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Firefox, after 20 years, once again has an advantage over the other browsers. Let's hope for new generations to get tired of so many ads to finally ditch chrom

Firefox, after 20 years, once again has an advantage over the other browsers. Let's hope for new generations to get tired of so many ads to finally ditch chrome.

ImJamal 2mo ago
uBlock Origin Lite works decently on Chrome so I doubt this will help migration to Firefox.
- Andrex 2mo ago
  Exactly. The difference between the two is not qualitatively different for 99% of users.
  - sys_64738 2mo ago
    I noticed that UBO Lite doesn't cause the ad boxes to vanish like UBO does. You see this on the likes of the weather.com webpage.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
      That's manifest V3 working as intended.
    - culi 2mo ago
      Exactly. The Lite version is basically "hiding" ads rather than blocking. The MV2 version stops the requests themselves from being made which save your bandwidth and battery. The light version lacks those benefits
      - Andrex 2mo ago
        Advertisers get to pretend their ads are being seen. Websites get paid. Users don't see ads. Sounds like a win-win-win?
        culi 2mo ago
        Users are still being tracked and your websites are still slower to load. More of your bandwidth and CPU is being used. If you want a sophisticated version of what you think this is, see Ad Nauseum. It's uBlock Origin except they create a fake "profile" for you and selectively click ads under the hood to throw advertisers off
- timbit42 2mo ago
  It doesn't block tracking.
odidiejdiwjd 2mo ago
If only they focused on making Firefox the definitive good browser instead of a platform for their AI efforts. Firefox will never convince people to leave chrome on philosophy alone. I detest Chrome with a passion and refuse to touch it with a ten-foot pole, but cannot in good faith recommend Firefox to anyone in today’s world. “It kinda works” is about as far a compliment you can give it.
- jasonpeacock 2mo ago
  What doesn’t work? It’s my daily driver and it renders every website I visit.
- kulahan 2mo ago
  What do you think doesn’t work on Firefox? Aside from Google products purposely crippled, everything works just fine in my experience. It’s fast and stable. If there’s a bunch of AI stuff in it, I’ve not seen it. Of course I believe it exists, I just don’t ever read popups anyways. To be fair, I probably use 5% of the browser’s capability (I imagine many are like me). I browse websites and I have UBO installed.
  - BeetleB 2mo ago
    In the last few months, I've seen a huge upsurge of sites that simply won't work for me in Firefox. Not sure if it's the FF + Linux combination. Should probably try with a fresh profile to confirm. It sucks, but I'm in on FF all the way. If much of the web stops working for me, it just means I have more time on my hands!
    - Silhouette 2mo ago
      Anecdotally my own experience is consistent with this with the same platform+browser combination. It appears that there are now significant numbers of sites - or at least noticeable parts or features of sites - that rely on Google-specific APIs and haven't been tested on other browsers. However visiting those sites from Apple devices is often similarly frustrating. I'm not sure this is an anti-Firefox thing. It seems more of a not realising there are other browsers apart from Chromium-based ones thing.
BeetleB 2mo ago
It's funny. Over 20 years ago, I got people to switch to Firefox because of the AdBlock extension. In case people don't know, Firefox was the first major browser to even have extensions.
- doubled112 2mo ago
  There is only XUL!
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Long dead. Now there is no XUL, only (private user) data (that Mozilla sells for revenue)
    - KingMob 2mo ago
      I think they're making a Ghostbusters joke, btw
      - inigyou 2mo ago
        Mozilla made the joke themselves, about Firefox. "There is no data, there is only XUL" was an official XUL catchphrase. But now there is no XUL, and Mozilla sells private user data, so it's reversed.
- Izkata 2mo ago
  Also, Firebug showed what was possible with developer tools. Inspecting elements or network requests or whatever else wasn't really a thing before that extension.
matheusmoreira 2mo ago
Unfortunately, new generations seem to be completely fine with this. People in general, they're just so completely captured by the dark patterns that I get the impression they cannot even imagine a world without them. I install uBlock Origin on every browser I come across. Everybody notices. The internet just feels better, somehow. People can't quite explain what changed, but they know.
- globular-toast 2mo ago
  And now you'll no longer be able to wake people up and show them the real world.
bananamogul 2mo ago
I wonder if new generations will just get better and better at visually blocking off ads when they read. So many layouts are so common that I read a lot of sites and have absolutely no idea what ads they're running because 30-odd years of browsing rendered HTML pages has trained my brain to block off and not process certain areas of the page. I'm not an advertising apologist, just pointing out that I can remember what ads were on a freemium TV station I watched two nights ago and what ads were on a radio station I listened to this afternoon but I can't remember a single web ad since...I don't know when. This might be because the TV ads have audio and visual, and with radio my alternative at the moment was looking out the window of my car, but web ads just seem very easy to mentally filter.
drewfax 2mo ago
New generations don't 'browse' web anymore. They 'consume' YouTube, Instagram, Android TV and other walled gardens. These generation don't even know they could change contents being displayed on their device to their wish. For them it's just whatever the app shows. They don't understand Web, extensions, DNS etc. I don't have hope for new generations. We're are the old men now yelling at AI and App Stores.

Firefox, after 20 years, once again has an advantage over the other browsers. Let's hope for new generations to get tired of so many ads to finally ditch chrome.

ImJamal 2mo ago

uBlock Origin Lite works decently on Chrome so I doubt this will help migration to Firefox.

Andrex 2mo ago
Exactly. The difference between the two is not qualitatively different for 99% of users.
- sys_64738 2mo ago
  I noticed that UBO Lite doesn't cause the ad boxes to vanish like UBO does. You see this on the likes of the weather.com webpage.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
    That's manifest V3 working as intended.
  - culi 2mo ago
    Exactly. The Lite version is basically "hiding" ads rather than blocking. The MV2 version stops the requests themselves from being made which save your bandwidth and battery. The light version lacks those benefits
    - Andrex 2mo ago
      Advertisers get to pretend their ads are being seen. Websites get paid. Users don't see ads. Sounds like a win-win-win?
      - culi 2mo ago
        Users are still being tracked and your websites are still slower to load. More of your bandwidth and CPU is being used. If you want a sophisticated version of what you think this is, see Ad Nauseum. It's uBlock Origin except they create a fake "profile" for you and selectively click ads under the hood to throw advertisers off
timbit42 2mo ago
It doesn't block tracking.

odidiejdiwjd 2mo ago

If only they focused on making Firefox the definitive good browser instead of a platform for their AI efforts. Firefox will never convince people to leave chrome on philosophy alone. I detest Chrome with a passion and refuse to touch it with a ten-foot pole, but cannot in good faith recommend Firefox to anyone in today’s world. “It kinda works” is about as far a compliment you can give it.

jasonpeacock 2mo ago
What doesn’t work? It’s my daily driver and it renders every website I visit.
kulahan 2mo ago
What do you think doesn’t work on Firefox? Aside from Google products purposely crippled, everything works just fine in my experience. It’s fast and stable. If there’s a bunch of AI stuff in it, I’ve not seen it. Of course I believe it exists, I just don’t ever read popups anyways. To be fair, I probably use 5% of the browser’s capability (I imagine many are like me). I browse websites and I have UBO installed.
- BeetleB 2mo ago
  In the last few months, I've seen a huge upsurge of sites that simply won't work for me in Firefox. Not sure if it's the FF + Linux combination. Should probably try with a fresh profile to confirm. It sucks, but I'm in on FF all the way. If much of the web stops working for me, it just means I have more time on my hands!
  - Silhouette 2mo ago
    Anecdotally my own experience is consistent with this with the same platform+browser combination. It appears that there are now significant numbers of sites - or at least noticeable parts or features of sites - that rely on Google-specific APIs and haven't been tested on other browsers. However visiting those sites from Apple devices is often similarly frustrating. I'm not sure this is an anti-Firefox thing. It seems more of a not realising there are other browsers apart from Chromium-based ones thing.

BeetleB 2mo ago

It's funny. Over 20 years ago, I got people to switch to Firefox because of the AdBlock extension. In case people don't know, Firefox was the first major browser to even have extensions.

doubled112 2mo ago
There is only XUL!
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Long dead. Now there is no XUL, only (private user) data (that Mozilla sells for revenue)
  - KingMob 2mo ago
    I think they're making a Ghostbusters joke, btw
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      Mozilla made the joke themselves, about Firefox. "There is no data, there is only XUL" was an official XUL catchphrase. But now there is no XUL, and Mozilla sells private user data, so it's reversed.
Izkata 2mo ago
Also, Firebug showed what was possible with developer tools. Inspecting elements or network requests or whatever else wasn't really a thing before that extension.

matheusmoreira 2mo ago

Unfortunately, new generations seem to be completely fine with this. People in general, they're just so completely captured by the dark patterns that I get the impression they cannot even imagine a world without them. I install uBlock Origin on every browser I come across. Everybody notices. The internet just feels better, somehow. People can't quite explain what changed, but they know.

globular-toast 2mo ago
And now you'll no longer be able to wake people up and show them the real world.

bananamogul 2mo ago

I wonder if new generations will just get better and better at visually blocking off ads when they read. So many layouts are so common that I read a lot of sites and have absolutely no idea what ads they're running because 30-odd years of browsing rendered HTML pages has trained my brain to block off and not process certain areas of the page. I'm not an advertising apologist, just pointing out that I can remember what ads were on a freemium TV station I watched two nights ago and what ads were on a radio station I listened to this afternoon but I can't remember a single web ad since...I don't know when. This might be because the TV ads have audio and visual, and with radio my alternative at the moment was looking out the window of my car, but web ads just seem very easy to mentally filter.

drewfax 2mo ago

New generations don't 'browse' web anymore. They 'consume' YouTube, Instagram, Android TV and other walled gardens. These generation don't even know they could change contents being displayed on their device to their wish. For them it's just whatever the app shows. They don't understand Web, extensions, DNS etc. I don't have hope for new generations. We're are the old men now yelling at AI and App Stores.