when the most popular browser engine is made by advertising corporation...
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
138 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
34877 readers
45 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Eu salivating over it's monoply case
Yup, and that's why I haven't used Chrome as my primary browser in well over a decade. I went with Opera until they became a chromium clone and have been with Firefox ever since (and used them before Chrome was a thing). I only used Chrome for a couple years when it first came out, then bailed because other browsers were better in terms of features.
I use Firefox full time but I'm bummed at the number of sites that break in odd ways when not using Chrome. As an engineer, I understand how appealing it is to only have to test in one browser, but this monopoly is the result.
The one thing that could absolutely kill Chrome's market share... And they're doing it. LMAO!
Mozilla couldn't be happier!
To be honest, this might actually be a complete game changer... except Mozilla is over 80% "owned" by Google, so we'll see... they might play ball...
This is the only reason chrome exists. Why else go through the pain to maintain a web browser?
Is google going to make the internet free with guaranteed high speeds? If not, they need to quit stealing the bandwidth I pay for.
Ads fucking suck, and what Google is doing definitely seems like monopolistic abuse, but there are much better arguments against Google than what you're saying. You pay your ISP to access content, not paying for the content directly. Analogously, imagine being mad at McDonald's for not giving you free drive-through food... because you pay road taxes.
I think a better analogy would be paying for an all you can eat buffet, but every time you go up for a plate, Google shovels some of whatever they want onto it.
Oh sure, they try to guess what you might like by tracking your eating habits every time you visit the restaurant, but they still keep putting crap you don't want on your plate that gets in the way of what you do want.
Oh, and also, some all you can eat buffets have a plate limit, after so many plates, you can only get a spoonful per trip. And Google still crams on stuff you don't want.
By that analogy they're not even putting crap on your plate, they're putting stickers on your food telling you to try other food. I don't want stickers on my food even if they're advertising something I might like 😭
No, that analogy doesn't work. Cox communication have confirmed that you are guaranteed the speed you pay for up to the cable modem. Ads use bandwidth. A more accurate analogy would be if you pay for a certain amount of time with a therapist, but throuought therapy, they stop to talk about something else but still count it towards your therapy time.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
YouTube can instantly switch up its ad delivery system, but once Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, that won't be true for extension developers.
If ad blocking is a cat-and-mouse game of updates and counter-updates, then Google will force the mouse to slow down.
The current platform, Manifest V2, has been around for over ten years and works just fine, but it's also quite powerful and allows extensions to have full filtering control over the traffic your web browser sees.
Engadget's Anthony Ha interviewed some developers in the filtering extension community, and they described a constant cat-and-mouse game with YouTube.
Firefox's Manifest V3 implementation doesn't come with the filtering limitations, and parent company Mozilla promises that users can "rest assured that in spite of these changes to Chrome’s new extensions architecture, Firefox’s implementation of Manifest V3 ensures users can access the most effective privacy tools available like uBlock Origin and other content-blocking and privacy-preserving extensions."
Google claims that Manifest V3 will improve browser "privacy, security, and performance," but every comment we can find from groups that aren't giant ad companies disputes this description.
The original article contains 915 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I only use Chrome for work because our IT dept likes it. This will make it worthwhile to forgo their support and just use Firefox full time.
Thank goodness I don't use chrome or any chrome based browsers, so I can still use an effective ad blocker.
For now.
Google is working very hard on sabotaging all other browsers to a point where if you want to do anything online (watch video on Big Media platforms, use banking websites, etc.) you'll be locked into Chrome and it's derivatives.
I was wondering if all Alphabet employees aren't allowed to use ad blockers. Do they really believe that the internet without adblockers is a sane experience?
Hmm... Something something Firefox
I moved away from chrome over a year ago, once they started talking about blocking ad blockers. Firefox works great, easily imports your passwords and bookmarks, and supports all the ad block extensions I like.
Google feels ok in doing this due to their dominating share in the browser market. In reality, the most influential users of their products will end up finding alternatives, and never coming back. These users tend to convince other users to follow. It'll be a slow downturn unless Google ramps up their efforts, but it'll happen.
For ad/trackerblocking no need of the ChromeStore in Vivaldi, also easy to install extensions from other sources, even scripts. Only bad for other Chromiums.