Firefox says it will keep supporting uBlock Origin even as Microsoft Edge and other Chromium browsers phase it out under Manifest V3.
but brave still does…it has special support for manifest v2 extensions that are no longer supported in Chromium browsers.
settings -> extensions->Manifest V2 extensions
and just enable the extensions you want like ublock origin.
I can’t imagine using the web without firefox and ublock. Even the cookie consent popups are awful.
Seriously. I clear my cookies on Firefox exit because I don’t want their shit on my computer if it isn’t needed.
This would cause me to see them every single damn time.
I recommend using the extensions Containers and “temporary containers” instead. This way you can keep cookies for specific containers / websites but all the other cookies get deleted.
Yeah, the user experience of “just wipe cookies on browser exit” is a lot better than “have a million prompts all over zillions of sites”.
However, regarding “every single damn time”…some sites can have their “do you want cookies” popup just blocked by the Firefox I still don’t care about cookies addon. It’s not a solution for every site out there, but it’ll get a lot of them.
It’s also possible to use another extension, Behind the Overlay on some sites. This does require a click, so manual action, but it tries to identify “pop-over” content that covers up the browser window and remove it with that click. It’s really intended as a more-general solution to “pop-over” stuff, but cookie pop-ups often take this form and can be dismissed.
have a million prompts all over zillions of sites”.
I’m using Ghostery to automatically reject all of those. They pop-in and almost immediately disappear.
Ghostery blocks trackers then sells data about your tracking blocking habits. It was the first tracker blocker I heard of but Privacy Badger is the better one nowadays.
Not true since 2017 (and even before that it was kinda’ disputed). The adblock part of the business went to Cliqz, a German privacy-focused browser, backed by Mozilla.
I have downvoted your comment because it’s repeating a popular myth, nothing against you personally.
LibreWolf, WaterFox and Vivaldi
And Brave, don’t forget brave
No, you should forget brave it’s yet another piece of shit chrome knock off. Just like the rest. It ain’t immune. It can kick and scream but either the entire project dies or they bend the knee eventually.
Not to defend Brave (seriously, don’t use Brave), but it has built-in ad-blocking.
As long as chromium is open source I see no problem down the line… and if Google one day stops the funding of open source projects, well, the Firefox is also toast
Ublock Lite still works in Chrome (and it still blocks YouTube ads, not sure about cookie popups), but you get no control over the filters. Just a slider with some presets to choose from. So while better than nothing, just stick with Firefox.
The best extension :)
+ a mediocre browser
In unrelated news, Firefox is now the dominant browser and nobody knows why.
If it goes… I don’t know what I’ll do.
Go out and touch grass probably.
Get a hobby.
Perfect my molotov recipe.
Like a true google hate inspired hipster I have been using Firefox for at least the past 9 years. Don’t let one of the shittiest companies control even more of the world because you are too fucking lazy to switch to a different browser. If you have to deal with a few shitty websites made by morons that only work in chrome keep a secondary chromium install on standby when you have to hold your nose and use it.
Honestly I can only think of one. Weirdly a “developer platform”
Well I guess a couple more because keyboard firmware sites do that usb browser thing that terrifies me is a thing and only chrome supports.
I have been a web dev for over 25… oh god… approaching 30 years, and most web dev teams with an ounce of self respect will spend the honestly trivial time to test against different browsers. I consider it a basic part of the god damn job. Even still banks and government sites seem to not give a fuck.
If they ever stop supporting it I will continue to use the last version to support it, any website that breaks compatibility with this Firefox version can get fucked.
That’s a significant security risk, unfortunately.
If that happens, I’d suggest a fork with a built in blocker, one that still gets security patches from upstream Firefox.
Exactly. Ublock origin is notable only for being part of 0 ad companies and 100% trustworthy. The blocking lists are universal. If it’s built into the browser, you’re golden
Well…
With a fork, one is very dependent on the browser dev. Not just on their benevolence, but on their security practices too. And on them pulling in upstream security patches, quickly.
TBH, this is why I do finance stuff on vanilla Firefox. I love browser forks, I really do, but I’m a bit more cautious with them, too.
as a websev, you’re gonna have a bad time
So, I can finally point and laugh at the people who were saying that the manifest V3 thing was a non issue because their ad blocker was still working ?
no, because their ad blocker is still working
At a lower efficiency than before, and a lot of stuff now won’t get blocked because of the limit in definitions.
Define “lower efficiency”, please.
only ads on big sites or ads by big providers are blocked. cookie prompts and other annoyances much less, because there is a great variety of them. data mining and hardware fingerprinting cannot even be thwarted anymore.
sure, if you only care about ads, but not at all about your privacy, it does not mean much to you. personally I would rather see ads (topic based) than give up my privacy, and the complete uBlock Origin is very useful for privacy too.
only ads on big sites or ads by big providers are blocked
This is false.
cookie prompts
Not part of any adblocker. Some, like Ghostery, have a separate mechanism to auto-reject these. I switched from uBO to Ghostery because uBO wasn’t doing anything against those.
data mining and hardware fingerprinting cannot even be thwarted anymore.
That’s not an adblock feature and there are hundreds of other extensions that handle that, like PrivacyBadger. Ghostery says it also handles trackers, but I haven’t verified that.
I would rather see ads (topic based) than give up my privacy, and the complete uBlock Origin is very useful for privacy too.
Look up tools made specifically for it, then. Also: privacy related stuff is not affected by Manifest v3, no?
Not part of any adblocker. Some, like Ghostery, have a separate mechanism to auto-reject these. I switched from uBO to Ghostery because uBO wasn’t doing anything against those.
this is false. and instead of just claiming so, here is proof: there are built-in (but disabled by default) blocklists specialized for cookie prompts and such
That’s not an adblock feature
and as I said, uBO is not just an ad blocker, so saying xy ad blocker can replace it well is false.
and there are hundreds of other extensions that handle that, like PrivacyBadger
except that not really. Because again, the required browser APIs were removed, and even before that, privacy badger was not so effective
Also: privacy related stuff is not affected by Manifest v3, no?
everything is effected that:
- needs to block network requests, including loading of certain site scripts
- depends on an up to date list of things to block
this is false. and instead of just claiming so, here is proof: there are built-in (but disabled by default) blocklists specialized for cookie prompts and such
Let me rephrase then: cookie prompt blocking capabilities are not tied to the Manifest version (clearly, as exemplified by things like Ghostery). uBO could easily switch to Mv3 and still do those things.
and as I said, uBO is not just an ad blocker, so saying xy ad blocker can replace it well is false.
But we’re discussing the ad-blocking features, because these are the ones affected by Mv3, no?
All these other features exist and are perfectly fine in other extensions.
except that not really. Because again, the required browser APIs were removed, and even before that, privacy badger was not so effective
Define “not so effective”. What’s “effectiveness” in this case?
everything is effected that:
- needs to block network requests, including loading of certain site scripts
- depends on an up to date list of things to block
OK, but again: what’s the difference for the end-user? Does it impact resources utilisation? Website loading times? Reactivity? I don’t see a difference in how my uBO browser behaves vs how my Ghostery browser behaves, so what am I losing because of the Mv3 switch?
No, because ad blocks work perfectly fine.
I’m using Ghostery on Vivaldi (Chromium-based) and it works perfectly fine, including blocking ads during YouTube videos.
No idea why uBlock specifically is being blocked, but it’s not like you can’t have an ad-blocker anymore.
Out of curiosity, why do you use Ghostery rather than uBlock Origin? It was quite controversial back in the day, but seems to be open source and stuff now. I still don’t see any advantage over uBO, though, so I wonder what would move you to use it instead.
I started using Ghostery because it had a cookies auto-reject mechanism. The ad-blocking stuff came in later, which I didn’t even realise, but I installed it first on a new device, did some browsing, noticed there’s no ads, and thought “well, good enough”.
I do miss the custom HTML-element cutting, though.
Since there are only two major browsers… one of which admittedly wears many disguises.
Not entirely correct. When we look at engines there are Blink, gecko and webkit. Unless you also count Ladybird’s engine I guess.
Yes Blink is a webkit fork but it has been separate for a good while.
Isn’t it crazy that Safari and thereby also Chrome/Chromium are at the heart based on work by KDE for its Konqueror?
Can you call it a major browser though? Maybe.
Safari? Yes, it is most definitely a major browser, if anything Firefox isn’t one. So if we don’t count Firefox, then it would be only two indeed.
PS: Everything on an iPhone is forced to use webkit btw, so even Chrome is webkit on an iPhone. There are a lot of iOS users out there.
Why are people booing? They’re right.
The browser doesn’t really get heavy usage on a phone. If we’re just counting install base you have to add IE back on the list.
Sometimes I think it was a mistake to let the programs we primarily use to view text and images become bloated virtual machines that execute megabytes of arbitrary code with every page load.
Well, like many other things: it’s not so much a “we” as it is a “them”.
But maybe we should reboot the whole navigation thing?
Cool, but why did they have to name it that?
It came before bard was renamed to gemini. Kind of like people who were referred to as Isis before you know, Isis.
Oh. I don’t get your example, by the way (who those original “people” were).
That will totally lead to websites not supporting or even blocking Firefox. Together with uBlock capitulating against Facebook and all those age registration nonsense, I really am scared about the future of the web.
Other adblocks still work. I’m using Ghostery on Vivaldi (Chromium-based) and it works perfectly fine, including blocking ads during YouTube videos.
No idea why uBlock specifically is being blocked, but it’s not like you can’t have an ad-blocker anymore.
No idea why uBlock specifically is being blocked, but it’s not like you can’t have an ad-blocker anymore.
because google took away the API for network traffic filtering. all that current filtering addons can do is pass a very brief, rarely updated network filter list to the browser, and insert cosmetic tweaks to the pages you visit. they can’t look anymore at all details of any network request and decide what do to. except on Firefox, where it has not been taken away.
OK, sure, but what are the actual, real-life consequences of that?
I don’t see any ads online. So ad-blocking still works. What doesn’t work?
OK, sure, but what are the actual, real-life consequences of that?
uBlock Origin and any other effective content blocker had that as its most important weapon, without exaggeration. it has many other techniques for specific circumstances, but preventing to load the ad scripts, and preventing network requests that send back data to the advertising company, are universally a powerful tool.
I don’t see any ads online. So ad-blocking still works. What doesn’t work?
you don’t see them because addons can still insert unlimited cosmetic tweaks. CSS snippets that make specific elements hidden. but the ads are still loaded, consuming network and CPU resources, and the ad framework still collects usage, interaction and device data.
also, the addons now can’t regularly update the lists even for what cosmetic tweaks to apply. google has decided it does not allow addons in their addon store that fetch filterlists from the network. this means these addons need to embed the lists in themselves. list updates are released much less frequently, and can have several days delay while google decides whether the updated version contains something malicious or otherwise unacceptable to their policies. compared to that, uBlock Origin on Firefox updates the lists every day by default, with no delay, as it fetches the lists directly from their websites.
uBlock Origin and any other effective content blocker had that as its most important weapon, without exaggeration. it has many other techniques for specific circumstances, but preventing to load the ad scripts, and preventing network requests that send back data to the advertising company, are universally a powerful tool.
You’re just repeating what you already said.
My question is: since there are (and always have been) other privacy-oriented extensions (e.g. Privacy Badger, Ghostery) and they still work just as they always have, what is the advantage of specifically using uBO with Mv2?
you don’t see them because addons can still insert unlimited cosmetic tweaks. CSS snippets that make specific elements hidden. but the ads are still loaded, consuming network and CPU resources, and the ad framework still collects usage, interaction and device data.
I just loaded up YouTube and didn’t see a single call to a known ad server, so this seems to be false.
Also: the CPU usage of loading even a couple MB-worth of ads is negligible compared to the overall resource hungriness of Chromium.
(…) list updates are released much less frequently (…)
I did notice that every now and again YouTube would block me from using it due to detecting the adblocker, but is that an inherent disadvantage of Mv3? And why wouldn’t the extension developers then embed the updated filter lists and just release them as extension updates? Does Google limit the frequency of those?
I just loaded up YouTube and didn’t see a single call to a known ad server, so this seems to be false.
of course you didn’t. on youtube ads are not served from different domains. have you ever heard about pihole not being able to block youtube ads? that’s why. every ad is literally a video uploaded to youtube, it is even possible to watch them as videos, with their own video page.
Also: the CPU usage of loading even a couple MB-worth of ads is negligible compared to the overall resource hungriness of Chromium.
not always the case, differs by ad and ad framework, but the memory savings are still significant. and the difference matters more on weak computers, old computers, battery powered computers and when you are on a metered network.
I did notice that every now and again YouTube would block me from using it due to detecting the adblocker, but is that an inherent disadvantage of Mv3?
I don’t know if that’s what causes that. but not being able to update filterlists independently means that nobody can react quickly to when a website starts detecting a content blocker, or when ads start reappearing. the needs to wait for the next addon update, which may take multiple days.
And why wouldn’t the extension developers then embed the updated filter lists and just release them as extension updates? Does Google limit the frequency of those?
because all addon updates go through a review. the effectiveness of it is largely debatable, but it delays updates significantly.
of course you didn’t. on youtube ads are not served from different domains. have you ever heard about pihole not being able to block youtube ads? that’s why. every ad is literally a video uploaded to youtube, it is even possible to watch them as videos, with their own video page.
So it’s not a privacy issue, it’s an ad issue. Which doesn’t show, it’s blocked.
What does uBO do different here?
or when ads start reappearing. the needs to wait for the next addon update, which may take multiple days.
Just FYI - that only happens to me on YouTube every once in a while. Like, three times this year for a day or two.
We should introduce Manifest V4 that would undo all damage V3 did.
Or support the Ladybird browser engine.
ladybird is vibe-rust-slop now
This is why they create good tests. You can look at resources, speed etc. But anything is better than Google Chrome because that is how they got V3 to begin with.
I’ve been using Firefox for ages now so I don’t get it : what’s the point of using Chrome or Edge ?
JavaScript and rendering performance as well as USB hardware access if you’re doing something like playing a browser based emulator. Pretty niche, but it’s a usecase that is much more poorly served by Firefox.
Oh interesting, thanks
It’s funny, since posting that comment I’ve tested the game controller thing again and it now works just fine.
At least one security researcher says Edge is the most secure option for Windows users.
https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/security-privacy-advice.html#browser
Future is dark:
-
Android getting locked down
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They are asking your government ID to use OS, access internet etc.
There must be real protest, revolution, something otherwise it will just get worst
pssst: it’s gonna get worse
Download a shitload of epubs, roms, backup of wikipedia, and get ready for full-on, unmissable, 1984-style marketing and propaganda culture. You’ll see it, you’ll have to see it, and there will be no option B.
I am not sure what your comments mean. I am in tremendous back pain. And didn’t sleep For so long, and the fucking humidity.
I want to add more. And vent.
I am old enough and I saw similar actions, and the out come of it.
Slwoly we are forced to use ESIMS, where I live, I have to pay every time I switch phones.
And if I am outside of the country, I can’t even switch phones.
I love the idea of esims, but not how it is implemented.
Digiral data produced by me is so.expensive to keep.
It is the digital age, but not a digital .storage age, it is cheaper to print shit.
Optical storage can store terabytes of data, easy to maintain, you can design a device where the hdd store meta data and anyone from your family cam access the data stored on archival optical drives.
It is not built because they want us to use the cloud. Maybe it is greed, control, surveillance.
I just want a simple cartridge that can store my data for decads and technologically that is easily done. There are already archival optical storage sold to data centers, but why not to small businesses or consumers!?!?
It is basically several bluray discs in a cartridge.
The future is dark because of human nature.
And we will do nothing about because look at state of printers. The ink cost more than gold per gram
Look at air purifiers all proprietary filters that are over priced
And yes I know about CR boxes but those furnace filters are only sold in USA.
We are not good creatures
Sorry, I am coherent enough to know I am not coherent, I needed to vent.
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Alternate headline: Firefox is now the only browser worth using.
And in any case, lumping Firefox as one browser is disingenuous. There are numerous Firefox forks, just like every other major browser is in fact a Google Chromium fork.
it still boggles my mind that Microsoft developed Edge as a standalone browser as a replacement for IE then just said “nah, let’s just use Chromium.”
