Submitted by Google is essentially saying that Chrome will still have the capability to block unwanted content, but this will be restricted to only paid, enterprise users of Chrome. This is likely to allow enterprise customers to develop in-house Chrome extensions, not for ad blocking usage.
For the rest of us, Google hasn’t budged on their changes to content blockers, meaning that ad blockers will need to switch to a less effective, rules-based system, called “declarativeNetRequest.”
I’m glad I switched to Firefox already, and I suggest you do the same. A browser that is not tied to a platform vendor (like Safari) or run by an ad company (like Chrome).
Who funds firefox these days?
Mozilla, the browser, comes from Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. Most of Mozilla Corp.’s funding comes from agreements with search providers, and primarily this is Google. I believe Yahoo and Yandex still have contracts. While I love Firefox, you have to wonder if Google will pull the financial plug if Mozilla ever gets to be enough of a competitor, especially if Mozilla blocks Google’s tracking.
I assume Google views Mozilla’s existence the way Microsoft probably viewed Apple’s existence in the mid 1990s: it’s worth giving them money to exist as a “competitor” so that we don’t face antitrust cases.
Thom Holwerda,
Huge conflict of interest there. I’m genuinely afraid that huge corporations (apple, google, microsoft, and even mozilla) are winning in their fight to take away consumer rights to run software unimpeded by vendor restrictions. And because consumers focus on the glitzy stuff rather than who’s in control, there’s very little repercussion for the corporations who lock owners out. Of course there are those of us who actively boycott their services and try to vote with our wallets, but we represent such a tiny minority that voting with our wallets has no practical effect compared to the masses.
This week I did a traceroute and found out osnews is hosted by google cloud through a reseller(*). -Sigh-. That’s just the reality though, little guys like me are struggling as market consolidation continues to favor the giants. It doesn’t matter how much we criticize them, the fact that they’re taking all the customers and money will solidify their win in the end.
* I wonder if the osnews outage earlier in the week is in any way related to the google cloud outages reported around the same time? Seems possible.
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-outage-snapchat-youtube-gmail-down-2019-6
Nope. I emigrated to Sweden this past weekend (a 2400km drive with my Swedish girlfriend and everything I own packed into our car), so OSNews had to take a backseat.
Thom Holwerda,
I’m confused. When I said huge conflict of interest, I meant on google’s part: The chrome browser suffers due to google’s ad business interests. What are you saying ‘nope’ to? Was the cause of the outage something else? Rather than speculate as to what you disagree on, I’ll await clarification. 🙂
Congrats on the move btw!
Maybe Thom isn’t aware that osnews.com was down and assumed you were referring to the lack of news (that was due to his relocation to Sweden).
Athlander,
Oh maybe, it never occurred to me that Thom might not know, haha.
This is what osnews.com displayed monday:
https://imgur.com/a/yoruNYC
Kinsta is “wordpress hosting powered by google cloud”. Kinsta’s status page confirmed multiple major google data center outages on sunday and monday, so yeah I’d say that’s the reason why osnews was offline.
https://status.kinsta.com/
I was aware of the outage, but it happened while Thom was moving so I guess he didn’t realize.
Related to google’s outage… people with nest home automation devices (cameras and thermostats) lost access to their devices.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/google-cloud-outage-impacts-nest-smart-locks-and-a-c.html
Here’s the thing that upsets me. I’m actually a big fan of home automation technologies, but I absolutely despise when it’s engineered to depend unnecessarily on 3rd party services that are not only fallible, but are also used to siphon data. It’s like google’s cloud printing, which forces users to send the data to google first before it can be printed locally on the printer sitting right next to you. Why should you need internet/tethering to print locally? This is such a stupid design that I’m certain it wasn’t an engineering oversight, google heads would have instructed it’s engineers to do it this way instead of engineering it the right way.
There’s a home automation revolution coming, but as it stands we’re on a path where device control will be in the hands of corporations rather than owners. Technology is being developed to let corporations control us rather than let owners be in control. It certainly doesn’t have to be this way, we’re technically able to engineer devices that keep owners and control with fewer failure modes to boot, but because of corrupt corporate interests that’s not the technology we’re getting, which makes me sad.
Ironically, the Google service status page listed Google+ as up and running and almost everything else as down. 🙂 (Google+ had been shutdown April 2nd)
Part of the reason people get cloud services involved is because of IPv4 NAT, so the device can not easily be connected to from outside the home (which many want).
This is the most used open source solution I believe: https://www.openhab.org/
Lennie,
Cool, I’ll have to take a look at that.
Regarding NAT, obviously it sucks that IPv6 is still not even an option for many of us even in 2019, but here are my thoughts:
Firstly, a device should always work locally even if internet is down (or there is no internet).
Secondly, an owner should be able to forward ports manually if he so chooses (this is what I do when I need remote access).
Thirdly, it’s OK to have a remote server, but it really needs to be an open protocol that can be self-hosted by the owner without restriction by the manufacturer, otherwise the owner isn’t in control.
The worst case scenario for IOT home automation devices is when a remote service is the only option and that remote service is proprietary. Yet vendors are keen on this very approach because it maximizes their ability to vendor lock us. Sometimes it’s difficult to find devices that satisfy my open criteria 🙁
Most buyers don’t even think about these things until it’s too late, like with the revolv owners who ended up with bricked devices after google bought the company and yanked the underlying service.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/05/revolv-devices-bricked-google-nest-smart-home
Also take a look at the Hubitat.. not as open as openhab but maybe not as complicated either more like smartthings without the cloud. Everything local. Open driver/app development like SmartThings. No access to internal stuff though.
On topic I agree with Thom – I just made the switch to Firefox as well. There is also the “Brave” browser which seems like an interesting idea.
The problem is: it also needs to work for regular people who don’t know ‘computer stuff’.
Try explaining them how to do a port forward (and maybe: dynamic DNS updates and setup a domainname and let’s encrypt). 🙂
Alfman, I agree 1000% with this.
Yeah, brilliant. Switch to a browser developed by a nonprofet that is so greedy they’ll shove ads in your face and subject you to studies. Sure, great long-term planning, buddy.
You’re better off going with something like brave or maybe Waterfox. Firefox is just as bad as Chrome, and is likely to get even worse. Do you really think Mozilla blew up everyone’s extensions by accident?
Can’t find anything from Opera but judging from Vivaldi’s twitter, they will be keeping the API working. https://twitter.com/vivaldibrowser/status/1136204715786719232
Wonder if this will make a difference …as in using another browser as I’ve deleted Facebook and google deleted me after , however long gmail has been a thing, and not sure why so my emails , contacts and whatever else doesn’t come to mind, gone. Will I be free…somehow doubt it.
Unfortunately Mozilla seems to be taking some rather odd decisions with Gecko, so we can’t really trust that either
Perhaps we need to take Blink (previously webkit, previously KHTML) back to its roots and have a single fork that’s used for alternative browsers, like Brave, Vivaldi, etc? Perhaps even a single organization releasing “reference implementations” in the form of a Blink and a Gecko fork, and running some kind of open extension store supporting both engines? Hopefully that kind of thing would help take the power back from Google etc, especially if Google was forced to play catch-up to the forked engines.
“You’re better off going with something like brave or maybe Waterfox. Firefox is just as bad as Chrome, and is likely to get even worse. Do you really think Mozilla blew up everyone’s extensions by accident?”
Of course they didn’t. Just like forced “upgrades” without asking your permission are an “accident”.
Brave is a fantastic browser. Anyone that uses and likes Chrome will find it immediately familiar, except that you get ad blocking out of the box. All the Chrome extensions (I use) can be installed from the Chrome store. It supports sync via a QR code linking system, no login required.