251–260 of 779 posts
Acquire, Embrace, Extinguish I think we're at Stage 3.
That's not the correct quip (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish); and even if it were, it doesn't make any more sense in this context than your version does. Even in the most skeptical reading of the situation, Google never "embraced" adblockers, they allowed them. You'll note there's no extensions on Chrome for Android for example.
Another reason to be glad that Firefox is still standing.
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It's tempting to fall into the trap of feeling smug that you've made the right decision so no action should be taken against a company abusing their market position in a manner that's harmful to the public. Try to resist that temptation, like I have. I too have been using Firefox this entire time, but I don't let that tempt me into apathy towards the state of the industry. You may as well question the purpose of the…
> harmful to the public. How do you measure this? Does the public include content creators who rely on ads for their livelihood?
Correct me if I'm misrepresenting your position, but I vaguely recall a discussion some time ago in which you compared adblocking to theft. If I'm remembering that correctly, you and I have no common ground upon which to have a civil discussion.
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> Clearly it's not What is your basis for this claim? I am not an expert on this topic, but Gorhill is and has a demonstrated history of technical/privacy judgement. Gorhill's comment makes it clear that impacting the functionality of blockers is an intentional change, as the proposal not only removes previous functionality, but also enshrines one particular and limited approach to blocking. Edit: I would also note t…
I've explained the logic in the post you're replying to. I'll rephrase it: There is no evidence the change is being made with the intent of getting rid of adblockers; it is so far only a side-effect. We should demand such evidence before implying that this is the intended outcome. If such is the goal, have at it with the headlines. They write themselves. "Advertising Giant Google Forcefully Breaks Ad-blockers in Chro…
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Firefox just doesn’t have enough advantages yet that would convince someone comfortable with Chrome to switch over. While privacy is an ever growing concern, it isn’t a strong enough feature for most people.
A major problem is also that google websites run like crap in firefox. Gmail takes 20 seconds to load and don't get me started on youtube studio. Even the "feedback" button is broken in firefox so I can't even report the bugs I find. I'm at the point of installing chromium just to be able to manage my videos, but I refuse to give in.
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I really just don't understand the obsession with Chrome, especially in hacker communities. Sorry Google, I feel "icky & gross" when I use you.
I'm invested in the Google ecosystem, and have recently got myself a Pixel Slate that I carry everywhere as my primary computing/ media device (no more separate laptop and tablet). It would now be silly of me to use Firefox in place of Chrome. Moreover I have got nothing to hide, so all these privacy-fears don't concern me; in fact I often feel like they are being overblown.
> I've got nothing to hide.
However, if this data ever gets into the hands of someone acting in bad faith, even the most innocent behaviour can be weaponized against you. Let's say, for example, that you are wrongly suspected of committing a crime, and the investigating police are more interested in cooking up a conviction than determining if you actually did it.
All sorts of details about your life can be leaked and "spun" to make you look very, very bad. You went to a bar on a certain evening? So did these known crime figures. Were you meeting them?
You spend time on Hacker News. HACKER NEWS. You could find yourself the target of a smear campaign designed to turn public sentiment against you.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."—Cardinal Richelieu
If you hand over your data without hesitation to a nation-state or to powerful and unscrupulous corporations, I believe you will discover that there is no such thing as "nothing to hide."
So we have a browser with nearly 70% market share, made by an advertising company that's arguably the most powerful business on the internet, interfering with ad blocking. And of course there is no regulatory body that is able or willing to step in. Great.
Why should a regulatory body step in? People were saying for years about how evil Google is, along with how limited and how much of a spyware Chrome is. There are alternatives that people can switch to, if they decide to keep using Chrome they should just suffer the consequences.
It's not possible for people to be well educated in everything and, as hard as it is to swallow for us techy types, a fair percentage of people don't have the time or inclination to even realise the potential down sides of using the Internet. They're too busy with whatever their own areas of expertise are.
Maintaining this shit is hard for a pro. The amateurs don't deserve to get shafted.
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Why should a regulatory body step in? People were saying for years about how evil Google is, along with how limited and how much of a spyware Chrome is. There are alternatives that people can switch to, if they decide to keep using Chrome they should just suffer the consequences.
It's tempting to fall into the trap of feeling smug that you've made the right decision so no action should be taken against a company abusing their market position in a manner that's harmful to the public. Try to resist that temptation, like I have. I too have been using Firefox this entire time, but I don't let that tempt me into apathy towards the state of the industry. You may as well question the purpose of the…
Why is it abuse? No one is being forced to use chromium. Are you abusing your market position when you buy the cheapest toothbrush in a manner that's harmful to other toothbrush companies?
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Firefox just doesn’t have enough advantages yet that would convince someone comfortable with Chrome to switch over. While privacy is an ever growing concern, it isn’t a strong enough feature for most people.
Plus Chrome just works better for a lot of sites. That might be because the site isn't properly coded, but users don't care. They just want something that works and more often than not, that's Chrome. My main browser is Firefox, but I have to switch over to Chrome more often than I would like. Electron is also based on Chromium, isn't it? IMHO, the rise of Electron just reinforces Chromium's status and I think Micros…
Other web developers may want to chime in but I rarely have cross-browser problems between Firefox and Chrome. I can't recall the last one.
The only time I encounter a problem with Firefox is looking at people's codepens where they're using webkit only prefixes or a draft API.