This is the right answer, and more people (especially technical people like frequent HN) should be pointing this out.
"What ads? Oh you must be running Chrome" needs to be the common refrain.
Really hope this ends up being a surprising tide shift. Firefox has dipped really hard in marketshare, but there's no reason it can't start to gain again/grow steadily.
It's really too bad the Firefox tent wasn't big enough for all the alternative browsers that exist (though of course they're not scratching the surface of real usage either). I skipped the whole Arc wave and I'm glad I did -- it's a distraction from Firefox.
I left Firefox a few months ago because there was a bug in their shader cache, so a lot of stuff was laggy. I was willing to put up with until I got a 360 camera and videos were playing at like 2 fps. This was about six months ago, it’s possible that it’s been fixed, I haven’t checked.
I am using Brave right now, which seems fine. I have no idea if it actually respects privacy but they at least claim it does.
That doesn't solve the issue of ManifestV2 being removed though, Brave will have it removed at the same time as Chrome, when it's pulled from the code base
It crashes every few days for me and has since the last several major releases... enough that I can't rely on it anymore. (UG) Chromium has never crashed on me once.
But Firefox is so dependent on google (money, code) that it's absolutely impossible they won't also remove manifest v2. It will just take a little while, for appearances...
About a year ago FF said they had no current plans to remove V2 support, and if they did, they'd give at least 12 month notice. Which to me is basically language saying they absolutely will remove it at some point, otherwise they'd just say "no we'll never remove it, fuck google".
Did you look at the FAQ page they created afterwards?
'do not sell user data' is too broad legally. It's a challenge in some jurisdictions. So they removed that. But it's not because they sell the data. They do have partnerships (like they did Pocket for example). In this case, they have anonymous stats that they share with others and that, in some jurisdictions, could fall under 'selling user data'
> Just as before, Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will continue to be exempt from any browser changes until at least June 2025. Starting in June, the branch for Chrome 139 will begin, in which support for Manifest V2 extensions will be removed from Chrome. Unlike the previous changes to disable Manifest V2 extensions which gradually rolled out to users, this change will impact all users on Chrome 139 at once. As a result, Chrome 138 is the final version of Chrome to support Manifest V2 extensions (when paired with the ExtensionManifestV2Availability key). You can find the release information about Chrome 138 and 139, include ChromeOS's LTS support, on the Chromium release schedule
The plausible deniability reason is that Manifest V2 gave way too much power to extensions, which is true.
... except that we already execute remote JavaScript on our browsers constantly. And we do it, usually, unconsentually. Versus extensions, which are a deliberate thing you need to install.
That's what i find stupid of current browsers. When Firefox was first created by "stripping" all the bloat from Netscape navigator, the idea was that Extensions would allow end users to add optional functionality . It put the user in control of their browser experience.
There should be a browser that doesn't assume their users are stupid. I want to turn off CORS I want to be able to modify the DOM and inject whatever the heck I want.
HN was so hyped when chrome came out. Pushing it hard. A few people were saying, um guys, chrome is made by a company that sells ads, this is not going to work out well.
Children who were born when Chrome came out can vote in the midterms next year. If your prediction takes as long to mature as a newborn baby, it's maybe _too_ prescient.
Chrome launched in an era where IE didn't stop the gazillion pop ups and crashed pretty often losing dozens of windows, before tabbed browsing and with no restore. Firefox was a resource hog due to memory fragmentation.
Google was also the company that espoused, "Do no evil" and contributed a bunch to open source. A lot has changed since then.
I remember Firefox crashing on me nearly daily around the time Chrome came out. I didn’t need anyone to push Chrome on me. Chrome was just simply technologically superior.
But of course today there is little reason to not use Firefox.
Seems everyone is releasing a browser nowadays. (Not literally, this is a figure of speech.)
Perhaps uBlock/uMatrix needs its own browser.
Mozilla is "all in" on surveillance advertising. From its press releases and strategic initiatives (for lack of a better term), it appears to believe online advertising is essential for the www to exist. Whereas, it has never stated that "ad blockers" are essential for the www to exist.
Yeah but it's always a fork of firefox or chrome. I have seen nothing to indicate they are not all in on surveillance advertising. They are looking into "anonymous group advertising" by interest, now can someday reverse engineer that and figure out that you like boutique spicy pickles? maybe? I have my doubts.
FWIW, these instructions allow you to re-enable uBlock in Chrome 138. A temporary fix, but I needed a temporary fix so I could export my hundreds of custom filters (so I can load them into uBlock in Firefox).
Readit News
"What ads? Oh you must be running Chrome" needs to be the common refrain.
Really hope this ends up being a surprising tide shift. Firefox has dipped really hard in marketshare, but there's no reason it can't start to gain again/grow steadily.
It's really too bad the Firefox tent wasn't big enough for all the alternative browsers that exist (though of course they're not scratching the surface of real usage either). I skipped the whole Arc wave and I'm glad I did -- it's a distraction from Firefox.
I am using Brave right now, which seems fine. I have no idea if it actually respects privacy but they at least claim it does.
Librewolf is the way to go now.
Also, it seems quite vague to me exactly who/what company/entity is behind it.
Without it, browsing is unbearable. I wonder if they're not allowed to do so because of their contract with Google?
I use Firefox on other devices and use the sync functionality so prefer to use it where possible.
My home router (Draytek) is also configured to force any connected devices to use NextDNS too.
Definitely worth the €20 annual subscription.
[0] https://nextdns.io
I have had crashes with Firefox in a long time.
I've moved to LibreWolf personally
In the same way we should chastise the platforms that choose to enshitify, we should praise those that hold out.
'do not sell user data' is too broad legally. It's a challenge in some jurisdictions. So they removed that. But it's not because they sell the data. They do have partnerships (like they did Pocket for example). In this case, they have anonymous stats that they share with others and that, in some jurisdictions, could fall under 'selling user data'
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate...
> Just as before, Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will continue to be exempt from any browser changes until at least June 2025. Starting in June, the branch for Chrome 139 will begin, in which support for Manifest V2 extensions will be removed from Chrome. Unlike the previous changes to disable Manifest V2 extensions which gradually rolled out to users, this change will impact all users on Chrome 139 at once. As a result, Chrome 138 is the final version of Chrome to support Manifest V2 extensions (when paired with the ExtensionManifestV2Availability key). You can find the release information about Chrome 138 and 139, include ChromeOS's LTS support, on the Chromium release schedule
https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chr...
This however is a good time to export any extension preferences, because once it's removed you won't be able to access them.
Deleted Comment
Why would they do that?
... except that we already execute remote JavaScript on our browsers constantly. And we do it, usually, unconsentually. Versus extensions, which are a deliberate thing you need to install.
There should be a browser that doesn't assume their users are stupid. I want to turn off CORS I want to be able to modify the DOM and inject whatever the heck I want.
Google was also the company that espoused, "Do no evil" and contributed a bunch to open source. A lot has changed since then.
But of course today there is little reason to not use Firefox.
Perhaps uBlock/uMatrix needs its own browser.
Mozilla is "all in" on surveillance advertising. From its press releases and strategic initiatives (for lack of a better term), it appears to believe online advertising is essential for the www to exist. Whereas, it has never stated that "ad blockers" are essential for the www to exist.
Dead Comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1itw1bz/end_o...
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/discussions/29...
For me, I choose not to manually update my ungoogled chromium to version 138 and above.