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uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

chromewebstore.google.com

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Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#971

Post by sotix »

timmg wrote: post #966
sotix wrote: post #939

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And most people are happier with iOS. Source? > And use Macs over Linux, FWIW. This could be explained by marketing. > I personally think adblockers are unethical Do you think ads are ethical? For a relevant example, how about an Apple ad that successfully uses emotion to convince you to buy a Mac instead of a Linux computer that would better suit your needs at a better price hypothetically?

> Do you think ads are ethical? Generally, yes. Ads are an important function of commerce, tbh. False ads, of course, are not ethical. But we do have laws in that area (not that people don't break them.)

Fair enough! I stand on the side that the current ad landscape in the US gravitates towards convincing us to buy things we don’t need and consume more. And normally using manipulative tactics. For example, ads in the car industry that sell a lifestyle that convinces people to buy large pick up trucks they don’t need at costs they can’t actually afford.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#972

Post by OrangeMusic »

phito wrote: post #51

I hear so many people IRL complaining about this. I tell them to switch to firefox, that the adblockers still work there, and they still won't switch to it because they are "used to chrome". I really feel like google won this battle. People will through a lot of abuse just to maintain their habits.

I tried to switch to Firefox - but it lacks one feature that's particularly important to me: the ability to use a site as if it was its own app (so, not inside a tab, but with its own window and own icon in the dock).

I went back to Chrome, re-enabled uBlock for now, and will probably switch to the lite mode when it is completely removed.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#973

Post by sharps1 »

porker wrote: post #862
kennysoona wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

751 tabs open is just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Use some kind of tab session manager addon, and start organizing things - no need to have them all open concurrently.

757 now. I used to bookmark everything into Diigo. Then their Firefox extension stopped working... and I haven't got a cross-platform, cross-browser process up and running again. Is there a tab session manager that does that, and lets me send tabs from my current session to another session? E.g. I'm on my "Writing C for a hobby" session and quickly search for something cooking related, and then need to send that to m…

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-stash/

Searchable. Works with sync. Stores the tabs as bookmarks.

EDIT: and recommended so it gets vetted by Mozilla.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#974

Post by dumbledoren »

ethan_smith wrote: post #729
bearjaws wrote: post #4

Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit... I migrated off Chrome as soon as this BS story about improving privacy, a joke coming from Google. Then the excuse was "well it improves performance", which they could easily do by marking extensions as low performance. If Google wanted to improve this they have an entire search engine where they could re-ran…

Been using uBlock Origin for so long I forgot what the raw internet actually looks like. Spent 3 minutes without an ad blocker last week when setting up a new machine and nearly lost my mind. Google knows exactly what they're taking away from us - a usable web. They've just decided that our sanity is less valuable than their ad revenue. https://programmerhumor.io/programming-memes/browsing-withou... I feel really bad…

> They've just decided that our sanity is less valuable than their ad revenue.

Precisely why it should be broken up.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#975

Post by jknutson »

culi wrote: post #810
6SixTy wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt you are incorrect, but that's a response for a different conversation altogether.

You said "only the Android version" iOS users are able to download browser extensions as well. They just have to be for WebKit. Which there are plenty of. The iOS version of Firefox uses WebKit under the hood (for now at least)

I would say that IOS AdBlocking is significantly less effective than that which you’d expect from a Desktop adblocker (and presumably android, so I’ve heard— can only speak for iOS though). My little brother likes to watch Anime on his iPad through some bootleg Crunchyroll equivalent (the kind of website that uses a .to domain, you know?), and I’ve tried my absolute damndest to defeat the hyper-intrusive ads and scripts served by that site so he can watch his Naruto or whatever without having his poor innocent eyes bombarded with salient requests from hot singles in our area.

No luck, and not for lack of trying. I’m not entirely certain what feature is missing in WebKit that results in the hamstringed adblocking capacity, but it’s definitely much worse than you’d hope for. You can get adblocking extensions on iOS that will block ads on most websites, but when it comes to the truly shady ads that do not even try to masquerade as being legitimate, iOS falls short. It’s likely something I could handle on the DNS layer if I wanted to dedicate a day or two towards, but I’ve similarly travelled down that rabbit hole to no avail as well.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#976

Post by timmg »

sotix wrote: post #971
timmg wrote: post #966

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think ads are ethical? Generally, yes. Ads are an important function of commerce, tbh. False ads, of course, are not ethical. But we do have laws in that area (not that people don't break them.)

Fair enough! I stand on the side that the current ad landscape in the US gravitates towards convincing us to buy things we don’t need and consume more. And normally using manipulative tactics. For example, ads in the car industry that sell a lifestyle that convinces people to buy large pick up trucks they don’t need at costs they can’t actually afford.

But do you object to ads in general?

If so: how do you think people will find out about new things? Even, like, a new movie or productivity product?

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#977

Post by themadturk »

basisword wrote: post #392
gruez wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conspiracy theory doesn't make sense because safari's content blockers (ie. the nerfed version of adblock) block most ads just fine, especially from google ads. The only ads that get through are first party ads (eg. youtube), but as of a few years ago adblockers could block those as well, so it's a moot point.

Safari content blockers are awful compared to UBlock and I’m a Safari user. Not only does YouTube either get through or cause weird issues, YouTube now blocks you until you completely disable the extension. Content blockers often block cookie banners too which can often result in broken functionality - a nightmare when you’re trying to buy tickets to something and have to “reload without blockers” for the website to…

That doesn't match my experience. I use 1Blocker and Purify on Safari and see very, very few ads.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#978

Post by mortos »

alluro2 wrote: post #376
fiatjaf wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest thing to replace was always search to me, because the usually alternatives (DuckDuckGo, Ecosia etc) always suck. But Kagi made that part so easy it's unbelievable.

I'm genuinely curious about why you find DDG sucking compared to Google Search? I've switched ~2 years ago, when I found DDG better in terms of less clutter and not showing ads as results - also, if there are no good results, it didn't push nonsense. But maybe GS improved in the meantime on the quality of results and I'm missing out?

It's always tough to just drop examples, it's very much a "feels" thing. Whether that means the results are truly worse, or maybe presented worse, hard to say. But as a DDG user now I somewhat regularly use the "!G" bang but I never really did similar on Google.

That said, here's my current go to example: do an image search for "pixel 9".

Almost every picture DDG shows is wrong. That blue color all over the results doesn't exist. Nearly half the results are just the Pixel 8. Maybe a third are "leaked renders". Finding actual correct photos is a needle in a haystack and what's scary is this is a simple case to discern but what other results am I being mislead on.

I mainly use DDG but I do believe it is worse.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#979

Post by mortos »

timmg wrote: post #719
sotix wrote: post #668

This is the death of the hacker. We have allowed new heights of power and unchecked control decide they know better than us. We are no longer allowed or trusted to make choices in our best interests. Many practice apologetics for why this is necessary, pointing to Apple and Mozilla, as if that doesn’t make this change any less devastating. It was a great run. The silver lining is it can be the birth of a new generati…

> We are no longer allowed or trusted to make choices in our best interests. Ironically (or not) this is the Apple side of the Android/iOS debate. And most people are happier with iOS. (And use Macs over Linux, FWIW.) [I probably shouldn't mention that I personally think adblockers are unethical :) ]

> (And use Macs over Linux, FWIW.)

Interestingly, ChromeOS (Linux) has a higher market share than MacOS.

Being forced to run random code and be tracked is unethical. But I should probably mention I'm a big supporter of the small web.

Re: uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store

#980

Post by sotix »

timmg wrote: post #976
sotix wrote: post #971

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough! I stand on the side that the current ad landscape in the US gravitates towards convincing us to buy things we don’t need and consume more. And normally using manipulative tactics. For example, ads in the car industry that sell a lifestyle that convinces people to buy large pick up trucks they don’t need at costs they can’t actually afford.

But do you object to ads in general? If so: how do you think people will find out about new things? Even, like, a new movie or productivity product?

I’m not sure it’s worth answering the question because to me it almost feels like a straw man in the sense that it’s disconnected from the current reality. I think running a movie trailer before another movies plays and putting up movie posters around the theater is fair play. It’s within the same context and is actually advertising an entertainment product. Further, people go out of their way to watch movie trailers on YouTube.

However, the majority of ads I’m discussing don’t adhere to that. Overall, people are pretty good about finding out about things! If it’s really desired, some will seek it out. Others will learn via word of mouth. Steam is a good example I think where people find games without having to see ads on TV, online, or other areas.

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