Google is Killing uBlock Origin. No Chromium Browser is Safe.
Google is Killing uBlock Origin. No Chromium Browser is Safe.
We’ve been anticipating it for years,1 and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the ...
We’ve been anticipating it for years, and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the extension will soon no longer be available because it “doesn’t follow the best practices for Chrome extensions”.
Now that it is finally happening, many seem to be oddly resigned to the idea that Google is taking away the best and most powerful ad content blocker available on any web browser today, with one article recommending people set up a DNS based content blocker on their network 😒 – instead of more obvious solutions.
I may not have blogged about this but I recently read an article from 1999 about why Gopher lost out to the Web, where Christopher Lee discusses the importance of the then-novel term “mind share” and how it played an important part in dictating why the web won out. In my last post, I touched on the importance of good information to democracies – the same applies to markets (including the browser market) – and it seems to me that we aren’t getting good information about this topic.
This post is me trying to give you that information, to help increase the mind share of an actual alternative. Enjoy!
Can I just add a different perspective on this?
My dad is really old (like early baby-boomers), and I am basically the in-family tech support when the home computer starts acting strange.
Well, right after google rolled out this update, my dad clicked on what he thought was an online shopping link. It was actually an ad for a toolbar add-on.
QueueCue like 6+ hours trying to uninstall that add-on and the bundled software.I never had to worry about that in the past with him because I had u-block origin installed. Now I need to find something else that can run quietly in the background. And probably a better antivirus.
Honestly I'd say the Internet isn't safe, and it's because of Google, fuck you Google. It's not just the wine I've been drinking, it's true dammit.
Kids, remember, Google is an advertising company.
Welcome back to Firefox everyone! At least if you're as old or older than I. 😁
You can always keep Chromium installed for the odd site that doesn’t work in Firefox (my daily driver). I do web development and test in every browser and I almost never encounter sites or features that don’t work in FF. The only one I can recall is something in the Azure Portal, probably because Microsoft wants you using Edge.
Typically, Safari is the laggard and any developer worth their salt would make sure their site works on iPad and iPhone. When a new web standard is released, usually Chromium supports it first but even then, not always. And web developers usually don’t use features that aren’t implemented across the board yet. I know I go to caniuse.com before I use something fresh out the oven.
Firefox needs to work on ensuring seamless compatibility with more websites, web apps and so on, because I'm personally very bored with my kids' schools and related services sending out emails and forms with links that simply won't open in FF but are clearly expecting Chrome or Edge where they work fine. Yes, this is on the lazy developers, but if FF want wider scale take-up outside of geeky niche groups then this is the stuff they must fix.
Also Firefox mobile has nearly all of the extensions as the desktop version so it's more similar across all of your devices. Personally, I use LibreWolf on desktop and Mull on mobile, but they're just tweaked versions of Firefox with some bloat and telemetry removed and preconfigured to be more private.
You can make a windows registry change to have Chrome let you keep using uBlock Origin, with the V2 manifest. It will buy you six more months, basically the enterprise support period.
There was a handy shortcut created by the Security Now podcast you can use as a one-click file to update the policy. The show notes also give a more detailed breakdown of what's going on.
The relevant section in the notes is page 10. The link to the file is page 12. https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-995-notes.pdf
After i uninstalled chrome some time ago, i noticed it had been slowing down my entire system even when its not on. There is nothing of worth in using it or any other browser derived from it.
It blows my mind that there are major companies that are actively, and very publicly- working their asses off to undermine the interests of their own customer base. And not only are they still are enabled to exist- they’re profits are constantly growing. Which means, despite their nefarious and intrusive updates to their services…. People are eating it up!
Nothing will change until people do the work to make that change.
Take YouTube for example:
They have screwed people over time and again. From their content creators, to those that enjoy watching them. Yet- those that hate it so much would seemingly never organize themselves to boycott their services on a level that will ever hurt them.
So they continue to do it unstopped.
Nothing changes until something changes. It isn’t ever easy, but if you want it to happen badly enough, it is always worth it.
All it takes is for someone to stand up and take the reins!
(I cannot be that person as I have ADHD and will probably forget that I wrote this come later this afternoon)
It's time to fork chromium!
I have been using a fork of Firefox called Floorp and so far pretty happy with it. Chrome and any variant of it has essentially a monopoly on the browser and Firefox will just follow what Google says anyway so I wouldn't recommend native firefox. It would be nice if Safari(WebKit) was more stable and available as an alternative.
Anyway: https://floorp.app/
Opera GX has promised to keep MV2 in their code. So I'll just keep using that until I see something different. The other thing is that Opera GX has built in ad-blocker which is pretty much on par with third parties.
Firefox is not the "great browser" you think it is. It has had its fair share of fuckups and failures over the years, like laxed security certificate updates leaving users in limbo.
Google didn't come and just out do Firefox. It was the other way around, firefox fucked themselves with poor management and failure after failure, and people left. Chrome was the new boy in town, and that is why firefox is where it is today.
Also, I would never use firefox, if I do need an alternative browser renderer, I use WATERFOX which is far more privacy compliant than firefix ever has been.
Will Brave haves a built-in blocker. So here's that.