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Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users

• estranhosidade 7y ago
  Google never wanted to have these adblock extensions on their store in the first place, it just turns out that when chrome was released and had zero market share they had to make this huge compromise to gain territory in the browser arena and eventually overthrow Firefox and the competition. And when (not if, when – it will eventually happen) they do that I will jump off from the Chrome bandwagon.
  • kibwen 7y ago
    "When" they do that, it will be because they have judged that they have, by then, thoroughly extinguished all competition. If you (the royal "you") want there to exist an alternative browser to which to jump to when the time comes, then consider making the jump today, when your influence might still make some small contribution to the competitiveness of the browser market.
    • estranhosidade 7y ago
      Chrome serves me just fine nowadays. Unlike you, I'm not some kind of Gandhi of the tech scene or anything like that. If it serves me fine I won't stop using it. If Chrome ceases to support adblock extensions then I will go look for some other browser, I would probably change to Vivaldi or anything like that, or even Firefox, they sure as hell will be there.
      • shadofx 7y ago
        What would you do if your needed websites start blocking Firefox?
      • isr 7y ago
        You totally missed his point. Which was: For as long as you, I and everyone else continues to use Chrome, we effectively support Google's ability to monopolise the browser space. Google's continuing monopolisation of the browser space will (and is?) leading to a dearth of alternatives. So, by waiting for the time when Google finally puts that final straw on the haystack which makes this whole thing too onerous to bear - and then you say "right, now I've finally had enough - I'm switching ...." ... you may find that there's nothing left to switch to.
• robbrown451 7y ago
  Chromium / Blink is open source, we should be doing everything we can to get as many users using non-Google Chromium browsers. We really shouldn't be having to worry so much about Google's conflicts of interests. Brave and Blink-based Edge are looking to be better and better options. Another is UnGoogled-Chromium: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium Would love to see this latter option becoming something that appeals to a very large, mainstream market rather than just a few techies.
  • nacs 7y ago
    Another excellent browser that users should be switching to: https://firefox.com https://firefox.com
    • mantap 7y ago
      Unfortunately it is unbearably slow on MacOS.
      • LarryPage 7y ago
        Try again
  • amyjess 7y ago
    I'm also very fond of Vivaldi, and I intend to switch one of these days. It would be especially nice if we can get the Vivaldi developers to fork Blink to keep the old API around.
  • roca 7y ago
    Chromium is still controlled by Google. Exhibit A: this ad-blocking API issue, where Google decisions will affect all Chromium browsers. (Sure, they can maintain patches against upstream, but over time that becomes non-viable.) If Google's behaviour concerns you, you need to use Firefox or Safari.
    • techntoke 7y ago
• jressey 7y ago
  Here are browsers that aren't just 'not Chrome,' they are better. Brave: https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/ Firefox: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
  • bdz 7y ago
    Personally I use and can recommend ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
    • ashishbindra 7y ago
      Can you elaborate as to why you recommend it? Thanks.
    • dooglius 7y ago
      > ungoogled-chromium retains the default Chromium experience as closely as possible It sounds like they would also be removing ad-blocking then
  • tapoxi 7y ago
    Maybe it's unfair, but I can't help but think of Brave as just a scheme to push their cryptocurrency. They're removing the website's ability to monetize and replacing it with their own system. That seems gross.
    • axaxs 7y ago
      You're not wrong about what it boils down to, but, I'm all for it. I didn't mind ads, generally, until I did. Until they started hijacking your browser, redirecting you, doing popups. Ad people have shown they cannot be trusted on the whole. What Brave seems to be doing is doing their own 'safe ads' system, and sharing the money. It will likely be less for the content creators, but as a 'at-my-wits-end-with-ads' Brave user, I just don't care.
      • rayiner 7y ago
• this_user 7y ago
  This is not entirely surprising. There is a reason why mobile Chrome, unlike mobile Firefox, never allowed extensions in the first place.
  • junar 7y ago
    I mean, mobile Safari doesn't allow extensions, and only recently allowed content blockers. Safari also has essentially the same model that Chrome wants to adopt: > Apps tell Safari in advance what kinds of content to block. Because Safari doesn't have to consult with the app during loading, and because Xcode compiles Content Blockers into bytecode, this model runs efficiently. Additionally, Content Blockers have no knowledge of users' history or the websites they visit. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/creating_a_content_blocker https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...
• droobles 7y ago
  Modern firefox is an awesome experience. The only reason I use Chrome is because the dev tools are that good.
  • hardwaresofton 7y ago
    Do you have some reasons you prefer chrome dev tools to FF? I consider FF to have the more featureful devtools, for example the sheer amount of stuff under the styles tab, you can tweak fonts in browser. I do remember back when I used chrome there would be new `console.x` features that were chrome only from time to time, but after I switched to FF I never really looked back
    • ryanoshea 7y ago
      Chrome's DevTools handles developing large unbundled webapps better. When your loader is reaching to the fs for thousands of source files for a single page load, Chrome performs significantly better than Firefox. Same goes for Ctrl+P jumping to files and debugging performance. It's gotten a lot better over the last two years, especially when FF DevTools got support for source maps and TypeScript debugging, but it still lags enough to keep me using Chrome for my job, Firefox at home.
  • redwards510 7y ago
    Don't forget there is a Firefox Developer version that includes additional devtools. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/
    • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      Devtools are baked into standard chrome. I find it odd I'd have to download a special version of Firefox made for developers.
      • pitterpatter 7y ago
        Devtools are also in standard firefox. The developer edition just includes new features that haven't yet made it to the current release. The chrome analog is Chrome Dev (https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/ https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/) Firefox: Nightly -> Developer -> Beta -> Stable -> Extended Support Release Chrome: Canary -> Dev -> Beta -> Stable
• romanovcode 7y ago
  Going as planned I presume. Step 1: Enable "Built-In Ad-Blocker" Step 2: Disable all other ad-blocks from store for some reason Step 3: Allow only ads from Google ad-network
  • lossolo 7y ago
    > Step 3: Allow only ads from Google ad-network They can't do that, this is an anti-trust lost case for them.
    • romanovcode 7y ago
      Aren't they already doing this with theyr "Acceptable Ads Program"?
• jedberg 7y ago
  I'm glad I already made the switch to FireFox. I only use Chrome to access Google apps, because for some strange reason they work a lot better in Chrome... The only thing I miss is a Session Buddy equivalent. When my computer crashes, it's nice to be able to restore all my tabs and windows, and also it's nice to be able to close a bunch of windows when I travel and then go back to my tab state from three weeks ago.
  • asymmetric 7y ago
    Firefox has session restore, which also works when the browser is closed abruptly. Is it now working for you?
    • jedberg 7y ago
      Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it just restores some of the tabs and windows. It's really inconsistent. Also it lacks the granularity of session buddy, which has a list of every tab and window configuration I've ever had.
      • Aeolun 7y ago
        Firefox has this if you are using a Firefox account at least. If you search around a bit in the sidebar menu you’ll find a list of all the open and previously open tabs on any of your PC’s. Including ability to restore all of them at once. Not sure if it’s quite the same thing.
      • mbrumlow 7y ago
        What OS? I use this all the time, I don't think I have ever had a problem. I do use nightly though. I have like 100 tabs open, and I would know if I was missing any of them. I need them all. ALL OF THEM.
        • jedberg 7y ago
          Nightly FireFox on the latest beta MacOS.
• redwards510 7y ago
  Google is essentially saying that Chrome will still have the capability to block unwanted content, but this will be restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome. Never heard of a paid version of Chrome before! Can anyone elaborate on this? I gotta say I'm kind of glad Google is doing this. It will force me to finally abandon Chrome, something I should have done awhile ago.
  • jchw 7y ago
    Googler here, but I do not work on Chrome and I’m speaking on a personal capacity. I believe this is a misnomer. The enterprise deployment stuff I’m aware of in Chrome/Chromium is accessible by any user, as far as I know, and in the past I’ve used it to force private browsing on always for my own personal usage. That said, I switched to Firefox when Quantum came out and haven’t looked back. Mozilla has done some annoying stuff over time, but imo the browser itself is really solid, and with some tweaks is very good.
    • junar 7y ago
      Is it this? https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download
      • jchw 7y ago
        Looks like some useful stuff for deploying to Enterprise, but actually as far as I know the enterprise functionality exists in normal installations. Like for example, this stuff: http://dev.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3 http://dev.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3 To be honest, I am not the most knowledgeable here; I just know I used the enterprise policy system on my personal laptop without issue.
        • Jaruzel 7y ago
          See my sibling comment.
      • 7y ago
• baal80spam 7y ago
  Ditched Chrome a few years ago and switched to Vivaldi. Couldn't be happier.
  • smaddock 7y ago
    Vivaldi builds on top of Chromium. All Chromium browsers will eventually receive these extensions changes as well unless they fork their codebase. Most of them support extensions via the Chrome Web Store though which means they'll need to adopt Manifest V3.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• oxfordmale 7y ago
  Bye bye Chrome...it was good while it lasted, although you have become a bit of a resource hog in recent years.
• joecot 7y ago
  > Firefox is available on all platforms (including Chrome OS via the Android or Linux app) Maybe this is a viable solution on brand new chromebooks, but on my Acer R11 both Android apps and Linux containers run pretty poorly. I use an Android app as my password tool just fine, but trying Firefox was a rather poor experience. And the linux container just dogs trying to do anything. I have Ubuntu loaded on via crouton (to use tools like GIMP or actual VLC), but if chrome gets rid of ad blocking that removes much of the point of ChromeOS for me entirely.
  • panarky 7y ago
    I run Firefox on my Chromebook in Ubuntu via Crostini, works pretty well and appears right next to native ChromeOS apps on the screen.
• junar 7y ago
  I found this post highly editorialized. Here's the actual response if you want to understand the context, instead of simply seeing bits and pieces with a journalist's spin. https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chromium-extensions/veJy9uAwS00%5B1-25%5D https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/chrom... Also, the headline seems mostly incorrect. The gist of it, as I understand, is that Chrome is enforcing a migration from the webRequest API to a new declarativeNetRequest API. The latter API doesn't currently have all the capabilities of the former, which is important for context blocking extensions. However, features are still being added and the team states that they are interested in more feedback from extension developers.
  • mbrumlow 7y ago
    And if those features happen to never be implemented? I really think it is a bad practice to force adoption of a new API that can't fulfill the same functions as the previous one. Nobody would be here talking about this if they just made the new API without breaking add blocking (useful add blocking), and then forced people to move. Even more so given that it looks really bad when your main goal is to serve people ads.
    • CmdrKrool 7y ago
      > I really think it is a bad practice to force adoption of a new API that can't fulfill the same functions as the previous one. I agree, which incidentally is the reason I switched from Firefox to Chromium a couple years back as Mozilla dropped XUL extensions for their own development convenience, toward an ideal of cross-browser extension compatibility, and in hoping to win over Chrome users by making Firefox more alike in both looks and performance. How many of those motivations have changed, and do we know that Mozilla aren't actually going to follow suit with a similar restructuring of APIs some time after such changes have settled into and been normalized in Chrome?
  • kkarakk 7y ago
    I'm tired of major corps doing this with their APIs, either the new API is a drop in replacement for the old API or you're doing shady shit in the guise of "it's coming! soonish~"
• eqtn 7y ago
  Is this applicable to chromium too or just chrome? Would like to see how Microsoft approaches this with their new browser
• nicoburns 7y ago
  The new Chromium based Edge suddenly got a whole lot more relevant. I certainly won't use Chrome if I can't have an ad-blocker!
  • SquareWheel 7y ago
    Why wouldn't you have an adblocker? Manifest V3 supports ad blocking.
  • roca 7y ago
    Did you miss the part where these Google decisions affect all Chromium browsers?
    • pedrocx486 7y ago
      Unless they backfill it... I can see Microsoft going all out with Edge Chromium and Brave also trying their best. Both have manpower to try overcome Google's decisions on Chromium with their forks.
      • roca 7y ago
        Sure, but carrying patches against Chromium trunk is an ongoing cost. It's especially problematic if it means there are diverging extension APIs. If this is the last decision Google ever makes that their downstreams disagree with, then sure it's probably manageable.
        • nicoburns 7y ago
          Apple manages just fine... > If this is the last decision Google ever makes that their downstreams disagree with, then sure it's probably manageable. And if it's not, then it justifies the cost of forking.
    • thrower123 7y ago
      Microsoft might just have the horsepower to keep up with any particularly shitty changes that Google might potentially try to push through, better than some of the other Chromium skins. At least if they want to.
• phiresky 7y ago
  From the author of uBlock on this: What we see are the public statements, for public consumption, they are designed to "sell" the changes to the wider public. What we do not see is what is being said in private meetings by officers who get to decide how to optimize the business. So we have to judge not by what is said for public consumption purpose, but by what in effect is being done, or what they plan to do. This is how personally I see the deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API in manifest v3: In order for Google Chrome to reach its current user base, it had to support content blockers -- these are the top most popular extensions for any browser. Google strategy has been to find the optimal point between the two goals of growing the user base of Google Chrome and preventing content blockers from harming its business. The blocking ability of the webRequest API caused Google to yield control of content blocking to content blockers. Now that Google Chrome is the dominant browser, it is in a better position to shift the optimal point between the two goals which benefits Google's primary business. The deprecation of the blocking ability of the webRequest API is to gain back this control, and to further now instrument and report how web pages are filtered since now the exact filters which are applied to web page is information which will be collectable by Google Chrome. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-496009417 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss...
  • user17843 7y ago
    Indeed, almost the entire ad-blocking market is controlled by the company behind Adblock Plus (eyeo GmbH), who has contracts with Google. It appears they also own AdBlock, and uBlock (not confused with uBO), so during the last years they basically tried to capture the entire market. The fact that Eyeo has >150 employees tells us something about the amount of money to be made from ad blocking. Although they have only published the numbers from 2016, it seems they are quickly approaching around €50 million yearly revenue, with almost 50% of pure profit. For Google this Acceptable Ads Program may be more than a 100 million dollar business. The only real nuisance is uBO and the future possibility that someone comes along and uses Google's own software to eliminate their core business model. Basically in this entire environment if an extension does not take part in extracting money out of people, it becomes a problem for most parties involved. Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously. Google indirectly controls ABP, but they want the ABP model to apply to all blockers, so that they both get money from non-blocking users as well as from blocking-users. In the perfect world of Google content-blocking does not exist beyond mere visual ad-blocking of the most annoying ads. ABP already allows cookies and network connections, so google still knows everything about those users. Personally I use a combination of pi-hole, third-party cookie blocking and uBO, which takes care of basically all cross-site tracking. But when I recently had a look at another system of someone who uses ABP I noticed that the blocking really is only visual, theres still a profile that is being sold to data brokers, you just don't see the stuff they recommend to you. The default settings of ABP are also extremely anti-user. ABP/Eyeo is a wolf in sheep's clothing. uBO users on the other hand are basically invisible to the survaillance capitalists.
• laminar_flow 7y ago
  Definitely time to ditch Chrome, but also even more of a reason to set up a PiHole https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/
  • zaroth 7y ago
    It saddens me that Pi-Hole is pulling a mere $1,700/mo on Patreon. There must be just way too much friction for a user to say, yeah, charge me $1/mo please.
    • tty2300 7y ago
      That's a pretty good amount to be making. Should easily pay for the time spent maintaining the project.
      • zaroth 7y ago
        I’m not sure if this is sarcasm? No, $24k gross per year does not even begin to cover the amount of work put in to create and maintain software at the level of Pi-Hole. Not even remotely close. Not even 1/10th. Pi-Hole should be making $1m ARR at least. 53 releases (going back to 2015), 2,765 issues on Github, multiple devs, supporting multiple platforms, extensive documentation, and on and on. $24k/yr, come on...
        • tty2300 7y ago
          The top contributer has 500 commits since 2015. Its clearly a side project so $24,000 per year for a side project is very nice especially if you live somewhere with a good cost of living.
  • OrwellianChild 7y ago
    Can you help a newbie understand why I'd want to use this instead of Firefox + uBlock Origin? Seems like a lot of extra maintenance overhead...
    • 7y ago
• janpot 7y ago
  That's it, Getting myself a pi-hole.
• Despegar 7y ago
  This should be good news for Firefox and Safari. I'd be interested to hear from Gorhill on whether uBlock Origin works with the Content Blocker API for Safari and if not what needs to change to make it possible.
  • phs318u 7y ago
    Currently Safari complains that uBO will slow down your browser. But it still lets you load it.
    • Despegar 7y ago
      Yes but as far as I understand it doesn't actually use the native API. The Content Blocker API has benefits from a performance and privacy perspective.
      • kitsunesoba 7y ago
        Yes, content blocker extensions are many times more lightweight than old-style blocker extensions (virtually zero negative impact on resource usage and site load speed), can never be hijacked to do anything malicious, and know nothing about you or your web traffic. I use them on my iOS/macOS devices and the their effectiveness is quite apparent, especially on the iPhone where CPU and bandwidth aren’t as abundant.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    • tomc1985 7y ago
      Does your uBO actually do anything now? I seem to recall seeing that message and letting it run but also noticed that stopped blocking things
      • dan1234 7y ago
        Still working fine for me (uBO 1.16.0 on macOS 10.14.5/Safari 12.1.1).
• enitihas 7y ago
  Another big issue is that if chrome makes it difficult to disable ads such that 99% of chrome users aren't able to do it, websites may simply choose to block Firefox as it would be easy to do so without losing a large part of user base while making sure no users are blocking ads. Right now there are far too many users using ad blockers.
  • baroffoos 7y ago
    If that happens then ad blockers will just also change the user agent to say chrome.
  • 100100010001 7y ago
    That is rich!!! There are far too many companies selling my private information without my consent. As long as companies can sell user information, it is only fair for users to block access to such information.
  • mises 7y ago
    Blocking a user agent? Oh no, whatever shall we do? Thankfully, we can still just change it, though I suppose a really insidious web site could use feature checks.
    • ryan-c 7y ago
      A trivial way to check for Firefox in javascript: !!{}.toSource There are many others, of course.
      • ryannevius 7y ago
        For others who may be wondering, this is because `Boolean.prototype.toSource()` is a non-standard method that is only supported by Firefox: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Boolean/toSource https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...
    • fiblye 7y ago
      I mean, those annoying “join our newsletter”, “quit using adblockers”, and “allow us access to cookies and all your data or else” popovers went from nonexistent to everywhere in the span of 2 weeks. Once one major site does it, they all will.
• idlewords 7y ago
  I'm not a fan of antitrust as a tool to punish tech companies, but I think there would be great benefit in cleaving Chrome off of Google. The tension between Google's business model and what is good for users is just too great.
• whatamidoingyo 7y ago
  Awesome. Mozilla should be happy. Let Chrome die.
• floatingatoll 7y ago
  There’s a lot of bias in this article title. I’m kind of disappointed in them for it. “Complex ad blockers” would have been just as informative but without the blocker-favoring tilt. Bonus irony for realizing that a properly configured blocker as they’re favoring with this title would reduce their site’s revenue, being both JavaScript and ad-heavy.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• khally 7y ago
  I switched to the Brave Browser a few months back (learned about it via Coinbase Earn). Its a great alternative to chrome with solid ad-blocking & I got $10 out of it.
  • xur17 7y ago
    I did the same a few weeks back, and the ad blocking's been great. Hasn't behaved any different from Chrome + uBlock.
  • techntoke 7y ago
    Brave is built on Chromium just like Chrome. You are basically using Chrome.
• plg 7y ago
  what is "enterprise users of chrome"? Does this mean paid GSuite accounts?
• ineedasername 7y ago
  Will this change apply upstream to the entire Chromium project?
• sys_64738 7y ago
  How will this affect Vivaldi and Chrome-based Edge? It's a worrying thing unless Microsoft and Vivaldi can provide a safe alternative.
• jensvdh 7y ago
  Time to try the new Edge!
  • dijit 7y ago
    New Edge is Chromium, the change will apply.
• eatonphil 7y ago
  Is this effectively paying to remove ads? That is a compromise I'm willing to make.
• aussieguy1234 7y ago
  You could always run pi-hole on your network, no extensions needed https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/
• jaimex2 7y ago
  This is great news for Firefox.
  • techntoke 7y ago
    Not if you want hardware acceleration support in Linux. Not that most Firefox users care about open source operating systems.
    • jaimex2 7y ago
      I thought it had hardware acceleration? Alas hidden away in advanced settings.
      • techntoke 7y ago
        No, Firefox doesn't support hardware acceleration for video decoding at all.
• diminoten 7y ago
  When will this actually kick in? Just wanna know how much longer I have on Chrome. Wait, will Chromium have the same problem?
  • techntoke 7y ago
    Don't trust the Mozilla crowd with answers, they are like foaming at the mouth with hatred for anything that isn't Firefox.
  • roca 7y ago
    Yes, this is a Chromium change.
• blinkingled 7y ago
  This is malice. Plain and simple. I will remove the last remaining installation of Chrome from my workstation. It's still good that I can run Firefox on Android but we have to make Chrome the new IE fast.
  • jupp0r 7y ago
    > we have to make Chrome the new IE fast. Microsoft has literally done that already: https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/ https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/
• notatoad 7y ago
  Not only is this enough to get me switching back to firefox, it's enough that my next laptop purchase won't be another chromebook the internet without an adblocker is simply not usable for me.
  • xur17 7y ago
    Agreed. This is making me reconsider all of the Google services and products I use.
    • soverance 7y ago
      Also agreed. I've already long since pulled almost everything I use away from Google, with the exception of my cell phone (I'm a Fi subscriber). Now I'm beginning to look into alternative cell phone plans, simply because Google's insistence on advertising doesn't sit well with me. I currently work at an advertising agency (doing IT stuff), and I'm in the process of job hunting for this exact reason. I can't justify spending my time helping people who are insistent on finding new, increasingly intrusive ways to advertise.
  • SquareWheel 7y ago
    Manifest V3 still supports ad blocking. I don't know why so many in this thread think it doesn't.
    • seangrant 7y ago
      Rule-based ad blocking limited to 30k, as stated in the article. That's why people are upset.
      • SquareWheel 7y ago
        It has the advantage of being faster, with the disadvantage of being less dynamic. Existing rule lists will need to be slimmed down. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because all they ever do is grow without being pruned of old rules. It seems to me people are upset because they read the title and misinterpreted it to me that adblocking as a whole is going away. But to be fair, even the article itself does a poor job of clarifying that.
• ravenstine 7y ago
  Slightly off topic, I'm finding it very disingenuous that people in this thread(and any other threads that come up about Firefox) have actually had significant performance issues with Firefox. No bugs that are noteworthy, sans that fiasco with the expired certificate that disabled addons briefly. I've been using Firefox since "quantum" on both my MacBooks(one of which is old AF) and on Linux. I've yet to have problems playing video, streaming, or anything of the sort. I keep tons of tabs open. I just can't really say anything wrong about Firefox at this point. It was once the case that Firefox had significant disadvantages in contrast to Chrome, but now the only reason I have to still keep Chrome installed is when work forces me to use some Google-proprietary page that doesn't work in other browsers. If you had problems with Firefox 2 years ago, try it again before bringing up performance when people are considering it as an alternative to deleting Chrome. The more people who uninstall Chrome, the better.
  • finder83 7y ago
    I just switched to Firefox today after a few years hiatus, and I agree that it is hugely improved, and rendering speed is at least on part with Chrome if not faster. They've done a great job with it, and the dev tools seem greatly improved in the developer edition as well. The issue I have with firefox on both Linux and Windows is not speed, but stability. I think it's the process model. Windows freeze if I open too many tabs, and is an issue I've not really had much with Chrome (though it had its own issues). I've noticed it a few times today as well. I wonder if that's the speed issues people are describing? With that said, removal of ad blocking is a deal breaker for me and Chrome will no longer be my default browser.
    • johannkokos 7y ago
      How many tabs do you consider to be too many tabs? Most of the time I open up to 10 tabs, and Firefox is performing fine. But I have also seen people opening 40 tabs.
      • philliphaydon 7y ago
        At home I have like 60+ tabs open. And at work I have > 100. Firefox is pretty rock solid now with many tabs on windows. Chrome can’t cope with that. Or it couldn’t a year ago when I switched to Firefox. The tabs are mostly blogs and things I’m slowly reading or such. I just open more than I close :(
• ravenstine 7y ago
  Why exactly would anyone use the "enterprise" version of Chrome over the regular one, or vice versa? As far as I can tell, it's the same browser... https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download/ https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download/
  • userbinator 7y ago
    With this news it seems Google just gave everyone a reason to use the enterprise version...
  • pedrocx486 7y ago
    It's mostly a thing for companies that deploy Chrome in their images and want to retain control over it (group policies). It's not for your common end user.
  • jaimex2 7y ago
    Schools use gsuite to force web filtering chrome extensions on their managed Chromebooks. Thats what they mean by enterprise customers.
• brianzelip 7y ago
  A good time to suggest everyone here commit to using FireFox and DuckDuckGo. You can manage, even with any initial bumps. It’s ok.
  • anonymous5133 7y ago
    I will start doing this.
  • misterdoubt 7y ago
    Yeah, I made the same switch a few months ago and thought I'd need time to get used to it... Nope, they're perfectly functional systems. Just browse and search. Netscape -> Opera -> Firefox (in beta) -> Chrome (early beta) -> Firefox
• renlo 7y ago
  Might be a silly question, but is the block list per extension or is it a global block list? Ie, if each extension can have 30k rules, and the current block list requires 70k rules, could there be 3 extensions, 2 with 30k rules and 1 with 10k rules? This would surely be an inconvenience, just wondering
• Zelphyr 7y ago
  I’ve been hesitant to agree with calls in the past to break Google up, but now it’s time. This is Google choosing what’s best for their investors over what’s right for the community. This is Google doing evil.
  • benatkin 7y ago
    I found your comment grayed out. I think the Google downvote brigade is out in full force. Your comment may contain no information but it's the opinion of someone who hangs out on HN regularly!
    • lern_too_spel 7y ago
      I downvoted because it misses the distinction between not doing evil, which Google never claimed, and not being evil. This is Google being evil.
      • Zelphyr 7y ago
        You're right, and I stand corrected. I mistakenly thought their quote was "Don't do evil" when it was "Don't be evil"[1]. Still... I'll take the downvote because I was wrong, but your clarifying comment did more to educate me on my error than a downvote could. Apropos of my original comment; Apparently their new motto is "Do the right thing." which I question how they can justify this move to prohibit ad blockers as doing the right thing. So now (to your point) they're being evil and doing the wrong thing. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
        • benatkin 7y ago
          I think "do the right thing" has just the ambiguity they want. If you're trying to win at a video game, you do the right thing. It doesn't matter if you're playing a good character or an evil character. Same if you're trying to learn to golf. Google is a faceless and unprincipled company that has the profit motive and nothing more. They're shaping up to the perfect example of https://thecorporation.com/ https://thecorporation.com/ only they're playing a very long game compared to the Exxons and Wal-Marts of the world, and part of it is tricking people into thinking they care about not being evil. I think they might harm the environment every bit as much as Exxon but perhaps it will be in the form of paperclip maximizers. https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer
• KirinDave 7y ago
  Well, now is as good a time as any to switch back to Firefox. They've managed to come out of a long stretch of mismanagement, technical debt and security issues to a much better place.
• opan 7y ago
  I see a lot of comments saying to switch to Firefox, or people saying they're already using Firefox. This is fine, but I don't think people should be totally comfortable with this. Switching to the one other choice still leaves us in danger of the whole web being controlled by a few programs. We should encourage other browser projects as well. I've seen some cool browser projects, but mostly they use webkit still. I'm not sure what you call that part. The core maybe. We need more browser cores. I think this[1] is one, I encourage people to share more that they know of. [1] https://robinwils.gitlab.io/articles/sbcl-browser-engine.html https://robinwils.gitlab.io/articles/sbcl-browser-engine.htm...
  • spilk 7y ago
    Also, Mozilla is largely dependent on Google via their default-search arrangement, so even if it's not Webkit/Blink based, Google still has significant influence.
    • techntoke 7y ago
      Mozilla doesn't even put a priority on open-source operating systems. Chromium actually supports hardware acceleration but Firefox doesn't.
  • bagacrap 7y ago
    They call it the rendering engine
• Causality1 7y ago
  Ugh. Now I'm going to have to switch my passel of family members, neighbors, and friends who rely on me for tech support over to Firefox. Not that Firefox isn't going the same way eventually. Firefox crippled the ability for real customization with Firefox 57 and it's only gotten worse since then.
  • shadofx 7y ago
    Pale Moon exists if you want the old school Firefox add-in capabilities
    • Causality1 7y ago
      It'd be lovely if I could get the speed of Firefox Quantum while still being able to put the damn tabs and address bar wherever I want them.
• emilfihlman 7y ago
  Okay so is Chromium safe? Can I switch to that?
  • techntoke 7y ago
    Do you need permission? Just cause Firefox users have turned into the new hipster Mac fanclub doesn't mean you have to join them.
• mises 7y ago
  For what it's worth, I've had a great experience with firefox for the past year (since quantum convinced me to give it another chance). All though, it recently basically factory-reset itself. Signed out of sync, extensions gone, custom settings gone. Any one else have this happen? It's also got a weird memory leak, which I think is related to the pdf viewer. Never really checked in detail or tried to measure.
  • mccr8 7y ago
    The new version that just came out added a new feature where different channels (Release, Nightly, etc.) have different profiles, and for some people it seems to have not picked the right profile for the channel they use. You can try looking at about:profiles. Your old profile might be in there, and then I think you can switch back to it.
  • c0wb0yc0d3r 7y ago
    If you're talking about the issue Mozilla had with add-ons at the beginning of May, yes! Everyone did, haha! All my other settings seem fine, however.
  • rococode 7y ago
    Yes!!! I've had this happen several times, and it's incredibly annoying! I was just about to comment on this issue before I saw your post (as a "this is a good opportunity for Firefox but they still have some seriously irritating bugs"). It seems like my entire profile (about:profiles) got switched out several times with a brand new one. Exact same symptoms as you - bookmarks, custom UI tweaks, extensions, etc. all gone (basically consistent with creating a new profile yourself). For a regular user, I think that only needs to happen once for them to uninstall and never come back. Most of the time I've been able to restore it to my old profile, but one time a file was corrupted and I had to start from scratch again. It happened before the extension signing fiasco, and those two things combined led me to explore new options (Vivaldi, Chromium, etc.) although those didn't pan out for me so here I am, still on Firefox and crossing my fingers hoping it won't happen again. Perhaps relevant: I do have Nightly and Developer Edition installed alongside the regular version. I used to use Nightly as my daily driver, but switched to the regular version after the first time my profile got messed up.
• gtirloni 7y ago
  Now that's an advantage my non-tech family and friends will appreciate if it gets implemented and ad blockers stop being efficient in Chrome. I'll install Firefox, they will see things are better and the switch is done. No need to talk about Quantum, freedom, etc. Mozilla should be sending one of those cakes to the Chrome team.
  • Krasnol 7y ago
    Have fun cleaning out Chrome if you are around again and they didn't even realize that it came along some other software... We need a chrome install blocker...
• irrational 7y ago
  I don't get it. I've used Firefox and Chrome for years. Firefox is easily as good and capable as Chrome. The barrier to switch from Chrome to Firefox is almost non-existent. Is Google counting on the majority of people not being knowledgeable enough or motivated enough to switch browsers?
  • tlburke 7y ago
    Google Chrome (desktop) does not contain ads/"suggested content" on the New Tab page. For that reason alone I'll continue using Chromium on desktop until they actually pull the trigger and remove/neuter uBO.
    • misterdoubt 7y ago
      I, too, find that the simple new-tab ads that I can easily disable with one option are the worst of all possible ads.
    • AlexCoventry 7y ago
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-override/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-overr...
  • teh_klev 7y ago
    Firefox isn't quite there. How about a sane Profile manager? This is something I use heavily on Chrome. The "about:profiles" UI doesn't cut it. Also when I use Firefox on my non-work Fedora machines (and this is going from Fedora 21 to 29) it seriously chews up memory and CPU. Facebook (yeah, I know) is rendered unusable after about 30 mins. And as other post(s) have pointed out, video playback can be a bit janky. These machines aren't slouches either, i5 ~2.5Ghz 4th or 5th gen, 8GB RAM, SSD, and dedicated graphics cards. I'd love to switch, but these are things that are deal breakers.
    • LamaOfRuin 7y ago
      My money would be on you having an ATI graphics card and that being a good bit of the graphics jank. 2013 intel chip+integrated graphics runs like a champ and with lower memory usage than chrome (though I am blocking all the ads, which does significantly change performance everywhere).
• cwkoss 7y ago
  Running Chrome without adblock is a security risk. Google has turned a blind eye to malicious ad behavior for their own profit, and this is going to lead to infected corporate networks.
  • pixl97 7y ago
    They dont care. That's your problem not theirs. Which is why I want to see more data protection laws in the US. I want to give them problems.
• modzu 7y ago
  and hopefully this shall be the high water mark of the chrome browser. rise firefox, rise!!!
• minusf 7y ago
  iridium is another chrome based browser without some of the googleisms.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• hestefisk 7y ago
  Easy. Just use Firefox.
• EastSmith 7y ago
  I wonder what MS will do with Edge(Chromium)? I've been using it for couple of weeks now as a secondary browser to Brave (separate sessions etc) and it is looks and behave like a normal Chrome. Hope MS fight this.
  • hu3 7y ago
    This is a big opportunity for MS to keep this functionality as a side-patch that's maintained and applied to every new version of Chromium they use.
• whalesalad 7y ago
  I recently setup Pihole as the DNS server for my entire home network and said farewell to my Adblock extensions. It's glorious.
  • bscphil 7y ago
    DNS / domain based blockers are entirely too coarse in my experience. There are plenty of cases where an ad or a tracking script comes from the exact same domain as real content. A real ad blocking extension can match only parts of the URL, or block certain file types, etc. Ad blocking extensions can also do CSS to clean up the page after blocking the ad, or "display: none" ads that for some reason can't be blocked any other way.
  • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    Sub-optimal for laptop users who might connect to various networks (home, office, the coffee shop) throughout a single day.
    • bobbean 7y ago
      Depending on how powerful your laptop is, you could always install a lightweight version of Linux using Hyper V (assuming you're running Windows), and install a pihole server in that. It might be a bit of a pain changing the dns settings for every network, but maybe someone else knows a way to make that easier.
  • palebluedot 7y ago
    My fear is something like pihole may end up being a temporary stopgap; it can only help with DNS queries that go through it, and so it too may end up in the same position as chrome + ublock origin. For instance, if chrome decides to use a trr or dns-over-https and removes options to change it.
    • whalesalad 7y ago
      True, but at that point you can elect to stop using Chrome altogether. #firefoxGang
• burtonator 7y ago
  I propose we create a new browser fork due to this issue and back it by the main ad block developers. The other issue is that Chrome on mobile doesn't support extensions. They tried to away with not having ad-block on mobile this way. No extensions means no ad-block. Let's just have a new browser based on Chrome that supports mobile + extensions and ad block and tell Google they can go pound sand.
  • Solvitieg 7y ago
    How about Brave or Dissenter? Edit: I've just been informed this will effect all Chromium browsers. My goodness.
    • justsee 7y ago
      Chrome restricting extension APIs won't affect Brave's ad-blocking. See: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1133878509342846977 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1133878509342846977
• BearsAreCool 7y ago
  Is there a good way to convert chrome saved passwords/history to firefox? Thinking I'll switch back to firefox.
  • jensvdh 7y ago
    This is why my 1password subscription is totally worth it!
  • mackal 7y ago
    ffpass works. https://github.com/louisabraham/ffpass https://github.com/louisabraham/ffpass
  • teh_klev 7y ago
    I don't know how current this is: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefo...
• microcolonel 7y ago
  I guess my Chromebook will not be running Chrome.
  • hawski 7y ago
    Yeah, it's time to unscrew the write protect screw. I'm wondering how Firefox for Android manages on ChromeOS. For now it's too slow on Crostini. But my cheap Chromebook is not performing well with both Crostini and Android containers. So straight up Linux should be hopefully better. It's certainly harder for my old Tegra K1 Chromebook.
    • microcolonel 7y ago
      > I'm wondering how Firefox for Android manages on ChromeOS I've done this before, it works pretty well, but Firefox for Android doesn't have a great extension experience as far as I've seen, though it could have improved since last I tried.
• AaronFriel 7y ago
  I think it's time for Microsoft to rethink their decision to base Edge on Chromium. It's a painful decision, to be sure, but the Microsoft team has to make a decision here: fork or adhere. The immediate benefit of forking and not following Chromium on this change is obvious. However, the cost of the fork will grow over time and it will be in Google's interest to deprecate and replace all of the infrastructure that supports the webRequest API to make it maximally painful to maintain the functionality in a fork. On the other hand, had Microsoft decided to base Edge on Gecko, they wouldn't be working off a forked codebase whose owner has a perverse incentive to make the fork as painful and expensive as possible. How many engineer hours, months, years are going to be wasted just shoring up features like this?
  • OrangeManBad 7y ago
    Why wouldn't they just patch that part of the code? I'm seriously surprised though Microsoft didn't build an adblock in IE much earlier, that would have stopped google in the tracks.
    • AaronFriel 7y ago
      That part of the code doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it's baked in at a rather low level in the browser. That's how it can block requests! In JavaScript! Google will begin by deprecating the webRequest block API (that's in progress). Then they will begin deprecating the code that supports it. Then they will begin removing and deleting the "unnecessary" code. Then, at some point in the future, they may make other breaking changes to the webRequest flow that assume that requests cannot be blocked. Each time Google writes new code that assumes webRequests cannot be blocked, Microsoft must patch that code too. With each successive change, Microsoft will be forced to make a choice: 1. Support both Google's webRequest API and the Microsoft's, at increasing cost with every merge and rebase where Google has cut off or altered another piece of functionality 2. Adopt Google's API and break ad blockers Google has a profit motive in shrinking the ad blocking market, and therefore they have a perverse incentive to make their browser worse for users, and more expensive for any forks that want to maintain ad blocking functionality.
• philprx 7y ago
  Clearly this is the line for me: let's sue them for abuse of their dominant position, and get them toward antitrust lawsuit/procedure. It's maybe not gonna fly in the US but definitely workable in Europe.
• gcb0 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extin... If you are not using/contributing to firefox, you sold yourself short.
  • xvector 7y ago
    Unfortunately, Firefox’s resistFingerprinting is nowhere near as good as Safari’s. I still use Firefox on Windows, though.
• AaronFriel 7y ago
  [deleted]
  • jchw 7y ago
    Actually no! In fact, responses like this make me afraid to post at all. Because, either I make honest disclosures that I work for Google, when talking about Google software or other things, or I try to be pseudonymous and not disclose. If I do the latter, well, that could have a lot of repercussions, it would be a violation of the social media policy as well, so it's not really worth considering, plus it even just feels dishonest. But if I do the former, I'm stuck with people reading it like I'm some corporate marketing drone, despite the fact that before I joined Google, I was already prominently on internet communities like Hacker News. I'm trying to follow both internet etiquette and company policy by disclosing that I work for Google, but invariably whenever I speak on something there's this weird conspiracy that I simply must be on the corporate payroll astroturfing; despite that I'm, practically speaking, just a rank and file software engineer. Also, I am not trying to mislead people. Average consumers are obviously not going to use the enterprise policy features. They should, however, be available on any Chrome installation, if the article is referring to what I think it is. The article claims it is a 'paid' feature, and I don't think there is a such thing. I don't even understand this accusation. I straight up have been personally using and recommending Firefox since Quantum came out. As for the frequency of discussing Google stuff... I mean come on. The frontpage of Hacker News is sometimes covered in discussions about Google stuff. I can't escape it even if I want to. It is actually a big downside of working for a large employer; it becomes fairly difficult to disconnect from work when on vacation (as I currently am, actually.)
    • AaronFriel 7y ago
      [deleted]
      • dang 7y ago
        As I tried to explain upthread, posts like this are poison to HN. We need you, and everyone else, to resist taking arguments in personally accusatory directions.
• keithnz 7y ago
  So, in the new Edge, they could still support this? Would be a good point of difference for them.
• mackal 7y ago
  I just switched back to Firefox after using Chrome since pretty the day it came out. I switched after updating to 74 and noticing how many features I depended on were removed. I originally intended to just revert some of the changes (using Chromium on Linux) but I decided that amount of work was silly. Switched back to Firefox. After this news, glad I did.
  • tofof 7y ago
    Which features were removed in 74? The only particular thing I can find is that hyperlink auditing can no longer be disabled. I doubt this is what you meant when you said features you "depend on".
    • mackal 7y ago
      Mute Tab and the place I was modifying to restore Ctrl+shift+q was removed. It was too much effort to maintain these features.
• _dmurph 7y ago
  I'm confused about the difference between what people are saying here, and what chromium is working on. Referring to the email discussion of the feature: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-extensions/veJy9uAwS00/AppqR6u-GgAJ https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-exte... " It's really unfortunate how many people seem to be commenting here without understanding what the proposed changes even are. To be clear: 1. This change _IS NOT INTENDED TO GIMP AD BLOCKERS_. Rather, it is designed to make them faster and more secure. (Yes, even despite the limitations that might impact uBlock.) 2. The new proposed content blocking API _is not final_ and can/will be changed. 3. Threatening to switching to Firefox is not helpful and _WILL NOT CHANGE GOOLE'S MIND ABOUT THIS_. If you don't understand this, please refrain from commenting as you'll only be decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio in this thread and thus making it more likely that the entire thread (including those who are expressing actual legitimate concerns about the limitations of the new API) gets ignored. If you want to help: 1. Explain a specific use case that the new API can't handle (including a technical explanation of _why_ it can't handle that use-case) 2. Suggest constructive changes to manifest V3's API that will improve its capabilities _while still adhering to the stated goals of manifest V3_ 3. If you can't do any of the above, please refrain from commenting so you don't just make things worse Sorry if I sound aggressive. It just really frustrates me when constructive technical discussions get hijacked by large volumes of unconstructive, uniformed comments. It makes it way harder to get real work done. " I know the anti-google bandwagonning is strong, but seriously, I doubt most people actually tried to understand what is being changed here, and it's sad.
  • jhayward 7y ago
    This reads just like propaganda, frankly. It doesn't say anything firm, denies reality ("won't interfere, except it will impact uBlock"), etc. Also, according to the article, Google has since confirmed that it isn't going to budge, at all, on any of the issues that the comment you quote (which was from January) is addressed to. It's not something I would put any credence in if my app or org depended on it.
  • zorpner 7y ago
    Don't yell. 1. Explain a specific use case that the new API can't handle (including a technical explanation of _why_ it can't handle that use-case) The maximum number of rules is 30k, which will break HTTPSEverywhere (I'm assuming you don't need that explained). Suggest constructive changes to manifest V3's API that will improve its capabilities _while still adhering to the stated goals of manifest V3_ If Google wants me to do work, they can pay me. There was a time in the past when Google would have deserved the benefit of the doubt with changes like these. That time is long, long gone.
• teh_klev 7y ago
  For work stuff I rely on multiple profiles for different client work (I use about ten of them...so far) and so I stick with Chrome. If Mozilla didn't have such a demented mechanism to operate with multiple profiles then I'd happily switch from Chrome. This is a feature that should be upfront in the UI, not hidden behind about:profiles and it's generally janky UI and behaviour. This needs to be a first class citizen, not what feels like some half baked afterthought.
  • bigjimmyk3 7y ago
    Have you looked at the multi-account containers feature? I think it would do what you are looking for, and it's not restricted to google profiles.
    • sonar_un 7y ago
      Sorry but multi account containers aren’t even close to the same thing as having separate profiles. This is one of those things for me that keeps me coming back to chrome.
• malandrew 7y ago
  I just modify etc/hosts with this file: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
• Lazare 7y ago
  I've been meaning to give Firefox another try; I haven't used it actively in years, and this is a good prompt. And after a couple hours.... ....Firefox is pretty impressive! I'm actually going to switch to using it as my "daily driver".
• sieabahlpark 7y ago
  I wonder if a browser Monopoly could bring an antitrust lawsuit against Google.
• fencepost 7y ago
  And this pops up on the same evening that Google chooses to roll out unblockable advertising in Android System App "Duo" in the form of an unsolicited video message from Virat Kohli, apparently the lead player on an Indian cricket team? Way to work that Lily Tomlin "Ernestine" vibe Google. Edit: also, "Oh, we're so sorry that our 'security' update is going to gut something that users love but our accountants hate (for anyone else). This is completely an unintended consequence."
• aikah 7y ago
  bait + switch. I've been going back to Firefox for 6 month now, both on desktop and mobile. I'm a developer so I still need to use Chrome for testing, but I'm never going back to it as my main browser, for obvious reasons. There is an obvious conflict of interest going on here, and I'm not going to give Google any more money. Firefox works fine now, didn't get any issue whatsoever. It used to be slower than Chrome, yes, but it's not true anymore and it uses way less memory than Google's browser. That's why I don't trust Google with anything, Golang, Goggle PAAS, whatever, they'll go full Oracle in a few years, mark my words.
• userbinator 7y ago
  I am not surprised. If you look at the direction in which browsers have been "evolving" (or perhaps devolving...) especially over the last decade, especially after Google first introduced Chrome, the message has been pretty clear: gradually hide and remove functionality that helps users take control of how they consume content, and silence opposition by explaining that it's "for your security". Chrome isn't the only guilty one here; it just happens to be the most user-hostile, maybe because it started the trend (good example being https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7329855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7329855), but all the other ones have made similar decisions. Firefox made extension signing mandatory (many people think Mozilla is benevolent, but that doesn't mean their views will continue to align with yours), and more recently IE, which could be said to have been the last reasonably popular browser with a per-zone configuration and site whitelisting/blacklisting feature by default, was deprecated for the far more dumbed-down (and now becoming even more Chrome-like) Edge. But as long as you can still install a custom CA and set a proxy server, you're still in complete control over the content your machine receives; there have been many changes to frustrate that (first HTTPS, now DoH --- to protect, not just from attackers, but you), but it is still possible to MITM and control your experience. There's been a strong opposition to them ostensibly for "security" reasons, however, the way things are going, you will give up your freedom and security. (I'm a long-time Proxomitron user. It's far more fine-grained than DNS-level blocking, although I also use a HOSTS file, and I can do more than just block. The best part is, it works for all browsers, even the ones embedded in other apps.)
  • rjf72 7y ago
    As always, I think it's appropriate mention Brave here. They are very much going in the opposite way of other browsers. They've now for a long time had features such as being able to change scripts/third party cookies/tracking/etc on a per site basis with a single click. As an example, you can get rid of all bait and switch paywalls (such as NYT) by simply disabling scripts. In Brave that's a two click change - Lion Icon -> Toggle Enable Scripts button. They've also added features like built-in TOR support. Right click a link and one of the context options is 'Open link in private window with Tor'. You can then change 'identities' (Tor exit node -> IP/country) with a single click as well. Absolutely awesome for geoblocked content or even just seeing what users from other countries would see. Kind of fun to play 'Google Roulette' and perform the same search from various places around the world. And obviously there's built in ad blocking and all that good stuff. It's like a Chrome that runs absurdly fast (in part because all the rubbish is removed) and has put privacy as a #1 consideration. Of course the downside is that, as mentioned, it uses Chromium as the renderer. If Google starts bringing this stuff over to Chromium, which is probably a non-zero possibility, that's going to pose major issues to browsers like Brave. Incidentally I was also a long time Proxomitron user!
• sekasi 7y ago
  How is the FireFox experience on OSX these days compared to Safari? This is 100% a nail in the Chrome coffin for me.
  • snek 7y ago
    i've been using firefox on macos for a little over a year now, it's been fantastic. good battery life, good performance, etc.
• goombastic 7y ago
  Between pihole, firefox and addons, I see no ads. The way the ad industry is going, they will at some point prevent people from blinking. A big thank you to the developers at pihole, mozilla and the plugin devs.
• rkagerer 7y ago
  What a jerk move. I hope enough users are outraged by this to force them to rethink it.
• markbnj 7y ago
  >> Just remember to unblock sites you wish to support financially. The way ad networks function, is unblocking a site you want to support any different at all from unblocking everything?
  • flukus 7y ago
    Yes and no. With uBlock you can allow ads at the site level, the problem is that half the reason to block them is the tracking they do, even if I like I site I don't like it enough to unblock google's spyware.
• darklajid 7y ago
  I've been a Firefox user throughout - never made the switch to Chrome. But here's what worries me, what I'm wondering now: As far as I'm aware, Mozilla/Firefox tried to follow Google for extensions, deprecated their own API for Google's/Chrome's instead. How likely is it that Mozilla will further "follow the spec" so to speak, doing a change like this for compatibility or whatever?
  • jdlshore 7y ago
    Seems unlikely. It's in opposition to Mozilla's clearly stated stance toward privacy. In addition, their reasons for deprecating their old extension API was purely technical. Even then, they were extremely conservative in their deprecation timetable, waiting long past when the old API was massively harming performance. But once they made the decision to replace it, it made sense that they would choose an existing API as a base, not make a separate incompatible API. But do note that, while Firefox and Chrome share the same base extension API, Firefox has APIs Chrome doesn't. It's reasonable to believe that this new deprecation will just become another thing that Firefox has and Chrome doesn't.
    • sfink 7y ago
      Yes, that sounds exactly right. But I would add that there is a technical reason for the more limited blocklist setup, in that it's much more reasonable to do a simple list check asynchronously than to run JS code. But to me, that just suggests that firefox might want to consider an additional async API. I can think of many options that are more powerful than what Chrome is moving to. eg use the exact logic uBO needs. Or register a WASM function with no access to anything that would problematic to run async.
• xtat 7y ago
  https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/
• justinclift 7y ago
  Abusive. Monopoly.
• mehrdadn 7y ago
  So... is this the real reason why Google developed Chrome? So they can play the long game and eventually prevent ad blocking from harming them?
• dbg31415 7y ago
  DNS-based and hosts-based blocking should still work. https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...
• cyanbane 7y ago
  Can't suggest pi-hole enough for a small personal network. Happily donate to them. On a larger scale, I am not sure...
• hyperpallium 7y ago
  Surprise!
• lajawfe 7y ago
  I hope that this makes browsing with Chrome so bloated with ads and tracking that it is faster and efficient to browse with browsers that allow users to get rid of unwanted cruft. That may be the selling point to switch from Chrome in the future.
• RenRav 7y ago
  I wonder how many regular people even use adblockers or would care, enough to see a migration soon?
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• user764743 7y ago
  Well I guess using a browser made by an ad company isn't a good idea after all.
• newscracker 7y ago
  This is a good move by Google to promote Firefox. We should use this opportunity to inform laypersons about Firefox and the freedom it provides with ad blocking (which includes protecting oneself from malware too). Mozilla should use this for a PR move (even though the bulk of its revenues come from having Google as the default search engine in many geographies).
• BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  How long until Google starts threatening to disable your account if you're detected using a 3rd party ad blocker? Essentially building a paywall around their services, where receiving their ads is the subscription cost. Is this a realistic extrapolation of the direction they're moving?
• iobug 7y ago
  Is this a chrome API or chromium API? For the later case we have Chromium Edge(https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com), which is just as good! If it's chromium API then Microsoft may actually end up taking a fork off chromium codebase right away and decide to keep that alive.
• raveenb 7y ago
  more reason to use the Brave browser instead of Chrome. Essentially the Chrome browser without the Google bindings. Use the crypto features or not, it has been working for me and my mac runs way more cooler when i had been using Chrome.
• phreack 7y ago
  Well, I find this to be great news! Now I have a great way to convince my non tech friends to switch to Firefox. "It lets you install a thing so you don't see ads anymore, unlike Chrome where you have to pay for it"
• rajesh-s 7y ago
  Does this include "Chromium" browsers as well like Vivaldi?
• haolez 7y ago
  I wonder if it will be too difficult to maintain downstream patches for Chromium that reverts this change.
• dreamcompiler 7y ago
  All the more reason to use Pi-Hole. Works with any browser, incurs less overhead than an extension, and Google can't stop it.
• concernedctzn 7y ago
  This makes sense from the viewpoint that google is entirely beholden to their shareholders and has to maintain their insane growth. That doesn't make it ok. It's a shame all these companies follow such a predictable pattern. Any resources to help actively ungoogle? I've switched search, email, and browser so far, and will be pushing everyone I know to avoid. Long time coming.
• Amboto2205 7y ago
  Well, glad I never started using Chrome instead of Safari on my Mac.
• severine 7y ago
  To gorhill and all the people working in real privacy protection: Thank you, I love you all, keep up the good fight, we rely on you!
• benbristow 7y ago
  Hoping Microsoft keep the APIs enabled on the new Edge-ium. Solid browser. If they port it over to Linux (they're already doing OSX) and keep the APIS required for ad-blocking enabled I see it picking up speed very quickly. Opera has it built-in to the browser so I think they'll be safe too. Wonder if this will apply to Chromium or just Google Chrome?
• deafcalculus 7y ago
  I've been a Firefox/Safari user for a long time now because of concerns about Google, but I don't really get what this outrage is all about. As I understand it, Chrome is moving to the Safari rules-based model? Can someone explain why this is such a bad thing? It's not like Chrome is stopping all ad blocking.
• hazzamanic 7y ago
  Will this affect just Chrome or will browsers built on top of chromium also get manifest V3? If so, I assume they can implement the old web request API themselves to keep as blockers working?
  • zwaps 7y ago
    You could fork Chromium, but then Google will prevent you from watching videos like netflix and amazon online, which means no one is gonna use this browser
• Swivekth18 7y ago
  Edge is looking more appealing now. Although PiHole is still the bomb because it also blocks in app adds.
• mtgx 7y ago
  It's such a shame Microsoft thought it will benefit more from piggybacking on the Chromium monopoly over building its next browser on top of Firefox. If Microsoft would have donated only 50% of the Edge browser development budget to Firefox, Firefox would be in a much better position in the future to compete against Chrome. Now, I fully expect Google to end its search contract with Firefox, or pay them much less, too, since it won't feel like it needs to fund its competitor anymore.
• antpls 7y ago
  At the end of the day, it's their browser, their rules. The only way this could be changed is through (EU?) law, but i'm not sure what would be the basis of such law. It would be like forcing every car manufacturers to implement free HEPA air filters in their cars.
• Tsubasachan 7y ago
  Chrome is faster! Yeah but FF blocks ads, trackers, analytics and social media buttons. Basically half of the shitty internet. That saves some time I would think.
• rmtech 7y ago
  This is the final straw for me, I just installed firefox and changed it to my default browser.
• heinrichhartman 7y ago
  I don't get it. Is Chrome not open-source? Can't we create a fork that keeps that API?
  • philliphaydon 7y ago
    Chrome itself is not. Chromium is opensource. That's what Brave, Edge, and what ever others are using.
• bprasanna 7y ago
  Now they are at the position where they can make the users dance to their tune. Im quite not sure if any decision makers at Google have a glance at HN on whats the reflection on their decisions. They just know that users are hooked to their platform all around (Search, Android, Chrome, Maps, GPay, GMail, etc.,) and they can decide where to be a dictator and where to be a humble servant. In the end, all they care is how much data can they harvest & how to use that data to be more relevant for their service offerings (advertisement). Monopoly at the best level! Also, when Google gives a statement/blog post on their decision, it becomes a news for media & HN. But, the reverse doesn't happen; whats the reaction across different blogs/media/HN doesn't get much visibility.
  • hkai 7y ago
    You have just described business. A for-profit corporation is explicitly required, by its fiduciary duty to shareholders, to do what you are describing.
    • andygates 7y ago
      This is untrue. It's a particularly rapacious Wall Street meme, but a company can do whatever its board dictates, including not being a monopolizing monster.
  • andygates 7y ago
    I mean, no. It's easy to swap browsers and ad-infested pages are broken pages.
• baq 7y ago
  every day i'm happier that I've changed my browser to firefox last year.
• collyw 7y ago
  Does this affect Chromium?
• bebop_kinkoid 7y ago
  Lol, such bombastic statements as "Betrayal", "Firefox rebound", master plans and whatnot. The userbase, is not the same thing as the handful of technical individuals, such as ones found here. The bread and butter of the userbase cares only about the optics. So long as the stupid banners are taken out of their sight, hardly anybody would care of more. If they did, Snowden news breaking would have bankrupted every company named participating in the Orwellian schemes. Privacy is an elusive abstract, not really understood or appreciated by the public. Partly because we never had it - and have always been accustomed to various levels of intrusions. Even the EFF doesn't understand the abstract well enough to market it properly, even though their main operations are dedicated to it. Like it or not, those of us who care about privacy are in the position of that kid browsing the internet and demanding someone makes a browser plugin for some obscure bullshit that only came up in some fossil of a 500 users niche forum. Take a moment and be appreciative you even have "pi-hole, third-party cookie blocking and uBO," to fall back on. Its not google's fault that firefox decided to shoot itself in the head, with a 2 week update cycle that outdated everybody's plugins constantly. Or that their performance shit the bed. The way I transitioned to Chrome was when the 14 plugins I used for work - were driven off development because people couldn't keep up with firefoxes bullshit. At that point you might as well use the faster browser thats not memory leaking like crazy, if plugins are off the table anyway. Theoretically, you can make a company that offers a premium browser but who the fuck is going to pay for that? It's possible to market it to enterprise and say that buying this will prevent people from collecting data on their employee internet activities. But then you'd need a whole lot of business mojo to not only fund that, but then staff it with top talent. Because as garbage as google may be, selling out to help China censor itself. They still have top level enginers you have to compete with. Some sacrifice in performance may be an acceptable tradeoff in favor of privacy, but it can't be too big. And its not just a browser that you have to repalce, email is mandatory, then you are still left facing the temptation of google docs. What is google docs to the small business? A one stop save for infinite amounts of money on bullshit micorsoft licenses, windows is enough of a drain to start with. Be glad that google is not offering an OS on PC. We'd be lamenting the days MS was ripping us off.
• bArray 7y ago
  This kind of crap is why we need to be cautious in allowing Google too much control over web standards, including AMP and their not-iframe element (portals [1]). Whilst the engineers mean well when creating them, Google's main objective is to make money, not to make a better web. At the moment you have awesome projects like Project Zero [2], but how long till they start strategically handling exploits for monetary gain? Contrast Project Zero to Project Dragonfly [3]. Nobody should be relying on them being good actors. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a-new-web-page-navigation-system-for-chrome/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a-new-... [2] https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ [3] https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/26/technology/google-dragonfly-senate-hearing/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/26/technology/google-dragonfly...
• hella4 7y ago
  Lol, such bombastic statements as "Betrayal", "Firefox rebound", master plans and whatnot. The userbase, is not the same thing as the handful of technical individuals, such as ones found here. The bread and butter of the userbase cares only about the optics. So long as the stupid banners are taken out of their sight, hardly anybody would care of more. If they did, Snowden news breaking would have bankrupted every company named participating in the Orwellian schemes. Privacy is an elusive abstract, not really understood or appreciated by the public. Partly because we never had it - and have always been accustomed to various levels of intrusions. Even the EFF doesn't understand the abstract well enough to market it properly, even though their main operations are dedicated to it. Like it or not, those of us who care about privacy are in the position of that kid browsing the internet and demanding someone makes a browser plugin for some obscure bullshit that only came up in some fossil of a 500 users niche forum. Take a moment and be appreciative you even have "pi-hole, third-party cookie blocking and uBO," to fall back on. Its not google's fault that firefox decided to shoot itself in the head, with a 2 week update cycle that outdated everybody's plugins constantly. Or that their performance shit the bed. The way I transitioned to Chrome was when the 14 plugins I used for work - were driven off development because people couldn't keep up with firefoxes bullshit. At that point you might as well use the faster browser thats not memory leaking like crazy, if plugins are off the table anyway. Theoretically, you can make a company that offers a premium browser but who the fuck is going to pay for that? It's possible to market it to enterprise and say that buying this will prevent people from collecting data on their employee internet activities. But then you'd need a whole lot of business mojo to not only fund that, but then staff it with top talent. Because as garbage as google may be, selling out to help China censor itself. They still have top level enginers you have to compete with. Some sacrifice in performance may be an acceptable tradeoff in favor of privacy, but it can't be too big. And its not just a browser that you have to repalce, email is mandatory, then you are still left facing the temptation of google docs. What is google docs to the small business? A one stop save for infinite amounts of money on bullshit micorsoft licenses, windows is enough of a drain to start with. Be glad that google is not offering an OS on PC. We'd be lamenting the days MS was ripping us off.
• vectorEQ 7y ago
  google slowly showing it's grip with it's android 'open' model falling over and it's chrome now going corporate... :')... soon you will need to pay-per-search not to get only advertisements and nonsense results. enjoy your internet ppl..
• hella4 7y ago
  Lol, such bombastic statements as "Betrayal", "Firefox rebound", master plans and whatnot. The userbase, is not the same thing as the handful of technical individuals, such as ones found here. The bread and butter of the userbase cares only about the optics. So long as the stupid banners are taken out of their sight, hardly anybody would care of more. If they did, the Snowden news breaking would have bankrupted every company named participating in the Orwellian schemes. Privacy is an elusive abstract, not really understood or appreciated by the public. Partly because we never had it - and have always been accustomed to various levels of intrusions. Even the EFF doesn't understand the abstract well enough to market it properly, even though their main operations are dedicated to it. Like it or not, those of us who care about privacy are in the position of that kid browsing the internet and demanding someone makes a browser plugin for some obscure bullshit that only came up in some fossil of a 500 users niche forum. Take a moment and be appreciative you even have "pi-hole, third-party cookie blocking and uBO," to fall back on. Its not google's fault that firefox decided to shoot itself in the head, with a 2 week update cycle that outdated everybody's plugins constantly. Or that their performance shit the bed. The way I transitioned to Chrome was when the 14 plugins I used for work - were driven off development because people couldn't keep up with firefoxes bullshit. At that point you might as well use the faster browser thats not memory leaking like crazy, if plugins are off the table anyway. Theoretically, you can make a company that offers a premium browser but who the fuck is going to pay for that? It's possible to market it to enterprise and say that buying this will prevent people from collecting data on their employee internet activities. But then you'd need a whole lot of business mojo to not only fund that, but then staff it with top talent. Because as garbage as google may be, selling out to help China censor itself. They still have top level enginers you have to compete with. Some sacrifice in performance may be an acceptable tradeoff in favor of privacy, but it can't be too big. And its not just a browser that you have to repalce, email is mandatory, then you are still left facing the temptation of google docs. What is google docs to the small business? A one stop save for infinite amounts of money on bullshit micorsoft licenses, windows is enough of a drain to start with. Be glad that google is not offering an OS on PC. We'd be lamenting the days MS was ripping us off.
• xdasf 7y ago
  Google is not what it used to be
• pmontra 7y ago
  One of those turning points when techies start recommending friends to use a different technology and in a few years that technology wins? In this case, Firefox again.
• Fulvianus 7y ago
  I'm starting to question whether it was such a good idea to make web browsers virtual machines (for Javascript or WebAssembly apps). It makes web browsers big and complex. I know both Chrome and Firefox are open source, but does that really matter so much when the codebase is so big and complex that only large and well-funded organizations are able to develop it? I'm not sure if it's realistic anymore for a few guys to get together and create a web browser (including rendering engine) in their spare time. This centralization can lead to censorship, as we're starting to see here. We also end up with a mono-culture (well, not quite there yet, since there are still at least 2 web rendering engines), which is horrible for security. The Irish potato famine is good example of what can happen when you have a mono culture. These days, you often have to let strangers execute code on your computer, if you just want to read an article or look at some pictures.
• chimen 7y ago
  Can't use ff on linux unfortunately. It has this weird bug where it clicks on the first item automatically if I right click on anything. It's a super annoying bug.
  • kosma 7y ago
    I'm having the same problem on macOS. Might be HiDPI related as I run on non-standard settings (1.5x scaling).
• chewz 7y ago
  Google is in a position to disrupt ad-blocking in Chrome (via webRequest API) and on Android (via DNS over https). This makes both mBlock Origin and PieHole obsolete. Where do we go from here?
  • Blackstone4 7y ago
    Firefox?
    • chewz 7y ago
      On Android it won't work I think. Some DNS queries will go exclusively through Google DNS - ads mostly I am afraid. And I am also worried because my main desktop platform is ChromeOS. And my main adblocking strategy had been DNS based. That sucks.
      • pserwylo 7y ago
        The Android Firefox browser is great. Not only does it do everything you expect a modern mobile browser to do, but also supports extensions, including uBlock Origin.
• Stay_frostJebel 7y ago
  That's ok Google. You may not force me to look at your stupid advertising. Plenty of decent browsers out there that take my privacy seriously. You just shot your selves in foot
• neilv 7y ago
  This sounds like a wonderful gift from Google, to Mozilla. As you're deciding what browser to move to, consider using two browsers: Firefox for any sites you need to log into or otherwise identify yourself, and Tor Browser for everything else. I've been trying this a while, and it works pretty well.
• bad_user 7y ago
  For those of you not familiar with what is being proposed ... Chrome engineers want to replace the ability to block any request with a standardized ad-block functionality based on a list of provided rules and inspired by Safari. In other words the ad-blocking functionality becomes built-in. However this facility excludes dynamic capabilities that plugins like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger need. Also I’m speaking with first hand experience in this field: the ad-blocking functionality provided but Safari sucks and can be easily fooled. That there are publishers that don’t implement anti-ad-blocking measures, that’s only because they either don’t have the resources or because they don’t want to piss off users. And at this point uBlock Origin is by far the most aggressive extension out of the popular ones and the nightmare of advertisers, not only because of its capabilities, but also because it doesn’t have a commercial entity behind it. It is no accident that Google is hitting these extensions. Switch to Firefox folks. The grass over here really is greener ;-)
  • AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Today it is, unfortunately history has shown that trusting Mozilla is also foolish.
    • bad_user 7y ago
      Really? How so? I've been a Firefox user ever since the beginning and I can't remember once when they violated my trust. It seems to me that Mozilla is held to much higher standards in this community. I often see a huge double standard.
      • AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        The Looking Glass extension, the whole deal with pocket, and Studies being on by default and allowing them to push changes remotely with no user action. I don't use Firefox currently, so these are just what I recall from HN posts.
        • bad_user 7y ago
• rashthedude 7y ago
  This is what I needed to finally abort Chrome altogether.
• pgl 7y ago
  This will probably get lost, but Raymond Hill confirmed that he will keep developing uBO and uMatrix for Brave (and any other Chromium-based browser that exposes access to webRequest) after Chrome deprecates webRequest for non-Enterprise users.
• SimonPStevens 7y ago
  I say this all the time when this kind of thing comes up. Please use Firefox! Even if it's worse. Even if its slower[1]. Even if it doesn't have that one feature or bug fix that you personally consider really important. Just use Firefox anyway. Find a workaround. Suffer whatever it is you dislike about Firefox because in the end if we don't act as individuals against the chrome monopoly then google are going to own the web and we'll suffer a far worse period of monoculture than the IE6 ever was. If you can't go all the way, going part of the way is still valuable. I personally have chrome installed still because there are a couple if internal sites at my work that have problems on Firefox, so I use Chrome for those but Firefox for everything else. Firefox for Android is also solid browser, and as a bonus you don't see any AMP stuff. If you're a website/app maintainer, check for compatibility in Firefox. It's worth supporting Firefox to keep the web the way it should be. I know they make mistakes sometimes, but we need a viable alternative or it will be too late. ([1] I don't think it is, it's made soild improvements in recent years, but lots of people seem to have their own specific issue they hold dear against it)
  • gzimhelshani 7y ago
    what do you think about the new Edge browser from Microsoft, its based on Chromium. So you would get most benefits of chrome but its from Microsoft, which personally, I trust more than I trust Google.
    • pier25 7y ago
      I installed the beta for macOS and I'm not happy about it. It installed a daemon that updates Edge even when the browser is closed. Even if you delete the .app the daemon keeps running and when there is a new update it downloads it and installs it. There are no settings to change this intrusive behavior. I sent feedback and complained on Twitter. Apparently the team is looking on it.
      • 52AE8D47 7y ago
        > It installed a daemon that updates Edge even when the browser is closed. They learned that trick from Google and Chrome; search for `com.google.keystone.agent.plist` -- they install a Launch Agent for you.
• nottorp 7y ago
  That's okay, I switched to Firefox (+uBlock Origin) a while ago.
• sandeatr 7y ago
  Well I'm done with Chrome then, Firefox it is.
• magnamerc 7y ago
  I switched over to Brave (chromium skin) and I'll never go back to Chrome.
• alimbada 7y ago
  Firefox Quantum is pretty good now. I've switched back recently and rarely use Chrome now as my personal browser.
• cutler 7y ago
  The only place I use Chrome these days is http://localhost:x000 http://localhost:x000 for Chrome Dev Tools.
• kokojie 7y ago
  Let's all use the web browser made by the world's biggest ad company, what could go wrong right?
• betimsl 7y ago
  I think this is a positive thing. Somebody has to accelerate FF popularity, and this is a start of a big push. Combination of this and FF efficiency equals more users on FF. So, hey, thanks google :)
• effnorwood 7y ago
  Goodbye
• gwbas1c 7y ago
  This just means that ad blockers will need to work with a natively-installed proxy. Remember, with https you can install a certificate and man-in-the-middle yourself. This is how tools like Fiddler and Charles allow inspecting and debugging HTTPS. In this case, a natively-installed proxy can deny requests to blacklisted domains.
• swah 7y ago
  I actually enjoyed the original Google search result ads, a tiny text based thing that would side on the right side of the results...
• fesoliveira 7y ago
  Will these changes affect the pure Chromium? I really don't want to move to Firefox, all my settings, auto-fills and stuff is in Chrome, and Chromium seems like a better alternative if it still supports ad-blocking. I know that Firefox has improved a lot over the years, but I still have a few too many issues whenever I try using it, whereas Chrome and Chromium "just works".
• prirun 7y ago
  I use Firefox with NoScript and found that leaving most domains disabled by default eliminates nearly all ads. I have to fiddle with enabling a few domains on a new site, but if the site is one of those where it uses a million 3rd-party "X as a service" domains, I just leave. This is the reason I quit using DigitalOcean: every page on their web site required me to enable 5 new domains in NoScript. Other VPS providers just required 1 or 2 enabled. Or, if the site is coded so that it only works after enabling ad-looking domains, I leave. Vote with your feet folks.
• kexx 7y ago
  Every time when I see Google is advancing into this bs, i donate some money to mozilla foundation to counterbalance.
• tempodox 7y ago
  Apparently, some misguided folks seem to think there is room for more than one browser in the world, and a non-Google one to boot. If you smell the scent of roasting flesh, those heretics are being burned at the stake.