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 extension will soon no longer be available because it “doesn’t follow the best practices for Chrome extensions”.2 Daly Barnett. “Chrome Users Beware: Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening.” EFF, December 9, 2021. ↩ Lawrence Abrams. “Google warns uBlock Origin and other extensions may be disabled soon.” Bleeping Computer, October 13, 2024. ↩

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!

  • Brownian Motion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    112·
    1 month ago

    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.

    • yoasif@fedia.ioOP
      4·
      1 month ago

      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.

      I couldn’t find a source for either of these claims. Can you help me out?

    • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      1 month ago

      brave i think has that too which is a controversial browser as well waterfox is a great browser tho.
      here are the reasons you shouldnt use opera or even operagx btw: https://rentry.co/operagx and brave