this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 532 points 3 months ago (14 children)

I'm warning Google that Google Chrome may soon be disabled on my devices.

[–] [email protected] 170 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It already is on mine, no trace of chromium or it's forks.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Discord, slack, bitwarden, steam, Microsoft teams, visual studio code, balena etcher . Anyone else know of any electron apps or heavily modified version of chrome?😄

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Teams has switched to Microsoft's own edition of the same concept, "Edge WebView2". Now that Edge is just being Chrome wearing a rubber Scooby Doo mask, I don't expect the differences are vast.

Another fun iteration is Plex's desktop client, which uses QtWebEngine... however surprise! still the Chromium engine underneath.

Signal's desktop app is plain old Electron though.

Of the ones on your list, worth noting that Discord and Slack work fine with FirefoxPWA.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 months ago (18 children)

What pisses me off is how many websites don't work right with Firefox now. There's been several times where I've had issues with a site functioning on Firefox and had to switch to a chromium browser.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 months ago (23 children)

I see this FUD all the time but nobody ever gives examples. Can you point to some specific sites that don't work with Firefox?

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[–] GregorGizeh 45 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

I read that most sites work just fine if you spoof your user agent to windows and standard chrome

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago

Until you do more than warn they don't care.

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[–] [email protected] 257 points 3 months ago (25 children)
[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago (20 children)

Saying this about any corporation's product is guaranteed not to age well.

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[–] [email protected] 232 points 3 months ago (2 children)

meanwhile firefox lists it as recommended and also lets you use it on firefox mobile.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 months ago (10 children)

Almost as if a browser company that's not also an advertising company has no reason to fight ad blockers.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It has made mobile browsing usable again for me.

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[–] [email protected] 130 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Google needs to be broken up by government.

[–] ArugulaZ 63 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It saddens me to agree with this. Who knew Google would become as oppressive as fucking MICROSOFT?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

« Don’t be evil »

😬😬😬😬

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[–] [email protected] 127 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Adblockers are the largest consumer boycott in history.

Google isn't just disabling an extension, they're attacking a boycott comprised of 200,000,000+ people, all around the globe, standing up to forced manipulation of our beliefs and habits by profit-hungry corporations.

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[–] [email protected] 113 points 3 months ago (7 children)

IT guys will stop using it...

Which means they'll stop deploying it as the default browser on some large enterprises, it won't ship as defaults in pre-baked images going forward.

Average joes and janes will use Safari and Edge depending on OS.

Where is their growth going to come from after this change? Chromebooks? lol.

I hope they do it, it will hurt them in the long run.

You can bet 300 new uBlock replacements to spring up practically overnight, some of them scams, reducing trust in the Google ecostystem.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (7 children)

You can bet 300 new uBlock replacements to spring up practically overnight, some of them scams, reducing trust in the Google ecostystem.

Unfortunately it's a bigger problem.

Google doesn't plan to block uBlock Origin itself, but the APIs it uses to integrate into Chrome in order to function. This will effectively disable all adblockers on Chrome. uBlock won't be removed from the Chrome extension store, it will just have 90% of its functionality removed.

Additionally, this isn't a Chrome-only change, but a change in the open source Chromium, an upstream browser of Chrome all other Chrome-based browsers use (essentially everything aside from Firefox and Safari themselves).

The change itself is involved in changing the browser's "Manifest", a list of allowed API calls for extensions. The current one is called Manifest v2 and the new one was dubbed Manifest v3.

Theorethically Chromium-based browsers could "backport" Manifest v2 due to the open source nature of Chromium. However that is unlikely as it's projected to take a lot of resources to change, due mostly to security implications of the change.

Vendors of other Chromium-based browsers themselves have little to gain from making the change aside from name recognition for "allowing uBlock", which most users either wouldn't care for or already use Firefox, so the loss for Google isn't projected to be large, just as the gains for other vendors.

TLDR: uBlock won't be removed from the Chrome extension store, but the mechanisms through which it blocks ads will be blocked. The block isn't a change in Chrome but in Chromium and affects all Chromium-based brosers (all except Firefox and Safari). Other vendors could change that to allow adblockers but it's projected to take a lot of time and resources.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Thank you Google I hope shitty moves like this drives enough people away to better browsers like Firefox. It desperately needs a bigger market share.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (16 children)

So, what they're saying is: Chrome will have severely decreased functionality and users will no longer be able to protect themselves from sketchy ads that contain scams, malware, and other nefarious bullshit (often hosted on Google's own ad networks)?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (4 children)

What are you expecting, a corp to... ah... uh... not be evil, or something? :-P

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sadly I'm far more attached to ad blocking than I am to a browser.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 3 months ago (3 children)

That’s a funny way to say “you should uninstall chrome rather than leaving it unused” but I hear you Google. 🫡

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (16 children)

Yeah, we saw this coming. When Manifest v3 first talked about.

Google an ad company are killing ad blockers. Yeah, that sounds right.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 3 months ago (11 children)

The modern Internet is completely unusable without an ad blocker. Way to remake ie6, Google!

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 3 months ago (10 children)

...Oh, no! Anyway. Just giving people one more reason to finally make the switch to Firefox or something different.

Google Chrome warns about disabling uBlock Origin. I warn Google Chrome that they're being a little bitch & they're going to lose users.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 months ago

Sounds like another reason not to use Chrome.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Could turn out to be a good thing. All power users will dump Chrome practically overnight, a huge boon to the alternatives, that could actually give them enough momentum to compete with Google for a change. I'm sure they've considered this, probably an empty treat.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 months ago

Thanks for reaffirming why I refuse to use Chrome.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm using Firefox or forks.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 3 months ago

Oh no uses Firefox Anyway....

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (4 children)

They started putting ads in Windows, a few users switched, but most still continue Windows.

Google will roll this out and a few users will switch, but most will just keep using Chrome.

We've already established that most users don't seem to care.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 months ago

Good riddance then. Fuck chrome

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago

I guess it's a good thing I'm on Firefox now instead of Chrome.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (13 children)

I rlly hate how some sites don't work on Firefox

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The more people use Firefox, the more web devs will be forced to ensure their website works on Firefox.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm showing my age, but back when IE was basically the only browser and Firefox (Firebird back then) launched, people often lamented that things didn't work in Firefox. The solution? People used Firefox and web developers were forced to make their shit work in Firefox. When Chrome came out, suddenly we had three real options and the way to make everything work? Open Standards.

Now, Chrome is in the position IE was back before Firefox came around. How ever will we make sure things work in Firefox??? Use Firefox. If enough people dump Google's malware browser, the web has to go back to supporting multiple browsers through open standards.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Glad I have firefox as well but also looking forward to a cool new project called Ladybird. https://ladybird.org

Not sure if its the right one but glad there are more projects out there trying to jump into the game. (I know extensions are a long way off for it but i see it as hope.)

Also please consider running pihole or adguard home. Or any other full home DNS add blocker. It will help.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago

Google Chrome is about to be disabled? Got it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago

Google sneezes and your future is stolen by an ad that's selling it back to you. Google is too big to exist.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Let this be my warning to Google that I will never go back to their browser when they do. Challas! ✌️

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