6 ms·

Mozilla continues the war against Firefox users in an effort to make it ever more Chrome-like.

gerash 4y ago
I'm getting tired of this manifest v3 drama on HN. Why don't people who oppose it band together and fork Chromium and maintain that fork. The software is open source at the end of the day.
- dmortin 4y ago
  Because it's not an easy job and people would have to devote significant free time to it.
  - gerash 4y ago
    Exactly. So get behind the wheel and do something (eg. fork Chromium without MV3 or something like that). But if you're not willing to spend your own time and energy then what's the point of constantly complaining about conspiracies surrounding MV3 on HN. It's tiring to read.
- gingerlime 4y ago
  I’m no expert, but I think the main moat that Chrome has here is its web store where users find extensions and developers submit their extensions. There’s a review process which whilst far from perfect is labor intensive and still helps catch rogue extensions. Hard to open-source this part of Chrome.
  - cglong 4y ago
    There's an OSS fork of Chromium for Android called Kiwi that enables installing extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
    - ToruiDev 4y ago
      Which still relies on the Chrome Web store. Which will stop accepting MV2 Extensions after the move to MV3 Therefore leaving you without a store again
  - marwis 4y ago
    You also can't use Google services with unofficial build. That includes Sync, Translate and bunch of other stuff.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      That’s a feature for me. I don’t want to have to sign into my browser or have it phoning home constantly. It’s a privacy risk.
- foepys 4y ago
  Because it's not really about MV3 but about the largest ad and tracking network on the planet changing the most popular web browser to cripple ad blocking under the disguise of security.
  - Guthur 4y ago
    I wonder if this is the prelude to unblockable government propaganda. Already get it on all the social media after all. Calling it now, let's see in a couple of years how deep the state really is.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Maybe, but let's not allow the government boogeyman to blind us to the direct and immediate threat, which is adtech and surveillance economy.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    But that’s not what’s happening here, how is anything Firefox does with their switch crippling adblocking?
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      What's happening is step 1 - Firefox buying into MV3, even if with its own tweaks, and mentioning that DNR is a thing that will happen eventually. Step 2 - once people get used to it and drama dies down - the implementation will likely become very close to Chrome, under the guise of not fragmenting the dev experience and similar nonsense excuses. These moves keep happening in tech all the time. Slippery slope fallacy doesn't work here - if you see something that looks like slippery slope in a tech business, it almost definitely is one.
      - Semaphor 4y ago
        But they never mention removing WebRequest, only having DNR in addition where it makes sense for performance reasons (and for compatibility with chrome), not having it would be stupid. I’m all for slippery slope arguments, if they are well-founded, not if it sounds like wild conspiracy theories.
- Drakim 4y ago
  Chrome is not fully open source, so any fork would be somewhat reduced.
  - ranguna 4y ago
    I don't know if the original post was edited, but it says chromium, not chrome.
    - Drakim 4y ago
      It always said chromium, but I find that people actually mean "chrome but open source" when they say "chromium", when that's not really the case at all.
- josefx 4y ago
  > The software is open source at the end of the day. Then you can point to the source of widevine? Something that chrome developers called a core component when they where caught side loading it on dedicated open source distros a few years ago and initially refused to supply an option to disable it?
Semaphor 4y ago
No, they don’t. But they also don’t listen to people who’d have FF still be the slow-as-molasses version with XUL it used to be.
- xdfgh1112 4y ago
  I remember when Firefox first came out and it was so much faster than Mozilla at the time. Not sure what happened.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Than Mozilla? You mean than Netscape?
    - xdfgh1112 4y ago
      The original Mozilla browser that came out of Netscape. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite It had a reputation for being slow and bloated at the time which prompted the creation of a slimmed down browser, Phoenix which eventually became Firefox
      - Semaphor 4y ago
        Oh wow, I’m not even sure if I ever used that. I do remember Phoenix, but this barely rings a bell. And towards your question: Different times. Both hardware and browser capabilities were vastly different back then, so some technological choices made in the early days might have made more sense. For me personally, I know that back in the day I was a lot more forgiving of delays than I am now.
yoavm 4y ago
What? Mozilla is building the best open-source browser on the planet. Sure they sometimes make mistakes (who doesn't? and who can please all users?), but a "war against Firefox users"?!
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  A "war against Firefox users" is maybe a bit much, though MV3 is definitely a slap in the face, and is a battle in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing[0]. But then, "they sometimes make mistakes" isn't also an accurate description of the mess Mozilla is these days. In the last years, they've been routinely wasting money and alienating the userbase by doing lots of weird side projects nobody asked for, instead of focusing on improving the software people actually use. ---- [0] - https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
  - yoavm 4y ago
    Well, as a Firefox user, I would say that Firefox has become way better over the last few years. It's super fast. It actually blocks ads. It syncs beautifully with Firefox on Android. Some side projects felt useless. Some feel quite relevant to the goal (e.g. Mozilla VPN), some grew to become huge (Rust). Some were maybe an amazing idea at the wrong time (Firefox OS?). I wouldn't want Mozilla to stop doing any side projects. What's so bad about MV3? Would love to hear your take. Mozilla made it clear it will not adopt changes that prevent extensions like uBlock Origin from working. Many other changes seem to be focused at user security (which is good), and other seem to just follow the "standard", which one can argue is quite important from the perspective of users too, because the fact that extensions can be easily built for Chrome and Firefox together is effectively _the reason_ some of the extensions I use are even available on Firefox.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > What's so bad about MV3? Would love to hear your take. It's a trust issue. Mozilla burned a lot of it in recent years. > Mozilla made it clear it will not adopt changes that prevent extensions like uBlock Origin from working. That's the thing: I don't trust they'll keep good on that promise for more than a year or two. I may be misremembering things, but I'm pretty sure they initially weren't going to adopt MV3 at all, then they weren't going to add DNR, now they're adding DNR but "not removing request blocking, pinky swear". Once DNR lands, I worry they'll start thinking about removing request blocking, under the guise of "security".

I'm getting tired of this manifest v3 drama on HN. Why don't people who oppose it band together and fork Chromium and maintain that fork. The software is open source at the end of the day.

dmortin 4y ago
Because it's not an easy job and people would have to devote significant free time to it.
- gerash 4y ago
  Exactly. So get behind the wheel and do something (eg. fork Chromium without MV3 or something like that). But if you're not willing to spend your own time and energy then what's the point of constantly complaining about conspiracies surrounding MV3 on HN. It's tiring to read.
gingerlime 4y ago
I’m no expert, but I think the main moat that Chrome has here is its web store where users find extensions and developers submit their extensions. There’s a review process which whilst far from perfect is labor intensive and still helps catch rogue extensions. Hard to open-source this part of Chrome.
- cglong 4y ago
  There's an OSS fork of Chromium for Android called Kiwi that enables installing extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
  - ToruiDev 4y ago
    Which still relies on the Chrome Web store. Which will stop accepting MV2 Extensions after the move to MV3 Therefore leaving you without a store again
- marwis 4y ago
  You also can't use Google services with unofficial build. That includes Sync, Translate and bunch of other stuff.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    That’s a feature for me. I don’t want to have to sign into my browser or have it phoning home constantly. It’s a privacy risk.
foepys 4y ago
Because it's not really about MV3 but about the largest ad and tracking network on the planet changing the most popular web browser to cripple ad blocking under the disguise of security.
- Guthur 4y ago
  I wonder if this is the prelude to unblockable government propaganda. Already get it on all the social media after all. Calling it now, let's see in a couple of years how deep the state really is.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Maybe, but let's not allow the government boogeyman to blind us to the direct and immediate threat, which is adtech and surveillance economy.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  But that’s not what’s happening here, how is anything Firefox does with their switch crippling adblocking?
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    What's happening is step 1 - Firefox buying into MV3, even if with its own tweaks, and mentioning that DNR is a thing that will happen eventually. Step 2 - once people get used to it and drama dies down - the implementation will likely become very close to Chrome, under the guise of not fragmenting the dev experience and similar nonsense excuses. These moves keep happening in tech all the time. Slippery slope fallacy doesn't work here - if you see something that looks like slippery slope in a tech business, it almost definitely is one.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      But they never mention removing WebRequest, only having DNR in addition where it makes sense for performance reasons (and for compatibility with chrome), not having it would be stupid. I’m all for slippery slope arguments, if they are well-founded, not if it sounds like wild conspiracy theories.
Drakim 4y ago
Chrome is not fully open source, so any fork would be somewhat reduced.
- ranguna 4y ago
  I don't know if the original post was edited, but it says chromium, not chrome.
  - Drakim 4y ago
    It always said chromium, but I find that people actually mean "chrome but open source" when they say "chromium", when that's not really the case at all.
josefx 4y ago
> The software is open source at the end of the day. Then you can point to the source of widevine? Something that chrome developers called a core component when they where caught side loading it on dedicated open source distros a few years ago and initially refused to supply an option to disable it?

Semaphor 4y ago

No, they don’t. But they also don’t listen to people who’d have FF still be the slow-as-molasses version with XUL it used to be.

xdfgh1112 4y ago
I remember when Firefox first came out and it was so much faster than Mozilla at the time. Not sure what happened.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  Than Mozilla? You mean than Netscape?
  - xdfgh1112 4y ago
    The original Mozilla browser that came out of Netscape. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite It had a reputation for being slow and bloated at the time which prompted the creation of a slimmed down browser, Phoenix which eventually became Firefox
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Oh wow, I’m not even sure if I ever used that. I do remember Phoenix, but this barely rings a bell. And towards your question: Different times. Both hardware and browser capabilities were vastly different back then, so some technological choices made in the early days might have made more sense. For me personally, I know that back in the day I was a lot more forgiving of delays than I am now.

yoavm 4y ago

What? Mozilla is building the best open-source browser on the planet. Sure they sometimes make mistakes (who doesn't? and who can please all users?), but a "war against Firefox users"?!

TeMPOraL 4y ago
A "war against Firefox users" is maybe a bit much, though MV3 is definitely a slap in the face, and is a battle in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing[0]. But then, "they sometimes make mistakes" isn't also an accurate description of the mess Mozilla is these days. In the last years, they've been routinely wasting money and alienating the userbase by doing lots of weird side projects nobody asked for, instead of focusing on improving the software people actually use. ---- [0] - https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
- yoavm 4y ago
  Well, as a Firefox user, I would say that Firefox has become way better over the last few years. It's super fast. It actually blocks ads. It syncs beautifully with Firefox on Android. Some side projects felt useless. Some feel quite relevant to the goal (e.g. Mozilla VPN), some grew to become huge (Rust). Some were maybe an amazing idea at the wrong time (Firefox OS?). I wouldn't want Mozilla to stop doing any side projects. What's so bad about MV3? Would love to hear your take. Mozilla made it clear it will not adopt changes that prevent extensions like uBlock Origin from working. Many other changes seem to be focused at user security (which is good), and other seem to just follow the "standard", which one can argue is quite important from the perspective of users too, because the fact that extensions can be easily built for Chrome and Firefox together is effectively _the reason_ some of the extensions I use are even available on Firefox.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > What's so bad about MV3? Would love to hear your take. It's a trust issue. Mozilla burned a lot of it in recent years. > Mozilla made it clear it will not adopt changes that prevent extensions like uBlock Origin from working. That's the thing: I don't trust they'll keep good on that promise for more than a year or two. I may be misremembering things, but I'm pretty sure they initially weren't going to adopt MV3 at all, then they weren't going to add DNR, now they're adding DNR but "not removing request blocking, pinky swear". Once DNR lands, I worry they'll start thinking about removing request blocking, under the guise of "security".