For interface unity I use Voyager in Chrome’s web app functionality, it’s nice to have the same interface. The last multi platform Lemmy app was Liftoff which was really nice but it’s dead.

Lemmy in a tab in Firefox, no matter the front end is so… I want the sleek experience dang it!

Firefox, give web app functionality on desktop!

Oh great. Back to sucking Google’s teat for me then!

For now. And Google super mega promises to never rug pull that one.

It can be done, but then whoever forks that will need to stay on top of keeping that fork up to date with other changes in the original chromium, and that gets harder and harder to do as time goes on and more changes are made to the same or related parts of the codebase.

I don’t know why either. What I do know is that most Chromium browsers that are not Chrome have ad-blocking built into the browser itself using the same strategies as uBo but not reliant on Mv2 or Mv3 because they’re not extensions.

Or a fork :)

This is a pretty textbook definition of monopoly abuse.

I can’t see them keeping control of chrome as this goes forward.

Didn’t Google paying them loads of money keep FF alive?

be sure to check out the extensions, there’s several that are game changers.

No, HVEC / H.265 codec support so no modern 4K security camera or plex/jellyfin etc high quality video support.

I read that they temporarily (and apparently accidentally) removed the uBlock Origin Lite extension but they’re not getting rid of Manifest v2 that allows normal uBlock Origin to work.

The developer released the lite version on Firefox because it might be better for Android Firefox users. I guess there was some confusion.

No. They didn’t.

It’s even a “Recommended by Mozilla” extension.

Begone, concern troll.

If a site requires chrome, it doesn’t require me. If I need it for work, I’ll use Edge instead.

Yes, Vivaldi does: vivaldi.com/features/ad-blocker/

Yes, but it’s neither as good at adblocking as UBlock Origin or as fully featured.

Or just use Firefox and not deal with that.

Vivaldi has that, too, without the cryptobro People owning the browser.

I switched to Zen, personally as any chromium seems to be doomed unless someone manages to fork the base project and take it away from Google

Chrome, now with added crypto and homophobia

www.spacebar.news/p/stop-using-brave-browser

To my knowledge, DNS blockers not only miss a ton of ads, they also trigger several false positives.

A better solution is to switch to something not chromium like Firefox or whatever alternative the next Linux person to read this comment recommends

This isn’t sufficient. I’ve been running DNS adblocking for a decade, advertisers have wised up to it and can easily sidestep it.

Yeah

Vivaldi is a chromium browser so yes

Just bite the bullet.

Just swap from Chrome, it’s not gonna change your life to use Firefox

We will now [Oct 9] begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable. This change will be slowly rolled out over the following weeks. Users will be directed to the Chrome Web Store, where they will be recommended Manifest V3 alternatives for their disabled extension. For a short time, users will still be able to turn their Manifest V2 extensions back on. Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will be exempt from any browser changes until June 2025.

developer.chrome.com/…/mv2-deprecation-timeline#o…

So there is no single date for normal users, but June 2025 is fixed for enterprise (and expected date for Brave, Vivaldi)

We all do.

That’s not as effective, since it can’t block anything that’s hosted from a hostname that also serves regular content without also blocking the regular content. It also can’t trick websites into thinking that nothing is blocked and it can’t apply cosmetic rules. I use it for my devices, but in browsers I supplement it with uBlock Origin (or whatever is available in that browser).

Firefox can't fix all the broken sites in the world, but they do investigate issues reported to https://webcompat.com

You can help by reporting sites that don't work for you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If your site doesn’t work on Firefox your site doesn’t work. As web developers your job is to develop applications for the web not for one specific browser. This goes double for essential services.

What to do when the site is not compatible with Firefox: Alt + ←

Okay that’s fine, but when websites are effectively writing

if user_agent_string != [chromium]
     break;

It doesn’t really matter how good compatibility is. I’ve had websites go from nothing but a “Firefox is not supported, please use Chrome” splash screen to working just fine with Firefox by simply spoofing the user agent to Chrome. Maybe some feature was broken, but I was able to do what I needed. More often than not they just aren’t testing it and don’t want to support other browsers.

The more insidious side of this is that websites will require and attempt to enforce Chrome as adblocking gets increasingly impossible on them, because it aligns with their interests. It’s so important for the future of the web that we resist this change, but I think it’s too late.

The world wide web is quickly turning into the dark alley of the internet that nobody is willing to walk down.

Can you send me an example? I don’t think I ever really encountered those sites and I use FF almost exclusively for ~20 years.

I encounter this very infrequently. I think I only have 1-2 examples at work. It’s not a huge deal for me to spin up a chrome for those one or two occasions.

const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')

function createWindow() {
  // Create the browser window
  const win = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      nodeIntegration: true
    }
  })

  // Load the third-party web app
  win.loadURL('https://www.thirdpartyapp.com')

  // Optionally remove the default menu
  win.setMenu(null)

  // Open DevTools (optional for debugging)
  // win.webContents.openDevTools()
}

// Run the createWindow function when Electron is ready
app.whenReady().then(createWindow)

// Quit when all windows are closed
app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
  if (process.platform !== 'darwin') {
    app.quit()
  }
})

app.on('activate', () => {
  if (BrowserWindow.getAllWindows().length === 0) {
    createWindow()
  }
})

Slack calls disabled for firefox users, but if you change the user agent to chrome it works…

I can’t think of a single example where a web page doesn’t work on FF.

if FF want wider scale take-up outside of geeky niche groups

Lol. I remember when FF was the most popular browser.

I just want my modern codecs to function. Why can’t I play .mov or h264??

What you’re talking about is webcompat and is a very complicated issue. Also I’ve talked to some Mozilla devs who gave me multiple examples of Chromium rendering something wrong, and they’d have to intentionally break Firefox to render it incorrectly too, just so the end user would get a more consistent experience. Of course these issues happen more and more when things are only tested for one browser.

Firefox needs to work on ensuring seamless compatibility with more websites, web apps and so on

Care to share some examples Firefox has trouble with? The only issues I have with websites is due to my aggressive use of Noscript.

It’s pretty trivial to just use an alternate browser for the garbage sites that don’t support FF.

Yeah, unfortunately the next step will be sites rejecting “unsecure” browsers because they want the ad money.

This is going to get worse, not better.

If I create a blank HTML file, every single web browser will open it perfectly fine. If I add browser-specific things that firefox doesn’t have, it is my responsibility to create an alternative that keeps the site working. A user shouldn’t have to switch browsers due to incompetence of webdevs.

Yes it was performance that first got me to switch too. But now I have plenty more reasons.

brave i think has that too which is a controversial browser as well waterfox is a great browser tho.
here are the reasons you shouldnt use opera or even operagx btw: rentry.co/operagx and brave

Doesn’t opera gx have horrible privacy issues?

Opera GX has promised to keep MV2 in their code. So I'll just keep using that until I see something different. The other thing is that Opera GX has built in ad-blocker which is pretty much on par with third parties.

I couldn't find a source for either of these claims. Can you help me out?

It’s addressed in the article. The brave CEO has stated they will continue to support manifest v2 as long as the needed code remains in Chromium. He made no promises what happens when it is removed, though (“I don’t write checks of unknown amount and sign them”)

Why would anyone use that browser though? Besides all the rounds of shit it went through, the CEO seems like a nutcase. First he does anti-lgbt political donations, not just once, and has to resign from Mozilla among outrage after only 21 days as the CEO. Then he tweets uninformed shit about covid and has his staff remove criticism on reddit. Sounds like a real champ.

for personal needs

This is definitely a selfish opinion but people who block adverts or torrent being a small percentage of users can be a good thing.

If they lose even 5% of their userbase to Firefox over this decision, they’ll find a way to make grand modifications to Google search and YouTube in a manner that stops you blocking ads from alternative browsers, and while I’m happy swapping to an alternative search engine, it’ll definitely becometedious to sidestep Google’s gaze.

But if it’s 0.1% of people who swap due to this, and Google already don’t care about the small percentage they lose to Firefox then I would rather sit under the radar and not be cracked down on.

Just use Firefox already

The mass of people don’t use any ad-blocking at all.

Unluckily, yes.

There are only 3 independent browser engines left: Firefox, Chromium and Safari. And Chromium derives from Safari, so the only true alternative is Firefox.

This argument is covered in the article.

Brave also has its own blockers built in. All of which, I’m told by this article, are still not as good as uBO.

Whatever. Just use Firefox for your daily driver and only use Chromium when absolutely necessary.

Or don’t. It will become obvious which browser has the better blocker.

Is there any organization out there that could actually promote an “Acceptable ad standard”? Like, maybe even something within web specs?

A long time ago, ads were slightly irritating, rarely useful, and considered a necessary evil for gently monetizing the web. We’ve had this slow evolution to draconian tracking nightmares that are genuinely dangerous and often written by malicious untraceable actors. I almost feel like we could pressure back towards decent ads if there was some standard by which they only received basic info about the user, showed basic info about a product, didn’t pollute the experience or ruin accessibility, and were registered to businesses by physical address with legal accountability for things like false advertising.

That is…perhaps a vain hope though. It’s just hard to picture futures where all websites run off of donations or subscriptions, because advertising is fucking hell now.

Buy a Raspberry PI, install PiHole or AdGuard, change router DNS, and you are good to go. Yes, not perfect, but doesn’t rely on a browser extension that can go extinct next time the browser decides it is time for a change.

You could leverage Kitbogas software in relation to scam/sketchy download protection.

www.seraphsecure.com

Nooooo, but MV3 is all about security!

This is how I know this is bullshit. I was reading the article and thinking "So, let me get this straight. The ads aren’t the security risk. It’s the ad blockers!"

Sure. Pull the other one.

so what you’re saying is; this will bring old-school computer repair shops back? i’m sort of in favor of that 😂

I think you mean cue, not queue.

Hate to break it to you, but you are not Google’s customer. Don’t believe me? How much did you pay for Chrome?

This move is in fact being made with their actual customers in mind.

Well said. Also maybe you forgot you wrote the comment by the afternoon, but it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to finally research more into adhd for better managing it, so thanks!

Seriously. We don’t need bot bullshit on Lemmy.

This is the start of the slide for Reddit is just going to be worse here because there are fewer controls to actually detect and do something about bots.

Who's a bot?

For people who want to keep using Chrome for whatever reason, remember to disable auto-update.

.

I use regular firefox with a hardened config, and for mobile I use the Mull browser(available on F-droid). It’s a privacy focused firefox port made by the DivestOS team, which is my mobile OS of choice.