From the author of uBlock on this:<p>What we see are the public statements, for public consumption, they are designed to "sell" the changes to the wider public. What we do not see is what is being said in private meetings by officers who get to decide how to optimize the business. So we have to judge not by what is said for public consumption purpose, but by what in effect is being done, or what they plan to do.<p>This is how personally I see the deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API in manifest v3:<p>In order for Google Chrome to reach its current user base, it had to support content blockers -- these are the top most popular extensions for any browser. Google strategy has been to find the optimal point between the two goals of growing the user base of Google Chrome and preventing content blockers from harming its business.<p>The blocking ability of the webRequest API caused Google to yield control of content blocking to content blockers. Now that Google Chrome is the dominant browser, it is in a better position to shift the optimal point between the two goals which benefits Google's primary business.<p>The deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API is to gain back this control, and to further now instrument and report how web pages are filtered since now the exact filters which are applied to web page is information which will be collectable by Google Chrome.<p><a href="https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-496009417" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss...</a>
I say this all the time when this kind of thing comes up.<p>Please use Firefox!<p>Even if it's worse. Even if its slower[1]. Even if it doesn't have that one feature or bug fix that you personally consider really important. Just use Firefox anyway. Find a workaround. Suffer whatever it is you dislike about Firefox because in the end if we don't act as individuals against the chrome monopoly then google are going to own the web and we'll suffer a far worse period of monoculture than the IE6 ever was.<p>If you can't go all the way, going part of the way is still valuable. I personally have chrome installed still because there are a couple if internal sites at my work that have problems on Firefox, so I use Chrome for those but Firefox for everything else.<p>Firefox for Android is also solid browser, and as a bonus you don't see any AMP stuff.<p>If you're a website/app maintainer, check for compatibility in Firefox.<p>It's worth supporting Firefox to keep the web the way it should be. I know they make mistakes sometimes, but we need a viable alternative or it will be too late.<p>([1] I don't think it is, it's made soild improvements in recent years, but lots of people seem to have their own specific issue they hold dear against it)
<p><pre><code> Google is essentially saying that Chrome will still have the
capability to block unwanted content, but this will be
restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome.
</code></pre>
Never heard of a paid version of Chrome before! Can anyone elaborate on this?<p>I gotta say I'm kind of glad Google is doing this. It will force me to finally abandon Chrome, something I should have done awhile ago.
This kind of crap is why we need to be cautious in allowing Google too much control over web standards, including AMP and their not-iframe element (portals [1]). Whilst the engineers mean well when creating them, Google's main objective is to make money, not to make a better web.<p>At the moment you have awesome projects like Project Zero [2], but how long till they start strategically handling exploits for monetary gain? Contrast Project Zero to Project Dragonfly [3]. Nobody should be relying on them being good actors.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a-new-web-page-navigation-system-for-chrome/" rel="nofollow">https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a-new-...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/26/technology/google-dragonfly-senate-hearing/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/26/technology/google-dragonfly...</a>
Not only is this enough to get me switching back to firefox, it's enough that my next laptop purchase won't be another chromebook<p>the internet without an adblocker is simply not usable for me.
I'm glad I already made the switch to FireFox. I only use Chrome to access Google apps, because for some strange reason they work a lot better in Chrome...<p>The only thing I miss is a Session Buddy equivalent. When my computer crashes, it's nice to be able to restore all my tabs and windows, and also it's nice to be able to close a bunch of windows when I travel and then go back to my tab state from three weeks ago.
This is malice. Plain and simple. I will remove the last remaining installation of Chrome from my workstation.<p>It's still good that I can run Firefox on Android but we have to make Chrome the new IE fast.
I don't get it. I've used Firefox and Chrome for years. Firefox is easily as good and capable as Chrome. The barrier to switch from Chrome to Firefox is almost non-existent. Is Google counting on the majority of people not being knowledgeable enough or motivated enough to switch browsers?
I am not surprised. If you look at the direction in which browsers have been "evolving" (or perhaps <i>devolving</i>...) especially over the last decade, especially after Google first introduced Chrome, the message has been pretty clear: gradually hide and remove functionality that helps users take control of how they consume content, and silence opposition by explaining that it's "for your security".<p>Chrome isn't the only guilty one here; it just happens to be the most user-hostile, maybe because it started the trend (good example being <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7329855" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7329855</a>), but all the other ones have made similar decisions. Firefox made extension signing mandatory (many people think Mozilla is benevolent, but that doesn't mean their views will continue to align with yours), and more recently IE, which could be said to have been the last reasonably popular browser with a per-zone configuration and site whitelisting/blacklisting feature by default, was deprecated for the far more dumbed-down (and now becoming even more Chrome-like) Edge.<p>But as long as you can still install a custom CA and set a proxy server, you're still in complete control over the content your machine receives; there have been many changes to frustrate that (first HTTPS, now DoH --- to protect, not just from attackers, but <i>you</i>), but it is still possible to MITM and control your experience. There's been a strong opposition to them ostensibly for "security" reasons, however, the way things are going, you will give up your freedom <i>and</i> security.<p>(I'm a long-time Proxomitron user. It's far more fine-grained than DNS-level blocking, although I also use a HOSTS file, and I can do more than just block. The best part is, it works for all browsers, even the ones embedded in other apps.)
Here are browsers that aren't just 'not Chrome,' they are better.<p>Brave: <a href="https://brave.com/" rel="nofollow">https://brave.com/</a><p>Firefox: <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/</a>
I see a lot of comments saying to switch to Firefox, or people saying they're
already using Firefox. This is fine, but I don't think people should be totally
comfortable with this. Switching to the one other choice still leaves us in
danger of the whole web being controlled by a few programs. We should encourage
other browser projects as well. I've seen some cool browser projects, but mostly
they use webkit still. I'm not sure what you call that part. The core maybe.
We need more browser cores. I think this[1] is one, I encourage people to share
more that they know of.<p>[1] <a href="https://robinwils.gitlab.io/articles/sbcl-browser-engine.html" rel="nofollow">https://robinwils.gitlab.io/articles/sbcl-browser-engine.htm...</a>
Another big issue is that if chrome makes it difficult to disable ads such that 99% of chrome users aren't able to do it, websites may simply choose to block Firefox as it would be easy to do so without losing a large part of user base while making sure no users are blocking ads. Right now there are far too many users using ad blockers.
This should be good news for Firefox and Safari. I'd be interested to hear from Gorhill on whether uBlock Origin works with the Content Blocker API for Safari and if not what needs to change to make it possible.
I just switched back to Firefox after using Chrome since pretty the day it came out. I switched after updating to 74 and noticing how many features I depended on were removed. I originally intended to just revert some of the changes (using Chromium on Linux) but I decided that amount of work was silly. Switched back to Firefox. After this news, glad I did.
Google never wanted to have these adblock extensions on their store in the first place, it just turns out that when chrome was released and had zero market share they had to make this huge compromise to gain territory in the browser arena and eventually overthrow Firefox and the competition. And when (not if, when – it will eventually happen) they do that I will jump off from the Chrome bandwagon.
For what it's worth, I've had a great experience with firefox for the past year (since quantum convinced me to give it another chance). All though, it recently basically factory-reset itself. Signed out of sync, extensions gone, custom settings gone. Any one else have this happen?<p>It's also got a weird memory leak, which I think is related to the pdf viewer. Never really checked in detail or tried to measure.
I've been a Firefox user throughout - never made the switch to Chrome.<p>But here's what worries me, what I'm wondering now: As far as I'm aware, Mozilla/Firefox tried to follow Google for extensions, deprecated their own API for Google's/Chrome's instead.<p>How likely is it that Mozilla will further "follow the spec" so to speak, doing a change like this for compatibility or whatever?
Chromium / Blink is open source, we should be doing everything we can to get as many users using non-Google Chromium browsers. We really shouldn't be having to worry so much about Google's conflicts of interests. Brave and Blink-based Edge are looking to be better and better options.<p>Another is UnGoogled-Chromium: <a href="https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium</a><p>Would love to see this latter option becoming something that appeals to a very large, mainstream market rather than just a few techies.
I’ve been hesitant to agree with calls in the past to break Google up, but now it’s time. This is Google choosing what’s best for their investors over what’s right for the community. This is Google doing evil.
> Firefox is available on all platforms (including Chrome OS via the Android or Linux app)<p>Maybe this is a viable solution on brand new chromebooks, but on my Acer R11 both Android apps and Linux containers run pretty poorly. I use an Android app as my password tool just fine, but trying Firefox was a rather poor experience. And the linux container just dogs trying to do anything.<p>I have Ubuntu loaded on via crouton (to use tools like GIMP or actual VLC), but if chrome gets rid of ad blocking that removes much of the point of ChromeOS for me entirely.
I'm starting to question whether it was such a good idea to make web browsers virtual machines (for Javascript or WebAssembly apps).<p>It makes web browsers big and complex. I know both Chrome and Firefox are open source, but does that really matter so much when the codebase is so big and complex that only large and well-funded organizations are able to develop it? I'm not sure if it's realistic anymore for a few guys to get together and create a web browser (including rendering engine) in their spare time.<p>This centralization can lead to censorship, as we're starting to see here.<p>We also end up with a mono-culture (well, not quite there yet, since there are still at least 2 web rendering engines), which is horrible for security. The Irish potato famine is good example of what can happen when you have a mono culture. These days, you often have to let strangers execute code on your computer, if you just want to read an article or look at some pictures.
And this pops up on the same evening that Google chooses to roll out unblockable advertising in Android System App "Duo" in the form of an unsolicited video message from Virat Kohli, apparently the lead player on an Indian cricket team?<p>Way to work that Lily Tomlin "Ernestine" vibe Google.<p>Edit: also, "Oh, we're so <i>sorry</i> that our 'security' update is going to gut something that users love but our accountants hate (for anyone else). This is completely an unintended consequence."
Definitely time to ditch Chrome, but also even more of a reason to set up a PiHole <a href="https://pi-hole.net/" rel="nofollow">https://pi-hole.net/</a>
I've been meaning to give Firefox another try; I haven't used it actively in years, and this is a good prompt.<p>And after a couple hours....<p>....Firefox is pretty impressive! I'm actually going to switch to using it as my "daily driver".
Now they are at the position where they can make the users dance to their tune. Im quite not sure if any decision makers at Google have a glance at HN on whats the reflection on their decisions. They just know that users are hooked to their platform all around (Search, Android, Chrome, Maps, GPay, GMail, etc.,) and they can decide where to be a dictator and where to be a humble servant. In the end, all they care is how much data can they harvest & how to use that data to be more relevant for their service offerings (advertisement). Monopoly at the best level! Also, when Google gives a statement/blog post on their decision, it becomes a news for media & HN. But, the reverse doesn't happen; whats the reaction across different blogs/media/HN doesn't get much visibility.
I think it's time for Microsoft to rethink their decision to base Edge on Chromium.<p>It's a painful decision, to be sure, but the Microsoft team has to make a decision here: fork or adhere. The immediate benefit of forking and not following Chromium on this change is obvious. However, the cost of the fork will grow over time and it will be in Google's interest to deprecate and replace all of the infrastructure that supports the webRequest API to make it maximally painful to maintain the functionality in a fork.<p>On the other hand, had Microsoft decided to base Edge on Gecko, they wouldn't be working off a forked codebase whose owner has a perverse incentive to make the fork as painful and expensive as possible.<p>How many engineer hours, months, years are going to be wasted just shoring up features like this?
Well, now is as good a time as any to switch back to Firefox. They've managed to come out of a long stretch of mismanagement, technical debt and security issues to a much better place.
Running Chrome without adblock is a security risk. Google has turned a blind eye to malicious ad behavior for their own profit, and this is going to lead to infected corporate networks.
Now that's an advantage my non-tech family and friends will appreciate if it gets implemented and ad blockers stop being efficient in Chrome.<p>I'll install Firefox, they will see things are better and the switch is done. No need to talk about Quantum, freedom, etc.<p>Mozilla should be sending one of those cakes to the Chrome team.
For those of you not familiar with what is being proposed ...<p>Chrome engineers want to replace the ability to block any request with a standardized ad-block functionality based on a list of provided rules and inspired by Safari. In other words the ad-blocking functionality becomes built-in.<p>However this facility excludes dynamic capabilities that plugins like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger need.<p>Also I’m speaking with first hand experience in this field: the ad-blocking functionality provided but Safari sucks and can be easily fooled. That there are publishers that don’t implement anti-ad-blocking measures, that’s only because they either don’t have the resources or because they don’t want to piss off users.<p>And at this point uBlock Origin is by far the most aggressive extension out of the popular ones and the nightmare of advertisers, not only because of its capabilities, but also because it doesn’t have a commercial entity behind it.<p>It is no accident that Google is hitting these extensions.<p>Switch to Firefox folks. The grass over here really is greener ;-)
One of those turning points when techies start recommending friends to use a different technology and in a few years that technology wins?<p>In this case, Firefox again.
I hope that this makes browsing with Chrome so bloated with ads and tracking that it is faster and efficient to browse with browsers that allow users to get rid of unwanted cruft. That may be the selling point to switch from Chrome in the future.
bait + switch.<p>I've been going back to Firefox for 6 month now, both on desktop and mobile. I'm a developer so I still need to use Chrome for testing, but I'm never going back to it as my main browser, for obvious reasons. There is an obvious conflict of interest going on here, and I'm not going to give Google any more money.<p>Firefox works fine now, didn't get any issue whatsoever. It used to be slower than Chrome, yes, but it's not true anymore and it uses way less memory than Google's browser.<p>That's why I don't trust Google with anything, Golang, Goggle PAAS, whatever, they'll go full Oracle in a few years, mark my words.
For work stuff I rely on multiple profiles for different client work (I use about ten of them...so far) and so I stick with Chrome.<p>If Mozilla didn't have such a demented mechanism to operate with multiple profiles then I'd happily switch from Chrome. This is a feature that should be upfront in the UI, not hidden behind about:profiles and it's generally janky UI and behaviour. This needs to be a first class citizen, not what feels like some half baked afterthought.
I switched to the Brave Browser a few months back (learned about it via Coinbase Earn). Its a great alternative to chrome with solid ad-blocking & I got $10 out of it.
This makes sense from the viewpoint that google is entirely beholden to their shareholders and has to maintain their insane growth. That doesn't make it ok.<p>It's a shame all these companies follow such a predictable pattern. Any resources to help actively ungoogle? I've switched search, email, and browser so far, and will be pushing everyone I know to avoid. Long time coming.
I propose we create a new browser fork due to this issue and back it by the main ad block developers.<p>The other issue is that Chrome on mobile doesn't support extensions.<p>They tried to away with not having ad-block on mobile this way. No extensions means no ad-block.<p>Let's just have a new browser based on Chrome that supports mobile + extensions and ad block and tell Google they can go pound sand.
Why exactly would anyone use the "enterprise" version of Chrome over the regular one, or vice versa?<p>As far as I can tell, it's the same browser...<p><a href="https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download/" rel="nofollow">https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download/</a>
I found this post highly editorialized. Here's the actual response if you want to understand the context, instead of simply seeing bits and pieces with a journalist's spin.<p><a href="https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chromium-extensions/veJy9uAwS00%5B1-25%5D" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chrom...</a><p>Also, the headline seems mostly incorrect. The gist of it, as I understand, is that Chrome is enforcing a migration from the webRequest API to a new declarativeNetRequest API. The latter API doesn't currently have all the capabilities of the former, which is important for context blocking extensions. However, features are still being added and the team states that they are interested in more feedback from extension developers.
This sounds like a wonderful gift from Google, to Mozilla.<p>As you're deciding what browser to move to, consider using two browsers: Firefox for any sites you need to log into or otherwise identify yourself, and Tor Browser for everything else. I've been trying this a while, and it works pretty well.
I'm not a fan of antitrust as a tool to punish tech companies, but I think there would be great benefit in cleaving Chrome off of Google. The tension between Google's business model and what is good for users is just too great.
I use Firefox with NoScript and found that leaving most domains disabled by default eliminates nearly all ads. I have to fiddle with enabling a few domains on a new site, but if the site is one of those where it uses a million 3rd-party "X as a service" domains, I just leave.<p>This is the reason I quit using DigitalOcean: every page on their web site required me to enable 5 new domains in NoScript. Other VPS providers just required 1 or 2 enabled.<p>Or, if the site is coded so that it only works after enabling ad-looking domains, I leave. Vote with your feet folks.
Clearly this is the line for me: let's sue them for abuse of their dominant position, and get them toward antitrust lawsuit/procedure.<p>It's maybe not gonna fly in the US but definitely workable in Europe.
>> Just remember to unblock sites you wish to support financially.<p>The way ad networks function, is unblocking a site you want to support any different at all from unblocking everything?
Between pihole, firefox and addons, I see no ads. The way the ad industry is going, they will at some point prevent people from blinking.<p>A big thank you to the developers at pihole, mozilla and the plugin devs.
I wonder what MS will do with Edge(Chromium)?<p>I've been using it for couple of weeks now as a secondary browser to Brave (separate sessions etc) and it is looks and behave like a normal Chrome.<p>Hope MS fight this.
You could always run pi-hole on your network, no extensions needed <a href="https://pi-hole.net/" rel="nofollow">https://pi-hole.net/</a>
Chrome is faster!
Yeah but FF blocks ads, trackers, analytics and social media buttons. Basically half of the shitty internet. That saves some time I would think.
Will these changes affect the pure Chromium? I really don't want to move to Firefox, all my settings, auto-fills and stuff is in Chrome, and Chromium seems like a better alternative if it still supports ad-blocking. I know that Firefox has improved a lot over the years, but I still have a few too many issues whenever I try using it, whereas Chrome and Chromium "just works".
Is this a chrome API or chromium API? For the later case we have Chromium Edge(<a href="https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com</a>), which is just as good!
If it's chromium API then Microsoft may actually end up taking a fork off chromium codebase right away and decide to keep that alive.
This is a good move by Google to promote Firefox. We should use this opportunity to inform laypersons about Firefox and the freedom it provides with ad blocking (which includes protecting oneself from malware too).<p>Mozilla should use this for a PR move (even though the bulk of its revenues come from having Google as the default search engine in many geographies).
DNS-based and hosts-based blocking should still work.<p><a href="https://pi-hole.net/" rel="nofollow">https://pi-hole.net/</a><p><a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts" rel="nofollow">https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...</a>
I've been a Firefox/Safari user for a long time now because of concerns about Google, but I don't really get what this outrage is all about. As I understand it, Chrome is moving to the Safari rules-based model? Can someone explain why this is such a bad thing? It's not like Chrome is stopping all ad blocking.
Hoping Microsoft keep the APIs enabled on the new Edge-ium. Solid browser. If they port it over to Linux (they're already doing OSX) and keep the APIS required for ad-blocking enabled I see it picking up speed very quickly.<p>Opera has it built-in to the browser so I think they'll be safe too.<p>Wonder if this will apply to Chromium or just Google Chrome?
Might be a silly question, but is the block list per extension or is it a global block list? Ie, if each extension can have 30k rules, and the current block list requires 70k rules, could there be 3 extensions, 2 with 30k rules and 1 with 10k rules? This would surely be an inconvenience, just wondering
This just means that ad blockers will need to work with a natively-installed proxy.<p>Remember, with https you can install a certificate and man-in-the-middle yourself. This is how tools like Fiddler and Charles allow inspecting and debugging HTTPS.<p>In this case, a natively-installed proxy can deny requests to blacklisted domains.
At the end of the day, it's their browser, their rules.<p>The only way this could be changed is through (EU?) law, but i'm not sure what would be the basis of such law. It would be like forcing every car manufacturers to implement free HEPA air filters in their cars.
This will probably get lost, but Raymond Hill confirmed that he will keep developing uBO and uMatrix for Brave (and any other Chromium-based browser that exposes access to webRequest) after Chrome deprecates webRequest for non-Enterprise users.
more reason to use the Brave browser instead of Chrome. Essentially the Chrome browser without the Google bindings. Use the crypto features or not, it has been working for me and my mac runs way more cooler when i had been using Chrome.
Well, I find this to be great news! Now I have a great way to convince my non tech friends to switch to Firefox. "It lets you install a thing so you don't see ads anymore, unlike Chrome where you have to pay for it"
Apparently, some misguided folks seem to think there is room for more than one browser in the world, and a non-Google one to boot. If you smell the scent of roasting flesh, those heretics are being burned at the stake.
Will this affect just Chrome or will browsers built on top of chromium also get manifest V3? If so, I assume they can implement the old web request API themselves to keep as blockers working?
I think this is a positive thing. Somebody has to accelerate FF popularity, and this is a start of a big push. Combination of this and FF efficiency equals more users on FF.<p>So, hey, thanks google :)
That's ok Google. You may not force me to look at your stupid advertising. Plenty of decent browsers out there that take my privacy seriously. You just shot your selves in foot
Google is in a position to disrupt ad-blocking in Chrome (via webRequest API) and on Android (via DNS over https).<p>This makes both mBlock Origin and PieHole obsolete. Where do we go from here?
Can't use ff on linux unfortunately. It has this weird bug where it clicks on the first item automatically if I right click on anything. It's a super annoying bug.
I just modify etc/hosts with this file:<p><a href="http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm" rel="nofollow">http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm</a>
The only place I use Chrome these days is <a href="http://localhost:x000" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:x000</a> for Chrome Dev Tools.
Going as planned I presume.<p>Step 1: Enable "Built-In Ad-Blocker"<p>Step 2: Disable all other ad-blocks from store for some reason<p>Step 3: Allow only ads from Google ad-network
google slowly showing it's grip with it's android 'open' model falling over and it's chrome now going corporate... :')... soon you will need to pay-per-search not to get only advertisements and nonsense results. enjoy your internet ppl..
Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have <i>actually</i> had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly.<p>I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problems playing video, streaming, or anything of the sort. I keep tons of tabs open. I just can't really say anything wrong about Firefox at this point.<p>It was once the case that Firefox had significant disadvantages in contrast to Chrome, but now the only reason I have to still keep Chrome installed is when work forces me to use some Google-proprietary page that doesn't work in other browsers.<p>If you had problems with Firefox 2 years ago, try it again before bringing up performance when people are considering it as an alternative to deleting Chrome. The more people who uninstall Chrome, the better.
There’s a lot of bias in this article title. I’m kind of disappointed in them for it. “Complex ad blockers” would have been just as informative but without the blocker-favoring tilt.<p>Bonus irony for realizing that a properly configured blocker as they’re favoring with this title would reduce their site’s revenue, being both JavaScript and ad-heavy.
How long until Google starts threatening to disable your account if you're detected using a 3rd party ad blocker?<p>Essentially building a paywall around their services, where receiving their ads is the subscription cost.<p>Is this a realistic extrapolation of the direction they're moving?
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extin...</a><p>If you are not using/contributing to firefox, you sold yourself short.
It's such a shame Microsoft thought it will benefit more from piggybacking on the Chromium monopoly over building its next browser on top of Firefox.<p>If Microsoft would have donated only 50% of the Edge browser development budget to Firefox, Firefox would be in a much better position in the future to compete against Chrome.<p>Now, I fully expect Google to end its search contract with Firefox, or pay them much less, too, since it won't feel like it needs to fund its competitor anymore.
Ugh. Now I'm going to have to switch my passel of family members, neighbors, and friends who rely on me for tech support over to Firefox.<p>Not that Firefox isn't going the same way eventually. Firefox crippled the ability for real customization with Firefox 57 and it's only gotten worse since then.
I'm confused about the difference between what people are saying here, and what chromium is working on. Referring to the email discussion of the feature:
<a href="https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-extensions/veJy9uAwS00/AppqR6u-GgAJ" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-exte...</a><p>"
It's really unfortunate how many people seem to be commenting here without understanding what the proposed changes even are.
To be clear:<p>1. This change _IS NOT INTENDED TO GIMP AD BLOCKERS_. Rather, it is designed to make them faster and more secure. (Yes, even despite the limitations that might impact uBlock.)<p>2. The new proposed content blocking API _is not final_ and can/will be changed.<p>3. Threatening to switching to Firefox is not helpful and _WILL NOT CHANGE GOOLE'S MIND ABOUT THIS_.<p>If you don't understand this, please refrain from commenting as you'll only be decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio in this thread and thus making it more likely that the entire thread (including those who are expressing actual legitimate concerns about the limitations of the new API) gets ignored.<p>If you want to help:<p>1. Explain a specific use case that the new API can't handle (including a technical explanation of _why_ it can't handle that use-case)<p>2. Suggest constructive changes to manifest V3's API that will improve its capabilities _while still adhering to the stated goals of manifest V3_<p>3. If you can't do any of the above, please refrain from commenting so you don't just make things worse<p>Sorry if I sound aggressive. It just really frustrates me when constructive technical discussions get hijacked by large volumes of unconstructive, uniformed comments. It makes it way harder to get real work done.
"<p>I know the anti-google bandwagonning is strong, but seriously, I doubt most people actually tried to understand what is being changed here, and it's sad.