So we weren’t surprised to hear that Chrome users were concerned after learning that several of the internet’s most popular ad blockers, like uBlock Origin, would lose some of their privacy-preserving functionality on Google’s web browser, resulting from the changes Manifest V3 brings to Chrome’s extensions platform – changes that strengthen other facets of security, while unfortunately limiting the capabilities of certain types of privacy extensions.
But 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.
I’m so glad Firefox exists. There simply isn’t any viable alternative to it, and that’s why I’m continuously worried about the continued existence of Mozilla. The story around Manifest V3 is just another example of why Firefox is superior.
Yes but Brave?
is based on chromium.
Being based on Chromium is not a reason to immediately dismiss a candidate, even if you disagree with what Google has done with Chrome/Chromium.
Chromium is probably the best-available web rendering engine for it’s intended purpose today, but like any software, it’s not perfect. The open source / free software community is operating exactly how it’s supposed to in this regard. Someone felt that Chromium was not implementing features that should exist in a reasonable browser, and instead of tossing out the good with the bad, forked and implemented those features in a new product (Brave). They also brought a new monetization strategy to the table, even if it’s a little trend-follow-y and gimmicky (crypto crap).
Chromium, likewise, exists because Webkit / Safari was better than other options (at the time, IE7, Firefox), but had it’s own warts. And Webkit similarly exists because Konqueror was a cleanish codebase, but not terribly usable for the websites of the time. Free software allows new products to stand on the shoulders of others.
Firefox has had their own set of missteps over the years, not least of which was a rocky switch away from their own addons format in favor of chrome-style addons. There were addons that existed before that time that were not able to make the transition, and valuable functionality was lost as a result (example: FOSS addon for Exchange EWS calendar support in Thunderbird).
Are Google’s actions in relation to Manifest V3 transparently about protecting their commercial interests versus helping users protect themselves? Yes, but we should expect nothing more from a commercial entity. The self-regulating system of free software allows us to take what is good about something and enhance it.
Brave is simply following in the line of Chromium, Webkit, and KHTML before it to provide us with something better than what came before.
jasutton,
Everything you are saying is quite reasonable IMHO. However this “FOSS is going as it should be” has problems too. The existence of FOSS alternatives is well and good. I am grateful, but if they become so marginalized that they loose market relevance, that’s a serious problem for users of those alternatives.
Just today I was forced to switch to microsoft edge browser (albeit temporarily) to update a visual studio license. The dialog said that my up to date FF browser was not supported and explicitly linked to their edge browser to login. And unfortunately it’s not just MS, The same BS takes place on official government websites including the IRS. I complained to them and their response to me was to use a device with chrome or edge. I’m sure it makes microsoft and google happy, but this sort of coercion is very problematic for alternatives 🙁
As a professional developer, I’ve done my best to support alternatives. But some of my clients have said they don’t care about them. I still keep FF as my primary browser, but the trends on the ground seem to be going downhill.
Thom Holwerda,
I agree, but I don’t know how economically viable they are long term. This speaks to a very prominent existential dilemma with free software that I haven’t been able to get over in my mind. Mozilla could be sitting on tons of user data that they could monetize, but it would be the equivalent of selling their soul to the devil. Mozilla are trying to get customers to pay for subscription services including VPN and MDN. While I don’t find these offensive, it’s unclear whether it can be enough long term to compete against free competing products that and are backed and bundled by the tech giants.
It’s not just corporations either, but even down to small developers. How do you make a living with FOSS alone? Are donations enough? In my neck of the woods employers can and do pay nothing for FOSS. Not a single cent and they don’t give it a second thought. There’s the idea of giving away the software and charging for services, but even this approach gets battered by freeloaders. Some FOSS companies have reacted by taking away features from FOSS versions to up-sell proprietary versions, thereby creating an incentive to pay. It almost seems like FOSS is being used as bate and the proprietary product/service is the switch. I don’t know this helps to sell me on the idea that FOSS is a good business model without some built-in incentive to purchase something proprietary.
My dad of all people asks me questions about how developers who contribute to FOSS earn a living and I never feel like I have a good answer for him. Sometimes I hear that developers are paid to contribute to FOSS by companies, but that’s not the case for anyone I know in my circles. I’ve been using FOSS for most of my working career, but I’ve never been paid by customers/companies to create/release works as FOSS. I get the feeling it’s the exception rather than the norm.
And Mozilla being Mozilla, they are trying hard to screw up on those as well. I tried to buy Mozilla VPN, just for the sake of giving some money to Mozilla, and switched from a VPN provider I was totally happy with (and which was cheaper).
And Mozilla told me, “win 7 is not supported; move on”.
At least they gave me a full refund, I have to note that.
I don’t think Mozilla is in a position they can be choosy with customers, but still…
I don’t think Mozilla will remain viable for long, but I hope it does.
The last time I used Firefox was to get some text to translate off a garbage tourist website made of clearly no effort clickbait. For some reason this total garbage website had blocked the old ctrl+u to view source and “protected” their content (which wasn’t technically long enough to even be considered copyrightable.). It’s nice that it exists, but I’m sure Mozilla would eventually enable the same thing.
dark2,
I notice anti-features like this from time to time.
Does anyone know of an addon or a way to stop scripts with something like a button or hotkey? I have used developer tools to hack away unwanted divs or whatnot, but sometimes I really just want a way to stop all scripts once a page has loaded. Just to be clear, I’m not asking for something like no-script, because that prevents scripts from running in the first place. This isn’t quite the same thing as stopping or pausing scripts that need to run to load the page.
To be clear, Chrome itself helped blocking “copy,” ctrl+u, and manually clicking “view source.” Even highlighting the text was disabled. Google was happy to help out, and at some point whoever funds Firefix will probably make the same demand of them.
dark2
I’ve seen things like that too. It’s because the page intercepts keyboard & mouse events. This isn’t always malicious and I’ve had good reason to do this myself. It becomes a problem if the browser doesn’t let you override the page events though.
I don’t use chrome normally and I don’t know if this works, but next time try setting focus to something other than the page (like developer tools) and then using the hot keys without the page having input focus.
If anyone else knows how to simply disable javascript entirely after loading, let us know. I’ve searched sites like stack exchange and while many people had similar questions, I don’t remember there being any good solutions.
This is BS PR from google here. Of course google doesn’t mind because 1) reigning in adblocker capabilities obviously benefits google, and 2) google’s own code & innovation isn’t locked down to the restrictions they’re imposing on others. These power plays are exactly the reason we need to fight monopolies. Too much control in too few hands always leads to abuse. Yet with that said I predict things will have to keep getting worse before they can get better because people don’t learn. 🙁
Firefox extensions are rapidly evolving and improving, providing users with added functionality and customization options. New extensions are being developed regularly, including those for privacy, productivity, and customization. The Mozilla Firefox team is also working to improve the security and performance of extensions to provide a better user experience. With the continued growth and development of Firefox extensions, users can expect to see even more useful and innovative extensions in the future.
https://ideausher.com/services/mobile-app-development/