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So … can we like finally dismiss Google Chrome as the obviously awful idea it is and which should never have made it this far and remind all of the web devs married to it that they’re doing bad things and are the reason why we can’t have nice things?
Hmmm … a web browser owned by a monopolistic advertising company … how could that possibly go wrong!!!
Do you remember the Internet Explorer days? This, unfortunately, is still much better.
Pretty good reason to switch the Firefox, now. Nearly everything will work, unlike the Internet Explorer days.
- Firefox User
I think some people overestimate how many will migrate to Firefox in the near future over this.
- High switching cost compared to finding another extension (e.g. uBO Lite), even if the resulting experience is worse.
- Just as many Firefox users like Firefox, lots of Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don’t want to lose that.
- The kind of tech-aware person who’d switch over this is much more likely to have seen the news months ago and taken action already.
As fun as it is to imagine an Adpocalypse shocking the masses and pushing them to try out alternatives to big tech, it’s also way too optimistic, I feel.
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The uBlock Origin chrome extension
hashad 34 million users. Chrome has 3.45 billion users.Even if every uBlock user switched, it’s less than 1% of chrome users.
Yeah, I thought about mentioning that. But the comparison goes both ways. Less than 1% of Chrome users switching to Firefox could still mean an increase in Firefox users of over 10%, if I remember my numbers correctly. That’d be a sweet boost for most products.
Ya, it’d still be huge for Firefox, but what I’m really getting at is that even with this change, Chrome is going nowhere. They’re the big fish, they can afford to make these kinds of changes, because the people who care are a very small minority.
To be fair, nerds will tell their tech-illiterate friends about this change and probably influence them enough to consider it. Especially when it’s something as easy as downloading an application.
It’s much easier to switch a browser then it is to stop using Google, Facebook, etc.
Depends on their methodology. Sure, a huge proportion of those are users who haven’t heard of uBO, but we’re forgetting a lot of caveats:
- Electron exists and lots of apps are built on top of it and identify as “Chrome”. Judging by the numbers most have been weeded out, but some edge cases do visit more sites so they end up in the count.
- A lot of workplaces mandate the browser, which is often Chrome. This also gets counted.
- A not insignificant amount of Firefox users change their useragent to Chrome.
All of these skew the numbers towards Chrome. Some Chrome users use a different adblocker which lowers the uBO statistic.
I’ve been on Firefox since manifest v3 was announced. Firefox has its own shortcomings but no dealbreakers.
What are some shortcomings in your view?
Hopefully it will give Firefox a bit of a boost anyway. Firefox needs a boost.
Not to mention all the people who don’t even have an adblocker and for some reason don’t seem to care that their web browsing is infested with ads.
A lot of people don’t even know it’s an option, or have grown to believe that’s just how the web is. When was the last time you saw adblockers in mainstream media or news?
This is why I think it’s so important to keep raising awareness. If you have people in your life who you believe would be better off using uBlock, consider bringing it up when you have the opportunity.
High switching cost compared to finding another extension (e.g. uBO Lite), even if the resulting experience is worse.
You’re not wrong about the high switching cost.
Switching from Chrome to Vivaldi (because of Chrome’s whole FLoC thing) to Brave (because I didn’t like Vivaldi’s layout) to Firefox (because of Brave’s whole thing) was a pain.
And I don’t mean as a whole. Taking the time each time to change from one browser to another was always a pain. Transferring bookmarks and passwords was easy (Chrome and Firefox are at least compatible in that regard), but transferring extension settings was a whole different beast.
Some extensions had cloud sync support. Others had local export support. Some didn’t have either kind, and I’d have to manually copy the settings from one browser over to the other. And that’s not even getting into finding replacements for the Chrome-exclusive extensions (of which there were only a few, thankfully).
(because of Brave’s whole thing)
Ha.
I’m sorry to hear that, been there (Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Firefox in my case). Hopefully we can stick around for a while.
My friends will stick to chrome, I switched to Firefox months ago. You’re right
And then there are Safari users who are watching from the sidelines.
1 year ago I had basically free Spotify Premium because Safari was unable to play ads. That’s a kind of ad blocking.
And you ran zero ad blockers in Safari and on your network?
No ad blocker. This bug started to break song playback on Safari (according to Spotify’s forums, I faced no such problem) and then it was fixed so I got ads.
I think probably the single most important thing that nobody is saying is that Google have ALL the numbers on this decision and they are not stupid, so it would be silly to assume this will work against their interests. Not only do they know how many people use chrome, their ad network gives them insight into ALL browsers.
I agree folks are overestimating how many will switch. but also maybe you’re underestimating too - a lot of browser installations are managed by the “family tech guy”. the father, mother, brother, sister, aunt or uncle who sets up everyone’s new laptops on Christmas and has the suggestions when you look for a new phone. we all know the type. a lot of us are the type.
setting up granny’s laptop? I’ll install whatever browser lets me automatically block the most “1000th visitor!” banner ads and change the desktop icon to the old AOL icon because that’s all she knows the internet as. she doesn’t know of care about the browser options so it’s up to me. Chrome used to be fast and simple so it was the right choice. Firefox has caught up a fair bit on UX simplicity and speed and now offers better blocking and general security, so it just stole the crown for these installations imo. I trust it more to not let her mess the computer up, so even if I’m not using it as my main personal browser, it gets use here.
For what it’s worth, I hope you’re right.
- Just as some Firefox users like Firefox, many Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don’t want to lose that.
Do you have some source for that? IIUC, you mean that more Chrome users like Chrome than Firefox users like Firefox, right?
“Some people like things.”
SOURCE?!
“Some firefox users like firefox” vs “many chrome users enjoy what they have” sounds to me like something that could have a source. Many sound to me more than some, so this is a comparison, which can be given a better foundation by supplying some numbers.
I thought that might’ve been the source of your misunderstanding. Sorry, that’s just how I write sometimes, no deeper meaning intended. As far as I know there’s no public data on what percentage of Firefox and Chrome users like their browsers’ features.
No. I simply meant that there exist Chrome users who appreciate what it provides them (features, UI, etc), so for these users to leave they’d have to give up those things. That’s always a hard ask.
Meh. They had plenty of time to move to Firefox but they ignored all the warnings.
It’s not like they contracted some sort of terminal illness. Anyone can migrate whenever. It’s not hard.
My organization has blocked all browsers other than Edge and Chrome - and has also blocked all plugins except for UBlock. For security reasons, of course.
Everyone knows seeing a bunch of uncontrolled JavaScript-powered ads from who knows what server is good for security.
And I mean, there’s still time now. Switching browsers isn’t that bad. Export+import some bookmarks and adjust some settings, good to go.
I think FF has been a good option for a while. But the second best time is now. I can totally get it if people didn’t want to switch until they had more of a concrete problem.
For all the firefox fans out there it might be good to note there have consistently been more Safari users than Firefox users since 2014. Hell Safari has been the number two browser by market share since 2015.
Browsers have to get very SHITTY or a new browser has to have a killer app to unseat a dominate one.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-200901-202408
I don’t think safari is even remotely comparable given that it’s a default browser on macs.
Also, I’m pretty sure it’s not possible to install any other browser on iPhones unless you get root.
Edit: It looks like you can with iOS 15.0
Those are all just skins on safari. Until like 6 months ago you couldn’t install any web browser with a renderer other than safari. And that’s only in the EU.
As I understand it, any browser on iPhone has to be built on WebKit, so even if you install fire fox or chrome, it’s running on a totally different web engine than the desktop version. Making them more safari re-skins in the same way that stuff like brave or opera are just chrome reskins.
I’ve had iPhone for years and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t use chrome with it
Never rooted my phones either. It’s definitely not blocked
How so ? The default browser on Windows is Edge, people keep installing Chrome? Chrome is available on MacOS, yet people stick with Safari?
some people stick with safari, but no one is replacing chrome, fire fox, or edge with safari. People choose to replace edge because it is obtrusive and annoying to use, safari isn’t.
In that context, safari is not a competitor for Firefox in the same way chrome is. It’s comparing apples to oranges.
“The browser built to be yours”
Hahaha sure thing Google
“The browser built to be piping your data into our hands”
There, fixed.
In case anyone here needs this
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox
I’m in the process of switching to firefox on all my devices.
I’ve had enough of Google pushing features like this.
Having ublock on mobile is such a breath of fresh air. I wish I had made the transition sooner. I knew this was coming and completed my transition a few weeks back so I could abandon Chrome on my own time table and not on Google’s. Other than a little headache trying to find extension replacements for pc, I’m LOVING it.
I switched from Chrome to Firefox in 2019 because that’s when Google adopted Manifest V3 and I never looked back. There were already articles then describing how it’d break ad blockers, and Firefox had at the time just recently released their “Quantum” overhaul which drastically improved responsiveness.
I’m a bit surprised it took five years for Google to drop support for Manifest V2, but the threat has long been there.
I use Firefox as my main on my home pc. I keep running into things that don’t work on Firefox. Not by saying they don’t, just by throwing errors that make it sound like I put the wrong data in a field. Is there some magic extension to fix that?
I remember the Quantum release. They remade how the browser handled tabs, and with the new release you could handle (almost) unlimited number of tabs. I tried this buy opening as many tabs as I could, it worked flawlessly. I can’t even remember how it was before that, except that it was RAM intensive.
Firefox.
This is the way.
This is the way.
This is the way.
There’s only 34 million uBlock Origin users on Chrome? So, billions are using Chrome without any ad-blockers? That’s crazy and unsafe
Most users are fucking idiots and will continue to raw-dog the internet while visiting the most malicious sites possible.
I feel like you’ve worked helpdesk at some point.
Worked IT. Can confirm.
Yes. Unfortunately. “a virus? How did I get that? What’s an anti-virus? You must be wrong, I just do a little bit of web browsing and downloading music.” (this was in the windows xp days that I’m specifically flashing back to)
Lemmy has a really biased idea of what the average computer user can do. Imagine Janet in accounting, who calls help desk to reset her password every morning, and takes 30 minutes to remember how to check her email. Or the late GenZ just entering the workforce, who was surprised that their desktop wasn’t a touchscreen, and doesn’t know how a file structure works, because literally every device they’ve used growing up has been either a tablet or a Chromebook. That’s the average user.
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My boss once asked me to take a look at her computer that was super slow and barely functional, and the thing that surprised me the most was that she had been running Chrome without any adblock since ever, and when I asked her about adblock, she answered: “adwhat?”. Mind you that she’s still a millennial, and only a few years older than me.
I had to use my parents desktop a when I flew home for a bit.
Surfing the internet is fucking stressful if you don’t have adblocks. So overstimulating!!
I’m also on windows and for some reason I had to use Edge.
The Edge home screen is the VERY REASON google killed it back in the 90s. Clean clear search screen. Allows you to think what you are doing with out getting bombarded with ads and posts and ads and markets. Reminded me how terrible the search experience was back in Alta Vista and Yahoo days
There are also loads of people using Edge.
A lot of them don’t know the difference between ab, abp ublock and ublock origin
There are billions of people on earth who don’t have access to a computer.
I miss the “dont be evil” version of google. Its like, large amounts of money ruin everything
It’s not just large amounts of money. It’s chasing more and more money each quarter, and when it starts slowing down panic sets in and they start trying to find any and every possible avenue to keep profits up. It’s how we’ve ended up in subscription based hell and it’ll only get worse.
It deserves mentioning that Firefox on Android supports extensions, so if you uninstall/disable the official YouTube app then add uBlock Origin and Sponsorblock you get a more tolerable experience.
Or just use Revanced or Grayjay, both of which are ad free and support sponsor block. Revanced is still a bit more feature complete imo, but also more buggy on my device, and more of a hassle to update. The browser YouTube experience is so bad, ads or ad free.
Can also use Vinegar (for YouTube) and Baking Soda (for basically every other site with videos) with Safari on iOS. It’s not a perfect solution, but it at least revamps Safari’s built-in video player so watching in the browser is actually tolerable.
You can also patch YouTube in a similar way as revanced on iOS, I use YTLitePlus. And for Adblock I use the Wipr extension and hush for blocking and auto rejecting cookie popups. No jailbreak needed.
Advertising company makes it harder to block ads on their browser, news at 11.
Or did anyone forget that they made an explicit effort to block another ad blocking extension a while back, including blocking it from the Chrome store, blocking you from installing it manually and even blocking at least some versions of it from being manually installed in developer mode?
Ad nauseam, because it also simulated ad clicks and thus ruined their metrics.
EDIT: Fucking phone autocorrect. “as clocks” -> “ad clicks”.
Stallman was right.
It’s pronounced GNU Stallman.
I can’t listen or look at this man anymore after seeing him scrape shit off his feet and eat it in front of a bunch of people. 🤢
Too bad he spent all his energy getting Linux users to say GNU/Linux instead of talking about the real issues
Just because that’s all you ever listened to doesn’t mean that’s all he ever said.
who
It’s a very searchable name
At this point I am seriously wondering why people would like to use Chrome over Firefox for instance.
“What’s a browser?” —the general populace
I just install uBlock Origin on every device I come across. Graffiti software.
Because I use chrome for standard use and Firefox for sailing the high seas. And I much prefer just having 2 separate browsers for containerization. I’m just going to have to use librewolf or something when I do get the the mv3 update.
Why not just use something like Fences on Firefox? It allows you to containerize individual tabs. I use it all the time to separate work and personal accounts.
This is also how I have it set up, with “firefox multi-account containers” and “simple tab groups” working together, you can have multiple containerized accounts within one firefox instance. Works great!
Does this allow you enable/disable add-ons on a per container basis? What about bookmarks?
I am using Firefox as of last week I made the switch to the browser a different password manager and so far it is fine but there have been a couple of hiccups but it’s not necessarily a Firefox issue but an implementation with Android issue.
For example auto forwarding to an app from a webpage in Firefox has worked half the time for me and the other half not so much.
This is a small example, having Google Chrome and like wise the Google app be native to Android so they move back and forth between one another and are interchangeable while using my phone is much more smooth on my Android device.
Other than that, I am not positive as to why. On Desktop, zero issues. Works like a charm.
Its cool well just message the maintainers of Android to improve it, I’m sure it’s a mistake. Lemme go check who who’s behind it… /s
Being able to cast seamlessly from Chrome to Chromecast is the only major issue I’ve had since switching to Firefox. It’s possible with Firefox and it works 99% of the time but it feels a little clunky. Completely worth it though overall and not a dealbreaker
How do you cast from Firefox?
Search up the fx_cast extension
Personal preference I guess. I’ve tried Firefox many times over the years and always ended up going back to other browsers. I find Firefox doesn’t render some pages quite right, the user agent stylesheet is odd, and the UI is less streamlined. Performance also used to be a problem although I hear it’s caught up now.
I used to be a Chrome user but now I prefer chromium based alternatives like brave and edge (which incidentally, uBO will keep working on). Chrome is still required for work, but uBO change won’t be an issue I think, there are plenty of other ad blockers that will work with MV3
Use chrome to download Firefox.
Back in the day when I still used windows, I did not even use IE to download Firefox. I used the FTP functionality inside the explorer to download Firefox from the Mozilla FTP.
I didn’t even need a browser to download another browser, I just git clone it from the AUR :P
Just curl it from Mozilla, they provide an archive file that’s distro agnostic.
I use multiple profiles in chrome for my different logged in usages, for some reason Firefox makes it hard to switch profiles.
“Hard” is a strong word. It’s not built into the default interface, granted, but it’s not that hard to use FF’s command line:
firefox -PThey have said they’re thinking about rejigging the whole thing though.
Ok, telling people to open a command line and TYPE firefox -P is HARD. In chrome you just click the icon in the upper right and select whatever profile you want.
It makes no sense that you have to either open about:profiles then select “launch in new window” or open the command line to start a new profile, makes NO sense at all.
You can open a firefox private window with a keyboard shortcut, but if you want to be logged into two different accounts in two different profiles, you have to go through a minimum of three non-intuitive steps.
Even the extension that adds the profile switching doesn’t work anymore because it’s not maintained.
Dude, if that’s all-caps HARD, then I don’t know how you’d classify, say, compiling things from source and fixing any problems that might crop up along the way. Or fixing missing DLL / OCX hell when trying to get an old Windows game running under Linux, because let me tell you, I’ve done both of those and had to give up.
firefox -Pis heaven by comparison.You could even put it into a shortcut and you wouldn’t have to type it any more.
Yes the interface sucks, but HARD is not it.
Sure, but you know most people do not have to do what you just described.
Most people don’t need multiple profiles either.
Fair enough
Look up the Firefox Containers extension.
The profile manager is definitely annoying, but it shouldn’t be that hard to visit about:profiles to switch / open other profiles. Afaik they do work on a better one though.
it has something like ‘-no-remote -p name’ param on cmd that you can do it seamless like chromium, or u can use the fork of the drop official pwa firefox support, it could be better, i know n i get it, but if u just use chromium base for it, than i got u covered
Simple solution. Don’t use Chrome.
Ive been testing out ungoogled chrome with uBlock, and it still seems to be working. But I think I’m going to add Waterfox along side of my Firefox to look at that one also.
But I’m also not sure you can install uBlock anymore from the Chrome repository either.
Not sure about the repo route, never went that deep with Chrome. Firefox has always been my mainstay (and Netscape before it.)
Used Chrome forever, switched to Firefox back when this stuff first started going down. No ragerts.
No Rugrats!
