Google is weakening ad blockers as part of their MV3 extension standard and this will trickle down into all Chromium browsers. Built in ad blockers lack features compared to uBlock Origin as well.

  • astanix@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Turning off auto updates on chrome was convoluted. I assume everything will break when they force this update even with auto updates off.

  • John Richard@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Or use UBO-Lite? MV3 has some limitations but I’m tired of people acting like it ruins ad blocking when it doesn’t.

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      Afaik, UBO lite only updates filter lists when the extension updates, has no element zapper/picker, no per site switches, and no dynamic filtering.

      If you can live without these features, then good for you. But there’s no need to get frustrated about our claims just because we need better ad-blocking and privacy functions than you.

      • John Richard@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Then build them. There is nothing about MV3 that stops you from improving things. I don’t blame you from wanting good ad blocking, as do I. But I also don’t want every MV2 extension being able to read my network traffic.

        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          There is nothing about MV3 that stops you from improving things.

          … Yes there is? That’s the point? MV3 doesn’t allow dynamic list filtering, that’s why those features don’t exist on UBO

          • John Richard@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Dynamic list filtering doesn’t mean what you think it means. You can add and update block lists without having to update the extension.

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      1 month ago

      For situations where you’re forced to use chromium browsers it’s better than nothing, but abandoning chromium browsers is the right thing to do. An example of a situation where you can’t is an IT policy preventing you from using Firefox.

      • John Richard@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Abandoning Chromium browsers does nothing to improve security or privacy. I certainly encourage people to try Firefox and other browsers as they become available, but it’s mostly just a matter of preference in what features you want. If you want maximum privacy with Chromium or Firefox then you’re going to use policies, flags, etc. Otherwise both are prone to telemetry.

        • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          Why do you act as if telemetry is the worst thing that could possibly exist in a browser? You admit that it’s subjective about everything else but put telemetry on an objective pedestal. Chromium has an absolutely insane market share. Google controls Chromium. That means Google is controlling how a massive majority of people see and interact with the Internet. It allows them to unilaterally define de facto web standards. No amount of forking to disable telemetry is going to change that.

    • billbasher@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      What makes you say this? Brave is my primary and doesn’t need uBlock to effectively block ads

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        My comment is specifically around v2 Manifest support for addons. uBlock Origin requires v2 manifest. If you’re fine without it, you can’t ignore all of this discussion. However, uBlock Origin can block more than ads.

        • billbasher@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Yeah I will probably need to switch over to firefox if Brave is gonna break. Are the blockers in Brave V2 do you know?

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I don’t know. I’m not a Brave user. I saw the v2 Manifest comments elsewhere when looking at Vivaldi info, and it was also mentioned Brave was following the same July 2025 as Vivaldi for v2 manifest (old school addon format) support.

    • warm@kbin.earth
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      1 month ago

      Any chromium browser is with a flag enabled.

      Just switch to Firefox or a derivative already guys.

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      29 days ago

      Honest question: why is it not safe after then? They developed their own adblocker if I’m not mistaken? What am I missing?

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        I’m using the word “safe” here to mean “dependable”. As in, you can depend on Vivaldi to support v2 manifest addons (of which uBlock is one). If you use any addons you like that require v2 manifest in a Chromium based browser, you can Vivaldi (or Brave, I believe) to continue to support your desired addons until July 2025. After July 2025, the code in the browser that allows v2 manifest addons will be removed from all supported Chromium browsers (that I’m aware of).

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          29 days ago

          Ok, thanks for clarifying. FWIW, I find the built-in adblocker in Vivaldi extremely dependable, without the performance cost of loading an add-on (especially on top of a base browser that is significantly slower to begin with).

  • echo@lemmings.world
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    1 month ago

    I switched to Firefox about a month ago for personal use. It’s nearly impossible for me to quit using Chrome, though, due to work.

    I don’t hate Firefox, but it does absolutely do some stupid shit that I don’t like.

    • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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      I’m in almost exactly the same boat, I also switched to FF a month ago but need Chrome for some things. It’s a nice irony that your name is echo :-)

      Agree completely with what you’re saying.

      • echo@lemmings.world
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        1 month ago
        • It’s not super simple to setup multiple, completely separate profiles like it is in Chrome
        • I never, ever visit google.com while I do visit gmail.com at least daily. Yet, when I type ‘g’ the suggestion is always google.com
        • I visit m.fark.com on my phone quite frequently. Firefox on my phone randomly decides I want to do a google search for ‘m.fark.com’ instead of visit the site
        • I don’t want the recently closed tabs to be tracked and listed, yet there is no way to turn that off
        • If the menu bar is displayed the the first browser tab is left aligned. If the menu bar is turned off then the first browser tab is indented for no obvious reason.
        • I don’t think I can clear my history without it closing all of my Firefox instances and making me reopen everything.

        There’s no one thing that is a show-stopper… just little annoyances.

        It’s not firefox’s fault, but I still use music.youtube.com and google hangouts and there’s no option to treat them like standalone apps like there is with chrome.

        • yoasif@fedia.ioOP
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          1 month ago

          I don’t think I can clear my history without it closing all of my Firefox instances and making me reopen everything.

          That’s not true - are you using always private mode?

          • echo@lemmings.world
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            1 month ago

            No, I’m using the ‘Forget about some browsing history’ button. You can selectively remove some entries just from history, but that still leaves them in your recent tabs list. If you just want the last 5 minutes of browsing gone then you have to do the rewind and that closes all tabs/instances.

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              1 month ago

              Why not just open private browsing windows if you don’t want your browser remembering those pages? Are you deciding afterwards that you want to forget those pages?

              • echo@lemmings.world
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                1 month ago

                Are you deciding afterwards that you want to forget those pages?

                Frequently, yes… There’s also some pages/content on sites where you have to be logged in. Yeah, you could go private and login, but that’s just more steps. I just want to hit a button and have it nuke the last 5 minutes of my browsing without closing my current tabs/browsers.

                • yoasif@fedia.ioOP
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                  1 month ago

                  Not trying to be obtuse here, but why are you pruning your history in the first place? Is someone auditing your browsing history? I’m personally not interested in removing my browser history for the most part - and certainly not frequently enough to notice this limitation.

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        1 month ago

        For me, it’s mostly that the Android app doesn’t have a tab bar, even on tablet (just a stretched out phone ui), and i want a browser i can sync across all my devices, so that issue with the tablet ui is enough for me to use a different browser (the amazing Vivaldi) everywhere.

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        1 month ago

        MS Teams does not work properly on Firefox for example (I’m forced to use it once in a while for work). Same with other web-apps that often don’t function correctly.

        On Android Chrome manages to stay open while multitasking while Firefox will close the tab 90% of the time requiring reloading the page. That’s especially annoying during check-out or logins when I need to switch to a 2FA app.

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        As someone who uses Vivaldi, which has a significant number of power user and customization features, the fact this is no longer a thing is fucking bonkers to me

        https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compact-mode-workaround-firefox#:~:text=Firefox Last updated: 6/6,https://mzl.la/3JM0ViX

        I can turn on an unsupported flag to make the UI a little cleaner for me

        To me, it’s wild that the browser for the user decided to deprecate an option like that. Since they dropped XUL support I have very few options on customizing my browser outside of a theme or just writing my own CSS

        From there, I’d just point to:

        https://vivaldi.com/features/

        Firefox pulls in like 500 million dollars a year from Google. Barely any of those features exist in Firefox

        I started with Firefox. I used it from day one, when it was an experiment coming out of the Mozilla suite.

        I want to use it day to day so bad

        But it’s become “how do we chase chrome”

        And occasionally they get wins like this. And it no longer feels like

        “How can we be best?”

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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          You can customize the Firefox UI with CSS, if you’re looking for really advanced customization capabilities.
          I’ve made a one-line theme as my ‘compact’ mode of choice, where URL bar and tabs are all on one row, but you can find lots of pre-made themes out there.
          See [email protected] for more info and help.

          And well, you shouldn’t compare Firefox and Vivaldi from a monetary side.
          Mozilla develops their own browser engine, which is really important for the web, whereas Vivaldi only really develops that customizable UI. If Google stops publishing the source code of Chromium, Vivaldi is dead in a few months.

          • CALIGVLA@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            28 days ago

            It looks really good, not quite as good as Vivaldi but hopefully it gets there. One thing that bothers me is the CPU requirement, that is bonkers, you can’t run a browser if you don’t have a decently modern CPU?

  • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    I’m laughing at myself right now. I keep wishing people would switch to more progressive politics when people cannot even switch to a free piece of software with zero drawbacks even when their software starts blocking other software they use.

    • thevoidzero@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      I’m no longer surprised by people who “doesn’t like change” when they have to change things, but will just accept (even if they complain internally) when someone above them changes things that impact their quality of life.

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      1 month ago

      Oh I should market this idea, maybe polish up the slogan. I will pay all users half of the ad revenue, which they can see tick up on their browser…

      Then it will be super invasive and vacuum up as much user data as possible, but not mention it to the users, so they don’t think to quantify it.

      • muculent@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        The first thing I thought of for user assessment testing was the enhanced reality helmet from Space Cop where it’s just pop ups and malware until you get ran over by one of those digital mobile billboard platform trucks you see in Vegas.

        • Nikls94@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Interesting. I only got my Mac about a year ago and since then I’ve used AdGuard mainly because it’s the only good thing on iOS and I assumed uBlock Origin never was a thing for Safari.

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            1 month ago

            It basically wasn’t. The original developer allowed a fork on platforms they weren’t interested in, drama ensued and eventually, the Apple thing happened anyway.

            uBlock became uBlock Origin once the "origin"al developer took over the project again.

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    1 month ago

    I know that ploum blog post gets cited way too often on Lemmy, but this is a situation where I think Google has either intentionally or inadvertently executed a variation of the “embrace, extend, extinguish” playbook that Microsoft created.

    They embraced open source, extended it until they’ve practically cornered the market on browser engine, and now they are using that position to extinguish our ability to control our browsing experience.

    I know they are facing a possibly “break up” with the latest ruling against them.

    It would be interesting to see if they force divestiture of chrome from the ad business. The incentives are perverse when you do both with such dominance and its a massive conflict of interest.

  • JTskulk@lemmy.world
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    Google is not killing uBlock Origin. It’s changing how Chrome works. uBlock Origin will continue to work in my Firefox and other browsers.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This is a shit take. Manifest v3 is like activex. As of right now, it shuts down extensions they don’t want. Going forward, it sets up a system for extensions that are publisher-approved. When internet explorer took over the market I could still use Netscape until I couldn’t. I’m hoping Firefox doesn’t reach the same end

      • dan@upvote.au
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        30 days ago

        Manifest v3 is like activex. As of right now, it shuts down extensions they don’t want.

        ActiveX was the opposite of this… It gave third party code way too much access. It was essentially unsandboxed native code running directly in the browser, like if you were to write a Windows app and let a site automatically download and run it.

    • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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      They’re changing how chrome works… …in a way that just coincidentally makes ad blockers a lot less functional.

      They’re an advertising company, no conflict of interest there at all

  • BonerMan@ani.social
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    1 month ago

    LMAO welcome to Firefox, the objectively better Browser. Might also use a custom search engine or DDG while at it.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Why the LMAO?

      Firefox was and still is recently vulnerable to a massive zero day:

      https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/critical-mozilla-firefox-zero-day-code-execution

      Mozilla is now using users for their new AI focus.

      We need to support continuous competition in the browser market through enhanced support and integration of W3C standards. And at the most important, decoupling corporations from the browsers. At the moment, it seems Google is being actively defensive (see manifest v3) against that while Firefox (Mozilla corporate) is just sort of moot on the issue, more concerned with AI.

      As soon as you think it’s “us vs them” and your browser is also owned by a for profit company, we’ve lost

      • BonerMan@ani.social
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        1 month ago

        There are Firefox forks like LibreWolf if you need to be a crybaby about Mozilla being a company that needs to pay their developers with the most user friendly way possible…

        Also their AI is more of a play thing for some of their developers, they need to go with the flow at least a bit. Its also opt in where i am, idk if thats the case everywhere, but if not its opt out.

        Furthermore, from your own article:

        Mozilla has patched a critical security vulnerability in its Firefox Web browser that’s being actively exploited in the wild

        Oh noooo they patched it.

        Keep being a crybaby and use Opera, for all i care you can even install yourself red star OS.

      • muelltonne@feddit.org
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        1 month ago

        Still better than Chrome. Mozilla is not perfect, but in comparison to Google and its behavior they are saints.

      • Vanon@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Unfortunately, your statement probably only deserves bothsides.jxl. Please attempt to honestly and objectively compare things, despite the personal inconvenience.

        They make mistakes, but Firefox and Mozilla are obviously nowhere near as fucked up as Chrome and Google by any measure. And Firefox would only improve if people stopped running back to Chrome when something was not perfect.

        • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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          29 days ago

          As for that context you’re missing, I’m counting them as equally bad because they run the same privacy violating approach to tracking user data and putting it where it shouldn’t go

        • asudox@programming.dev
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          29 days ago

          Pretend privacy or anti privacy

          I’d say they both are bad except pretend privacy is much worse.

        • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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          29 days ago

          Maybe actually read or ask for context. I didn’t include it in the comment because I figured that people who care enough to ask would ask

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          Mozilla is mostly funded by google. With the current cookie laws from the eu to try and stop user tracking, they developed a new solution together.

          Both chrome and firefox analyze your behaviour on your pc/phone/device. Then instead of giving websites the right ads, your browser tells every website you visit (with such ads) about you. You can google “privacy sandbox” if you’d like to know more.

          So you better not be gay in a place like iraq, and be in need of using your school’s website on a personal computer.

        • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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          1 month ago

          Not just that, not everyone who was listed in their open letters apparently agreed to or knew they were in them

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          It’s not like we have great options here. Safari isn’t supported on Windows or Linux. Opera has its own issues (like predatory loan apps) even if you’re willing to pay for it. Crossing my fingers that Ladybird will work out, but it has a long way to go (though it did better than I thought it would when I tried it a few months back). Everything else is some variant of Chrome.

          If you need to be on the web at all, Firefox still seems like the best of the shit pile.

          • dan@upvote.au
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            1 month ago

            There’s also the Firefox forks like Zen and Floorp. It’s still early days for Zen, but it’s looking promising.

  • pat277@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Anyone know how/if this affects Opera GX? I’ve been curious about it for a while but with MV3 it makes me curious if they will do anything at all. Or honestly if Opera GX even could block ad’s and such, I never checked