either side of the argument. For example, how do we know my good experience and your bad experience are not e…

But, the comment wasn't speaking in a generalization, just why they themselves don't use Firefox on Android while also indicating the exact device. It doesn't seem there was any argument being made, just that they seem a little disappointed that it doesn't work well on their specific device and they wanted to add that to the conversation.

Honestly, every bug/glitch/criticism is important, even if it doesn't affect a large portion of users. Ideally, it should be reported in Mozilla's bug tracker if it hasn't already, but still important nonetheless.

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#127

It's time to switch to Firefox as my main web browser. It's faster and generally more efficient than Chrome plus it has the most important extensions. The most surprising thing is that the Android version of Firefox is excellent. So good that I switched from Chrome a few months ago when this expected news first dropped. No ads on mobile is awesome.

Already made the switch as well

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd - my experience is the opposite. FF is noticeably slower than Chrome, and my Chrome installation is loaded with extensions, unlike Firefox. Phoronix's tests seem to back my experience as well. From 4 days ago: "As for the Firefox vs. Chrome performance, Google's web browser continues generally delivering better performance." https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=firefox6...

Is your firefox using Webrender? Vanilla firefox is slower than chrome but WebRender is noticeably faster than chrome. Chrome on a 4K monitor slows down to a crawl, but WebRender handles it like a champ. It can be easily enabled with a flag.

If any firefox devs are reading this

- Can you please make this a default?

- Can you please fix text rendering on mobile? Sites like reddit render at desktop resolution on mobile screen, and there is no clear text sizing that works. With Chrome I just set my size option and move on with life.

Re: A uBlock Origin update was rejected from the Chrome Web Store

#130
post #23

>> Your item did not comply with the following section of our policy: An extension should have a single purpose that is clear to users. Any speculation on what the supposed multiple purposes would be? From past experience, is that type of thing something that is automatically flagged / determined programmatically or does a human reviewer of an extension make the call?

I mean you would think their process would be smart enough to say "Hey, we just rejected upload for product X that is THE MOST POPULAR PLUGIN. We haven't rejected any of the prior versions. Maybe let's get a human review.

Certainly google employees and the chrome team will be aware of this within an hour if they aren't already. You can bet it's intentional if we don't see a reversal in the next 3 days."

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