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Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

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Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want my browser to prevent random extensions from directly reading web page data. The declarative API idea is pretty good. I was under the impression that manifest v3 still allowed extensions to read anything, just not modify. Is that not the case? (Random link because this is hard to search for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38303446 )

Yeah, if that's true then there's little point to Manifest V3... That completely invalidates the argument that it increases security by denying private page access. Maybe I misunderstood Manifest V3.

All roads lead to Occam's Razor and POSIWID: the point of Manifest V3 is to block adblockers.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#462
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla relies 85% of income from Google for making default search engine Google. They probably have strong implicit pressure not to.

Mozilla has 300+ million dollars in the bank.

So does Wikipedia but they still desperately beg like they're about to go out of business.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#463
post #425

There's a mystery here. People hate ads. Firefox is the only major browser (save Brave?) that properly blocks ads. Yet people don't use Firefox (indeed its popularity is in free-fall). Why? Is it because they don't know about it? Or they won't go to the trouble of using any browser that isn't the one provided by default by the OS? I'm not sure. I just don't get it.

Back when I first moved off of Firefox the answer was performance. A lot of users mass-migrated to Chrome because it supported a very similar set of extensions and was significantly more stable and performant. People like me evangelized switching to Chrome for everyone. Many copies of Chrome were installed by me.

Now the performance still hasn’t caught up to Chrome but it has improved, and uBlock Origin Lite does a decent job at a baseline level of blocking for most people.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Random" is a funny thing to call an extension that you have deliberately installed. I also don't want "random" programs accessing my home folder. That would be terrible! Who knows what programs that could be! I do however want the very specific programs that I have intentionally installed to be able to access my home folder easily. Same for extensions. The goal here isn't really to protect me from extensions. Extens…

"Random" is what I call pretty much every extension that is not uBlock Origin. I absolutely want them limited to the fullest extent. Maybe if they were, I would actually install some of them. > I do however want the very specific programs that I have intentionally installed to be able to access my home folder easily. I don't. My standard operating practice is to virtualize them. My security posture is considerably mo…

You should make a browser for you, like a QubesOS browser. Do you use QubesOS? If not, you should.

But you can't lock down everyone else's general-purpose computers just because you are more careful than the average. You're supporting the big corporations in the war against general-purpose computing here.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#465
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... the greatest danger to us is masterless men ; lacking a coercive power to tie their hands, they would destroy society. How else but by binding to lord and master can they be held to the laws? So thought men during feudal times. In fact, it is possible for people to be held to good conduct without being bound into a single hierarchy, and it should be possible for software to be held to good conduct without giving…

I'm supposed to be the master, actually. It's my computer, any foreign code is essentially a subject in my digital domain. It should be literally impossible for them to do something I don't want them to do. As the god of my little digital realm, I should have maximum power and freedom, while foreign developers get the absolute minimum amount of power that works, and in the ideal case this minimum is zero. The fact so…

I think nobody is against the availability of sandboxing tools for browser extensions - they just want them to be options and not requirements or defaults.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#466

For those who use uBlock Origin Lite, have you noticed any issues/deficiencies in what ads are blocked? I haven't.

My experience using uBlock Origin Lite on iOS is that some particularly intrusive ads will figure out a way to load, like local news sites from the US, and many sites will be fully broken (missing entire content portions, content doesn’t scroll, entire page can’t be interacted with). These issues simply don’t occur on uBlock Origin but only exist as an artifact of aggressively blocking elements without applying fixes to unbreak sites.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#467
post #274
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. Op is wrong

It's been taken down by DMCA copyright strikes on every western platform that could distribute it. That's why you can't find it on the Firefox extension store anymore

None of that means it’s “illegal”. You apparently think something being removed to reduce legal risk means it’s illegal, but that doesn’t follow.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the reasons weren't unreasonable, that's what made them great excuses for specifically blocking ublock origin.

They don't specifically block uBlock Origin though. I have no doubt they intended it to, and that's literally my only objection to Manifest V3: it's good but it hurts uBlock Origin therefore I don't accept it. The right thing is to simply bypass all of that. The fact is uBlock Origin should be literallly built into the browser like the good old popup blockers once were. If only we had a browser that was independent o…

Of course the reasons weren't specific to ublock origin, that's what made them great excuses for specifically blocking ublock origin.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox extensions are already so incredibly locked down. It used to be they could edit any part of the UI anywhere. Now they each get a button at the end of the URL bar if they're lucky, otherwise it's some obscure hamburger menu item.

You have full control of whether or not their button is in your toolbar. If they are hidden for you, it's because you, the user, hid them or enabled the overflow extension menu.

I, the user, don't understand how this works and just see my browser thinking it's better than me and should be my master.

Re: Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good solid reasons why Manifest v3 is preferable for most extensions. The issue is that adblocking doesn't work with it, so an addition, or workaround should be made, but when Google has the amount of influence they have, that didn't happen. The upshut is that people hate ads and like free stuff, so there is now a good selling point for Firefox. Hell some of us switched to Firefox because it blocked popup a…

> The issue is that adblocking doesn't work with it Except this is objectively not true… uBlock Origin Lite is nearly as good as uBO and blocks nearly everything except for mostly Twitch ads. Manifest v3 is a big security upgrade and effectively closes off the permanent RCE pathway that v2 allowed.

So we already see one major ad category it's unable to block. When will advertisers catch on to put more of their ads in that category?
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