Reminder to switch browsers if you haven’t already!


  • Google Chrome is starting to phase out older, more capable ad blocking extensions in favor of the more limited Manifest V3 system.
  • The Manifest V3 system has been criticized by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation for restricting the capabilities of web extensions.
  • Google has made concessions to Manifest V3, but limitations on content filtering remain a source of skepticism and concern.
  • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’m sorry. I’ve seen this so many times today and I can’t stand it anymore.

    I hate this article photo. What the fuck is that shit?? Gloveless fingers? Digit warmer? Turtlefinger sweater?

      • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s not that simple.

        I need very niche Chromium-based extensions for my work. They don’t yet exist on Firefox. Nor any replacements to my knowledge.

        They aren’t ad-related, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.

        • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          I, too, am forced to use Chrome for parts of my work.

          I just run Chrome for that set of tasks. Then quit, or tab to Firefox for regular browsing.

          This is SOP when dealing with uglies like google, microsoft, amazon, adobe, or meta: do the toxic thing or software they require, as sandboxed as reasonable, then get back to daily life and more knowable risks.

          • Frank Ring@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Currently, I use Brave. Not Chrome.

            I have all the benefits of Chromium-based without the Google’s spyware.

            I don’t see myself going back and forth between 2 web browsers. I prefer choosing one that fills everything that I need, sticking with it and moving on with my life.

            But since Chromium is mostly backed by Google, I don’t know the long-term implications of using Chromium based.

            • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Yeah, but that’s just it, there is no one thing that fulfils all your needs if you are forced to use a particular tool, but it lacks privacy or freedom or other features.

              I use chrome because I have to and also am curious and I need to know about how Google runs its shit. I run Firefox because of various features it has that are good for web development. I run Safari because it is fast and relatively private outside of the Apple ecosystem And has some great developer tools.

              The effort of one keyboard twitch to move from one browser to the other is not really any amount of friction for me. It’s easier than switching from one tab to another inside the same browser, so I don’t get your fixation on a single tool.

              And as a PS, I won’t touch Brave with a 10 foot pole anymore because of their Fuckery with crypto.

  • kyle@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    To my shame, I’m still deeply ingrained in the Google ecosystem. I settled on it like 8-10 years ago and I’m not sure how to dig myself out of this pit. More than Chrome, I heavily use Docs, Sheets, Drive, Wallet, YouTube, Gmail, I even have a Pixel (I hate how bloated Samsung is).

    I’ve used Firefox a little for work because of the nice containers feature. Is Google Drive bad too? It’s so easy to share things, I torrent a lot of books and I’ve shared with a bunch of friends, idk if there’s an alternative that others could easily use.

    • AnActOfCreation@programming.devOP
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      3 months ago

      Don’t fret, I think a lot of us are on a long-term journey to de-Google. I’ve actually found that changing browsers is one of the easiest things to do, especially with the ability to import your bookmarks and such. With Firefox Sync, you pretty much have the same functionality as you would with your Google account signed into Chrome.

      • TipRing@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Gmail is probably the hardest one to kick. I’m fine with paying for an email service if it’s functional and doesn’t siphon my personal data, but finding a quality trustworthy provider and then migrating 20 years of data to it seems so overwhelming.

    • graymess@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      How long until the majority of the Internet is inaccessible to non-Chromium browsers because the pages “don’t support them”?

            • Kiernian@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              “WebUSB is a JavaScript application programming interface specification for securely providing access to USB devices from web applications”

              Holy Hannah, NO!!!

              Might as well allow a website to direct write to your hard drive unprompted again.

              Does noone see how BAD this stuff is?

              Stop creating attack vectors with glowing neon signs on them.

              • antler@feddit.rocks
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                3 months ago

                Web engines are nearly OSs at this point. It’s aready possible to flash a phone ROM in two clicks with a webpage. Most apps are also already rendered in browser engines anyway, that includes things like steam. The APIs might sound evil until your favorite FOSS project uses them to make your life better.

                Unfortunately, if Mozilla refuses to implement stuff like PWAs or advanced APIs it’s locked out of that side of innovation both good and bad.

                • Kiernian@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  It’s aready possible to flash a phone ROM in two clicks

                  That’s precisely the kind of access that a web browser should NEVER, EVER have.

                  If you think 2 stage download keylogger apps getting into app stores is bad, wait until it can be done with a banner ad. Or by viewing a comment on a post.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    As with others, I use Firefox for my main browser, and Brave when I need a Chromium-based browser for something. I don’t see many ads…

    • ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 months ago

      Consider ungoogled chromium instead. Brave is not great, it just has the advantage of being heavily promoted by the middle part of the (privacy nerds) and (want privacy because their beliefs are rejected by most of human society) venn diagram.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        I use that on my personal computer, but at work I’ll occasionally hit sites other than what I’m debugging, and Chromium has ineffective ad-block, whereas Brave has reasonable ad-block. I can’t control the network at work like I can at home, so I can’t really rely on something like a pi-hole or whatever.

        As a web browser with an embedded ad-blocker, it works fine. I’m not going to stop using something because someone distasteful is using it, I’ll stop using it if it no longer meets my needs. It blocks ads and renders as Chrome would, so it works well enough for me.

        I disable the crypto nonsense and pretty much only use it for debugging work stuff. Sometimes that means I need a JSON formatter or something, and those sites are riddled with ads w/o an ad-blocker.

        • ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org
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          3 months ago

          oh, hrm. Im not sure what specific build you’re using, but the one I’m using has mechanisms for installing normal adblockers like ublockorigin. note: afaik, this doesn’t solve the problem indicated in this thread – I’m operating on the basis that the blocking functionality will be nerfed. However for me, I use it purely for (stuff that doesnt work in firefox) and my jellyfin server (since firefox is kinda particular about hevc videos…you can kinda get them to work in windows, but in many cases I dont fully understand jellyfin still tries to transcode to 264).

          worth stating that “because someone distasteful is using it” is a reasonable misunderstanding due to me assuming some knowledge. Brave was created because firefox kicked a homophobe out and he wanted to make a browser. Said person is also clearly a cryptonut, which makes him a yet more negative person in my book. Now, unrelated to that base, you have a lot of people out there who are promoting it by my personal experience in more privacy centric groups is that these promoters are often quite…unsavory. Is that enough to stop using software? not necessarily. Is it enough when there are far better options out there? to me, absolutely.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            At home, it’s whatever ships with my Linux distribution. I use it mostly for web dev testing (I dev on Firefox, test on chromium) for personal projects, and for my kids to play certain games (Firefox works most of the time for that).

            Brave was created because firefox kicked a homophobe out and he wanted to make a browser.

            Sort of, but I don’t think that’s really telling the whole story.

            Brendan Eich was the CEO of Mozilla for many years and was the initial creator of JavaScript. He was ousted because he made a private donation to block gay marriage legalization in California. There is no evidence that he was or is a homophobe, just that he didn’t believe that gay marriage was something that state should legally recognize. By all counts, he was pleasant to work with regardless of sexual orientation, the issue was that someone found out about his donation. He didn’t harm anyone and wasn’t unfair, he just made a private donation.

            I think he was a great CEO, and Mozilla needs a technical CEO imo (in fact, everything started going downhill around when he left). I disagree with him politically, but if I avoided every product where I disagreed with the executive team politically, I’d have to avoid pretty much every product (and quit my job).

            So I need a better reason to avoid Brave. I’m not sure what the plan is for their cryptocurrency, and I honestly see it as more of a gimmick than anything. It’s easy to disable, so whatever, it existing doesn’t impact me.

            I also don’t actively recommend it to anyone, I always recommend Firefox or a Firefox derivative. The only time I recommend it is if someone needs a Chromium-based browser and wants ad-blocking, and Brave works well for that. If they just need Chromium and don’t need ad blocking, I recommend Chromium.

            If you have a better alternative, I’m interested. I literally just need a Chromium-based browser that works on macOS (what I use for work) with proper ad blocking. I don’t need to sync anything, it’ll only ever exist on that one device. I also need something for Linux, and open source is more important than ad blocking there.

            I’m also interested in Brave Search since it uses its own index. I currently use DDG, but search results are kinda crappy so I’m looking for alternatives.

  • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This post reminded me to try out Brave. It’s based on Chromium but purports to block ads and trackers…

    Anybody else use it?

    Edit: Interesting. Anyone care to explain the downvotes? I know nothing about this browser other than it purportedly blocks Youtube ads, which are driving me nuts.

    Edit2: Well shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

    I had no idea about this guy. Ok, so completely not an option.

      • RokAlamSeth@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Too bad for your little black and white worldview those are the same people against adblockers. The good thing is this world has sensible people like me who could give less of a fuck who’s feeling is getting hurt and only care about our browsing experience. The rest can go die for all I care.

    • cyberic@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 months ago

      My brother uses it, just remember to look through the ad settings. There was a toggle at one point to allow their approved ads or something like that.

      • kusivittula@sopuli.xyz
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        3 months ago

        i tried brave recently after finding out it’s open source, and that setting is off by default. ended up keeping firefox, because on android somehow the new tab page in brave is even worse than in ff. too tricky to access bookmarks.

        • ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org
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          3 months ago

          I still to this day don’t know how to get back to the tab I was on in firefox-android if I get to the new tab screen. It’s been 2 or 3 years since the redesign.

          • kusivittula@sopuli.xyz
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            3 months ago

            you need to close keyboard, hit the tab icon on the address bar and select the tab. easier way is to open some recent website and either close the current one or swipe from the address bar. it’s stupid.