- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Reminder to switch browsers if you haven’t already!
- Google Chrome is starting to phase out older, more capable ad blocking extensions in favor of the more limited Manifest V3 system.
- The Manifest V3 system has been criticized by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation for restricting the capabilities of web extensions.
- Google has made concessions to Manifest V3, but limitations on content filtering remain a source of skepticism and concern.
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They already don’t let you add ublock origin to chrome on mobile. I had to teach my elderly mother to use Waterfox with the extension, but as a plus side she can now turn on desktop-site and and turn the screen off without interrupting her hokey crystal meditation flute music [3 hours].
Firefox Forever!!
It’s weird that I’ve been on firefox for the vast majority of my life and I always had this perception that “everyone” was using it. Here in lemmy you hear about it all the time, my friends use it, I see it on my newsfeeds etc
But when you check the market share it around 2.8% while chrome is 65.1% https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
I remember a point around 2015ish where a lot of web apps went from recommending Firefox and Chrome for the best experience to just Chrome. Now I often see “don’t use Firefox” as a support tactic.
I guess average user cares mostly about how fast and smooth the browsing is. Chrome definitely has the edge on that over firefox.
I’m forced to use Chrome quite a bit (workplace silliness) and exclusively use Firefox at home. I seriously cannot see this edge that you claim Chrome has. Do you mean in loading speed? Scrolling speed?
I second you, I don’t see any advantage on using Chrome over Firefox.
same for me. no noticeable difference
I was at my parents house last week because i had to help them with their laptop. I told my mom about firefox and she was very confused because she doesn’t seem to understand that google chrome is a browser and that every browser can access google search or their banking site.
It took a bit of effort to explain that firefox works the exact same but is safer and faster.
She is now using firefox on her phone because i showed her ublock origin works with it to block ads.
A lot of people don’t seem to understand that google chrome isn’t the internet and what exactly a browser is.
I feel like “most people” only learn “one technology per category”. They know of, one operative system, one browser, one app to mindless scroll, one program to edit text. As a developer it shocks me a little because I’m always eager to try new programming languages, technologies and ways to interact with things. I guess most people only know about edge/safari because they come pre-installed
How is that shocking?
I use Linux, Firefox, Lemmy, nano. Why would I change?
A lot of people don’t seem to understand that google chrome isn’t the internet and what exactly a browser is.
It’s been that way for a lot longer than chrome has been the big one, it used to be the same with internet explorer…
won’t stop pihole
Man for real.
it’s all inevitable. client signatures, the end of privacy, jerking off on my way home from the office. there is no God
Are they going to do this on Edge? Please don’t judge me. I love the “Continue on Mobile” feature.
Long live Firefox.
hear ye
Pretty great outcome for firefox really.
I don’t think firefox numbers will get a huge & immediate bump, but I think that over time it will support a reputation for firefox as being cool different and just plain better.
I can’t imagine raw-dogging the internet without an ad blocker in 2024. I’m aware that most people aren’t bothered by ads, but surely… surely some people might be interested in blocking them if they become aware that it’s possible and easy.
I use Firefox everywhere which means I have ads blocking everywhere, including and especially on Android. All my tabs are synced and are easily transferred between devices.
If we want to be honest, Firefox on Android has way worse performance than Chrome.
(But I still use it instead of Chrome)
It depends I think. I found Chrome to be a tiny bit faster but then ads bogged the page down so most of the time, Firefox is faster for me.
In some very rare cases when I need to disable ads blocking, Chrome is indeed faster but I’d rather abandon websites rather than disable ads blocking.
So if you love ads, Chrome is better. If you hate ads like I do, Firefox is miles ahead.
There are other ways to block ads. Adguard does a great job on Android. It establishes a local VPN, so it can do HTTP[S] content filtering in addition to DNS blocking.
Can’t use my VPN and adguard at the same time iirc, unless android has two active VPN “slots” now. Can’t bring a pihole with me 24/7 either as much as I would like to.
There’s always nextdns.io that can be configured to use ad blocking filters on the dns level. You can set it up on your phone as well
Can I use it in conjunction with my normal VPN? AFAIK android has only one active VPN slot available at a time.
Yes because there is no need to setup another VPN. You only configure the DNS settings (Private DNS). I know that Mullvad on PC has an option to use custom DNS server
Is that only for Chrome or all Chromium-based browsers?
First one, then the others eventually.
Just use Firefox :)
It’s not that simple.
I need very niche Chromium-based extensions for my work. They don’t yet exist on Firefox. Nor any replacements to my knowledge.
They aren’t ad-related, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.
I, too, am forced to use Chrome for parts of my work.
I just run Chrome for that set of tasks. Then quit, or tab to Firefox for regular browsing.
This is SOP when dealing with uglies like google, microsoft, amazon, adobe, or meta: do the toxic thing or software they require, as sandboxed as reasonable, then get back to daily life and more knowable risks.
Currently, I use Brave. Not Chrome.
I have all the benefits of Chromium-based without the Google’s spyware.
I don’t see myself going back and forth between 2 web browsers. I prefer choosing one that fills everything that I need, sticking with it and moving on with my life.
But since Chromium is mostly backed by Google, I don’t know the long-term implications of using Chromium based.
Yeah, but that’s just it, there is no one thing that fulfils all your needs if you are forced to use a particular tool, but it lacks privacy or freedom or other features.
I use chrome because I have to and also am curious and I need to know about how Google runs its shit. I run Firefox because of various features it has that are good for web development. I run Safari because it is fast and relatively private outside of the Apple ecosystem And has some great developer tools.
The effort of one keyboard twitch to move from one browser to the other is not really any amount of friction for me. It’s easier than switching from one tab to another inside the same browser, so I don’t get your fixation on a single tool.
And as a PS, I won’t touch Brave with a 10 foot pole anymore because of their Fuckery with crypto.
I’ve used Firefox since before it was called Firefox, but just last week I hit two instances where stuff I required for work required Chrome :(
I’ve got an office that prioritizes Edge for internal apps. I’ve been watching the Clippy-esque intrusive Microsoft options filling up my screen space like a late-90s Yahoo toolbar.
I’ll stick with Safari thank you very much. I don’t trust Firefox any more than I do Chrome. They have too much of a history of shady stuff.
OK, they asked about Chromium, though.
Switching from Chrome to Firefox is like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
Not even remotely
Chrome is the new Internet Explorer.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
The silver lining here is that you’d hope that more people will simply adopt Firefox. It’s user share has been too low for too long given how great it is
Their user share was pretty okay for a while, but bombed when Chrome first released because it was much more performant. Unfortunately, that stigma never quite fell off and they lost a huge opportunity to overtake the market.
How was it more performant? As I remember it, Chrome was loading websites not noticeably faster than Firefox, as website loading speed depended and still depends mainly on your internet connection and hardware anyway.
As I remember it, Chrome exploded because it was pushed onto users at every possible opportunity while Firefox depended (and still depends) on users actively looking for it.
Used Google or Google products? Get ads for Chrome. Wanted to download Google Earth? You had to activly uncheck a box such that Chrome wasn’t going to be installed as well. Meanwhile no ads and not the same amount of exposure for Firefox.
That way they achieved a critical mass and snowballing did the rest. There were so many users using it that it was considered a good choice just because it was used by many people.
Regarding the performance aspect, if there even was a noticeable difference, it was worse than Firefox. Where else did the “Chrome eating RAM” memes come from?
I think you are misremembering. Chrome won at the start because it was fast as fuck and Firefox was not. Firefox caught back up in the 2016 time frame iirc and they’ve been back and forth ever since.
Ironically chrome was named so as a goal was to reduce the chrome of the UI and focus on the web content, something recent versions of chrome and Firefox have abandoned in favor of massive swaths of whitespace and giant chrome buttons (on Firefox you can enable “unsupported” compact mode to reclaim some of the space if you’re on a laptop)
They messed up 10 years ago when for some reason it took ages for Firefox to load compared to Chrome, and sadly it never really recovered the user base even though the performance is vastly improved.
To be fair, even in 2006 the Mozilla corporation was never going to outspend Firefox
Especially not given how much Mozilla wastes on executive compensation ;)
For work, I use Chrome, but only because Firefox’s profile management is (more or less) nonexistent. Once they have that, which I understand isn’t too far out, I’m ditching Chrome entirely.
Have you thought about installing a Firefox fork? On my Work PC I use Firefox for work and Floorp for personal browsing.
Firefox is a good option.
But I will raise people one more. Waterfox. Been using it for over a year now and enjoy it.
Firefox’s marketshare is small enough relative to Chrome’s that some websites might just block it at this point, if Chrome users mean ad revenue and Firefox users don’t.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Firefox has 2.88% marketshare.
Chrome has 65.34% marketshare.
It’s gonna be interesting to see what happens…
User agent switcher
Based and
incognitoprivate mode pilled
It doesn’t necessary cost a meaningful amount to a site to allow Firefox users to view it; it does however cost to make it compatible with non-chromium browsers. For most viewing that’s a non issue (I mean, most crms are going to work) but specific sites might stop working (YouTube already got caught throttling firefox, and tbf, streaming would cost more than reading an article or something).
Firefox blocks statcounter tracking by default. It’s an inherently flawed metric, though Firefox is definitely in the minority still vs Chrome
I’m sorry. I’ve seen this so many times today and I can’t stand it anymore.
I hate this article photo. What the fuck is that shit?? Gloveless fingers? Digit warmer? Turtlefinger sweater?
Agreed, but also
How can you not kinda love it
i’m with you it’s really camp
Finger sweatbands for epic googling activities
To my shame, I’m still deeply ingrained in the Google ecosystem. I settled on it like 8-10 years ago and I’m not sure how to dig myself out of this pit. More than Chrome, I heavily use Docs, Sheets, Drive, Wallet, YouTube, Gmail, I even have a Pixel (I hate how bloated Samsung is).
I’ve used Firefox a little for work because of the nice containers feature. Is Google Drive bad too? It’s so easy to share things, I torrent a lot of books and I’ve shared with a bunch of friends, idk if there’s an alternative that others could easily use.
Don’t fret, I think a lot of us are on a long-term journey to de-Google. I’ve actually found that changing browsers is one of the easiest things to do, especially with the ability to import your bookmarks and such. With Firefox Sync, you pretty much have the same functionality as you would with your Google account signed into Chrome.
Gmail is probably the hardest one to kick. I’m fine with paying for an email service if it’s functional and doesn’t siphon my personal data, but finding a quality trustworthy provider and then migrating 20 years of data to it seems so overwhelming.
As with others, I use Firefox for my main browser, and Brave when I need a Chromium-based browser for something. I don’t see many ads…
Consider ungoogled chromium instead. Brave is not great, it just has the advantage of being heavily promoted by the middle part of the (privacy nerds) and (want privacy because their beliefs are rejected by most of human society) venn diagram.
I use that on my personal computer, but at work I’ll occasionally hit sites other than what I’m debugging, and Chromium has ineffective ad-block, whereas Brave has reasonable ad-block. I can’t control the network at work like I can at home, so I can’t really rely on something like a pi-hole or whatever.
As a web browser with an embedded ad-blocker, it works fine. I’m not going to stop using something because someone distasteful is using it, I’ll stop using it if it no longer meets my needs. It blocks ads and renders as Chrome would, so it works well enough for me.
I disable the crypto nonsense and pretty much only use it for debugging work stuff. Sometimes that means I need a JSON formatter or something, and those sites are riddled with ads w/o an ad-blocker.
oh, hrm. Im not sure what specific build you’re using, but the one I’m using has mechanisms for installing normal adblockers like ublockorigin. note: afaik, this doesn’t solve the problem indicated in this thread – I’m operating on the basis that the blocking functionality will be nerfed. However for me, I use it purely for (stuff that doesnt work in firefox) and my jellyfin server (since firefox is kinda particular about hevc videos…you can kinda get them to work in windows, but in many cases I dont fully understand jellyfin still tries to transcode to 264).
worth stating that “because someone distasteful is using it” is a reasonable misunderstanding due to me assuming some knowledge. Brave was created because firefox kicked a homophobe out and he wanted to make a browser. Said person is also clearly a cryptonut, which makes him a yet more negative person in my book. Now, unrelated to that base, you have a lot of people out there who are promoting it by my personal experience in more privacy centric groups is that these promoters are often quite…unsavory. Is that enough to stop using software? not necessarily. Is it enough when there are far better options out there? to me, absolutely.
At home, it’s whatever ships with my Linux distribution. I use it mostly for web dev testing (I dev on Firefox, test on chromium) for personal projects, and for my kids to play certain games (Firefox works most of the time for that).
Brave was created because firefox kicked a homophobe out and he wanted to make a browser.
Sort of, but I don’t think that’s really telling the whole story.
Brendan Eich was the CEO of Mozilla for many years and was the initial creator of JavaScript. He was ousted because he made a private donation to block gay marriage legalization in California. There is no evidence that he was or is a homophobe, just that he didn’t believe that gay marriage was something that state should legally recognize. By all counts, he was pleasant to work with regardless of sexual orientation, the issue was that someone found out about his donation. He didn’t harm anyone and wasn’t unfair, he just made a private donation.
I think he was a great CEO, and Mozilla needs a technical CEO imo (in fact, everything started going downhill around when he left). I disagree with him politically, but if I avoided every product where I disagreed with the executive team politically, I’d have to avoid pretty much every product (and quit my job).
So I need a better reason to avoid Brave. I’m not sure what the plan is for their cryptocurrency, and I honestly see it as more of a gimmick than anything. It’s easy to disable, so whatever, it existing doesn’t impact me.
I also don’t actively recommend it to anyone, I always recommend Firefox or a Firefox derivative. The only time I recommend it is if someone needs a Chromium-based browser and wants ad-blocking, and Brave works well for that. If they just need Chromium and don’t need ad blocking, I recommend Chromium.
If you have a better alternative, I’m interested. I literally just need a Chromium-based browser that works on macOS (what I use for work) with proper ad blocking. I don’t need to sync anything, it’ll only ever exist on that one device. I also need something for Linux, and open source is more important than ad blocking there.
I’m also interested in Brave Search since it uses its own index. I currently use DDG, but search results are kinda crappy so I’m looking for alternatives.
