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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

#241

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.

I used Firefox before Chrome and have tried to swap numerous times in the past (and have been using it for the last few weeks).

Advocates for Firefox often say "Firefox is better, just try switching!" yet when people point out reasons it's not better the response is "Oh those don't matter, you're just being nitpicky!"

But it's not a very gentle push back, it's forceful.

In this thread someone says "I don't like how much ram Firefox uses" and the response is

> I don't know why people choose their browser based on resource usage.

and

> Exactly. Come on, we're engineers we understand basic tradeoffs.

Firefox, as a product, has many issues when compared to Chrome. Why does everyone spend so much of their breath arguing against the real concerns and problems people have with it? Chrome has been getting worse in lots of major ways, Firefox has a chance to be the better product for a wider audience.

But Firefox won't become better with a culture of downvoting and arguing against criticism rather than trying to understand it. This is not the culture of Mozilla as far as I know, but it's the culture of many Firefox advocates all across the internet.

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

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why people choose their browser based on resource usage. You can have a browser run by a company looking to loot the public good for their own gain, or a non-profit looking to keep the web open and free. Hold on I'm going to pick the one that's marginally faster and more ram efficient...

> Hold on I'm going to pick the one that's marginally faster and more ram efficient... In both cases, people are choosing products because they're better. "Better" for most favors properties of the product. "Better" for you favors the politics of the product. Both are completely valid approaches.

Eeeehhh... He's arguing for principles and I'm not comfortable with the claim that not having principles is every bit as valid as having them.

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

#243
Would it be possible to create a desktop app that acted as a third party chrome extension store? Chrome let's you installed developer zip files without needing approval, could you make a desktop app that automatically downloaded the latest version and uploaded it to all devices as a zip file in chrome?

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

#244

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…

> 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? I've had an extension in the Chrome Web Store for 5 years and it's been unilaterally un-published with no warning at least 3 times. This is an extension that has many thousands of a…

None of this is surprising or remotely new for Google. As someone who has dealt with Google’s moderation process from other products, it’s basically the same shit as it was 15 years ago. This isn’t a Google Chrome Webstore specific issue, this is a universal Google issue.

I imagine the sloppy processes were the result of keeping things automated early in Google’s life and as they grew, to obfuscate spammers. Then, as Google got bigger over the past decade and morphed into a dis-functional bureaucracy, any hope of improving those processes was lost. Smaller companies can get away with these sorts of things, but once you are under the lens of politicians and anti-trust regulators, it starts to cause a material impact on the business. The price is going to be paid eventually, by Google’s stockholders.

In the short term this specific uBlock Origin issue may look good for Google. Less ad blocking users for Chrome means higher revenue per install. Many of the bad decisions the Chrome team made were probably strongly supported by user cohorts and revenue data (like forcing Google logins on Chrome if you logged in to Gmail.) That might be enough for some of Google’s executives and middle managers to earn self directed bonus stock options. In the long term, we all know what happens when the early adapters move on to other products.

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

#245
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what was painful?

Having switched to Firefox three months ago, the three things that I miss most are, 1. The integration with Google Translate, which I understand would be difficult for Firefox to replicate 2. The ability to right-click on an image to search by image, which is probably similarly difficult to add to Firefox. [Edit: Thanks, vatueil, I will give that a try.] 3. How Chrome is less picky about what text it identifies as a…

Image Search Options is an add-on for Firefox that lets you right-click an image to search for it on Google as well as other image search sites. Also available as a Chrome extension.

- Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/image-search-option...

- Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/image-search-optio...

- Website: https://saucenao.com/tools/

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

#246
post #229

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…

>someone published a browser on the play store which allowed users to install desktop browser extensions, one of which was an adblocker for YouTube Firefox lets you do that on Android and obviously it hasn't been removed from the Play Store. Do you remember any specifics?

I just looked it up, and apparently I misremembered a bit, it was actually because the app allowed YouTube background playback: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/05/08/kiwi-browser-remove...

The fact remains that Google was acting as a total monopoly when this decision was made.

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

#247

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.

Anyone thinking of installing Firefox should check out the Multi-Account Containers addon. I'm pretty sure such functionality doesn't exist for Chrome, and it makes it possible to isolate different sites and logins from each other. It's one of the best reasons to switch to Firefox, in my opinion.

Chrome has something similar built in called profiles, each profile is a unique session (like incognito except it persists)

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

#248

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.

I used Firefox before Chrome and have tried to swap numerous times in the past (and have been using it for the last few weeks). Advocates for Firefox often say "Firefox is better, just try switching!" yet when people point out reasons it's not better the response is "Oh those don't matter, you're just being nitpicky!" But it's not a very gentle push back, it's forceful. In this thread someone says "I don't like how m…

This is a pattern that shows up in other contexts as well. Linux on the desktop, git etc. have communities of advicates that tend to dismiss complaints and criticism far too strongly. That isn't to say that there are more reasonable people in these communities - there are plenty - but the forceful pushback is very visible and tends to be quite offputting.

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

#249
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Firefox Preview? It’s a new, revamped version of Firefox for Android.

Firefox Preview is a preview and does not yet support installing uBlock Origin: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5630 I plan to switch from regular Firefox Mobile as soon as WebExtensions are supported.

But you don't need origin because preview blocks pretty much all ads by default.

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

#250

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.

I used Firefox before Chrome and have tried to swap numerous times in the past (and have been using it for the last few weeks). Advocates for Firefox often say "Firefox is better, just try switching!" yet when people point out reasons it's not better the response is "Oh those don't matter, you're just being nitpicky!" But it's not a very gentle push back, it's forceful. In this thread someone says "I don't like how m…

It's no skin off my nose if you want to feed Google, but personally I have no idea what you're talking about as there's never been something I couldn't do on firefox.
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