I think that the concern is whether a number of websites might stop working with Firefox if Chrome users consistently represent ad revenue and Firefox users generally don't.
I use Firefox, but it has relatively-limited marketshare in 2026. A lot of people just browse on mobile devices and on Android devices, and there Chrome's probably the default browser.
Yeah, that's true. But...if a website derives its revenue from ads, a non-ad-viewing user --- and users who switch browsers so as to use an ad blocker would presumably be blocking ads --- loses that website money rather than generating it. Like, for such a website, the issue would be how many Firefox users that do view ads would be lost if their website didn't work on Firefox.
Those of you who remember the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer had very high marketshare, probably remember a number of websites that didn't work with other browsers.
Google is already killing the ad revenue model of the web by presenting the content it scrapes with AI for search — effectively stealing their content for profit — instead of ranking links so users navigate to their sites. Many have ahead seen a 70-90% drop in traffic, resulting in a 70-90% drop in ad revenue.
Capitalism is a blast, huh? Crime is very legal and very cool!
If your website needs ad revenue to either exist, or that's fundamentally its entire business model?
That website does not need to exist.
Now sure, are their caveats to this? Yes. But broadly, its usually true. The website should exist as a small loss leading part of your whole shebang, or should have some kind of membership or donation model or something else, to fund itself.
Its also not that hard to make a website follow broswer agnostic standards. If the website can't figure out how to do that, if they think its fine to be a browser-vendor exclusive website, I don't need to use it.
Because people weren't testing to work on the various browsers, which is pretty much what happens now with many sites and Firefox. People don't adhere to the webstandard so Firefox doesn't always work, but if we see a huge surge in Firefox then websites might put effort into them working in hope to catch some revenue of oerson doesnt have a blocker
Useragent Detection - Your Current Useragent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/149.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36
Browser Name: Chrome
Browser Version: for Android
OS: Android 10.0
Hardware Vendor: Unknown
Hardware Model: Unknown
Screen Width:
Screen Height:
Is it a desktop device: No
Is it a mobile device: Yes
Is it a tablet: No
Is it a crawler/robot: No
Is it a console: No
Their stats combine ALL versions of chrome (chromium) which would also include things like cromite, degoogled chrome, cromium itself, possibly vivaldi, apps that use webview (doordash, voyager for lemmy, bank apps, etc) might even be included as they are chrome/chromium on android, would all tally for chrome with no differentiation even though some versions are light years apart.
Cromite/vanadium and chrome are the same browssrs the way chocolate and vanilla are the same ice cream.
Oh, and to muddle things some more, on Android, viewing using desktop site gives this:
Browser Name: Chrome
Browser Version: 148.0
OS: Linux 0
Is it a desktop device: Yes
If that happens, Google becomes a monopoly, if it isn't already. They don't want this (or at least they haven't, but they might think it won't matter now). If they continue wanting Firefox to be relevant to help their argument that they aren't a monopoly, they'll do what they can to ensure Firefox continues to work.
the last thing google wants is people to flee to APPLE, and thier webkit browser. i think its one of the reasons they allow firefox to be on life support, despite the anti-trust issues, which never affected them anyways.
100% It's just somehow way more blatant for me with mobile as it's BEEN like this... which propbably helped make Google more confident in doing the same thing with PCs 🤯
mobile has forks and adblockers. you can even use brave if you want. ironfox is one firefox, but i stopped using it, because it does something wierd with different websites, and and on reddit where i browse sparingly.
well except in the worst OS ever, iOS, where you can only use the worst web standards compliant webengine for vague security reasons, you know, to keep you safe from yourself
You don’t like the OS; ok. Nobody likes the forced usage of the engine. But WebKit being the “worst web standards compliant” is simply not true. It’s maybe the highest on interop and certainly competitive in other ways. I wish there were more WebKit and Gecko; way too much Blink right now. Come on Ladybird and Servo.
okay sit down this one is going to take a lot of brain. if a lot of hackers use it, the people who are good at computers, right? why would you not use the one that hackers use?
i mean i dunno. the instrument i specialize in, there are three manufacturers. there's the default, the cheap, and the expensive. the default is legitimately better than the expensive.
The other thing people on Lemmy / Hackernews/ Reddit don't seem to get is that people are not using laptop or desktop computers anymore. More and more people only have a phone and maybe a tablet. People with phones and tablets do not know what a browser is. It's baked into the system. Everyone on Android is using Chrome and they very likely don't even know it.
I use Ecosia on my phone because it has a built-in ad blocker that actually works.
I use Revanced instead of YouTube/Music so I don't get ads and can listen to what I want (I had to change my phone's DNS, because on data it wouldn't let me watch or listen to anything that was marked "explicit").
I haven't updated my Discord app in the last couple years because I heard that one of those updates supposedly introduced ads and I said "hell no."
Their absolute and stubborn refusal to implement PWA made me give up on Firefox recently.
I tried using Chrome for PWA only and using Firefox for my main browser for a while (to help their market share), but it made it very difficult because external links would open in Chrome.
I've found like 80% of sites I use are self hosted so I found it easier to just stop using websites with ads than dealing with Firefox 😞
Because installing a native app requires an enormous amount of trust. Every native app running as your user has read access to all data created by every other app including browsers and their secrets like saved credentials to sensitive websites.
The Linux ecosystem mostly got away with this by being too small to be worth targeting. But several recent events (like the attacks on the AUR) have increasingly shown that we've passed the threshold where that's no longer true.
So, what am I to use when I don't have the time to go through the source code of every new version of every single app with a fine-toothed comb? Well, browsers (while not perfect) have some level of sandboxing, doing an overall decent job of keeping websites' (apps) data isolated from each other.
Switching to use web apps whenever possible meant (at least, in Firefox) giving up a lot of the functionality of native apps (like default file associations, dedicated entry in the taskbar, and so many others). They're basically refusing to acknowledge the open web as a platform that solves a real need: providing security and escape from walled-garden app stores (which is the bigger problem on mobile). Instead they're spending their funding on AI, and VPNs, and random other features nobody really asked for.
While I think it's very important that there is more than one browser implementation in the world, I have 2 choices:
Use Chromium fork to get security and convenience and privacy.
Use Firefox (or its forks) to maybe get privacy at the expense of the other two.
That's an interesting take. But you think its safer to use web versions? Sending your data out somewhere else? To keep tabs isolated in firefox I do use containers, so they dont interact, but I have never been a fan of making WPA's, when I could just click on the tab its in or open it in the browser anyways.
Well, the isolation allows you select what's appropriate for each bit of data.
For example, my financial data have to live elsewhere - namely the financial institutions I use. I've been paying Todoist $36/year for the past 12 years and they have zero pressure to enshittify, so I'm okay keeping that data elsewhere. I also outsource my email to Fastmail because it's generally inadvisable to self-host email.
However, for most things that I've started using recently (karakeep, miniflux, baby-buddy, homebox, ghostfolio, and so many others), I've chosen open source apps and run their servers on my homelab. Linux on the server (unlike the desktop) is extremely well funded. There are a ton of different types of container and micro-vm configurations you can mix and match to give the exact level of isolation, resource, filesystem, and network access you're comfortable with.
Also, I don't think it makes much sense to use proprietary software for much in the future. The cost of software development has been going down at increasing rate for as long as I can remember for a variety of reasons, and LLM-assisted AI Agents is the just the latest iteration. With the latest SOTA models, it doesn't take much to create an maintain a selfhosted OSS app - someone with the will to put in time and the most basic understanding of the basic fundamentals of software engineering.
Certainly not things I would trust particularly personal or sensitive data with. But remember that breaking out of server-side containers/micro-vms is really hard, and way beyond the capabilities of any AI slop.
So yeah, from what I've seen so far the best tools out there for enjoying the largest variety of software (including potentially undisclosed AI slop) safely is server-side Linux containers + client-side browser isolation. The closest thing we have to sandboxes in the desktop is flatpak, and it's so trivial to break out that I've watched people do it unintentionally, just trying to make their app work in it.
Progressive Web Apps, a crack-pipe idea that allows you to install websites as if they were computer applications. Desktop entries, shortcuts, opens as a single window with no URL bar, everything to make it look like a computer application, but it isn’t. It didn’t take off because it’s not a very good idea, with no very good implementations. In my opinion.
Because installing a native app requires an enormous amount of trust. Every native app running as your user has read access to all data created by every other app including browsers and their secrets like saved credentials.
The Linux ecosystem mostly got away with this by being too small to be worth targeting. But several recent events (like the attacks on the AUR) have increasingly shown that we've passed the threshold where that's no longer true.
So, what am I to use when I don't have the time to go through the source code of every new version of every single app with a fine-toothed comb? Well, browsers (while not perfect) have some level of sandboxing, doing an overall decent job of keeping websites' (apps) data isolated from each other.
Switching to use web apps whenever possible meant (at least, in Firefox) giving up a lot of the functionality of native apps (like default file associations, dedicated entry in the taskbar, and so many others). They're basically refusing to acknowledge the open web as a platform that solves a real need: providing security and escape from walled-garden app stores (which is the bigger problem on mobile). Instead they're spending their funding on AI, and VPNs, and random other features nobody really asked for.
While I think it's very important that there is more than one browser implementation in the world, I have 2 choices:
Use Chromium fork to get security and convenience and privacy.
Use Firefox (or its forks) to maybe get privacy at the expense of the other two.
Viewing a web browser as the “open internet platform” is the crux of this issue that has gone unchecked for years. We turned a document reader into an application environment. This is the issue I have with PWA. A plastic bandage on a festering wound.
On your points regarding sandboxing, I believe that should’ve been rolled into OS userspaces for years as well, and only developing the technology as it relates to web browsers is a huge oversight that has and will further lead to security issues.
Not everything needs to be an application but building applications in a document viewer is a bit silly.
edit: less cynicism; I want to take a moment to charade all the efforts gone into Linux distributions that take sandboxing and immutability seriously. They aren’t very good solutions either, but it all starts somewhere.
UBlock has been deprecated on Chrome, for a long time. UBlock Lite is its replacement and will continue to function (albeit with more limited efficacy).
What they are talking about is a complicated series of command line flags to re-enable Manifest V2+installing UBlock from source… But who in their right mind would still be using vanilla Google Chrome and jumping through all those hoops?
It will be an issue for forks like Helium or Ungoogled Chromium. They’ll just have to patch in a native blocker, I suppose.
TL;DR: Headline is wrong.
Chrome users will notice nothing. The end happened a long time ago.
Bullshit, there are other, better browsers who do not intentionally break basic security features like ad blocking. Switch to Firefox and Ublock Origin or any of the many forks it has.
If you are using Chrome, Brave, or similar, you should stop using it and switch to something that isn't shit. Ads are a major attack vector for malware and scams. If you are not blocking them already , you need to start immediately!
I wish people would start suggesting adnauseam. It’s basically ublock, but also silently clicks every link in the page tj poison the data. I have been using it for ages.
Brave has a built-in ad blocker based on uBlock. There are lots of reasons people don’t recommend Brave, but the lack of an ad blocker isn’t one of them.
I never said that was the reason, Brave sucks because of shit like AI, trying to sneak in redirects that send money to the devs, charging to get rid of unwanted features, etc.
It'll mark the end of chrome for anyone that wants to use a website without 2/3 of it being filled with ads and slowing tons crawl because of all the invasive scripts
Learning what? There's no learning involved, unless you count pressing a different app icon and typing in youtube in search as "learning".
And in the specific case of my dad, he's no tech illiterate. He has Linux Mint on his laptop. He can get by just fine. He's just really fucking lazy with this stuff.
I'm an early Xer, and my mom an early boomer. She's been a computer user since the late 70s. Right now, She does all these things, install a bajillion apps for things like the BBC and 10 other news services even though I have explained to her that she could have them all as bookmarks in FF, with ad and tracker blocking, etc.
She understands it. She does, but at her age she can't be arsed to open a website, bookmark it, then go to bookmarks, etc. I've even tried to get her to turn things into PWAs, which she gets ! But can't be arsed.
I'm an IT guy, the eternal tech support for friends and family. Now my eldest son is an analyst at a major telco, and I send him all the traffic, and sometimes even ask him to do or figure out stuff for me, because I can't be arsed.
Same reasons I've been on Mint for a few years, until I discovered CachyOS. I started my Linux journey in Slackware, painfully downloaded as diskette images, and have been distro hopping all my life, using all major distros at one time or another. Now I can't be arsed.
Im still a tinkerer, a maker, homelabber, etc. but the mundane, I can't be arsed.
I used to manage software that needed to be tested in all 3 major browsers every time we had an issue, and that was the only reason Chrome was even in my work PC. I moved on from that position, so bye bye Chrome
Chrome is in a similar position that IE used to be. It uses its majority position to move web development away from standards and so devs need to write extra code to support both chrome and others - or make chrome only sites.
Spent the last couple weeks moving my stuff off Chrome. Not convenient but well worth the effort. If you're not on Chrome they're doing us a favor. Sites will be less likely to target ad blockers if the majority of users don't have them installed.
But the majority of users don't have them installed. Plus Google is pushing Manifest v3 with intent. They aren't content with most. They want everyone to stop using them.
Chrome is shit pushed by a monopoly, exactly like Internet Explorer used to be.
Anyone who ever adopted Chrome was a fool, anyone who still uses it is an even bigger fool.
Chrome is not working for the freedom of the Internet, only open source web browsers can claim that.
If you are not using an open source web browser, you are undermining the freedom and value of the internet.
I will form a home-policy that allows me to only buy alternate products that were not advertised to me. Goodbye "Tide" hello "EconoSuds". If I see your ad, you are off the list.
Eh, Brave is good enough after you disable all the bloatware. The search engine is also good. It is my second browser after WebLibre (Gecko browser built from scratch)
Hyper customizable, ad, tracking, and pop-up blocker by default.
I've been a Firefox user since the days of mosaic. I used the original Opera for years, coming back to FF when Opera was bought by the Chinese. While I still have FF as my main browser, I'm now finding myself using Vivaldi about 50% of the time. Damn good.
I don't know if it would, necessarily. So many alternatives are chrome-based, and part of the reason google was able to accrue that share to begin with was by putting a "get chrome now" in the corner of every search you did.
Most alternatives don't have that same kind of advertising reach to displace chrome, especially not for casual users.
Same. I have Firefox with ublock Origin on it right next to Chrome. If I need to visit some third party site I use Firefox. Occasionally I forget I’m in chrome and visit a third party site that’s chock full of ads. When that happens I immediately close the page in Chrome and jump to Firefox for a more reasonable experience.
128 Comments
FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi · 181 pts · 46d
They'll continue to work just fine in Firefox.
tal@lemmy.today · 71 pts · 46d
I think that the concern is whether a number of websites might stop working with Firefox if Chrome users consistently represent ad revenue and Firefox users generally don't.
I use Firefox, but it has relatively-limited marketshare in 2026. A lot of people just browse on mobile devices and on Android devices, and there Chrome's probably the default browser.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/
Chrome at 70.25%.
Safari at 15.72%.
Edge at 5.14%.
Firefox at 2.19%.
BCsven@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 46d
That's going to change though with ad blocker not working on chrome, more people will install Firefox for android.
tal@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 46d
Yeah, that's true. But...if a website derives its revenue from ads, a non-ad-viewing user --- and users who switch browsers so as to use an ad blocker would presumably be blocking ads --- loses that website money rather than generating it. Like, for such a website, the issue would be how many Firefox users that do view ads would be lost if their website didn't work on Firefox.
Those of you who remember the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer had very high marketshare, probably remember a number of websites that didn't work with other browsers.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 46d
Google is already killing the ad revenue model of the web by presenting the content it scrapes with AI for search — effectively stealing their content for profit — instead of ranking links so users navigate to their sites. Many have ahead seen a 70-90% drop in traffic, resulting in a 70-90% drop in ad revenue.
Capitalism is a blast, huh? Crime is very legal and very cool!
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 46d
Broad rule of thumb for me:
If your website needs ad revenue to either exist, or that's fundamentally its entire business model?
That website does not need to exist.
Now sure, are their caveats to this? Yes. But broadly, its usually true. The website should exist as a small loss leading part of your whole shebang, or should have some kind of membership or donation model or something else, to fund itself.
Its also not that hard to make a website follow broswer agnostic standards. If the website can't figure out how to do that, if they think its fine to be a browser-vendor exclusive website, I don't need to use it.
BCsven@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 46d
Because people weren't testing to work on the various browsers, which is pretty much what happens now with many sites and Firefox. People don't adhere to the webstandard so Firefox doesn't always work, but if we see a huge surge in Firefox then websites might put effort into them working in hope to catch some revenue of oerson doesnt have a blocker
masterofn001@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 46d
That's what is returned by their browser detection tool for Vanadium on graphene.
Cromite is even more privacy oriented, returning
Their stats combine ALL versions of chrome (chromium) which would also include things like cromite, degoogled chrome, cromium itself, possibly vivaldi, apps that use webview (doordash, voyager for lemmy, bank apps, etc) might even be included as they are chrome/chromium on android, would all tally for chrome with no differentiation even though some versions are light years apart.
Cromite/vanadium and chrome are the same browssrs the way chocolate and vanilla are the same ice cream.
Oh, and to muddle things some more, on Android, viewing using desktop site gives this:
gankouskhan@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 46d
Just use an agent switcher. That will take care of non browser API checks at least.
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 46d
If that happens, Google becomes a monopoly, if it isn't already. They don't want this (or at least they haven't, but they might think it won't matter now). If they continue wanting Firefox to be relevant to help their argument that they aren't a monopoly, they'll do what they can to ensure Firefox continues to work.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 46d
Or Google thinks all the other illegal crap they routinely get away with is a leading sign that they will also get away with becoming a monopoly...
FenrirIII@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 46d
Amazon won't work on my phone's Firefox. Really annoying
mspencer712@programming.dev · 10 pts · 46d
And If sites start trying to block Firefox, we work around it. User-Agent is still malleable.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 46d
the last thing google wants is people to flee to APPLE, and thier webkit browser. i think its one of the reasons they allow firefox to be on life support, despite the anti-trust issues, which never affected them anyways.
MoonManKipper@lemmy.world · 93 pts · 46d
So use Firefox! On Android its ad blockers work well too
RadicalRebel@sh.itjust.works · 65 pts · 46d
The fact there's extentions on FF & it's forks for mobile makes me sooo blown away anyone ever choses anything else!
MoonManKipper@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 46d
Agree - I just don’t understand why you’d use anything else on a PC.
RadicalRebel@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 46d
100% It's just somehow way more blatant for me with mobile as it's BEEN like this... which propbably helped make Google more confident in doing the same thing with PCs 🤯
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 46d
mobile has forks and adblockers. you can even use brave if you want. ironfox is one firefox, but i stopped using it, because it does something wierd with different websites, and and on reddit where i browse sparingly.
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 46d
There are mobile clients of Firefox and related forks, FYI, not just on PC. Firefox and Fennec are probably the most popular on Android.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
The IT equivalent of throwing a sabot onto the gears...
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth · 14 pts · 46d
The forks of Firefox are just as good or better, and largely lack the AI bullshit.
Firefox is my go-to browser, but don't trust Mozilla and be ready to switch to an alternative just in case Firefox gets enshittified too much.
protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 46d
well except in the worst OS ever, iOS, where you can only use the worst web standards compliant webengine for vague security reasons, you know, to keep you safe from yourself
theherk@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 46d
You don’t like the OS; ok. Nobody likes the forced usage of the engine. But WebKit being the “worst web standards compliant” is simply not true. It’s maybe the highest on interop and certainly competitive in other ways. I wish there were more WebKit and Gecko; way too much Blink right now. Come on Ladybird and Servo.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 46d
Check out Orion browser—it has support for uBlock and other extensions
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 46d
"But my cousin told me the fox fire is used by hackers or something, and the Google one said it was faster."
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 46d
I shit you not, I used to work for a company (with no IT dept btw) that refused to use Firefox because they said it was "a trojan virus."
What I think happened is one of their dipshit employees downloaded something they shouldn't have and got a virus and the bosses blamed the browser.
reev@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 46d
Our IT exclusively allows us to use Edge. So yay.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 46d
okay sit down this one is going to take a lot of brain. if a lot of hackers use it, the people who are good at computers, right? why would you not use the one that hackers use?
Waterpumpee@lemmus.org · 9 pts · 46d
non tech savy ppl just go with the default.
RadicalRebel@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 46d
In pretty much all of life, the most consistent thing I've learned is that if it's default anything, that off rip should make you reassess it
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 46d
i mean i dunno. the instrument i specialize in, there are three manufacturers. there's the default, the cheap, and the expensive. the default is legitimately better than the expensive.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 46d
They still need tab groups.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 46d
most "regular users" dont know about the forks, or even extensions.
osanna@lemmy.vg · 6 pts · 46d
Orion for iOS has chrome AND Firefox addons. It’s mozzarella foxfire fork.
jenings@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 46d
And safari on all platforms (all 2) supports ad blocking. Not my first choice on Mac (or even my 3rd really) but it’s basically my only choice on iOS
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 60 pts · 46d
This will hopefully move more people to use Firefox again.
tahoe@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 46d
Maybe 0,00001% of the user base will. People don’t care, us nerds need to come to term with this
tempest@lemmy.ca · 20 pts · 46d
The other thing people on Lemmy / Hackernews/ Reddit don't seem to get is that people are not using laptop or desktop computers anymore. More and more people only have a phone and maybe a tablet. People with phones and tablets do not know what a browser is. It's baked into the system. Everyone on Android is using Chrome and they very likely don't even know it.
Zahille7@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 46d
I use Ecosia on my phone because it has a built-in ad blocker that actually works.
I use Revanced instead of YouTube/Music so I don't get ads and can listen to what I want (I had to change my phone's DNS, because on data it wouldn't let me watch or listen to anything that was marked "explicit").
I haven't updated my Discord app in the last couple years because I heard that one of those updates supposedly introduced ads and I said "hell no."
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 1 pts · 45d
I suggest to install Aliucord for Discord and Metrolist for YT music
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 46d
You mean those people that were born in the digital age so that it's second nature to them?
Zahille7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 46d
This is also why Nintendo/Ubisoft/Other Shitty Company Here is still doing well despite all the gamers saying they'd boycott them.
MinFapper@startrek.website · 6 pts · 46d
Their absolute and stubborn refusal to implement PWA made me give up on Firefox recently.
I tried using Chrome for PWA only and using Firefox for my main browser for a while (to help their market share), but it made it very difficult because external links would open in Chrome.
I've found like 80% of sites I use are self hosted so I found it easier to just stop using websites with ads than dealing with Firefox 😞
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 46d
All this over running web sites as apps? Why would I ever want a website as an app?
If I understand what you are saying correctly.
MinFapper@startrek.website · 2 pts · 45d
Because installing a native app requires an enormous amount of trust. Every native app running as your user has read access to all data created by every other app including browsers and their secrets like saved credentials to sensitive websites.
The Linux ecosystem mostly got away with this by being too small to be worth targeting. But several recent events (like the attacks on the AUR) have increasingly shown that we've passed the threshold where that's no longer true.
So, what am I to use when I don't have the time to go through the source code of every new version of every single app with a fine-toothed comb? Well, browsers (while not perfect) have some level of sandboxing, doing an overall decent job of keeping websites' (apps) data isolated from each other.
Switching to use web apps whenever possible meant (at least, in Firefox) giving up a lot of the functionality of native apps (like default file associations, dedicated entry in the taskbar, and so many others). They're basically refusing to acknowledge the open web as a platform that solves a real need: providing security and escape from walled-garden app stores (which is the bigger problem on mobile). Instead they're spending their funding on AI, and VPNs, and random other features nobody really asked for.
While I think it's very important that there is more than one browser implementation in the world, I have 2 choices:
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 45d
That's an interesting take. But you think its safer to use web versions? Sending your data out somewhere else? To keep tabs isolated in firefox I do use containers, so they dont interact, but I have never been a fan of making WPA's, when I could just click on the tab its in or open it in the browser anyways.
MinFapper@startrek.website · 1 pts · 45d
Well, the isolation allows you select what's appropriate for each bit of data.
For example, my financial data have to live elsewhere - namely the financial institutions I use. I've been paying Todoist $36/year for the past 12 years and they have zero pressure to enshittify, so I'm okay keeping that data elsewhere. I also outsource my email to Fastmail because it's generally inadvisable to self-host email.
However, for most things that I've started using recently (karakeep, miniflux, baby-buddy, homebox, ghostfolio, and so many others), I've chosen open source apps and run their servers on my homelab. Linux on the server (unlike the desktop) is extremely well funded. There are a ton of different types of container and micro-vm configurations you can mix and match to give the exact level of isolation, resource, filesystem, and network access you're comfortable with.
Also, I don't think it makes much sense to use proprietary software for much in the future. The cost of software development has been going down at increasing rate for as long as I can remember for a variety of reasons, and LLM-assisted AI Agents is the just the latest iteration. With the latest SOTA models, it doesn't take much to create an maintain a selfhosted OSS app - someone with the will to put in time and the most basic understanding of the basic fundamentals of software engineering.
Certainly not things I would trust particularly personal or sensitive data with. But remember that breaking out of server-side containers/micro-vms is really hard, and way beyond the capabilities of any AI slop.
So yeah, from what I've seen so far the best tools out there for enjoying the largest variety of software (including potentially undisclosed AI slop) safely is server-side Linux containers + client-side browser isolation. The closest thing we have to sandboxes in the desktop is flatpak, and it's so trivial to break out that I've watched people do it unintentionally, just trying to make their app work in it.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 45d
But if you are self hosting, do you need to worry about that?
Either way, I appreciate the detailed response. And looking at the browser as a strong sandbox does seem smart.
krysel@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 46d
Because it’s handy to have some apps as separate windows outside of the browser so u can quickly alt tab to them.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
PWA? Poopy Wet Ass? I know nothing about computing what is PWA
sexhaver87@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 46d
Progressive Web Apps, a crack-pipe idea that allows you to install websites as if they were computer applications. Desktop entries, shortcuts, opens as a single window with no URL bar, everything to make it look like a computer application, but it isn’t. It didn’t take off because it’s not a very good idea, with no very good implementations. In my opinion.
MinFapper@startrek.website · 1 pts · 45d
Because installing a native app requires an enormous amount of trust. Every native app running as your user has read access to all data created by every other app including browsers and their secrets like saved credentials.
The Linux ecosystem mostly got away with this by being too small to be worth targeting. But several recent events (like the attacks on the AUR) have increasingly shown that we've passed the threshold where that's no longer true.
So, what am I to use when I don't have the time to go through the source code of every new version of every single app with a fine-toothed comb? Well, browsers (while not perfect) have some level of sandboxing, doing an overall decent job of keeping websites' (apps) data isolated from each other.
Switching to use web apps whenever possible meant (at least, in Firefox) giving up a lot of the functionality of native apps (like default file associations, dedicated entry in the taskbar, and so many others). They're basically refusing to acknowledge the open web as a platform that solves a real need: providing security and escape from walled-garden app stores (which is the bigger problem on mobile). Instead they're spending their funding on AI, and VPNs, and random other features nobody really asked for.
While I think it's very important that there is more than one browser implementation in the world, I have 2 choices:
sexhaver87@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 45d
Viewing a web browser as the “open internet platform” is the crux of this issue that has gone unchecked for years. We turned a document reader into an application environment. This is the issue I have with PWA. A plastic bandage on a festering wound.
On your points regarding sandboxing, I believe that should’ve been rolled into OS userspaces for years as well, and only developing the technology as it relates to web browsers is a huge oversight that has and will further lead to security issues.
Not everything needs to be an application but building applications in a document viewer is a bit silly.
edit: less cynicism; I want to take a moment to charade all the efforts gone into Linux distributions that take sandboxing and immutability seriously. They aren’t very good solutions either, but it all starts somewhere.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 57 pts · 46d
It already has.
This is misleading.
UBlock has been deprecated on Chrome, for a long time. UBlock Lite is its replacement and will continue to function (albeit with more limited efficacy).
What they are talking about is a complicated series of command line flags to re-enable Manifest V2+installing UBlock from source… But who in their right mind would still be using vanilla Google Chrome and jumping through all those hoops?
It will be an issue for forks like Helium or Ungoogled Chromium. They’ll just have to patch in a native blocker, I suppose.
TL;DR: Headline is wrong.
Chrome users will notice nothing. The end happened a long time ago.
LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 46d
Zahille7@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 46d
I mean literally though. "Good thing I use Firefox" was literally my first thought.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 46d
be honest
KulunkelBoom@lemmus.org · 41 pts · 45d
Fuck google. Get Firefox.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 45d
LibreWolf!
MML@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 45d
EarthScorpion!!
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 45d
Tchaikovsky!
EndOfLine@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 46d
LibreWolf
RadicalRebel@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 46d
This one rules!
Edit: Here's the F-Droid repo for IronFox, it and it's predecessor Mull have always been Librewolf mobile to me
https://fdroid.ironfoxoss.org/fdroid/repo
noxypaws@pawb.social · 31 pts · 45d
no the fuck it won't. chrome is not the only browser.
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth · 28 pts · 46d
Bullshit, there are other, better browsers who do not intentionally break basic security features like ad blocking. Switch to Firefox and Ublock Origin or any of the many forks it has.
If you are using Chrome, Brave, or similar, you should stop using it and switch to something that isn't shit. Ads are a major attack vector for malware and scams. If you are not blocking them already , you need to start immediately!
osanna@lemmy.vg · 7 pts · 46d
I wish people would start suggesting adnauseam. It’s basically ublock, but also silently clicks every link in the page tj poison the data. I have been using it for ages.
Australis13@fedia.io · 6 pts · 46d
I've been using it for years too. Can recommend.
AdamBomb@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 46d
Brave has a built-in ad blocker based on uBlock. There are lots of reasons people don’t recommend Brave, but the lack of an ad blocker isn’t one of them.
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 45d
I never said that was the reason, Brave sucks because of shit like AI, trying to sneak in redirects that send money to the devs, charging to get rid of unwanted features, etc.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 25 pts · 45d
It'll mark the end of Chrome for anyone who gives a shit about their privacy.
Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 45d
It'll mark the end of chrome for anyone that wants to use a website without 2/3 of it being filled with ads and slowing tons crawl because of all the invasive scripts
plasticbuddha@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 46d
Chrome is the modern day IE. We use it for work, but not much else.
TwinTitans@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 45d
Why use anything from google? They’re an advertising company.
87Six@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 45d
It baffles me. I told my dad I can get him adfree youtube in just 5 minutes if I install firefox on his phone.
His response was that he doesn't want to install "yet another app" as if it's a big deal.
I'm so often left speechless by this stuff. It's asinine.
Eat your ad slop then... Wtf else can I say...
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 45d
They don't want to be bothered learning something new, they'll just stick to what works for them.
87Six@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 45d
Learning what? There's no learning involved, unless you count pressing a different app icon and typing in youtube in search as "learning".
And in the specific case of my dad, he's no tech illiterate. He has Linux Mint on his laptop. He can get by just fine. He's just really fucking lazy with this stuff.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 45d
I can understand that.
I'm an early Xer, and my mom an early boomer. She's been a computer user since the late 70s. Right now, She does all these things, install a bajillion apps for things like the BBC and 10 other news services even though I have explained to her that she could have them all as bookmarks in FF, with ad and tracker blocking, etc.
She understands it. She does, but at her age she can't be arsed to open a website, bookmark it, then go to bookmarks, etc. I've even tried to get her to turn things into PWAs, which she gets ! But can't be arsed.
I'm an IT guy, the eternal tech support for friends and family. Now my eldest son is an analyst at a major telco, and I send him all the traffic, and sometimes even ask him to do or figure out stuff for me, because I can't be arsed. Same reasons I've been on Mint for a few years, until I discovered CachyOS. I started my Linux journey in Slackware, painfully downloaded as diskette images, and have been distro hopping all my life, using all major distros at one time or another. Now I can't be arsed.
Im still a tinkerer, a maker, homelabber, etc. but the mundane, I can't be arsed.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 17 pts · 45d
Who still trusts fucking google chrome? Fuck them. Firefox bitch.
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 45d
Librewolf
rumba@lemmy.zip · 16 pts · 45d
Google Chrome's next update will mark the end of
popular ad blockersa large portion of the public using their vanilla product that stops ad blockingBwaz@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 46d
And mark the end (actually a while ago) of my use of Google Chrome. What a xrap browser it has become.
bhamlin@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 46d
You might not know, but you can say "crap" on the internet.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 46d
Nice!
Well, I'll keep practicing.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 46d
crraaaab!
i have chosen. this is your fault. my wife blames youuuU!
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 46d
I HAVE REPORTED YOU TO THE INTERNET POLICE.
CONSEQUENCES... Will NEVER be the same!
osanna@lemmy.vg · 3 pts · 46d
X and c are right next to each other. Probably just a typo
GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 46d
I used to manage software that needed to be tested in all 3 major browsers every time we had an issue, and that was the only reason Chrome was even in my work PC. I moved on from that position, so bye bye Chrome
osanna@lemmy.vg · 5 pts · 46d
How many times was chrome the culprit for problems?
Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 46d
Chrome is in a similar position that IE used to be. It uses its majority position to move web development away from standards and so devs need to write extra code to support both chrome and others - or make chrome only sites.
osanna@lemmy.vg · 1 pts · 46d
GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 45d
It was often. Curiously enough, more often than Edge
puppinstuff@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 46d
Firefox. Zen Browser. Waterfox. Anything other fork! They’re all different flavors of perfectly fine alternatives.
Vivaldi even if you have a website that forces Chrome down your gullet.
Just keep telling your non-nerd friends that more and worse ads aren’t something they need to tolerate.
fodor@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 45d
No... It will mark the end of some of them in Chrome. Not in general.
What actually happens is that some people move away from Chrome, because ads suck.
switcheroo@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 45d
Sounds like chrome gonna lose a bunch of subscribers because fuck that
NM_Gringo@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 46d
Spent the last couple weeks moving my stuff off Chrome. Not convenient but well worth the effort. If you're not on Chrome they're doing us a favor. Sites will be less likely to target ad blockers if the majority of users don't have them installed.
deliriousdreams@fedia.io · 5 pts · 46d
But the majority of users don't have them installed. Plus Google is pushing Manifest v3 with intent. They aren't content with most. They want everyone to stop using them.
Buffalox@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 46d
Chrome is shit pushed by a monopoly, exactly like Internet Explorer used to be.
Anyone who ever adopted Chrome was a fool, anyone who still uses it is an even bigger fool.
Chrome is not working for the freedom of the Internet, only open source web browsers can claim that.
If you are not using an open source web browser, you are undermining the freedom and value of the internet.
_lilith@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 45d
google takes giant leap toward obsolescence
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 45d
they want a walled garden much like apple has.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 46d
people are still using it?
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 46d
I will form a home-policy that allows me to only buy alternate products that were not advertised to me. Goodbye "Tide" hello "EconoSuds". If I see your ad, you are off the list.
Prox@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 46d
Why wouldn't you just switch to a non-Chromium browser instead?
zebidiah@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 44d
I've been saying it for years.... Chrome is the new ie
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 46d
What will all the chrome users do?
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org · 6 pts · 46d
Continue to suck on the poisoned fruit.
LightYagami@lemmus.org · 5 pts · 45d
Just switch to Brave or Firefox, it's simple
ragas@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 45d
Don't use Brave.
LightYagami@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 44d
Eh, Brave is good enough after you disable all the bloatware. The search engine is also good. It is my second browser after WebLibre (Gecko browser built from scratch)
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 45d
Brave is bullshit Malware.
Use Vivaldi.
Made by the people who made the original Opera.
Hyper customizable, ad, tracking, and pop-up blocker by default.
I've been a Firefox user since the days of mosaic. I used the original Opera for years, coming back to FF when Opera was bought by the Chinese. While I still have FF as my main browser, I'm now finding myself using Vivaldi about 50% of the time. Damn good.
demonsword@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 44d
also chrome-based, unfortunately
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 44d
True, but one of the better options.
demonsword@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 44d
I disagree, because they'll eventually cave in and deprecate manifest v2, then you'll have to do without adblockers on vivaldi too
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 44d
manifest only applies to extensions. Vivaldi's adblocker is built in.
demonsword@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 44d
let's hope they don't sold out then
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 43d
That is always a possibility, but their track record is solid for now
Clutter@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 45d
No it won't... It WILL mark the end of Google Chrome though...
T156@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 45d
I don't know if it would, necessarily. So many alternatives are chrome-based, and part of the reason google was able to accrue that share to begin with was by putting a "get chrome now" in the corner of every search you did.
Most alternatives don't have that same kind of advertising reach to displace chrome, especially not for casual users.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 7 pts · 45d
I doubt there's many people who care about using add block who don't at least know what Firefox is.
Clutter@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 45d
Sigh.. I'm afraid you are correct... It's why we can't have a sane and wonderfull world.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 45d
Whatever. Fuck you Pichai.
Ficaxe15@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 46d
It only will make people not to use slow and ad allowed browser
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 46d
It hasn't stopped them in the past when it broke it on YT.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
so i'm closer to script kiddie than programmer. haven't we been being told this with every update?
lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 46d
Yes and no.
What you got so far was the warning that this is gonna happen. Now, it happens.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
thanks. the last time tech was my field was... 2006? i'm happy to keep it a hobby.
garbage_world@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 46d
IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 46d
Same. I have Firefox with ublock Origin on it right next to Chrome. If I need to visit some third party site I use Firefox. Occasionally I forget I’m in chrome and visit a third party site that’s chock full of ads. When that happens I immediately close the page in Chrome and jump to Firefox for a more reasonable experience.
garbage_world@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 45d
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 45d
Remove the groove where face goes scoob
That nickel, Odin dis range according to up
Doors footage towards the recondition dot
This gives ride to pertercother plot I shots!
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 45d
What are these posts? Used to see them all the time in Reddit. Some kind of encoded message?
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 44d
They're for people who like to dig through poop, not just look at it