Chrome ad, content blockers beg Google: Don't execute our code! Wait, no, do execute our code – just don't kill us! Makers of ad blockers, content filters, and privacy extensions for Google's Chrome browser have drawn up a list of desired technical fixes to undo the anticipated damage from pending browser platform changes. The proposed API changes, collectively referred to as Manifest v3, would break many ad-blockers and other Chrome …
I'm already in the small group of people who don't find Chrome to be a good browser, but everything I've heard about Manifest v3 -- not just the proposed restrictions, but the reasoning behind wanting them -- is telling me that it would make Chrome into an unacceptable browser.
There is a reason FF has several forks. The FF devs stopped listening to users long ago, instead mostly copying Chrome. I recommend trying some of those forks instead-- it will save you aggravation.
Another reason is that jumping between FF/Chrome when one ticks you off gets you the same basic issue of a two party political system where choice is often just illusion.
I've stuck with Firefox for many years, but it's not without it's problems, especially if you like to keep a lot of tabs open:
First they did not have a 64 bit version which would limit the amount of memory it could use to 3GB, then with the 64 bit version I run into memory fragmentation eventually slowing down the browser to a crawl - at least that could be sorted for a while by going to about:memory and clicking on the GC, CC, and 'Minimize Memory Usage' buttons.
Firefox Quantum fixed the memory fragmentation issue and subsequent slow down, but now the browser gobbles up RAM like there is no tomorrow. It simply looks like it NEVER releases memory, even when you close the tabs. Problem with this is that the buttons in the about:memory page no longer seem to help either. Only solution if you want to get nearly all of that memory back is to restart the browser.
Quantum is actually the major reason why I went from 16GB of RAM to 32GB of RAM in my new system. Kid you not lol.
I agree, my main browser is Firefox and its RAM hogging has been a disgrace forever.
I find Vivaldi uses much less RAM than either Firefox or Chrome (tally up those per-PID RAM grabs of Chrome's, always instructive). Which is odd, considering Vivaldi's also a Chromium-based browser. Makes one wonder what Chrome uses all that RAM for, if it's not a built-in shortcoming of their engine.
(Disclaimer: was always a bit put off by hardcore Opera fans insisting theirs was the one true way. But Vivaldi's so far delivering rather well)
"I've stuck with Firefox for many years, but it's not without it's problems"
True. I've been using Firefox since the very beginning. Unlike your experience, though, mine is that post-Quantum, Firefox has become a browser that I prefer to avoid (for many of the same reasons as I prefer to avoid Chrome). I switched to Waterfox instead.
For Google wanting to make the changes is that ad-blockers are winning the war with the advertisers and it is the advertisers who give Google its large profits.
After the "discussion" the result will still be that Chrome will not do as good a job in blocking rubbish as it does at present when ad-blockers are used.
To be honest I'm always surprised that Google haven't just banned ad blockers from their plugin store. Why would they make it so easy for their customers to bypass their main source of revenue?
Similarly, I'm surprised that they've never made it harder to block ads on Youtube, I'd have thought it would be easy to block the video from playing until an advert had been played (or at least sent to the customer), but instead adblockers just stop the ads, and the videos play as soon as you click.
I should probably shut up and stop giving them ideas.
The popularity of ad-blockers means that a large number of people would simply stop using chrome. Blocking ads is more important than browser features.
Similarly, the adblockers ultimate weapon is not to support a browser, as few users wanting a blocker are going to trust anything built in by google.
How else do you explain their constant efforts to introduce new features no-one wants, kill features users do want, constantly break the UI with 'improvements' that are anything but, cripple performance in the name of improving it, and go out of their way to frustrate add-on users and developers?
They really do seem to live in a little bubble where any criticism can't reach them.
And that's before we even look at the semi-functional messes that pass for the mobile versions...
Hate users? Heavens no. It's been quite clear for decades that browser developers are barely aware that users even exist. Hating users would be like hating hops pickers, sailmakers or clam diggers -- totally irrelevant to the browser developer mental model of their universe.
I mix and match between Chrome and Firefox already, and I can see dropping Chrome completely if the adblocker stops working. I occasionally get to see pages bristling with ads and it reminds me why I don't want that to be my regular browsing experience. Plus there's the security issue too, with the occasionally dodgy scripts that plant malware. I've said it before, the ad industry needs to come up with a server-side model so that all that gets served is hosted on a single server rather than finding that a page is loading scripts from a couple of dozen different sites. If they did it that way, most ad blockers would be defeated but user security would be maintained.
Watch out. At some point, they may just preload all the javascript for you and shove the whole page at you. No real difference, as the javascript does all the requesting rather than the HTML*, but now served from the same server, so a bit slower if that's possible.
*If you also block the javascript from loading remote resources, they can implement a proxy system so all javascript requests are sent through the server from which the page was retrieved and sent on. A bit of overhead for the small pages, but child's play for Google. And given their current use of javascript, they will probably not have too much trouble breaking things if you don't have javascript enabled.
"Watch out. At some point, they may just preload all the javascript for you and shove the whole page at you."
That wouldn't affect me, as I disallow Javascript regardless of whether it's third-party or not. I think it's foolish to trust websites to run code in my browser. If that means the site won't work, so be it. No loss to me.
Just this week I ditched Firefox and moved back to Chrome. FF consistently ground my laptop to a halt if it wasn't restarted once a day.
I was hoping that Chrome would work adequately for at least a year before I had to move back to Firefox.
Seriously browser developers, I got 99 problems, but ad-blockers ain't one of them
Same here. Keen to get away from Chrome and have tried Firefox a couple of times recently. I first moved to Chrome about 10 years ago from Firefox because Firefox used to gobble up most of my RAM. Unbelievably, on trying it again just this week and last, it still does that. I thought I could live with it using 1.5-2GB of RAM, but on coming into work yesterday and finding it using 3.5GB, that's just not acceptable. I'd use Brave, but can't get the sync feature to work across devices. Very frustrating.
I understand It's not the easiest thing in the world to drop £35 (£55-£60 full set) on a raspberry pi but if you can, that's still an option. I've had one sitting around from numerous fails attempts at making something and decided to try this thinking it's gonna be another failed attempt at a pi project but it actually works. Yeah web pages don't look as nice as when using an ablocker but it works and set up at router level it works on all my devices. My main device is a Chromebook so no Firefox for me unfortunately.
AMEN to that Pi-Hole, should have done it years ago already instead of recently.
As I am using the Raspberry Pi also for other things, I am running the Pi-Hole in a Docker container, with a recursive DNS server in another container. After the other problems with setting things up, these were amazingly easy and quick.
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This puts MS's decision to abandon Edge in a whole different light, especially if, as I understood it from this article, Google's push is about getting this into the Chromium, the open source precursor to Chrome, rather than limiting this cynical ploy to their Chrome implementation.
True, Edge and IE won't be mourned much, but monocultures, especially the likes emanating from Google (or FB) are not especially beneficial to individuals, companies or developers.
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