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PSA: How to keep using adblockers on Chrome and Chromium
- hehdhdjehehegwv 2y agoJust stop using Chrome FFS.
- noman-land 2y ago[flagged]
- TheGlav 2y agoIt's IE all over again. Sometimes you can't.
- MattGaiser 2y agoIE was technically garbage and people eagerly wanted to get away from it as it broke sites. Sites are now mostly built and tested on Chrome. Firefox breaks sites.
- viraptor 2y agoThere's some very specific sites that are broken in non-chrome browsers. Writing this message took you more time than you'd spend starting chrome specifically for them for the next few months.
- noman-land 2y agoThis is FUD. Firefox doesn't break any sites. There is functionally no difference between sites rendered in Firefox and sites rendered in Chrome.
- Y_Y 2y agoFirefox is a decent browser. Some sites are coded like shit and then they futz around until it works in whatever Chrome your cousin used for development.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoI see you managed to avoid encountering the Great ActiveX Catastrophe. Microsoft successfully managed to lock thousands of services behind proprietary extensions that only IE supported. Also, IE wasn't technically garbage. There were a few, specific things wrong with it. Its main issue was that it implemented web features idiosyncratically, and Microsoft didn't document it, so you had to learn all of IE's "quirks" through trial and error: but apart from being undocumented, few of IE's idiosyncrasies were actually bugs. Its box model, for example, was arguably superior to the official W3C recommendation.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoFirefox doesn’t break sites.
- yoyohello13 2y agoI've been using Firefox exclusively for years. I have no idea what these people who say it breaks sites are talking about. If you absolutely need to use chrome for something just keep chromium around for that specific site.
- ChrisGranger 2y agoFor sites that break when using Firefox, you can report them here: https://webcompat.com/ https://webcompat.com/
- yreg 2y agoAll browsers break sites. In the past few months we've had our stuff broken due to bugs in Safari, Chromium and even Firefox. But the situation is nothing like when IE was alive. Webdevelopment is much more pleasant now. If I had to pick a black sheep now, I would say it's Safari, simply because the updates are tied in with OS updates. That's a shame.
- noman-land 2y agoSafari is the one, nowadays, that seems to always be the outlier.
- freehorse 2y agoRemoving ad blocking is what breaks the internet for me. Firefox is working 99.9% fine except 0.1% of site which I usually do not miss or in the worst case open in another browser. This is an insignificant nuance compared to the constant distraction of not using an ad blocker.
- noman-land 2y agoI can't really fathom a scenario where you can't install other browsers but you can run a command in Terminal to alter some root permissions.
- viraptor 2y agoIf you have those one or two very specific websites that just cannot cope with Firefox, just use Chrome for them. They're likely not the ad-filled pages anyway, but rather some specific companies. We've done this for the IE in the past, we can do it today. It really doesn't take that much time. There's only one thing that will fix this situation long term and it's lowering chrome's market share. Don't stick with it and get continuously abused - no, it won't get better, only worse from now on.
- page_fault 2y agoMost of those "cannot copes" can be fixed by changing the user agent to that of Chrome. Most sites that refuse to work in other browsers simply don't test on anything but Chrome and don't want the support burden.
- cal85 2y ago> Most sites that refuse to work in other browsers simply don't test on anything but Chrome Today yes, but that could start to change if most tech people stop using Chrome, which they will if they can't block ads easily. Plus many average semi-tech-savvy people use ad blockers and will kick up a fuss and switch if their browsing becomes suddenly ad-ridden. If Chrome gets a reputation like AOL or something, then it won't be as acceptable for a website to only support Chrome.
- hehdhdjehehegwv 2y agoI don’t see how that is true. There are a ton of chromium based browsers, many with privacy enhancements baked in, and Safari is well supported (iOS monopoly ensures that). I’ll give you Firefox not working well due to Mozilla shitting the bed under Baker who I consider a vandal and a charlatan. As somebody who lives through IE6 the trend of a dominant browser shitting on users is the same - but so many more options to switch now.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- justahuman74 2y agoThis seems like it's too hard to tell friends/family. Is the go-to now just 'install firefox'?
- jsheard 2y agoIf Google leaves a boolean switch in Chromium to keep V2 enabled then I assume most if not all of the third party Chromium-derived browsers will just flip it to true by default. That's easy for them to do, the hard part is if Google strips out V2 altogether and leaves the downstream browsers to patch it back in.
- davesmylie 2y agoThere will be a switch available ... but only for a period of time before the functionality is completely removed
- metadat 2y agoAnd apparently, as per this post, only available to folks who are savvy with the command-line.
- pieter_mj 2y agoNo, use a chromium derived browser, like https://github.com/win32ss/supermium https://github.com/win32ss/supermium. Or use firefox, it will always support adblockers.
- metadat 2y agoNo kidding, thanks but I do use Firefox. As for Chrome, the writing is on the wall. It's not so shiny any longer.
- londons_explore 2y agoEven when it's stripped out entirely, it will be easy to add back in. The changes (that adblockers care about) are just a few if statements changing the conditions under which synchronous inspection of web requests are allowed. Manifest V3 still allows them. But only in limited circumstances which are unsuitable for ad blocking.
- scotthn 2y ago[flagged]
- actinium226 2y agoBut Brave is based on Chrome, so won't it be affected the same way? And same for Arc?
- nazgulsenpai 2y agoFirst recommendation would be a pihole running anywhere you can run it, but if you don't want to or can't do that, you can use Steven Black's ad list to create a hosts file to DNS sink ad/bad networks locally: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
- jsheard 2y agoIsn't DNS-level blocking strictly less capable than even the nerfed Manifest V3 filtering API? V3 can still block at a more granular level than nuking entire hostnames AFAIK, even if it's not as granular as V2.
- cj 2y agoSpecifically, the ability to block specific URL patterns in addition to just hostnames. DNS blocking gets you 90% of the way there, though. (And the only way to block your smart fridge from phoning home)
- nazgulsenpai 2y agoYes, I didn't intend to suggest it a replacement for a strong ad block but if v3 neuters it for those who don't want to or can't swap browsers. Also a big benefit of DNS level blocking is it can block telemetry other unwanted network traffic (unless connection by IP or some other wizardry), for instance how often my TV attempts to phone home.
- stavros 2y agoFirst recommendation would be Firefox.
- cranberryturkey 2y agofirefox is still the best browser.
- coolelectronics 2y agoi do wish! firefox has web features missing that i need on a daily basis, and their developer team seems wholly uninterested on working on them at all
- stavros 2y agoLike what?
- martin293 2y agoWhich features do you mean?
- wruza 2y agoI don’t know whether FF lacks these features, but I’m using: - webpage splits - search by image - go to non-<a> url in bg tab - open in new tab in a virtual sub group rather than just to the right or at the end - tabs retain width on close until mouse goes away (helps with closing series of tabs) - bookmarks open in new tab by default - last tab doesn’t close the browser - gestures and toolbar customization That’s in Vivaldi, I probably forgot a bunch of features that feel natural but may have no FF counterpart. Tbh, looking at FF settings, there’s basically none. You can’t miss features that you never had, I guess.
- cranberryturkey 2y agomost people don't use those it would be silly to add them to firefox unless it was an extension.
- wruza 2y agoHalf of it is ergonomics so basic, that people wouldn’t even mention as a feature. With this reasoning you could remove tab rearrangement, open in new window and similar “most don’t use” features.
- martin293 2y agoThis solution will work for exactly a year. That's how long google gives enterprises to migrate to manifest v3. Source: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate...
- plorkyeran 2y agoI suspect it'll actually work much longer and just become more obnoxious to enable in a year. A complicated workaround that placates power users so they stay on Chrome but that most users won't bother with is perfect.
- gddgb 2y ago[dead]
- baxuz 2y agoUse Adguard
- unpopularopp 2y agoHow do you make sites that are only whitelist certain browsers to work under Firefox? Is there an app, extensions etc anything? For some handful of sites I have to keep a Chrome install around
- page_fault 2y agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-st...
- martin293 2y agoSometimes this might not work, in that case try a different extension or different user agent strings. I had to go through a few before I found one that worked.
- actinium226 2y agoI just keep a Chrome install around and when a website seems like it's misbehaving I just fire it up in Chrome. It's a bunch of baggage to have around, but it's useful for other stuff. Like when you hit your monthly limit of free articles you can just fire it up in Chrome and now you've doubled your monthly free limit!
- JoshTriplett 2y ago1) User agent switcher. 2) Report those sites to https://webcompat.com/ https://webcompat.com/, and/or to Mozilla (who have an evangelism team to reach out to those sites and get them to stop doing that).
- krackers 2y ago>key was added and will presumably stay forever Nope, it will be removed after 1 year. There is a chance they delay it depending on how much the enterprises complain, but so long as all their big clients are migrated I doubt they care about the long-tail.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- londons_explore 2y agoThere's a good chance that whoever is driving this change within Google gets promoted/retires in less than a year, and then it gets left in limbo forever like so many other TODO():'s in the code...
- jiggawatts 2y ago“I like this pot, but it just keeps getting warmer and warmer. Does anyone know where I can get some ice packs or something?” “No, I don’t want to jump out. Stop telling me that!”
- actinium226 2y agoOr just use Firefox.
- gravescale 2y agoFinally some news that makes me think the Firefox has a glimmer of hope left.
- quickthrowman 2y agoSame here, I’ll be switching to Firefox today after hearing this news.
- gravescale 2y agoWhat has been holding you back so far? It seems strange to me that so many normally quite pro-privacy, pro-FOSS, Google-sceptical people are still using Chrome to this point.
- quickthrowman 2y agoI would like to have privacy but understand that’s nearly impossible in reality. I was using Chrome mostly due to inertia, but not being able to block ads is unacceptable to me. I do most of my browsing on iOS Safari these days, but use Chrome on my work computer. I’m unfortunately handcuffed to google due to gmail, switching seems like a monumental task and google is going to get my personal data whether I have gmail or not from AdWords, etc.
- chx 2y agoEvery app there are gets worse and worse -- aka Doctorow's enshittification So people will just take the sudden deluge of ads in stride and move on. Chances of this moving people to Firefox is slim.
- wruza 2y agoAlmost every adblock user will move to firefox. They didn’t install it out of boredom, cause that’s non-trivial. I mean it is trivial, but the world fights over defaults now and there are people who only use defaults and complain when they change. So yeah, they will move. Download an app, import userdata, reinstall extensions and blog about this hacker-news-level journey.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jay_kyburz 2y agoQuestion: Is it possible to run ad blocking at the OS level rather than in the browser? Requests to ad servers just never leave your PC? traffic from ad servers just never arrives at the browser?
- II2II 2y agoA common approach is to mess around with name resolution. Many operating systems have a hosts file that can be modified. You can do DNS on your own computer. Piholes are a variation on this where people usually use a separate machine to handle DNS requests for their entire network. If you cannot change the DNS for your computer/device, some people use a VPN. I believe this is how things are currently handled on Android. This approach is less flexible than the filtering you can get from a web browser. On the other hand, it can be used to filter DNS requests from all software. With something like a Pihole, you can configure the Pihole and (maybe) your router, and it will work for all devices on your network.
- stvltvs 2y agoYou can use the hosts file to block ads. https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
- efilife 2y agoLook up technitium dns
- Krssst 2y agoOn Android there is AdGuard which runs a VPN locally to block ads. It can also parse SSL traffic if one installs an SSL certificate but I don't like the idea very much. In the end I just use it as a light adblock for unencrypted traffic when I don't use Firefox.
- sigma5 2y agoI switched to firefox one year ago. Works fine!
- efangs 2y agoeveryone should just have a pihole
- skrause 2y agoPi-hole and other DNS-based ad blockers are a lot worse than even Manifest v3 ad blockers, so they aren't any alternative.
- ipsum2 2y agoToo bad the HN Flamewar detector removed this post from the homepage. The content is interesting, the comments are pointless bickering over browsers
- freehorse 2y agoHow many people are gonna do all this to get an adblocker working? How long is this workaround gonna be allowed by google? What excuses remain for sustaining the chromium monopoly that allows this shitshow, and for using chrome and chromium derived browsers instead of firefox?
- nunez 2y agoOr maybe stop supporting Google's quest to monopolize the web and use (and test against!) LITERALLY ANY OTHER BROWSER
- Teknomancer 2y agoBrave.
- tumsfestival 2y agoImagine still using Brave in plain 2024.
- drcongo 2y agoSerious question, why is anyone still using Chrome? It's so user-hostile and basically spyware at this point, it boggles my mind that anyone would intentionally install spyware on their computer.