135 comments

  • SnowingXIV 3 hours ago ago

    There has to be google engineers here. Does this just fall on deaf ears? I realize it’s a massive corp but imagine high ranking staff have a say and input. Maybe they don’t and Sundar isn’t worried about that. Or they do a simple cost analysis and short-term they see the benefit and are willing to to risk long term erosion that maybe be minimal.

    Weird returning to Firefox, but I did and there is nothing in chrome I miss.

    • ThrowawayR2 2 hours ago ago

      FAANG engineers in general are remarkably well informed as to who is buttering their bread. You may assume that Google engineers are excruciatingly aware (particularly after several rounds of layoffs) that their continued paychecks and stock grant value depend on continuing to firehose advertising into the face of the general public from every possible angle.

    • oliwarner 2 hours ago ago

      Google is an advertising agency. It's a miracle blockers lasted this long.

    • siva7 43 minutes ago ago

      It's a giant corporation. Everyone who had a managerial role in one of these mega corporations should know how such decisions are made. Sundar sees finance numbers, numbers go up if we do strategy x (block adblockers) , someone gets a promotion for turning these numbers up. It's simple as that. Those people have no clue and don't care about how you hackers here use chrome.

    • Raed667 2 hours ago ago

      by now they have made tons of user-hostile changes, just to see the line keep going up, they know that there is a loud vocal minority, but most users are totally fine with MV3 if they even notice a change at all.

    • Spivak an hour ago ago

      Why do you think in the anti-trust lawsuit they're desperate to avoid Chrome divestment? A project that on the surface surely must be a massive cost center for them that doesn't benefit their advertising arm one bit. No sir, made out of the goodness of their hearts and given away for free for nothing other than promoting the open web.

    • whamlastxmas 2 hours ago ago

      Google is deliberately doing this to break ad blocking for Google ads while still allowing ad blockers to work for non Google ads. Most users probably won’t care enough to change browsers or many won’t really notice

      • fransje26 an hour ago ago

        > Google is deliberately doing this to break ad blocking for Google ads while still allowing ad blockers to work for non Google ads.

        That's the best way to get antitrust breathing down your neck.

        So, with talks of Google monopoly ramping up, either this is extremely shortsighted and reckless, or they will choose to not throw oil on the fire and will not go down that road.

      • ac29 an hour ago ago

        > Google is deliberately doing this to break ad blocking for Google ads

        If so, they are doing a crap job of it because uBlock Origin Lite successfully blocks all of the search ads on google.com

    • acheron 3 hours ago ago

      If only Stalin knew!

  • dizhn 15 minutes ago ago

    There's some chrome attestation stuff I've been starting to see for implementing security related services. The support for that is probably bundled with this manifest v3 thing? Or is the device attestation separate? If they are bundled, Firefox will disappear even more in corporate and probably at home too.

  • cwillu 2 hours ago ago

    ~$ cat /etc/chromium/policies/managed/ubo-policies.json { "ExtensionManifestV2Availability": 2 }

    Will save you for another year.

  • KurtMueller 5 hours ago ago

    Come join the Firefox revolution!

    • grounder 40 minutes ago ago

      Try Firefox Nightly for the native sidebar vertical tabs. That and native tab containers make Firefox work really well for me.

    • irobeth 4 hours ago ago

      It really is amazing how things have come full circle from the point where chrome positioned itself as a "Libre" alternative to the IE near-monopoly

      There was a point between IE and chrome when Mozilla was always in the near-foreground offering alternatives to every internet hegemony, right around web 2.0, kinda makes me optimistic for the internet to see a resurgence of recommendations

    • rchaud 38 minutes ago ago

      Uh, YT on FF is unusable now. They'll show the "adblockers not allowed" message if you have Ghostery enabled. Even if you disable that, they will add tons of artificial lag on things like key input, clicks and screen draw speed. I know it's artificial because it worked fine for years and then one day....

  • not_your_vase 14 hours ago ago

    That definitely shows why Google isn't abusing its monopoly powers, and why it shouldn't be broken up.

    • syvanen 10 hours ago ago

      It’s so weird to observe how Alphabet doesn’t seem to even try to keep its parts separated.

      Amazon at least tries keeps its companies separated from each other. AWS account teams doesn’t know what Amazon teams do and vice versa.

      While Google Cloud account team constantly gets involved with Workspaces, Ads and Google Play related stuff.

      If I remember right just few years ago Google was told to stop giving cheaper prices on Google Cloud based on customers Ads and Google Play revenue.

    • pjmlp 10 hours ago ago

      Everyone that is shipping Electron garbage, and has focused on Chrome as The Best Experience, is to blame.

      • Spivak an hour ago ago

        I don't ship any Electron app at $dayjob so while I could afford to sit on a high horse I don't think it's warranted. Electron really isn't an issue, it doesn't really help Chrome's position as a browser in any meaningful way. It doesn't drive people to use the Chrome "chrome" which is where the money is.

        It's why despite Edge being built on Chrome they're pushing it hard because owning the space around the browser window is the goal.

      • talldayo 3 hours ago ago

        Situation: People are getting fat from choosing to eat too much bacon

        "Pitiful, though with a thankfully straightforward cure. We arrest all pig farmers, meat packers and delivery drivers while inspecting all refrigerated cargo at checkpoints. We shall demolish any restaurant serving pork, blame each person who has ever eaten a slice regardless of their health, and demonize every salty and fatty food."

        "Yes, my stance is drastic. But once we remove the burden of choice from our citizens, they will be empowered to make new, more valuable decisions with their life. Bacon will never be a problem again."

        New situation: People have quit bacon and started smoking cigarettes

    • ThePowerOfFuet 3 hours ago ago

      You dropped this:

      /s

  • tech234a 13 hours ago ago

    The removal can be bypassed until June 2025: https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1d49ud1/manif...

    • redserk 13 hours ago ago

      This is just kicking the can down the road.

      The bigger question is how the Chromium forks are going to respond long-term. I suspect the APIs enabling ad blocking are only going to get more clamped down requiring additional work for forks.

      • IronRod 2 hours ago ago

        Brave has committed to do what they can as long as they can. But unsure how long and what that really turns out to be. https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/

        • sebazzz 2 hours ago ago

          That is easy talking from Brave as long as it is still a config flag, then after a compile-time flag. Once the internal APIs for MV2 or where MV2 get removed or changed it becomes very difficult to maintain. Never mind the possible security issues you introduce, but won’t get so quickly discovered, because Brave is a smaller target.

        • mindcrash 2 hours ago ago

          Like I said before, Brave even has a better solution because it has a uBlock compatible ad blocker _built in straight into its core_ (but its disabled by default). Same block lists, same safety assurances.

          Although I still use Firefox with uBlock as my daily driver at home, Brave with block lists and Shields is right next to it (and I use it as my daily driver at work). It works pretty damn well!

      • tech234a 12 hours ago ago

        Policy-installed extensions can continue to use the WebRequest blocking APIs on Manifest V3 [1], so I would expect that the underlying code for the API would remain available for forks to use.

        [1] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/api/w...

    • peutetre 13 hours ago ago

      Bypass Chrome altogether. Use Firefox.

      • fp64 5 hours ago ago

        How can I swap ^W and ^D in Firefox? For Chrome I found an extension that works (…worked?) fine, the only thing for Firefox I found would be compiling it myself, which I find a much worse experience than compiling Chromium myself (neither of which I like doing)

        • pavel_lishin 4 hours ago ago

          What do those do?

          • fp64 an hour ago ago

            ^w is delete word in vim/bash/everywhere else. It’s terrible whenever I accidentally type this in the browser and the window closes. I typically close terminal windows with ctrl-d so I have this mapped in my browser as well. It’s really muscle memory and I do not want to change it

            • slenk 41 minutes ago ago

              By that same logic, ^w is used as close window everywhere else

      • jldl805 13 hours ago ago

        Firefox on ChromeOS sucks though. Just went through this, tried Canary, etc. Went back to Chrome.

        • olyjohn 12 hours ago ago

          Bypass ChromeOS alltogether. Use a different Linux distro.

        • Kwpolska 9 hours ago ago

          Get a real computer.

        • likeabatterycar 10 hours ago ago

          Just ChromeOS? Firefox on Mac sucks.

          Here is one example: Firefox's tracking of the mouse cursor is broken, and often (yes, it's inconsistent) applies a vector translation so when trying to click something like a button or menu, the cursor needs to be about 100 x-y pixels away from the target. Only Firefox native UI is affected. These are My_First_Program.app tier bugs that should not exist in mature, 20 year old software.

          Phoenix 0.1 didn't have this many beginner bugs. Mozilla has lost its way and only continues to exist because Google funds them to be a paper tiger competitor. Opera sold out to the Chinese. Microsoft gave up and now simps Google. Apple only supports their own platform. What is left?

          • benterix 5 hours ago ago

            Can you provide a link to a bug report? I've been using FF on macOS for years and haven't noticed that. Maybe it's just a bug on a random site?

            • likeabatterycar 2 hours ago ago

              Maybe I wasn't clear - this bug affects me personally, it's not some random tale I read in a forum. No, it doesn't affect the site or page rendering at all. Only the Firefox-native dialogs - like the bookmarks dialog and the hamburger menu - are affected. The bug is likely in XUL. Unfortunately I am too busy to dig through Bugzilla, make an account, etc. only for the bug to be ignored for years like the others...

              • slenk 38 minutes ago ago

                > Unfortunately I am too busy to dig through Bugzilla, make an account, etc. only for the bug to be ignored for years like the others...

                So, if no one reports the bug, how do you expect the bug to get fixed? Instead, you just keep harking back on that unfixed bug whenever Firefox conversations come up and you can be like "but this bug has been around and no one has fixed it"

              • GranPC 17 minutes ago ago

                FWIW I used to experience the same thing sporadically on Mac, about 10 years ago. Not just you - but a rare bug.

          • stuartd 7 hours ago ago

            Been using Firefox as my browser since 0.2 (Minefield, Phoenix was later) on Mac since around 10.3 and I don’t recognise what you’re seeing at all?

          • hadrien01 3 hours ago ago

            I've seen the exact same problem on my mother's Mac and it's making her crazy. Haven't found a corresponding bug report, but it's sort of reassuring she's not alone with that annoying bug

          • ben_w 9 hours ago ago

            > Here is one example: Firefox's tracking of the mouse cursor is broken, and often (yes, it's inconsistent) applies a vector translation so when trying to click something like a button or menu, the cursor needs to be about 100 x-y pixels away from the target. Only Firefox native UI is affected. These are My_First_Program.app tier bugs that should not exist in mature, 20 year old software.

            While I've not noticed that myself, just yesterday I noticed something similarly weird.

            I had a Safari window that was persistently half the screen width and height away from where the mouse was. As in: click to drag, and the whole window jumped half the screen down and to the right, so I couldn't get it to any other quadrant of any screen. Fixed on restarting the app.

            I don't know if that was an app bug or an OS bug, but in either case it's Apple's fault.

            How did we get to this?

          • grecy 9 hours ago ago

            I’ve been using Firefox on OS X since forever (never jumped to chrome and back) and I’ve never experienced this. Is there a bug report? Surely this would get a lot of attention.

          • anal_reactor 5 hours ago ago

            For me, the scroll randomly breaks and stops work all together for a minute.

      • infotainment 13 hours ago ago

        If only Mozilla (the parent organization) wasn’t horrible.

        Can’t a non-crazy nonprofit make a browser?

        • wkat4242 13 hours ago ago

          What's so horrible about it? I don't like how they're pampering to the ad industry now but other than that I think they're pretty decent.

          • infotainment 3 hours ago ago

            They also fired a whole bunch of software engineers (including everyone working on Servo), and then massively boosted their executives' salaries, so that was certainly something.

          • 6510 7 hours ago ago

            If I donate to your project I hope the money goes towards your project. If you spend it on beer or buy Jacuzzi I'm happy too. If you chose to spend it on other projects ill be excited to learn what they are.

            https://future.mozilla.org/projects/

            Do you use any of that? Is there anything there I should be using? (honest question) It seems premature to donate to things I don't know.

            > Solo helps entrepreneurs expand their web presence with a suite of AI-backed tools for building websites, optimizing for SEO, and showcasing your best work.

            > Solo will instantly create a beautiful website so you can grow your business.

            > Improve brand visibility: SEO keywords are automatically added to help drive search traffic. View statistics by connecting a Google Analytics account.

            I'm very biased no doubt, it reads like I donate to progress the commercial web, more canned template websites, product SEO and to promote the use of google analytics. I'm sure it is awesome to some people, to me it is the opposite, I'm sure it is a project that should exist some place but I don't want to pay for it.

            The web browser can still be infinitely improved.

            • emptysongglass 3 hours ago ago

              I mean Llamafile is great and is built on fantastic tech, but no I definitely want my Mozilla money to go to Firefox, not what Thing is currently in vogue by Mozilla execs.

            • krabizzwainch 5 hours ago ago

              Clicked the future projects link. Thought the DidThis project sounded interesting. Aaaannnddd it's already a dead project as of 2 months ago.

        • weikju 8 hours ago ago

          > Can’t a non-crazy nonprofit make a browser?

          Here’s to hoping LadyBird remains non crazy and can be relevant by the time of their planned alpha release in 2026.

          • lobsterthief 5 hours ago ago

            To be honest it needs a different name if it’s going to hit critical mass adoption with the average consumer.

            • rascul 4 hours ago ago

              What's wrong with ladybird?

              • catlikesshrimp 3 hours ago ago

                Netscape, Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, All have a pop appeal to them (the names)

                "Ladybug" makes a reference to a bug. And not a thrilling one.

                • rascul 3 hours ago ago

                  It's bird though, not bug.

                  • ac29 an hour ago ago

                    Ladybird is the UK term for what Americans call Ladybugs

                • em-bee an hour ago ago

                  huh? of all the bugs in the world, ladybugs are among the most popular, the majority of them are harmless and prey on agricultural pests. at least where i come from the association with "ladybug" is "cute".

        • fnqi8ckfek 12 hours ago ago

          Mozilla let's me use ublock origin, Google doesn't.

        • PittleyDunkin 12 hours ago ago

          Mozilla can't be worse than google (or brave/opera etc)

        • mazambazz 11 hours ago ago

          I think you need to be a little bit crazy to enter the browser space. It's not for the feint of heart.

        • mynameyeff 5 hours ago ago

          What are your qualms with Brave Browser?

          • rascul 4 hours ago ago

            I'm not convinced that it's much more than a Chrome skin with an integrated crypto scam.

            • IronRod 2 hours ago ago

              I've used Brave for years. Never used any of the crypto features. It is just a solid, privacy-based, chromium-based browser.

            • bufferoverflow 4 hours ago ago

              You don't have to use the crypto features.

              • Meph504 3 hours ago ago

                when the defense of a project is that you can turn off the bad features, you aren't really making a chase better than say chrome or anything else.

                A product built on trust, shouldn't involve having to go turn off untrustworthy elements.

                • mynameyeff 2 hours ago ago

                  The crypto part isn’t something you turn off. It’s buried in a menu somewhere. For all intents and purposes, it’s a pretty elegant UX.

    • sss111 12 hours ago ago

      and its really easy on MacOS, you just have to run

        defaults write com.google.Chrome.plist ExtensionManifestV2Availability -int 2
      
      Another case where windows makes simple things unnecessarily cumbersome
      • wqaatwt 11 hours ago ago

        You can’t edit config files on Windows from the terminal?

        Not really an expert but PowerShell always seemed kind of more “powerful” and/or complex than bash

  • mindcrash 2 hours ago ago

    If you want a Chromium based browser Brave has a uBlock-esque blocker built right into its core but it's disabled by default because "Brave Shields is enough protection" (it isn't, given the stats I see when enabled). Anyway, you can turn it on and it uses the same blocklists uBlock uses aswell.

    • JPLeRouzic an hour ago ago

      > "if you want a Chromium based browser'

      There is also Vivaldi:

      https://help.vivaldi.com

      • zamalek 11 minutes ago ago

        Vivaldi would not stop offering to sign me into google automatically on sites that support it, it kept re-enabling it somehow. How this is enabled on a privacy-aware browser is beyond me. Brave is pretty good once you disable all the crypto stuff.

      • Filligree an hour ago ago

        Alas, it crashes every time I try to import my Chrome profile.

    • cbluth 2 hours ago ago

      Any reference or instructions on how to do that?

  • gnabgib 16 hours ago ago

    Discussion (119 points, 79 days ago, 62 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41757178

  • wruza 4 hours ago ago

    I guess Vivaldi awaits the same fate.

    I don’t want to switch from it, especially to Firefox, so much. It’s in little things like context menus, gestures (don’t tell me about that “crx” extension crapware), tab order/cycle behaviors, downloads ux, bookmarks ux, customization, etc etc.

    These “default” browsers always feel like Crysis 3 gameplay wrapped into a primitive text adventure interface.

  • Krustopolis 13 hours ago ago

    Happened to me a couple of days ago. I installed Ublock Lite and it seems “good enough”.

    • bn-l 12 hours ago ago

      It doesn’t do content blocking unfortunately.

    • thebytefairy 4 hours ago ago

      For the vast majority of users Lite does the job just fine.

  • CLiED 2 hours ago ago

    I'm superlatively surprised Google has followed through on what it has promised to do over and over again.

    • kacesensitive 2 hours ago ago

      "I'm surprised they did what they said they would do" will be the anthem of 2025 unfortunately

  • pogue 9 hours ago ago

    Both Brave & Opera have built in adblockers that are not dependent on Manifest to run. I haven't played with Opera too much, but Brave lets you add custom lists and works quite well. Combine that with a DNS based adblocker such as HaGeZi [1] or OISD from free DNS providers like ControlD or NextDNS and you'll be golden.

    [1] https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists?tab=readme-ov-file#...

    • octopoc 3 hours ago ago

      Yeah plus Brave on iPhone auto blocks ads. No extensions or configuration needed. Not sure if Firefox does that.

    • mancerayder 4 hours ago ago

      I'm using Brave and have no idea why you got downvoted. People are talking like Chrome and FF are the only two things on Earth.

      • mancerayder 2 hours ago ago

        The silent downvote curse spreads.

        Can someone kindly speak up and explain?

        What's wrong with talking about Brave?

        • cwillu an hour ago ago

          I downvote comments that disregard the hn guidelines.

          “Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.”

  • peutetre 15 hours ago ago

    Friends don't let friends use Chrome. Use Firefox. uBlock Origin works best with Firefox:

    https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

    • bartvk 9 hours ago ago

      Yeah, I don't get all this fuss. I mean, if you block ads then do you think Chrome will also stop reporting to the mothership? Of course not. Use Firefox and simple be done with all this hoohah.

      • pavel_lishin 3 hours ago ago

        > I mean, if you block ads then do you think Chrome will also stop reporting to the mothership?

        I'm mostly interested in improving my browsing experience. Viewing the web without an adblocker is a nightmare, it makes some websites nigh-unusable.

        The privacy issue is an issue, but it's not one that actively prevents me from reading things online.

        • harrisi 2 hours ago ago

          > The privacy issue is an issue, but it's not one that actively prevents me from reading things online.

          Yet.

      • Dalewyn 3 hours ago ago

        Blocking malvertisements is a matter of safety, I personally find the privacy aspect secondary to that.

    • ornornor 12 hours ago ago

      Unfortunately Firefox is slower than chromium and the devtools are worse. I used Firefox for years because I hate google. I eventually gave up, that’s how bad ff is.

      • Zardoz84 11 hours ago ago

        I think that Firefox dev tools are better

        • ramon156 10 hours ago ago

          My average friend doesn't care about devtools, only if they can watch YouTube in silence

        • Alex-Programs 11 hours ago ago

          Yeah, I'm used to the Firefox ones and whenever I use the chrome ones they seem fine, worse in some ways but better in others (device emulation) while being a little unfamiliar.

          The webextension dev tools are better too, imo.

  • wklm 11 hours ago ago

    Could someone explain in simple terms, what’s so tricky about spinning off a v2-compatible chromium fork?

    • wruza 5 hours ago ago

      People who remove v2, own ad networks, develop chrome and write standards are the same people. It’s new age mafia, cancer of the internet and they do everything for you to not be able to just spin off a fork.

      • efilife 25 minutes ago ago

        So what would they do?

    • Jyaif 10 hours ago ago

      Forget about forking, just offering a build of Chromium for a single platform and architecture that gets the security updates in time is a lot of work.

    • HDThoreaun 4 hours ago ago

      Chromium is maintained by the largest ad company in the world.

  • Flimm 13 hours ago ago

    Reminder: uBlock and uBlock Origin are different extensions from different developers.

  • enriqueycombi 4 hours ago ago

    Lame.

    Try using NextDNS to block ads entirely instead of just in Chrome.

    Also, duck.com has a browser extension that can do this. You could also just use their browser instead.

    • rcxdude 3 hours ago ago

      DNS-level blocking is more or less what Chrome's more limited API allows you to do. Full-fat adblockers can do a lot more.

  • delduca 3 hours ago ago

    Wipr for the win, Chrome nevermore.

    • raydev 2 hours ago ago

      Last time I tried Wipr+Safari, it didn't match the power of uBO+Chrome.

    • Meph504 3 hours ago ago

      The irony is it isn't for the win(dows)

  • barrenko 4 hours ago ago

    Seriously, what is a good alternative to Chrome's password management? For lazy end users.

    • shitlord 4 hours ago ago

      I set up Bitwarden for my dad who keeps forgetting his passwords. It seems to work well on his PC and Android phone.

    • leohart 2 hours ago ago

      I have always found Bitwarden to be the best one after trying many alternatives. One thing that stood out is how its phone app works seamlessly with FaceID/Fingerprint. From logged out to login is as smooth as allowing your phone to use biometrics.

      Bitwarden seems to be getting updates often as well which I value in a security conscious product.

    • isubkhankulov 4 hours ago ago

      1password if you are willing to pay for it. If you’re not, Bitwarden is just as good and it’s free / open source.

      • barrenko 3 hours ago ago

        Thank you all for the suggestions.

  • NotYourLawyer 9 hours ago ago

    Chrome is trash, download Firefox and never look back.

  • Jahak 10 hours ago ago

    Oh no! That's really disappointing!

  • r0ckarong 9 hours ago ago

    Just use Firefox ffs.

  • randomcatuser 17 hours ago ago

    yeah same... but then i got an ad for Pie, which i guess works to block youtube ads

  • darthrupert 12 hours ago ago

    Switch to ublock origin lite. It's pretty much as good. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/...

    People who are strongly suggesting firefox have probably not been in a relationship.

    • Zardoz84 11 hours ago ago

      People suggesting that using uBlock Lite and not Firefox with full uBlock, probably not has been in an abusive relationship.

      • grayhatter 4 hours ago ago

        or have, and that's why they can recognize the warning signs that op can't.

  • singleshot_ 5 hours ago ago

    What can uBlock Origin do that one couldn't do with a sufficiently sophisticated SSL-terminating forward proxy?

    • crtasm 5 hours ago ago

      Remove elements added dynamically without entirely blocking the script that produces them.

    • grayhatter 4 hours ago ago

      provide a UI within the browser chrome

    • HDThoreaun 4 hours ago ago

      Using a proxy to do DNS blocking has significant failures modes. They wont work on youtube because youtube uses the same endpoint to serve the videos and ads for starters.

  • mancerayder 4 hours ago ago

    Brave seems to work well with its privacy shield and a button to turn scripts off as-needed.

    People only focus on Firefox as an alternative. Am I missing something?

    • pixxel 2 hours ago ago

      Brave CEO once said some mild hurty words about a fragile group, and so the lefty hive must not publicly support his endeavours (whilst using his JavaScript all day long lol).

      • mancerayder 2 hours ago ago

        I haven't the first clue about the politics but I'm guessing the response is more toxic than the original message.