I tried uBlock Origin Lite for a very short time. Then I realized that in Lite, the user can’t add custom rules[0]. That’s when I had enough. So now I’m using Firefox instead, where I can use uBlock Origin.
I simply cannot give up the option of zapping distractions off of my screen. I really cannot understand how people can use Youtube or even a Youtube embedded video without zapping away the distractions. There is no way I'm coming back to Chrome if they don't support manifest V2. It's Firefox for me.
I'm also using it to remove distractions from stack exchange sites like hot network questions. I can stay focused on solving my problem much better if my eyes can't wander to interesting unrelated stuff.
They mention "other browsers" in addition to Firefox that will continue to support Manifest v2, but I can't find a list. Does anyone know off-hand the additional browser options for Manifest V2 and multiple-OS support?
I think some Chromium-based browsers like Brave have pledged that they'll keep v2 around for as long as it's practical? Though IMO, people who depend on Manifest v2 with Chromium forks are running on borrowed time, Chromium moves fast and I can't imagine that keeping the Manifest v2 code working will be very easy. Especially if Google takes advantage of the limited access extensions now have to the HTTP request flow to do major refactors in that area.
Brave and Vivaldi will continue to support it for some time. Brave also does not really depend on MV2 as they have their own adblocker (which is about as effective as uBO, I believe).
> It’s only a matter of time before the modern Phoebus cartel starts blocking Firefox.
I feel like nobody will have to consciously do anything in particular, with the current way how things are going.
- Chromium is the modern IE and developers will primarily be on the hook for supporting it, Firefox support will be an afterthought so some sites will just be broken, moving more users over to Chromium.
- The Firefox marketshare is dwindling, it's likely that the users with proper ad blocking will eventually be a rounding error and therefore quite inconsequential. Especially if there are any more ad-related APIs pushed by Chrome that make users more profitable (e.g. Topics API).
- Even among tech enthusiasts, Mozilla in particular doesn't have very good reputation (e.g. how much they spend on actually improving the browser vs other initiatives) and I don't see the marketshare of Firefox skyrocketing, unless something big happens. New competitors like Ladybird are also niche, though it's a really cool project.
- If Apple ever moves over Safari to Chromium, like Edge did, then that effect will only be amplified.
We were seen as failing a security audit recently for having firefox installed on some of the development laptops and got ordered to remove it by IT who conceeded that it was stupid but had to check boxes for insurance is ISO standards.
This causes the majority of people to only be exposed to Edge/IE or Chrome at work, and use their phones the rest of the time.
I can live with that. By blocking Firefox they would self identify as user hostile in the same way that google has done with V3. I think this would a huge step forward, a massive shit filter.
However I do not rely on extensions/add-ons as I believe extensions/add-ons are not the right solution. Unless the computer user is compiling the browser herself, extensions/add-ons can be crippled/disabled/etc. by whomever is distributing binaries. When the distributor is supported by online advertising as is the case for both Chrome and Firefox, and all the other so-called "modern" graphical browsers, this possibility cannot be ignored.
Many years ago I switched to chrome because ff felt sluggish. That’s all fixed since a long time. Not sure why so many seems to be choosing chrome today.
Chrome with Ublock origin works through June 2025, via "browsers using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will be exempt from any browser changes until June 2025". Discussion on how to enable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41812638
I see people reporting that the extension has already been forcefully removed (or disabled in some cases) from their Chrome. This hasn't happened to me (v133 on MacOS).
I have primarily been using Chrome up until this point as I was under the impression that performance (and therefore battery life) is bad with FF on MacOS. Recent results seem to indicate that Chrome is in fact the worst offender [1].
Yesterday I uninstalled Arc as they have all but abandoned their browser to work on some AI crap browser (after saying they planned to support manifest v2 for the forseeable future).
Today I installed Orion Browser [2]. It's using webkit under the hood and seems to be far lighter on battery life than Chrome, Arc (Blink) and Firefox. They fully support FF and Chrome extensions and therefore UBO seems to be working (on the whole) very well.
It is a shame that Orion is Mac and iOS only. I found this statement[1] in response to a request for it on other platforms
> We are getting a lot of repeat questions about windows/linux/android version and sometimes it appears that users think that the team is choosing not to work on these platforms. The situation is quite different and simpler - we do not have the resources to hire a new team to do any of these platforms yet.
> And since Orion is funded by its users only, it is entirely up to the number of subscribers and Orion+ sales we have that will enable funding a new team to make Orion for any new platform. And building a browser is not cheap, especially one on top of WebKit.
> Ways you can help accelerate this is:
> Contribute to Orion development with your time
> Help spread the word about Orion to attract more users
> Get Orion+ and financially support developmet
This is a tricky situation to be in. A lack of resources to support multiple platforms, but the solution being more subscribers. But the incentive structure is perplexing. Those supporting development going to be those already using Orion. And those not on Mac/iOS are unlikely to financially support a browser they can't use in the hopes it might one day come to a platform I use.
Orion user on Mac (but I think of it as a better Safari if anyone saw me writing I only use Safari and Firefox), but would like to have it available on my non Mac machines as well.
They announced they are planning linux release in 2025 in their end of 2024 event, and down in the thread you linked they hint apparently it is now in active development.
Orion looks pretty interesting, it's not like any of the other alternative browsers (opera, vivaldi, brave, arc etc) which just wrap Chromium in more junk. It uses WebKit which is optimised for Apple platforms, giving more battery life, while also integrating uBlock Origin.
Do they really remove it? Because I've had several extensions get disabled and was only able to re-enable them after enabling developer mode (toggle at top-right).
I believe that most say "remove" because they get removed from the plugin-bar when disabled.
I'll ditch Chrome without a second thought if they really remove it. They'll lose access to my browsing history, so I don't see what they have to gain with it. What about the ads which are blocked at network level via PiHole?
Have they even considered that PiHole might then catch on and start blocking ads on mobile devices in households which would otherwise not use it?
I can confirm that I got the "extension disabled" notification for uBlock Origin, clicked to re-enable it in developer mode, and then had to also toggle it to enabled after it had been added to the list - still works fine after that.
After 17 years of using Android, with building my own kernel and ROMs in the early days, I finally gave up on it and finished my de-Google journey and reluctantly switched to iPhone.
The fact that Orion on iOS existed was a major reason I was able to this. On Android I was a Firefox user since Firefox was the only browser with the ability to run proper uBo.
Orion is not without its bugs, but it does support a lot of Firefox and Chrome extensions. But you don’t even need to install uBo as an extension,it’s got built in ad blocker with the ability to add or remove filter lists. Even without installing uBo, in terms of ad blocking, it instantly matched Firefox on Android. That I can install things such as Tapermonkey or Bypass Paywall Clean as extensions is a huge bonus.
It’s amazing how Google is pushing its early adopters and cheerleaders away by one anti user move after another.
I still wish Apple would remove some of the restrictions on iOS, allow other browser engines etc. Installing unknown software from unsigned developers on macOS is really difficult these days but still doable if you know where to look. If only iOS was the same. The potential lost revenue from loss of control would be more than made up by new people who would be brought on to the platform.
This is a clear example of conflict of interest Google has.
It makes money almost exclusively from ads, and people want to block ads. No matter how they try to portray decisions like this - it is obvious they are moving in direction where people are unable to do what they want.
I am sure if Google from today would launch a browser, it would fail to gain traction knowing all the state of their core business and negative sentiment users have.
Let's hope Mozilla doesn't go the same route, but it seems they are also not under good leadership and are slowly loosing the trust of users.
Kind of? There's absolutely a justifiable reason for v3, that is not "because we want to kill ad blockers". It is likely that some higher ups pushed for v3 for ad reasons, just as devs pushed for v3 for technical reasons.
I couldn't find a good timeline of all the developments in the extension space. I started first installing extensions on Firefox with their super powerful but dangerous XUL system, then they watered it down and many extensions died, then Chrome took over the internet, then extensions could just block the ads and nothing more interesting, then suddenly for Chrome, they even can't do that? I remember Google also trying to ship some tamper protection (like DRM) for web sites... I wonder how this all will end up. I also wonder why people keep installing Chrome but not Firefox, but I digress. I really think the web needs a detailed documentary on how Google played Microsoft's EEE scheme on the whole web.
Chrome took over long before Firefox dumped XUL. It was sticking to XUL with all the performance issues that let Chrome take over. Losing all the extensibility of XUL, and it being too late to take a thoughtful approach to design something that maintained that extensibility with performance and security, helped solidify Chrome's lead. A lot of people didn't see a point in using Firefox without extensibility beyond what Chrome allowed.
regardless of what people complain of, firefox is still an awesome daily driver. nobody likes the direction the MF is taking the browser to but at least we can influence it, unlike google.
It also works flawlessly on Android, with uBlock Origin blocking everything, including ads on youtube (provided one stays in the browser of course, and not use the app).
Best thing we can do to influence it is probably to use and fund forks such as LibreWolf, hoping that they are in a position to continue development once Google decides to tell the manager of Mozilla to finally destroy it completely.
(Yes, that is a joke I hope, but if I compare what I think a puppet controlled by Google would do to destroy the Mozilla brand to what Mozillas CEO has been doing, I think there is a lot of similarities.)
Thinking that funding forks, like LibreWolf, would save said forks from dying if Mozilla goes under, is naive.
The development of Firefox costs around half a billion $ per year. Estimates for Chrome range from 1 to 2 billion $ per year. In other words, take the donations of something like Wikimedia, which is arguably very successful in asking for donations, and you'd still be very short on the money needed to fund a web browser. And if you bring those costs down to something more manageable, like say, 100 million $, and assuming you can convince people to donate (IMO, when pigs will fly), then you'll have a browser that may be completely unable to compete with Chromium.
All the browser “forks” survive because Google and Mozilla are doing the hard work.
1Blocker on Safari is an excellent experience, and available for iPhone as well where it can remove ads from inside other apps. Letterboxd for example.
IMO it's only a matter of time before LLMs will include ads. Current pricing isn't covering the costs of running LLMs and brands will pay a high price for being favored in responses.
My experience with LLM has been that if the question/search is basic or common (in any particular subject), the results are no better than an ordinary search, and if it isn't, the responses are too frequently wrong. The problem isn't so much hallucination, but gullibility. The LLM appears "intelligent" but stupid. It seems to lack introspection, i.e. applying good sense in evaluating its sources and conclusions. You can ask an LLM how to properly evaluate sources and come to conclusions, but it doesn't apply these lessons to its own operation.
In other words, LLMs work well when you don't really need them and don't work well when you do. I have yet to see an LLM give a good result when a better result, written by a human, isn't available.
> LLMs are much better in searching for information than advertisement-exposure optimized google.
Completely disagree. Just this morning I've been trying to search for how to pair a wireless headset that I own to a new receiver. Gemini tells me there is no need to pair the adapter, but if I do need to do it I should press <button that doesn't exist on the model I specifically searched for>. It also pushes the PDF and TS articles that the manufacturer provides off of my main search window.
This is my example from today, but I have consistently found Gemini suggests outdated, or inaccurate information and cites "sources" that don't match what it says.
If only Firefox would properly support PWAs. I know that there are workarounds like installing the PWAs in Chrome and setting up an extension that redirects links clicked in a PWA to be opened in Firefox, but it is a hassle.
It’s funny/tragic how Firefox used to be so far ahead in these areas which it has now fallen so far behind. Before PWAs or installing web apps was a thing, Firefox allowed you to basically achieve the same using “chromeless” tabs. Then they gave up on that and disabled it
Before anyone had ever heard of Electron, you used to be able to embed gecko into other apps and it could render html in other applications (that’s how Firefox itself started cause the old monolithic Mozilla suite separated the engine into gecko so other apps could use it, and then a bunch of Mozilla engineers started developing a new UI around it as their side project). Of course they gave up on that, and look where we are now.
Testament to its engineering team really that despite so many own goals and false directions from its leadership (Remember Firefox OS?) the project is still alive.
Readit News
[0] See https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1in2ls4/ubloc...
edit: link to their adblocker: https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust
I feel like nobody will have to consciously do anything in particular, with the current way how things are going.
- Chromium is the modern IE and developers will primarily be on the hook for supporting it, Firefox support will be an afterthought so some sites will just be broken, moving more users over to Chromium.
- The Firefox marketshare is dwindling, it's likely that the users with proper ad blocking will eventually be a rounding error and therefore quite inconsequential. Especially if there are any more ad-related APIs pushed by Chrome that make users more profitable (e.g. Topics API).
- Even among tech enthusiasts, Mozilla in particular doesn't have very good reputation (e.g. how much they spend on actually improving the browser vs other initiatives) and I don't see the marketshare of Firefox skyrocketing, unless something big happens. New competitors like Ladybird are also niche, though it's a really cool project.
- If Apple ever moves over Safari to Chromium, like Edge did, then that effect will only be amplified.
This causes the majority of people to only be exposed to Edge/IE or Chrome at work, and use their phones the rest of the time.
However I do not rely on extensions/add-ons as I believe extensions/add-ons are not the right solution. Unless the computer user is compiling the browser herself, extensions/add-ons can be crippled/disabled/etc. by whomever is distributing binaries. When the distributor is supported by online advertising as is the case for both Chrome and Firefox, and all the other so-called "modern" graphical browsers, this possibility cannot be ignored.
I have primarily been using Chrome up until this point as I was under the impression that performance (and therefore battery life) is bad with FF on MacOS. Recent results seem to indicate that Chrome is in fact the worst offender [1].
Yesterday I uninstalled Arc as they have all but abandoned their browser to work on some AI crap browser (after saying they planned to support manifest v2 for the forseeable future).
Today I installed Orion Browser [2]. It's using webkit under the hood and seems to be far lighter on battery life than Chrome, Arc (Blink) and Firefox. They fully support FF and Chrome extensions and therefore UBO seems to be working (on the whole) very well.
[1] https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-ma...
[2] https://kagi.com/orion/
> We are getting a lot of repeat questions about windows/linux/android version and sometimes it appears that users think that the team is choosing not to work on these platforms. The situation is quite different and simpler - we do not have the resources to hire a new team to do any of these platforms yet.
> And since Orion is funded by its users only, it is entirely up to the number of subscribers and Orion+ sales we have that will enable funding a new team to make Orion for any new platform. And building a browser is not cheap, especially one on top of WebKit.
> Ways you can help accelerate this is: > Contribute to Orion development with your time > Help spread the word about Orion to attract more users > Get Orion+ and financially support developmet
This is a tricky situation to be in. A lack of resources to support multiple platforms, but the solution being more subscribers. But the incentive structure is perplexing. Those supporting development going to be those already using Orion. And those not on Mac/iOS are unlikely to financially support a browser they can't use in the hopes it might one day come to a platform I use.
[1] https://orionfeedback.org/d/2321-orion-for-windows-android-l...
Orion user on Mac (but I think of it as a better Safari if anyone saw me writing I only use Safari and Firefox), but would like to have it available on my non Mac machines as well.
I believe that most say "remove" because they get removed from the plugin-bar when disabled.
I'll ditch Chrome without a second thought if they really remove it. They'll lose access to my browsing history, so I don't see what they have to gain with it. What about the ads which are blocked at network level via PiHole?
Have they even considered that PiHole might then catch on and start blocking ads on mobile devices in households which would otherwise not use it?
The fact that Orion on iOS existed was a major reason I was able to this. On Android I was a Firefox user since Firefox was the only browser with the ability to run proper uBo.
Orion is not without its bugs, but it does support a lot of Firefox and Chrome extensions. But you don’t even need to install uBo as an extension,it’s got built in ad blocker with the ability to add or remove filter lists. Even without installing uBo, in terms of ad blocking, it instantly matched Firefox on Android. That I can install things such as Tapermonkey or Bypass Paywall Clean as extensions is a huge bonus.
It’s amazing how Google is pushing its early adopters and cheerleaders away by one anti user move after another.
I still wish Apple would remove some of the restrictions on iOS, allow other browser engines etc. Installing unknown software from unsigned developers on macOS is really difficult these days but still doable if you know where to look. If only iOS was the same. The potential lost revenue from loss of control would be more than made up by new people who would be brought on to the platform.
They have not shipped anything but browser updates and minor fixes for months.
It makes money almost exclusively from ads, and people want to block ads. No matter how they try to portray decisions like this - it is obvious they are moving in direction where people are unable to do what they want.
I am sure if Google from today would launch a browser, it would fail to gain traction knowing all the state of their core business and negative sentiment users have.
Let's hope Mozilla doesn't go the same route, but it seems they are also not under good leadership and are slowly loosing the trust of users.
(Yes, that is a joke I hope, but if I compare what I think a puppet controlled by Google would do to destroy the Mozilla brand to what Mozillas CEO has been doing, I think there is a lot of similarities.)
The development of Firefox costs around half a billion $ per year. Estimates for Chrome range from 1 to 2 billion $ per year. In other words, take the donations of something like Wikimedia, which is arguably very successful in asking for donations, and you'd still be very short on the money needed to fund a web browser. And if you bring those costs down to something more manageable, like say, 100 million $, and assuming you can convince people to donate (IMO, when pigs will fly), then you'll have a browser that may be completely unable to compete with Chromium.
All the browser “forks” survive because Google and Mozilla are doing the hard work.
I already knew the same change was coming to Chrome so I went directly to Firefox.
I will burn my computer to the ground before I watch any kind of intrusive non-contextual advertisement online.
LLMs are much better in searching for information than advertisement-exposure optimized google.
People are paying for LLMs, consumers are no longer a commodity.
Internet will change, maybe creators will be paid for their content? But what will happen with advertisers?
In other words, LLMs work well when you don't really need them and don't work well when you do. I have yet to see an LLM give a good result when a better result, written by a human, isn't available.
Completely disagree. Just this morning I've been trying to search for how to pair a wireless headset that I own to a new receiver. Gemini tells me there is no need to pair the adapter, but if I do need to do it I should press <button that doesn't exist on the model I specifically searched for>. It also pushes the PDF and TS articles that the manufacturer provides off of my main search window.
This is my example from today, but I have consistently found Gemini suggests outdated, or inaccurate information and cites "sources" that don't match what it says.
I.e confirming your opinion, compiling a report about something you're not gonna take action on etc
Ask your LLM: "How many percents of world populations is paying for LLMs? Any estimates how many will never pay for it?"
Dead Comment
Before anyone had ever heard of Electron, you used to be able to embed gecko into other apps and it could render html in other applications (that’s how Firefox itself started cause the old monolithic Mozilla suite separated the engine into gecko so other apps could use it, and then a bunch of Mozilla engineers started developing a new UI around it as their side project). Of course they gave up on that, and look where we are now.
Testament to its engineering team really that despite so many own goals and false directions from its leadership (Remember Firefox OS?) the project is still alive.