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.
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.
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.
What kind of stuff?
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.
- 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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
You have way more requirements than me!
For profiles, from memory it’s --profile-manager
about:profiles
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.
Ah teams. Yes, yuck.
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
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
From there, I’d just point to:
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?”
Have I got a pleasant surprise for you: Zen Browser is to Firefox what Vivaldi is to Chromium: a feature-rich powerhouse.
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 !firefoxcss@lemmy.world 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.
Is safari work ?
Fuck Safari
Yes, safari is WebKit and not chromium. AdGuard seems to be safe.
Untrue. Safari never had the real version of uBlock Origin (it was always a port) and it lost many features when Apple moved to a new extensions framework (much like Google). See more: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
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.
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.
Vivaldi (and Brave I think) are safe until July 2025.
Chromium
No
Honest question: why is it not safe after then? They developed their own adblocker if I’m not mistaken? What am I missing?
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).
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).
Gonna stick with Vivaldi until its last breath, love this browser
“Safe until” = not safe
No, it’s safe “for now” You have time to find a better solution
Yes
Any chromium browser is with a flag enabled.
Just switch to Firefox or a derivative already guys.
LibreWolf or mullvad browser both FF based.
What makes you say this? Brave is my primary and doesn’t need uBlock to effectively block ads
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.
Yeah I will probably need to switch over to firefox if Brave is gonna break. Are the blockers in Brave V2 do you know?
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.
Turning off auto updates on chrome was convoluted. I assume everything will break when they force this update even with auto updates off.
It’s probably going to prevent security updates too and that’s worse than ad tracking.
looking at the 4“ woman poledancing in the bottom right corner of my windows vista screen
Huh?
VirtuaGirls?
Who is the Lemmy user not aware of this? Show yourself!
Dammit, Sam. 🤦🏽♂️
Google is not killing uBlock Origin. It’s changing how Chrome works. uBlock Origin will continue to work in my Firefox and other browsers.
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
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.
Yes, awful title. I agree.
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
LMAO welcome to Firefox, the objectively better Browser. Might also use a custom search engine or DDG while at it.
Why the LMAO?
Firefox was and still is recently vulnerable to a massive zero day:
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
was and still is
Me when I lie.
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.
Still better than Chrome. Mozilla is not perfect, but in comparison to Google and its behavior they are saints.
Unfortunately, firefox is becoming just as bad as chrome.
What?
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) all about you.
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.
Hey, you dropped your nose.
🤡
Mozilla is now focusing on the advertising business.
To reduce reliance on Google… With the goal to change how advertising works, less annoying, less asshole ads would benefit everyone.
It’s not my browser’s job to report to advertisers, period.
Its not doing that, you can use a fork if you want, or, and that would be the important part, put a condom over your internet cable before it enters the router, safety first.
Why are you talking about things you don’t fully understand?
Its not doing that
It literally is, with an opt-out feature.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution?as=u&utm_source=inproduct
Your lack of concern is not relevant to the desires of other users.
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.
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
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
Pretend privacy or anti privacy
I’d say they both are bad except pretend privacy is much worse.
Unfortunate that people are fooled by Mozilla’s pretend privacy promises.
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.
There’s also the Firefox forks like Zen and Floorp. It’s still early days for Zen, but it’s looking promising.
Or use UBO-Lite? MV3 has some limitations but I’m tired of people acting like it ruins ad blocking when it doesn’t.
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 drawbacks, 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.
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.
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
Dynamic list filtering doesn’t mean what you think it means. You can add and update block lists without having to update the extension.
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.
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.
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.
Make no mistake, what Google is doing is absolutely dangerous. Malvertisements are definitely a thing. Back in 2010, I got a virus from an ad on a meme site that just went through and trashed my hard drive.
It’s unfortunate that there are use cases out there where Chrome is absolutely required. Firefox can’t display large directories, for instance. It’ll lock up while chromium browsers work fine.
Can you expand on what you mean by Firefox can’t display large directories? Curious to see this for myself with FF and a couple of forks I’m playing with.
If you have examples, maybe you can report it on their issue tracker? I wish the browser had built-in ways to report problems like how amd’s bug reporter works
Firefox and its other forks are the best option right now
Has been for as long as I can remember.
Fuck Google.
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.
Highly recommend setting up a PiHole. It may not be quite as comprehensive as uBlock, but it cuts the ads way down, and it’s not something that browsers can easily bypass. You do have to make sure to shut of DNS over HTTPS, or setup a separate solution for that to tunnel into PiHole.
aaaaaaand then there’s Android.
Android will not remove your default DNS, and will only use added DNS servers as additional rather-than instead of.
There are free apps that make localhost VPNs on your device to bypass this that force your network to use a chosen DNS server.
This is also a built-in function of Tailscale, setting Tailscale’s DNS to Pihole or Adguard, and were you running wireguard or openvpn already, you could use them as entrypoints as well.
Mullvad and other paid VPN services often also offer to use DNS servers that blocks ads, tracking and malware.
Not sure that’s right on all phones. Browsing on my Pixel 6 shows noticeably fewer ads when I’m at home compared to anywhere else.
Pihole has always worked as expected on my Pixel phones. To the point that I have to drop off of our wifi to visit some sites when they don’t load correctly. Pihole is happening at the router level though, not a setting on my phone. Unless Android starts tunneling around it (I wouldn’t put this past Google), then all traffic will continue to go through Pihole since it’s going through our router. Any device connected to our network has Pihole as its DNS.
Ah, I see. That’s my big difference. I’m penciling it into each device as the chosen DNS server per device, which Android doesn’t like.
I’ve never trusted that one raspberrypi enough to aim my whole router at it and hope my network stays up while I’m gone.
Happy pfSense + pfBlockerNG user here. It even blocks ads on some of my streaming services.
