Makers of ad blockers and browser privacy extensions fear the end is near

Seven months from now, assuming all goes as planned, Google Chrome will drop support for its legacy extension platform, known as Manifest v2 (Mv2). This is significant if you use a browser extension to, for instance, filter out certain kinds of content and safeguard your privacy. Google's Chrome Web Store is supposed to stop …

[Steve Davies 3]

Does anyone need more justification

to consign Chrome to the great bit bucket in hell?

Google as we all know relies on their ability to slurp, slurp and slurp to its heart's content.

We... OTOH want to stop that.... well, we do if we value our privacy.

Chrome is banned from my network. It can't phone home due to the huge number of rules that are in my firewall.

That said, many people use Chrome for everything. The more enlightened will have add blockers and anti trackers installed but the writing on the wall from Google is clear.

Your time is up. We are coming for you. We own your internet history and content so get used to it sunshine.

At least for the time being, there are alternatives. Use them. There really is no excuse for delaying your switch away from Chrome.

It will be interesting to see how MS reacts to this move and will their copy of Chrome follow suit and give a competitor (aka Google) free rein to slurp everything from the millions of Windows users.

[chivo243]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

This^^^

I've been using Brave for quite a while as my primary browser, with Firefox being on deck. Looks like I better start reversing that strategy in the near future. Pity, I have all those good extensions (NOScript, Ghostery, Privacy Badger, UBlock Origin and DeCentralEyes) in Brave doing exactly what I wish them to do, plus a PI-hole at the perimeter. This Google war is heating up...

[NoneSuch]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Exactly. Only the ignorant use Chrome as a daily driver.

Brave browser is excellent at blocking crap and the (Current Beta) Brave Search is coming along nicely.

People going to browsers that protect their privacy. Who would have thunk it?

[adam 40]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I tried Brave,

it has a shonky API for the file chooser for uploading images etc.

I found that it crashed W10 file explorer on a regular basis.

I tried filing a bug report but most of their bug reports were about ad revenue (!) so they weren't that bothered...

[chivo243]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Sorry to hear you're using it on Windoze... I use it on macOS, and it hums along with out issue. Maybe Edge is a better fit for Windoze slurping data? I hope you are using FF instead.

Maybe this crashing issue is because you have precautions in place to stop data slurp?

[EricB123]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I am always so amused when snooty Apple users think their privacy is being protected while the stupid rest of us consent to having our digital lives snooped.

[hoola]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

That is harsh and is from the view of an enlightened technical person.

Just as the old days of IE, most will use the most convenient browser and that is Edge, Chrome or Safari.

The average person will also use Google for search and the result of that is how that Chrome ends up everywhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

These good excursions are all available in Firefox, and where needed support exporting and importing settings.

[Ozan]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I never stopped using Firefox. I never trusted google for using their browser.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I can only hope this may lead to a resurgence of people switching back to FF when they realise what Google wants the internet to look like. (I'm not holding my breath though.)

[binary]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

If you think Firefox is the Virgin Mary of browsers, you are extremely naive :(

All browsers slurp data, that's the reason their maker create them. If you fear your data being shared by others, stay off the Internet.

[Tomato42]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

except that Firefox data slurping is a). anonymised, b). public (and you can look at collected data yourself), c). can be easily turned off

[Snowy]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

but no d) you can turn it off?

[ecofeco]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Not if you, ya know, turn OFF the telemetry.

[sad_loser]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

With the addition of AdNauseum of course!

So if someone tries to track you, you poison their well.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

-> There really is no excuse for delaying your switch away from Chrome.

To what? I would want to go to something better. Don't say Mozilla, because it isn't better. Mozilla also does its own "phoning home". I've just opened it and it immediately made 13 outgoing TCP connections to different IPs. If I leave it open for a few minutes it opens even more connections. I don't have any plugins installed and the home page is a blank page. So this is just Mozilla. I'm now up to 41 connections. What is it doing?

Mozilla's preferences page is butt ugly too. For about the last 25 years I've had millions of colours or more on my desktop. Thanks Mozilla for the utterly boring minimalist monochrome preferences page with your boring minimalist monochrome wire icons. It shows fabulous design.

I'm not very impressed with Mozilla. Chrome is a better browser, and that is all I compare the two on.

[ThatOne]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Mozilla is desperately trying to lose market share, don't forget it's paid by Google, who only needs it to avoid monopoly accusations. Google wants a phantom player, not a competitor.

That been said, saying you don't like it because the preferences page is lacking fancy colors is a little ridiculous, isn't it. How many hours/day do you spend in there? Last time I visited it must have been 2-3 years ago. As for the browser interface itself, you do know you can easily download additional skins, don't you.

_{(Didn't downvote you though.)}

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Thank you for your comment. The main thrust of my post was about the phoning home that Mozilla does. I mentioned the preferences page as it shows a lack of good design. That alone would not stop me using Mozilla.

[ThatOne]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

> The main thrust of my post was about the phoning home that Mozilla does

Well, I'm no developer so I can't explain most of it, but maybe a part: There is the "Deceptive Content and Dangerous Software Protection" setting which requires frequently querying Google. If you uncheck it in the settings (Privacy & Security) this goes away.

Then there is the predictive loading of any link on the page (just in case...), which might have made sense in dial-up times but is nonsense in broadband ones. You can (and should) disable this in "about:config". I'm guessing those two would explain the major part of those mystery connections. Also account for the polling for updates (in my experience, every couple hours).

That been said, you make it sound like Chrome never phones home, which I'm pretty sure it does. Sorry but the "Mozilla phones home" rhetoric is (or at least sounds) somewhat disingenuous. Wondering what those connections are is legit, but accusing Mozilla to be the browser which phones home is not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Much of the phoning home is security related and others add to the user experience. But if it bothers you, for whatever reason,

Mozilla explains each and every connection they make and how to disable each one:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections

I don't know of any other browser that comes close to this.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

-> Mozilla explains each and every connection they make and how to disable each one:

And I'm supposed to go through and find out what 41 things did? No thank you.

[Tomato42]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

no, you can disable all the phoning home and check how much is left

ah, but it's easier to just use Chrome and put fingers in your ears and sing la la la

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

How about Mozilla don't enable it in the first place? I have go through looking for all this crap to turn it off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Is google paying you to hate on Firefox? Because I can garuntee that Google is doing more to harm your privacy than any other company on the planet. Because it's how they make money. Mozilla is a non profit and much more transparent about what they do. Your arguments are so poorly made you are basically trying to claim that it's bad because they are not Google. Is Wikipedia bad because it asks for donations? Mozilla mostly makes their money by defaulting your searches to Google and you can change that if you want to. Don't be naive about your privacy. Of you want it you will always need to do some work, but even just choosing a non profit browser can make a huge difference in the starting assumption of how much spying vs security you get.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/041315/how-mozilla-firefox-and-google-chrome-make-money.asp#:~:text=These%20royalties%20refer%20to%20the,tiles%2C%20which%20can%20be%20disabled.

[chivo243]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Not to raise anyone's ire, but I want to know which browser(or Bowser if you old enough to know Sha-na-na-na)! Really everything phones home now. Even VLC, I have it on macOS on a network that doesn't get to the WWW Tubes, and it fails to load unless it can "phone home ET". It really sucks, so I feel your frustration...

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Indeed everything seems to make a call now. Will nothing leave us alone?

Mozilla with its 41 outgoing connections, I really don't want to waste my time reading explanations. It should not happen at all unless I click on a button that says something like "connect".

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I often use "w3m" still!

[KalaDude]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

"it fails to load unless it can "phone home ET"."

I decided to test that on my LinuxMint, Firefox equipped pc by yanking out the network cable (so no longer connected to the WWW Tubes) and VLC worked just fine.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

"Mozilla is desperately trying to lose market share, don't forget it's paid by Google"

If only there were some way for users to compensate Mozilla, to "pay" for the browser, if you will. Perhaps then Mozilla could stand on their own. Unfortunately, the users of the internet are addicted to free stuff, which means that they've volunteered to be the product.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I would not pay for Mozilla. It is not a good product.

[ThatOne]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Yeah, you're a staunch Chrome fanatic, we all got this by now. Stop the chanting already please.

[ThatOne]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

> Does anyone need more justification to consign Chrome to the great bit bucket in hell?

While true, Chrome can simply bypass this by being the only choice (except for poor ol' Firefox too busy repeatedly shooting its own feet).

On Windows everything is either Chrome or a Chrome clone, and while Chrome clones can currently still modify the code to keep old privacy extensions working, I guess Google will put a limit* to that pretty soon, as soon as the Mv3 uproar subsides and people forget about it. That means at most in a year or so, after all they didn't go through all this hassle to leave that big a profit-destroying loophole...

^{* Not a developer, but I'm sure they can tie this thing so intimately to the main code (for our benefit of course!) that modifying it would require rewriting a big part of the browser engine from scratch, something which would certainly be beyond the financial means of most clone makers.}

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

On Windows everything is either Chrome or a Chrome clone

You could try using safari..

(desperately tries to keep a straight face but fails)

[ThatOne]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

> You could try using safari..

On Windows? AFAIK there hasn't been a Windows version since 2010, that's why I specified "on windows".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

whoosh?

[WolfFan]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Safari isn’t on Windows

[ThatOne]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Duh. But since he specifically quoted the part starting with "On Windows" it gets a little confusing, doesn't it. It could obviously be a clumsy pitch for using an Apple, but it isn't very clear and rather failed. If it hadn't, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

There really is no excuse for delaying your switch away from Chrome

I used Firefox for a long time but it got so slow and buggy that I couldn't cope.. it was fine on my Mac but on a mobile device (especially a Fire tablet) it was horrendously slow and crashed regularly).

I mostly now use Brave - yes it's built on Chromium but seems fairly resistant to the spyware urges of Chrome. I did use Chrome for a short time but when it decided to install stuff without my approval (or knowledge) it got kicked out.

[matjaggard]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I'm sorry but I actually like Chrome a lot, especially the developer tools.

I've tried to get back to Firefox - not because of privacy, I know that's gone anyway (I use Gmail and Facebook products. Privacy is the cost and like most of the world I'm willing to pay it) - but because I think it's not good for there to only be one browser rendering engine and all the others use WebKit/Blink.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Well, they can pry my whitelist javascript-blocker (scriptsafe) out of my cold, dead hands.

Also, I use Chromium, which is supposedly "open source", so they can't really prevent a fork.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I don't give a flying fuck what Google knows about me. And I use Chrome because unlike Firefox it works on every site I've tried it on, because unlike Vivaldi it's fully featured and unlike Chromium (which is faster) it allows me to sign in. If that doesn't suit others, fine, but for now I'm keeping my tin foil for roasting chickens and off my head.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Ré FF not working on some sites, this is the Internet Explorer 6 phenomenon, where one browser so dominates the market, lazy devs dont bother testing to see if their code meets agreed international standards - just test it against the dominant browser.

Last time I checked, FF was 100% standards compliant, Chrome was about 80%.

[notyetanotherid]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

Indeed, we use a product every day that officially supports Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. When a feature does not work properly in Edge, Firefox or Safari...

Me: X happens when run in [Firefox]

Helldesk: does it work correctly in Chrome?

Me Yes.

HD: We suggest you use Chrome, we develop for Chrome. (ticket closed)

Me: (ticket reopened) But your stated browser policy is to support Edge, Firefox and Safari, so please fix it...

[steviebuk]

Re: Does anyone need more justification

I dislike Chrome but we were forced to use it at my last place. Then only bit I started to like about it, because, sadly, it is very useful, is Google Keep for taking notes. If someone could integrate that properly into Firefox I'd go back to Firefox.

[Terry 6]

The mystery

Chrome seems to have come from nowhere. Suddenly the public are using it instead of Firefox/Microsoft's whatever it's called now/etc. And other browsers have basically stuck themselves on top of Chromium.

But why? I don't understand why all these punters are using Chrome. I'd offer a half-guess that Microsoft pretty much screwed itself over with it's random name changes for its browser - Internet Explorer told you exactly what it does. And why have other browser writers started sucking at Google's teat?

I don't get it.

[thosrtanner]

Re: The mystery

Cost. As chrome, edge, and firefox are all pretty much the same thing underneath, it means the 'alternative' browsers have to do a lot less work to keep themselves on a par with chrome.

IMHO firefox shot itself in the foot in a way that'd impress even a C programmer when they dropped XUL and basically discarded the huge library the extensions developed for it. That is the point when its days as an independent browser were numbered.

It has taken years for the functionality of some of the extensions to be even half way restored.

[Trenjeska]

Re: The mystery

Firefox still has their own engine, but yes, most all other browsers (except for safari) use Chromium engine as their base.

[devin3782]

Re: The mystery

The fact the browsers render more or less the same is good it means that they're adhering to the standards. That said they don't use the same engines unless they're running on iOS at which point they all use Webkit because apple won't allow anything else. I've always used firefox as the font rendering is superior.

Firefox - Gecko

Internet Explorer - Trident

Edge - Edge HTML (actually good) now Blink

Chrome - Blink (formerly Webkit)

Safari - Webkit (formerly kHTML from KDE)

Everything else is a dirty chrome clone as if chrome could be somehow more grubby than it already is

[Cederic]

Re: The mystery

My primary is a non-Firefox Gecko implementation.

My secondary is dirty chrome.

I have two others installed but they're typically 'once every 14 months' usage.

On mobile it's a dirty chrome clone without Google's primary leeching.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: The mystery

Mozilla provided the reasons for dropping XUL and, apart from the scope for extensions, the reasons were sound: it was essentially unmaintained and unmaintainable.

[Dan 55]

Re: The mystery

Erm, who's fault was that?

[Tomato42]

Re: The mystery

Netscape's

[Dan 55]

Re: The mystery

Mozilla was a subsidiary of Netscape between 1998-2003 and were responsible for the software, so it's difficult to absolve them of all blame.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: The mystery

People who were no longer at the company. XUL came about during the time where everyone tried to do everything XML. This turned out to be a bad idea: slow, requiring lots of memory and surprisingly error prone. But what do you do once you've made it the public API? At some point you have to hold up your hands, say it was a mistake and prepare to deprecate and replace it. In terms of communication, I think that Mozilla got this and the move away from Gecko right.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: The mystery

Mozilla went off the rails completely. Remember Firefox OS? A load of wasted effort which was more or less admitted as such as they gave up on it after a couple of years. Thunderbird is no good either. Instead of trying to make a good or the best browser they went crazy.

[Tomato42]

Re: The mystery

Thunderbird hasn't been a Mozilla project for like 2 or 3 years now, but let us not get facts into a good rant

[Dan 55]

Re: The mystery

It still lives today in the form of KaiOS and Panasonic TVs so there's some value in it somewhere.

Mozilla's problem is it starts projects then but then abandons them.

[ThatOne]

Re: The mystery

Something that neither Microsoft nor Google have ever done...

[sabroni]

Re: I don't get it.

Google is the most popular search engine. Use it from a browser that isn't Chrome and you'll get told the right way to use it is in Chrome. A lot of people trust that info and click the download link at the top of their search results.

No, that's not monopoly abuse, it's clever marketing!

[David 132]

Re: I don't get it.

It's the 21st century equivalent of "BEST VIEWED USING INTERNET EXPLORER 4".

(The icon is for Google's behaviour, not your perfectly correct point, BTW)

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I don't get it.

"Use it from a browser that isn't Chrome and you'll get told the right way to use it is in Chrome."

Where do you get told that? I've never seen it on the odd occasions I stray from DDG.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: I don't get it.

"Use it from a browser that isn't Chrome and you'll get told the right way to use it is in Chrome."

Not true for me, 30 seconds ago, using FF on this phone.

[Alumoi]

Re: The mystery

Why are they using? It came/comes bundled with every piece of software you can think of. Kinda like IE, if you come to think about it.

[ThatOne]

Re: The mystery

Chrome is (or at least was) a virus. I've uninstalled it several hundred times, it always came back. Without asking.

At least back then, each time you installed something it also installed Chrome, which would silently replace your usual browser and set itself as the new default browser. If you weren't too computer-savvy you usually wouldn't notice.

I know my family members didn't notice, and so each time I visited them I routinely started by uninstalling Chrome from their computers. My deep hatred for Chrome stems from there.

I remember Adobe Flash updates were the worst offender: They always contained Chrome as a hidden payload, and if you didn't notice the tiny barely visible link in the corner of a click-through message you'd found you've been shanghaied...

[ThatOne]

Re: The mystery

> 1 thumb down

Ah, a loyal Google employee has chimed in...

Seriously, I'd really like to hear how you Googlers justify that virus-like behavior. Is it "the end justifies the means", or maybe "you can't make an omelette without breaking other peoples' eggs"?...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The mystery

"The first rule of downvotes is that nobody......"

[iron]

Re: The mystery

I'm about as anti-Google and anti-Chrome as they come but even I would never describe Chrome as a virus. I have never installed Chrome, nor have I ever had to uninstall Chrome. Chrome has never installed itself on one of my systems without asking and if you are installing other programs that install Chrome then:

TRY READING THE BLOODY DIALOGS! (that's why a programmer like me put them there)

Or continue to be the moron who doesn't read anything, installs software he doesn't want and probably causes a ransomware infection on your own network.

[Fred Dibnah]

Re: The mystery

If you think that people read dialogue boxes, I am sorry to disappoint you. Most will click OK just to get rid them, partly because they often don’t tell the end user anything useful.

Cf “Unexpected error”

[hoola]

Re: The mystery

Like the ones that try to install McAfee with all the Adobe products.

Always checked by default!!!!

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: The mystery

As I have mentioned in another reply, the tick/untick box to install Chrome uses an active script on some website downloads (looking at you Adobe*), so if you are running a script or ad blocker, you dont always get the option, just a silent install.

*I stopped using Adobe reader some years ago, so I dont know if this is still true.

[ThatOne]

Re: The mystery

> TRY READING THE BLOODY DIALOGS!

Seriously? Do you have the slightest clue about what we were talking actually? There WERE NO BLOODY DIALOGS! Just a minuscule light gray-on-white link hidden in a corner. If you didn't know it was there you would most certainly miss it.

You seriously expect all those people for whom a computer is a complete mystery and who barely manage to do the most basic stuff to spot the hidden option to not install unwanted stuff along with the nominal payload?

So, following your logic it's their own fault if people get scammed or robbed: They should had known better. Jeez, talk about self-righteousness.

[The Unexpected Bill]

Re: The mystery

I always thought it demonstrated a lot of gall on Adobe's part to push other software (oftentimes of dubious repute) while delivering security fixes. ("I'm only here because your software is defective! How dare you take advantage of your mistakes as an advertising platform!")

Only rarely did I ever see them push Chrome in this part of the world. Around here, it was almost invariably McLaughee Security Scam that was offered. While I had absolutely no interest in Google Groan at the time, and only grudgingly so today, at least it could be argued that it was useful by comparison...

[ThatOne]

Re: The mystery

> Only rarely did I ever see them push Chrome in this part of the world

I was talking about around 2008-2009, I don't know how this has evolved.

[stiine]

Re: The mystery

Because after the inroduced Chome, every single google page would prompt you to install Chrome every time you visited it, basically it was the iframe from hell.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: The mystery

It's very simple, Google paid (and continue to pay) thousands of "Free" software companies like Adobe to include Chrome in all their downloads and updates, with a small "Opt Out" tick/untick box.

So tens of millions of marginally skilled users ended up with Chrome replacing whatever they were using before, and either thinking it was just an update to a new style - or realising, but not knowing how, to get back to their old browser.

Worse, this option uses an active script to display on many of these sites, so if you run a script or ad blocker, it may not show, and you get what is effectively a silent install of Chrome - which is how I ended up with it several times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn

I don't use, or trust, extensions. I have an extensive blacklist in /etc/hosts and that works with any browser.

[sabroni]

Re: Yawn

Cool, your security is definitely bullet proof and you never need to think about it again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Yawn

Nobody tell him about DNS over HTTPS... /s

[Anonymous Coward]

Vinegar

Firstly, I am in no way affiliated with the devs of vinegar....

However, since installing the iOS Safari extension, and using just the web versions of Youtube and Facebook, I've yet to see a single ad when watching videos. It's been amazing! Chrome sucks.

[davcefai]

Freedom of choice

As somebody commented above, Chrome came from nowhere to become what it is today.

I think the problem is that a lot, if not most, users haven't a clue about how they are accessing the web. If I tell somebody to close the browser I get a blank look. "What's a browser?"

That icon on screen is "The Internet"

Last week I ran Firefox on a new laptop. I found the browser to be almost unusable with all the ads popping up. Some Youtube videos showed TWO ads before the content I wanted. The sad thing is that people don't even know that they can block ads.

So they are free to choose a browser with ad blockers but don't know that they can do so. I personally have given up trying to convert them to useing something sensible,

and taking the trouble to install it.

Is there a good messiah out there?

[Flywheel]

Re: Freedom of choice

2 ads? How did you manage so few? I've reached the stage where I get 5 or 6 before the video starts, plus a selection during the course of the video. It's getting to the point where my Youtube use is plumetting.

[thosrtanner]

Re: Freedom of choice

Only 5 or 6?

I was testing out broadband connection when I moved house and used speedtest website. The speed I was getting round about doubled when I switched from microsoft edge (with loads of adverts) to palemoon with ublock to block all the ads.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Freedom of choice

I download all the youtube videos. Not only does that solve issues with my shitty internet connection, but it means I can use a video player with a fully working UI

[Claverhouse]

Re: Freedom of choice

Same here.

Youtube stymies my Pale Moon anyway --- leading to most of the browser not working for 5 minutes [ it may be my Steve Black's Basic hosts file somehow rather than the browser ] --- so I simply copy the video address fast, and close the tab, then add it to 'Video Downloader', which is in the repositories of most Linuxes...

[heyrick]

Re: Freedom of choice

Browse YouTube using NewPipe.

No tracking, no ads, and you can download stuff that looks interesting (so no buffering).

[AndrueC]

Re: Freedom of choice

I had no idea how common ads were on YouTube until I tried to use it on a TV in a holiday cottage. I'd vaguely heard about them but assumed that was only on official channels. As a casual user that only watches YouTube if a search happens to turn up an interesting looking video I assumed I was just not being shown them.

Shows how good UBlock Origin is.

At the moment. I detest all advertising so if this API change cripples UO I will have to look elsewhere.

[MJI]

Re: Freedom of choice

I run Firefox

What is an advert?

[julian.smith]

Re: What is an advert?

I use uMatrix and Privacy Badger

What is an advert?

I don't remember seeing one .... am I missing something?

[JimboSmith]

Re: Freedom of choice

Just go back a page and then forward into the YouTube video and the ads vanish. Or at least they do for me.

[matjaggard]

Re: Freedom of choice

I'm fine with adverts. I want people to be paid for the quality content they create so that they keep creating it. It's a sad fact that the companies that are hosting this stuff are making so much money in the process but I'm honestly more worried by Amazon than a few YouTube adverts.

[doublelayer]

Re: Freedom of choice

I'm also fine with adverts; it is the right of a content creator to put as much or as little annoying extras around their content to make money. I am not fine with tracking, sneaking data onto my machine, driveby malware, unresponsive scripts, or adverts designed to deliberately mislead users (the fake download link, for instance). It's just too bad for the creators that, while defending myself from all of those things, the ads they're using get caught in the crossfire. Those few creators who recognize this and use their own ad systems which don't track me or make browsing undesirable usually don't get blocked by the filters and get their impressions from me. Sometimes, I've even been convinced by an ad of that nature at least to look at it a bit; when I don't have to constantly hate advertisers for putting me at risk, I stop automatically adding any advertiser to the don't-buy list.

[hoola]

Re: Freedom of choice

Ad blockers are all well and good until you get to a website that refuses to let you browse unless you disable or them or whitelist the site. Now I will try and find an alternative if that happens but one I came across recently that I was trying to get a specific bit of information from, refused to let you in even with an exception. By this time I was on a disposable VM and they only way of getting into the website was to actually remote the blocking tools from the browser.

The only reason I pursued this was to find out how far I needed to go to get into the site.

Utter tossers.

[Vin]

Re: Freedom of choice

I’ve started using Tor browser more and more.

If I end up on a site that I want to view, that insists I disable blockers, I paste it into Tor browser and view there.

Also gets around “x free articles per month” etc.

[MJI]

Re: Freedom of choice

Why was uBlock Origin not installed?

New Firefox install, first thing on.

[Norman Nescio]

Revolution?

Given the immense complexity of current browsers, which translates into a lack of control over the features by ordinary folks/programmers, as only very well-funded (either by money or 'free' time) development teams can work on them, the time might be right for a revolution in practice and for a simpler approach to become more popular.

I'm thinking of something like the Gemini protocol

The design is deliberately not easily extensible, in order to preserve one of the project's stated goals of simplicity.

I'm not saying the Gemini protocol is the solution; but something like it might be, with a design 'baked-in' to make it difficult to take over in the way that browsers have been.

The browser 'market' is horribly skewed by Alphabet/Google. Just like Microsoft did, they define the 'standard browser', and you get what suits Google to offer. It's not a good situation, but I don't know how it can be effectively remedied on a long-term basis.

[doublelayer]

Re: Revolution?

Generally, if you have a protocol that isn't extensible, it will be replaced by one that is. Take the current protocols of the web. HTTP 1.0 was pretty basic, and so was HTML. Browser makers put up with those for a while, but the benefits of advancement were clear, so HTTP got updated and HTML got overlays, the most successful being Javascript, and eventually picked up many new features natively with HTML 5. If a protocol is so basic that people keep identifying things they want to do that can't be done, it's likely either never to catch on or to be replaced. Stagnation won't fix the problem.

[Alumoi]

..tech lead of ad amelioration biz...

What does that even means? Making sure only paid ads get through? Nice ad you have there, shame it would be blocked...

[Captain_Cretin]

Chrome is the hellmouth

Chrome will continue to be the lead browser, because it continues to push its install via so many 3rd party apps, and app updates; it only takes a moment of inattention, and suddenly you have Chrome on your PC attempting to take control.

Even as a power user, I have managed to let Chrome slip through twice in the last 5-6 years; both times via an Adobe update - if you have certain active scripts blocked, the "Install Chrome" panel is missing, and you get a silent install - very crafty.

For me, it is a trivial matter to get rid of it, but the average web users may not even notice their original browser has gone; or know how to get rid of it and switch back.

Despite the authors claims that Firefox doesnt have the same level of addons that it used to, not one of the many I use have become unusable in the MANY years I have used the browser. Sure, some sites no longer work correctly, but that is due to lazy devs coding for Chrome only, not Firefox's' fault; and if the devs are that lazy, then I dont trust their coding to be safe anyway, so they can sit and swivel.

At this point, a huge shout of shame at a certain pizza chain, named after a game; where payments cannot be processed unless you allow FaceBook to track you - seriously.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

"both times via an Adobe update"

I think that might be your problem.

[ThatOne]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

Adobe has always been a vector for Chrome. I don't use Windows anymore, but as I said further up, back in the day the (frequent, important!) Flash updates always contained Chrome as a hidden payload. It was a constant game of whack-a-mole I strangely didn't enjoy very much.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

Yeah, I use a different pdf reader by default, but some lazy effing companies running online training/government depts, insist on Adobe and wont work without it.

The one training companies entire website was scripted for Chrome only and was extremely flaky using Firefox; when I complained and their answer was "Use Chrome", I replied, "How about making your devs code to international standards and not be lazy arses".

The website runs a lot smoother now.

[To Mars in Man Bras!]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

>At this point, a huge shout of shame at a certain pizza chain, named after a game...

Would that be the same pizza chain that regularly sends me spam emails, even though I have never visited one of their shops, never eaten one of their over-priced digestive biscuit sized pizzas, never interacted with the company in any way --ever?

[iron]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

I have bought their pizza and I most definitely do not allow FB to track anything.

Try using uBlockOrigin with Firefox and paying by card, not PayPal (I have noticed some problems using PayPal on their and the other pizza chain site). I also have FF's enhanced tracking protection on.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

Re the pizza place, I stopped using their online service around 18-24 months ago, perhaps they finally took my complaints seriously.

However, I have a very fine grained script blocker and so I know 100% that the FarceBook script was the only one still being blocked, after temporarily allowing all others, one at a time; and it was ONLY when the FarceBook script was allowed to run, that the payment went through.

They PROBABLY have me on some type of list, as around 5 years ago, they were one of several companies that got a blistering letter about infosec, because they were allowing the injection of active scripts into a "secure" payment page, at the last stage of the payment process.

MOST of those sites now have those scripts ready for acceptance at the start of the secure session, with no new scripts injected after that point.

(My own BANK was one of the recipients)

[Someone Else]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

At this point, a huge shout of shame at a certain pizza chain, named after a game; where payments cannot be processed unless you allow FaceBook to track you - seriously.

Have run into a similar problems with many web sites. My "favorite" example is the monopolistic travel booking website-of-many-names (but a single underlying engine) that won't let you pay for your booking unless you enable PayPal...even if you have no intention of using PayPal to pay for your booking.

[Dave559]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

"Despite the authors claims that Firefox doesnt have the same level of addons that it used to, not one of the many I use have become unusable in the MANY years I have used the browser."

You are lucky in your particular usage, then. I can think of at least two significant add-ons that were broken by the ending of XUL: RequestPolicy ("only load this external content on this specific website" - allow specified 'necessary evils' on sites where they are necessary, but they remain blocked everywhere else, it was the perfect companion to NoScript; uBlock Origin sort of fills the gap but is an exercise in thoroughly opaque UI confusion, sadly), and FlashGot (download manager). There were at least a few others, but I eventually found (reasonably) suitable alternatives or learned to have to live without them.

[AndrueC]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

At this point, a huge shout of shame at a certain pizza chain, named after a game; where payments cannot be processed unless you allow FaceBook to track you - seriously.

Eh? You mean the dotty tile game? I've been buying Pizzas from them for years and they've never asked me for anything except my CC details and address.

I don't care if they do track me on FB - I don't have an account and never have had. Maybe that's where you're going wrong ;)

They've never sent me spam either. I would know because the email address I gave them has their name in it as part of my DEA anti-spam defence. I did get a couple of 'your order is on the way..' emails but I edited my preferences and now don't even get an order confirmation.

Overall I like their service. I can buy two pizzas for £20, eat four slices then freeze the rest as mid-morning snacks for the next couple of weeks. That's a pretty good deal(*).

(*)Yeah it's junk food but meh..it's my only junk food vice and I only indulge every couple of months or so.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

I aslo dont have a FarceBook account, believe it or not - they wont let me have one - every attempt to obtain one (boss insisted I have one), they banned it within 30 minutes or so, even though all I had done was fill in the profile page.

Boss didnt believe me, so she tried using my profile details, and also got banned; I suspect someone with the same surname did something naughty, locally.

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

"the average web users may not even notice their original browser has gone"

I think Microsoft, master of the pointless UI downgrades, has trained them to ignore things they don't understand and just keep muddling along.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

"if you have certain active scripts blocked, the "Install Chrome" panel is missing, and you get a silent install - very crafty."

Is that actually legal? Does it not count as using someone else's computer without their permission? If not, why not, and can Joe Public use the same loophole to install spyware on other people's machines?

[doublelayer]

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

No, because the user downloaded and executed the installer. They'd argue it was the user's choice to run a program and it's not their fault if a bug prevented a notification they included from displaying. It doesn't stop it being despicable, but it does stop it being illegal. You can certainly use that trick to install spyware by attaching it to something else users want, and the installation of the software won't be illegal. The operation of spyware would remain illegal, which is where the police would get you.

[Zebo-the-Fat]

Currently using Vivaldi with UBlock Origin, never see adds on anything, not websites or Youtube, I can't imagine the hell of being without it!

[Lon24]

Greetings fellow Vivaldi-ite. Pi-hole has to be the best LAN solution for anybody with an old RaspberryPi in the drawer - even the original 256Mb Mk1 can do the job. Not only don't you see the ads in Vivaldi but many of those pesky ad/track infested mobile apps become defenestratedly usable in house.

The only real downside is when you get the occasional 'turn off your ad blocker to see this page'. Well, no - I'm not going to reconfigure my LAN to see an ad I specifically don't want to. Otherwise I have to fire up my mobile with wifi turned off. Mind you, can't remember the last time I did that.

[chivo243]

Pi-hole has to be the best LAN solution for anybody with an old RaspberryPi in the drawer

I had it running on Centos7 in VBox on an old macbook with out a display, it worked great! Now I have it in Docker on my Synology!

Really, can't say enough good things about Pi-Hole! Although all this white space on webpages looks empty!

[Downeaster]

Keep Up the Extensions and Ad Blockers!

I use Firefox 99% of the time for web browsing and for Youtube. I have Adblockers installed. It makes the web tolerable. I also use extensions on Firefox to block FaceBook tracking. Our loss of privacy is getting to be ridiculous! Hoping this makes more alternatives to Chrome as a browser popular.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: Keep Up the Extensions and Ad Blockers!

I used to use ad blockers, now I use NoScript, and dont need ad blockers, because all modern ads use active scripts, which NoScript can block.

[Dwarf]

Can't be an ad slinger and an ad blocker

They can't have both sides of the cake and it looks like they have chosen ad revenue.

I wonder when advertisers will realise that its all a great con and that most people detest adverts. We have to be force fed them all the time, wasting our time and bandwidth, yet have to pay for the privilege if we actually buy the product because of the cost of advertising. Good products will self advertise as people will tell their friends.

I don't watch TV any more because of the adverts and only use tools on the Internet that mean that I don't see adverts, since we've all got better things to do with our time. I assume that like many others, as soon as Chrome is unable to meet the requirement, then people will go elsewhere and either an existing or new browsers will become popular.

Here's an interesting graphic of browser popularity over time 2022 is not the end, its just the present point in history.

Personal view - Google should be split up so that conflicts of interest like this are no longer present.

[heyrick]

Re: Can't be an ad slinger and an ad blocker

"I wonder when advertisers will realise that its all a great con"

Never. If they were to admit the scale of the swindle, capitalism as we know it would explode.

The solution is, of course, inspired manager-speak. Throw more money at it, show even more adverts, question mark, question mark, profit!

[ThatOne]

Re: Can't be an ad slinger and an ad blocker

> most people detest adverts

Normal people don't heed them, for them they are just a fact of life, like rain and taxes. You only get annoyed when you know they are not a fatality, and you can indeed have a clean, peaceful web experience without your computers fans running at "hurricane" level.

.

> Google should be split up

You and what army?... Note I agree, but unfortunately that's wishful thinking.

[An_Old_Dog]

the Great Con

Advertisers know it's a great con. That's why they spend so much effort convincing (i.e. "advertising") business execs that advertising increases sales.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Can't be an ad slinger and an ad blocker

What you fail to understand here is, to the advertisers you are not the customer, you are the victim. The advertisers are selling to the companies whose ads you see, so those companies are the advertisers.

I don't mind advertising, too much. It used to work great on TV. They'd show a 25 minute program with 5 minutes of ads, too little to bother ignoring and too short to do anything else during. And it wasn't bad on the web before when ads were on the perimeter and dodn't lock the content. But the way it's done on the web, where it jumps on top of what you're looking at in a glaring manner, and then returns every few seconds with something new, it interrupts the reason the person is browsing the site to the point of unusability. I go on a 3-strikes basis on the few times my blockers don't work, 3rd ad and I close the page and never return. I also note what the product was, and the company that made it, and put it on my list of stuff to never buy, or at least not from that company.

Want me to look at your ads? Return to the edge of the screen and stay there. If it catches my eye I'll look but if it takes over my screen I blacklist the product forever.

[To Mars in Man Bras!]

Chrome on everybody!

The trouble is that, thanks to the open source Chromium project, any partially-gifted code slinger can slap a GUI on top, then go through the myriad options provided under chrome://flags and select a different combination of features to enable by default than the other eleventy billion Chromium based browsers out there have enabled and --hey presto!-- there are now eleventy billion and one Chromium based browsers on the market.

Dare I draw parallels with the eleventy billion 'flavours' of Linux which mostly employ a similar strategy.

[sambaynham]

More proof, if proof were needed, that Chrome is spyware with a browser attached.

[heyrick]

"Before, you know, people would move from Chrome to Firefox if an extension was not available. And that stopped occurring."

I wonder if that stoppage has anything to do with Firefox throwing away it's own system of extensions in place of something "better".

Firefox on Android, last time I looked, had a massive fourteen extensions available. It's a complete joke.

[ThatOne]

Rejoice!

> Mv3 aims to improve privacy

Mv3 aims to improve privacy by reducing privacy: Nothing is better than a small but solid privacy, and uncle Google has the capacity to safeguard it for you!

All hail our all-knowing and all-powerful privacy guard!

[Chris Gray 1]

scripts versus ads

I use Firefox with NoScript. I don't try to block ads, but I block most scripting. I find the parts of the web I care about to be quite usable. Sometimes I will temporarily (which NoScript handles nicely) allow one or two sites for scripting if I really want to see something. If that isn't enough, I simply don't care enough about that content.

I view YouTube more than I should. Ad videos can be annoying yes, but I've gotten used to them. I don't think I've ever had more than two before the main video plays. The small ads at the bottom I often don't notice (my monitor is pivoted to portrait mode).

Why don't I block ads? Simple - I believe in not trying to avoid doing my bit for how the whole web ecosystem works. Just don't try to mess up my system with scripts. Years ago I was hopeful for micropayments (yes, I know about Brave), but that's long gone.

[elaar]

Re: scripts versus ads

" I believe in not trying to avoid doing my bit for how the whole web ecosystem works"

But by blocking scripts, which prevents a lot of the tracking from taking place, then those adverts are less likely to be for things you'd be interested in. This means you're less likely to click and you're not doing your bit for the ecosystem....

[heyrick]

Re: scripts versus ads

"and you're not doing your bit for the ecosystem...."

Stuff the ecosystem. If a business model is propped up by needing essentially unknown companies surreptitiously tracking (which is unlawful), abusing the concept of legitimate interest if they even bother asking (which is unlawful), not saying who they are and what information they are collecting (which is unlawful) or how it will be used (which is unlawful), or providing any sort of ability to view the data collected (which is unlawful) or a way to get inaccuracies altered or the data deleted (which is unlawful) plus usually requiring you to run random third party scripts and resources on your machine (which is lawful, but stupid)...then I'd say that business model is fragile.

Just accept that some of us really disagree and stop with the bleating about how much it costs. If it's really that expensive, they would put the goodies behind a paywall instead of having so much disregard for their visitors that they would consider pilfering data, tracking, and outright theft to be acceptable.

Oh, and no, it's not to provide me with more appropriate adverts for things that I might want. That's a smokescreen. Far better to keep an eye on what sort of newspapers I read, what sort of articles within I look at. Then sponsored subtle nudging could be used to highlight articles more in keeping with my world view, especially coming up to an election. For instance, a Daily Mail reader might get a lot of information on the great things Johnson has done, as the Mail is right wing enough that readers are likely to vote Johnson, so wish to reinforce that. I read a more left leaning paper, so my sponsored highlighted articles may be op ed pieces about how awful Starmer is or something, aiming to get me to not vote against Johnson.

Sounds ridiculous? Cambridge Analytica / SCO Group.

That's where the money is. That a subset of the information can be used to promote a better shaver five minutes after you just bought a shaver is icing on the cake.

[Chris Gray 1]

Re: scripts versus ads

You are conveniently ignoring what I said in order to spout at high volume.

I don't care about ads - I block scripts. All of the bad stuff you spout about is done via scripts (which also happen to serve targetted ads).

[heyrick]

Re: scripts versus ads

"ignoring what I said in order to spout at high volume"

Oh, I'm just responding to a different part of your message than you think I'm responding to.

[BGatez]

another reason to kiss off google

Just try reading el reg w/o an ad blocker. UGH! No thanks.

[Chris Gray 1]

Re: another reason to kiss off google

Apparantly most, if not all, are based on Javascript. So, I don't see them. I do see blank spaces. I have no problem at all with reasonably-sized ads without overmuch animation or glaring colours.

(I don't have any blocking with the ancient browser on my phone, and yes, El Reg does look different there. :-) )

[Anonymous Coward]

Question for knowledgeable people here

Is it possible/feasible to move ad-blocking outside the browser ? Something like a local proxy that could inspect inbound&outbound traffic and apply policies under user control ?

[krakead]

Re: Question for knowledgeable people here

Yes, using Pi Hole

https://pi-hole.net/

[FrogsAndChips]

Re: Question for knowledgeable people here

Does it work for Youtube ads? In Firefox they are dealt with by Ublock+NoScript, but I still get them on my TV via the Roku YT channel.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Question for knowledgeable people here

In addition to the PiHole, one can run Blokada on mobile (requires side-loading on Android). I expect this may also create a market for third-party software or internet router features which block ads. People will find a way around this.

[adam 40]

Re: Question for knowledgeable people here

And noroot firewall on Android too

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Question for knowledgeable people here

You don't need PiHole for this. Something like AdGuard is excellent. Just use the app version not the simplified browser extension (which is still good but only works in that browser).

AdGuard is so good that I happily actually pay for it! I know, remarkable isn't it :-)

[Mr Dogshit]

Extension Rebellion

[adam 40]

I will superglue my bits to your data superhighway, sir!

[adam 40]

Well, there's always the hosts file

I find that adblockers are extremely useful to keep out dodgy sites and popups (fnarr!)

But some still slip past, in the absence of a PiHole to stick them in, I edit the hosts file, and stick in 127.0.0.1

Works a treat!

[Paris, because she has a nice PiHole...]

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Another fork

Bromite from the F-Droid app store is nice. I wish more apps would switch to non-Google stores so the microSd card would be usable again. Play store forbids apps from using anything but Google's SAF at floppy disk speeds.

[Boris the Cockroach]

No ads here

Firefox+ ublock here

Found it so good it got installed on my laptop/linux dual boot(windows and mint)

Press the youtube button... no ads... ahhh perfection

Shame they want to take it away from me in the style of C.M.O.T Dibbler when he found out that a single frame showing gold in a movie made everyone think of gold, so he added 20 mins of ads to the movie to reinforce his effort to make everyone think of cheap food from another street vender.......

[Lorribot]

Browsers are a case of you get what you pay for.....

I have never used Chrome personally as I have never liked or trusted Google and I use Duck, duck go for searches.

I moved to Waterfox a few years ago, it is like Firefox with out the cruft. Never had any issues with any website and ublock Origin and DDGo Privacy all work well, again with a PiHole on the edge to keep the Samsung telly and Android stuff isolated (about 50% of blocked traffic).

I once used Youtube with out it all and it was unusable for me with constant ad breaks.

It always amazes me how much IT people don't care about their privacy and always recommend Chrome and laugh at my Firefox/Waterfox usage and not even using Google to search for stuff.

Other things are available, are better and load websites just as well. Don't fall for the hype and nonsense people who know nothing other than what that person on Facebook/Youtube said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who do you think you're fooling, Google? As per usual, your concern is your bottom line of advertising revenue that the blockers interfere with. Plain and simple, and there is NO WAY you will ever convince me that any other "motives" you blather about are anything but window dressing to make the greed seem palatable.

[ecofeco]

Exactly. Obvious conflict is obvious.

[raving angry loony]

sane option?

Seems to me the only sane option would be to just dump Chrome and use something else.

Of course, far too many people don't like sane options, and would rather bend over and let the companies like Google just bugger them into oblivion.

[Binraider]

Other browsers are available. Use them. Whine at your IT people to make sure they are available if you don’t have admin yourself

[Omnipresent]

do evil.

all evil, all the time.

[quadibloc2]

Why is Firefox Dying?

It would seem like this sort of thing is the perfect reason to stop using Chrome, and to use Firefox instead to browse the Web.

[Captain_Cretin]

Re: Why is Firefox Dying?

People are lazy, plain and simple.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Why is Firefox Dying?

TL; DR;

[Dr Kerfuffle]

Delayed ads?

Talking of blocking adverts, is there an extension that will block those annoying delayed adverts that pop-up a few minutes after you have started viewing a page?

Often they are trying to get you to subscribe to the site or tell you something you don't want to know. They always manage to obscure the bit you are reading!

Blocking normal pop-ups doesn't seem to get rid of these delayed ones.

Paul

[Jim Whitaker]

Chrome developments

I suspect that Chrome has forgotten the rule: "There are more, better minds outside your organisation than there are inside." If the developers try and block a particular method (e.g. advertisement blocking), then I rely on extension developers to bypass that restriction.

[Jake Maverick]

it's all part of the plan.....

[yossarianuk]

The answer is firefox (preferably running 9n Linux)

[gmy77]

What changes? Practically almost nothing, "disastrous" advertising, understood as a user experience, will be the same in every browser, the intent will become that. And in fact, for this reason that certainly, after a X time lapse, when everyone is trying to read anything... and a thousand windows will appear on the screen, excluding normal navigation, someone will come up with some ideas, I'm sure of that. Question of MENTAL SANITY.

[Anonymous Coward]

For sure... like in many other past things... at certain point, considering the matter... "Would it be possible to browse decently without something to block all junk advertising? NO." and this is for sure. At certain point, like as by magic... trick just "appear"... and things go well.