[HN Gopher] Mozilla reaffirms that Firefox will continue to supp...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Mozilla reaffirms that Firefox will continue to support current
       content blockers
        
       Author : bj-rn
       Score  : 537 points
       Date   : 2022-09-24 08:48 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ghacks.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ghacks.net)
        
       | jrootabega wrote:
       | Seeing this in this context just made me realize that it's weird
       | to consider them "blockers", a loaded term. As if we're starting
       | from some default, correct state, and then blocking part of it.
       | We've always been able to choose what content we navigate to.
       | These are content selectors/choosers, which just support our
       | existing ability to choose what content we request and actions we
       | take.
        
         | swores wrote:
         | I disagree completely, "blockers" is accurate.
         | 
         | The user chooses what website page to visit, but it's the
         | website that chooses want content gets served at any of its
         | URLs. That's how the web works. Hence, when websites choose to
         | include aspects of the page users don't want: "blockers", to
         | block some of the page. Nothing loaded about the term it's just
         | descriptive.
         | 
         | Nor are they "content selectors/choosers", nobody uses their
         | adblocking plugin to find content, only to block parts of
         | content they've found by visiting a website.
        
           | throwaway09223 wrote:
           | > "but it's the website that chooses want content gets served
           | at any of its URLs."
           | 
           | No, not at all. The web was specifically designed so that the
           | _client_ chooses which parts of the available content to
           | load, and in what way.
           | 
           | When I first started browsing the web I didn't have a
           | graphical browser at home. My web client made decisions about
           | which parts to display and which parts to not. It was not
           | "blocking" anything, it was rendering the available content
           | according to the capabilities of my system.
           | 
           | > "Nothing loaded about the term it's just descriptive."
           | 
           | It's a loaded term because it implies that websites ought to
           | have control over display, when the web was _specifically_
           | designed such that they should not.
           | 
           | > "Nor are they "content selectors/choosers", nobody uses
           | their adblocking plugin to find content"
           | 
           | I modify many aspects of webpage display to help me
           | assimilate content. When a website has chosen difficult to
           | read colors, I change them so they're easier to see. I change
           | fonts and font sizes. I modify page layouts, sometimes
           | collapsing many separate pages into one long page, and
           | sometimes I use screen readers and I don't even look at a
           | visual rendering at all. I often remove annoying, obnoxious
           | or intrusive content which also make it harder for me to read
           | a page, many of which are ads.
           | 
           | The web is _specifically designed_ from inception to give
           | this agency to clients. Websites provide units of content and
           | suggestions on how to best display it. That is all.
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | > No, not at all. The web was specifically designed so that
             | the client chooses which parts of the available content to
             | load, and in what way.
             | 
             | It was designed with this technical capability. But the
             | social contract was always that you went to a site for it
             | to tell you what to display. And we have many very nice,
             | very non-standard sites because of it.
             | 
             | There is nothing wrong on blocking part of that content,
             | but everybody's state of mind is that by default, any site
             | content is expected to load.
        
             | charcircuit wrote:
             | >The web was specifically designed so that the client
             | chooses which parts of the available content to load
             | 
             | Source that this is just a side effect from other design
             | decisions?
             | 
             | >My web client made decisions about which parts to display
             | and which parts to not
             | 
             | Your browser sucked because it couldn't even support the
             | full standard.
             | 
             | >It's a loaded term because it implies that websites ought
             | to have control over display
             | 
             | They should. Websites describe what should be shown using
             | HTML and CSS.
        
               | throwaway09223 wrote:
               | > "Source that this is just a side effect from other
               | design decisions?"
               | 
               | The source would be Tim Berners-Lee's original 1989
               | proposal for a hypertext information system. He
               | specifically wrote: "We should work toward a universal
               | linked information system, in which generality and
               | portability are more important than fancy graphics
               | techniques and complex extra facilities."
               | 
               | These sentiments are also reflected in other technical
               | documents such as RFC 1866. The intent is crystal clear.
               | 
               | > "Your browser sucked because it couldn't even support
               | the full standard."
               | 
               | I think this is a common reaction from people who aren't
               | old enough to remember a world before mega-complex
               | browser platforms and non-portable websites came into
               | being. My browser absolutely was standards compliant at
               | the time, and it was expected that websites would be
               | viewable without graphics.
               | 
               | Keep in mind: javascript had not yet been invented.
               | 
               | Again, HTML is specifically designed around portability,
               | generality, and flexibility. This has been degraded by
               | the rush of commercialization and related platform lock-
               | in -- in large part due to things web 2.0. This is not a
               | good thing.
               | 
               | > "They should. Websites describe what should be shown
               | using HTML and CSS. "
               | 
               | I think you should read a bit deeper into the
               | underpinnings of these standards you're referencing.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | >We should work toward a universal linked information
               | system, in which generality and portability are more
               | important than fancy graphics techniques and complex
               | extra facilities.
               | 
               | This would support the opinion that entire web sites
               | should be protable as opposed to just a small subset.
        
           | CogitoCogito wrote:
           | The websites are _requesting_ the users' browsers to execute
           | certain extra code the users deem unnecessary to their
           | experience in using the site. The users have no moral
           | responsibility to execute that code. If website owners want
           | to detect and block users making such choices, that is their
           | prerogative, but as long as they don't, the users may
           | continue to exercise the control and autonomy given by them
           | by the website owners without any moral concerns.
        
             | nvrspyx wrote:
             | > If website owners want to detect and _block_ users
             | 
             | Oops. I guess you meant to say user request selector/filter
             | then if the term "block" is so loaded.
        
           | _flux wrote:
           | The "end game" from the user's point of view would if someone
           | indeed came up with "content selectors". It would be quite an
           | achievement to build one that was actually useful.
           | 
           | Maybe easy version could work exactly the same way as
           | blockers do, except they'd invert the way the rules are
           | evaluted, and of course the rules would need to be custom as
           | well. And then if the rules would fail to find some actual
           | content on the page, then I guess you might not even know
           | about it :).
        
             | kalleboo wrote:
             | That's basically what the "reader mode" in the various
             | browsers do
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | The end game would be some AI running on a gpu in your
             | monitor, so the browser nor the originating website need to
             | know about any blocking.
        
               | OJFord wrote:
               | Except you'd still have client-side execution in that
               | case. Obviously not everyone cares, but there are some
               | straightforward objective reasons to care if you're
               | blocking it being rendered anyway, like why waste cycles
               | on it.
        
               | amelius wrote:
               | True, but it's hard to block execution without the
               | website not knowing about it.
        
             | InCityDreams wrote:
             | Anyone remember Proxomitron?
        
             | unixbane wrote:
             | The end game for the web to be scraped into entries in a
             | database to be displayed by real software instead of a web
             | browser.
        
               | mattl wrote:
               | Sounds miserable and authoritarian
        
             | noisem4ker wrote:
             | That closely describes uMatrix in default deny mode. For
             | each individual site and subdomain, the user gets to choose
             | if they want to allow cookies, images, CSS, JS, XHR,
             | frames. Too bad it's unmaintained, with most of its
             | practical and commonly intended use cases fitting the
             | simpler uBlock Origin.
        
               | _flux wrote:
               | But the underlying principle is still filtering out the
               | undesired content instead of selecting the desired
               | content.
        
               | Karellen wrote:
               | Surely the principle the parent suggested was to
               | initially filter out _all_ of the content, and then
               | selecting the desired content to load.
               | 
               | But isn't "filtering out all of the content" just another
               | way of saying, "not loading any content" - until
               | explicitly requested?
        
               | _flux wrote:
               | Perhaps I misunderstood. But let's say I do run uMatrix
               | in deny more, I get the site HTML as the Tim Berners-Lee
               | intended. Yet that already may contain some kind of
               | advertising material, so to view only the actual content
               | I'd need to have e.g. an XPath do it. So I would have a
               | database of sites and XPath (or other ways) describing
               | how to find the content, instead of describing how to get
               | rid of non-content.
               | 
               | Can I tell uMatrix to only show a certain XPath from the
               | page? If so, I agree it is a content selector, albeit
               | pretty impractical :).
        
           | eric_cc wrote:
           | This is just not true. The host serves data to a client which
           | can do what it wants with it.
           | 
           | The client can interpret the data from the website however it
           | wants regardless of the intention of the website.
           | 
           | A website, for example, can use tags that a client doesn't
           | comply with.
           | 
           | The client is and always has been opinionated. It does not
           | and never has had to obey the websites intentions.
        
           | ThunderSizzle wrote:
           | Blocking useless content makes finding useful content much
           | more easier.
           | 
           | No one has enough time in the world to block all the infinite
           | amount of useless content. We already do that perpetually by
           | what we personally value the most and what we choose to
           | ignore.
        
           | Dotnaught wrote:
           | While that's true of software set up to specifically subtract
           | content from a server response, the code could just as well
           | be set up to add page elements (e.g. for easier navigation)
           | or just rearrange things. So "content customizer" or "user
           | preference enforcer" would both be apt and less arguably
           | pejorative.
           | 
           | "Blocker" implies a specific set of assumptions about a
           | publisher having some say in how content gets presented.
           | "UserAgent" entails a different worldview, one that the
           | companies making browsers seem increasingly unwilling to
           | defend against competing interests.
        
           | jrootabega wrote:
           | The website usually includes the address of the content to
           | display or script to run. My post meant that I don't think we
           | should take it as a given that our browser must fetch and run
           | all of those resources automatically or else violate some
           | protocol.
           | 
           | And if a user wants to have a policy of selectively choosing
           | what content they want, but that content is hard to define or
           | whitelist, then using a blacklist mechanism doesn't mean that
           | the policy is to block. It's just the most common, practical
           | method of choosing the content you want.
        
         | Bakary wrote:
         | Ideologically, I am inclined to agree. I have an epidermic
         | reaction to advertising in general. However, these extensions
         | exist in a context where they depend on the majority of users
         | not using them. If every browser had them, the economy of the
         | web would change completely. Very few users who take active
         | steps against ads want to pull a Stallman and relinquish entire
         | parts of the Internet altogether; they want to see the content
         | they are seeing, content that is most of the time supported by
         | ads, without ads. The word 'blocker' is thus appropriate
         | because the explicit goal is an asymmetric relationship based
         | on other people making ads profitable.
         | 
         | In reality, the more interesting question would be whether we
         | shouldn't limit our media consumption to begin with, or form a
         | culture that is less dependent on advertising. If browsing with
         | ads becomes mandatory some day, I will probably make the choice
         | to severely cut the amount of Internet I gorge on. It will take
         | some willpower, but every time I switch off the blocker and see
         | what websites really are like I want to gag, so I won't be
         | _that_ difficult.
        
           | SQueeeeeL wrote:
           | How much would be gained if every piece of content actually
           | had to _actively_ earn your patronage versus _passively_
           | pulling your eyes. I feel like that 's the dynamic most
           | AdBlock users see.
           | 
           | I personally don't care if click bait tabloids and
           | exploitative re-hosters we're to crumble overnight.
        
             | Bakary wrote:
             | This sounds very reasonable on paper. The elephant in the
             | room, however, is that most people and even those who claim
             | to want to move past ads don't want to pay _that_ much for
             | what they consume. The barrier between consuming something
             | for free and paying even a tiny sum towards supporting the
             | author is an enormous psychological chasm. The internet
             | would definitely be much more restricted if the ad-
             | financing model was not doable. There would be less crap as
             | per Sturgeon 's law, but the good parts would shrivel up
             | too.
             | 
             | The case of HN is particularly enlightening because the
             | community is very hostile to ads and for the most part has
             | the technical ability to avoid them with a higher degree of
             | sophistication than just installing Ublock. But there is
             | also the majority of the focus and admiration placed on
             | SWEs and companies that are directly and indirectly tied to
             | the ad ecosystem. The energy given off is similar to
             | McDonald's executives yelling at their children if they see
             | them with a processed patty in hand.
        
               | vouaobrasil wrote:
               | I feel like it's only a psychological chasm because ad-
               | supported content exists at all. If such sites did not
               | exist, I feel like people might have to pay more, they
               | would be more choosy, but then sites would also have to
               | really put more effort into their content. That would
               | eliminate the phenomenon of a thousand sites writing an
               | SEO-farmed article on every possible topic imaginable,
               | and bring it back to 1-2 sites that really put in effort
               | because they care about the topic. Honestly I think the
               | internet would suffer a bit for the first little bit but
               | it would actually stabilize into something a lot more
               | useful.
        
               | Bakary wrote:
               | The internet is already useful in the way you are
               | imagining it to be. The educational and practical
               | resources are there, and are not that hard to find
               | assuming you have gained minimal technological literacy
               | and a certain understanding of internet culture and
               | critical thinking relating to the content available.
               | 
               | There is a ocean of addictive distractions to wade
               | through, but at the same time we know the following
               | things:
               | 
               | - We have to be constantly mindful of the Gell-Mann
               | amnesia effect
               | 
               | - News sources and journalism have always had significant
               | quality problems when they venture beyond just reporting
               | basic news, even in the case of business-oriented
               | publications that as Chomsky has pointed out have a
               | vested interest in delivering quality reporting
               | 
               | - Understand topics requires delving into the academic
               | literature in many cases. In this scenario, the internet
               | becomes the line towards that literature or those long-
               | form articles but most of the users' time has to be spent
               | reading and thinking instead of just browsing
               | 
               | - Identifying skinner boxes and addiction traps is easy.
               | You usually know when you are in one. We have to just be
               | honest about what our goals in life are and how much
               | progress we are making towards them
               | 
               | What this does not solve is the problem of focusing on
               | the wrong things in life or embarking in a career or
               | interests that are ultimately deleterious to your life.
               | But the internet at least makes it far easier to pivot
               | and refocus as long as you let it do so and use it
               | towards a conscious goal. This mindfulness is easier said
               | than done but it's far from an impossibility.
        
               | vouaobrasil wrote:
               | Good point, I agree. I did not think of that. However,
               | it's a bit hard to find certain things now. To take one
               | example, sometimes I like to read reviews of camera
               | equipment. I like to read reviews written by individuals
               | who just use it rather than the SEO junk by most major
               | websites. However, even if those small-time reviews are
               | usually much more informative, they are VERY hard to find
               | in search engines. The SEO junk just overwhelms page
               | after page of search.
               | 
               | That's why I think the internet would be better off
               | without a lot of the intense duplication that is out
               | there today.
        
         | anotherevan wrote:
         | I call them HTML firewalls.
        
         | P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
         | the "block" ads.
         | 
         | Not everything needs to be analyzed to death for some sort of
         | symbolism.
        
         | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
         | I'm fine with "content blockers". They block content the same
         | way my eyelids and eye muscles do when I decide to not look at
         | billboards.
         | 
         | If you don't have moral qualms with using your eyelids to block
         | ads then you shouldn't have with software content blockers
         | either. It just outsources the act of blocking from your eyes
         | into the computer.
        
           | jrootabega wrote:
           | To be honest, no, I don't use my eyelids to block anything,
           | and I don't think that's a reasonable thing for a person to
           | do. I don't use any muscles to block billboards; I just look
           | at whatever I was originally planning to look at (usually the
           | road ahead of me), and don't expend much mental or muscular
           | effort to pay attention to OR ignore billboards. The closest
           | I might come is to turn away from ads playing at the gas
           | pump. But that could easily be classified as choosing not to
           | look vs. blocking.
        
       | westurner wrote:
       | - [ ] ENH,SEC,UBY: indicate that DNS is locally overridden by
       | entries in /etc/hosts
       | 
       | - [ ] ENH,SEC,UBY: Browser UI: indicate that a domain does not
       | have DNSSEC record signatures
       | 
       | - [ ] ENH,SEC,UBT: Browser UI: indicate whether DNS is over
       | classic UDP or DoH, DoT, DoQ (DNS-over-QUIC)
       | 
       | - [ ] ENH,SEC,UBY: browser: indicate that a page is modified by
       | extensions; show a "tamper bit"
       | 
       | - [ ] ENH,SEC: Devtools?: indicate whether there are (matching)
       | HTTP SRI Subresource Integrity signatures for any or some of the
       | page assets
       | 
       | - [ ] ENH,SEC,UBY: a "DNS Domain(s) Information" modal_tab/panel
       | like the Certificate Information panel
        
       | dbg31415 wrote:
       | Two easy ways to block trackers and ads... without a firewall.
       | 
       | Adding blockers to the hosts table still works with Chrome...
       | hope they don't muck with that...
       | 
       | https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
       | 
       | But if they do... there are always DNS solutions you can add to
       | your Router.
       | 
       | https://nextdns.io/
       | 
       | I use Firefox, but even things like Windows spams ads at you if
       | you let it. So many things have Google trackers built in too...
        
         | perryizgr8 wrote:
         | This comment reminds me of the crazy spammer who used to
         | frequent Slashdot, always with a long comment about how to use
         | hosts file and how it is superior to every other method of
         | blocking content.
        
         | celsoazevedo wrote:
         | You can't use DNS/hosts to block ads on sites like YouTube
         | because they use the same domain to load ads and videos. To
         | block the ads you have to block the video itself.
         | 
         | So while still useful, that's not really a replacement for
         | browser extensions.
        
         | howinteresting wrote:
         | The problem with these approaches is that it's much harder to
         | exclude individual sites that break.
        
       | l0b0 wrote:
       | The fact that they're even spelling this out means it's going to
       | be reversed soonish. Fortunately Firefox (or at least the
       | original iisdea of a lightweight free-as-in-freedom browser) is
       | ready for another fork.
        
         | bayindirh wrote:
         | If they didn't spell this out loudly, people would accuse them
         | being silent and waiting for the day to silently pull the plug,
         | then.
         | 
         | With your point of view, there's no way to tell the truth.
        
           | AshamedCaptain wrote:
           | There is: they could just say "We are going to eventually
           | follow Google/remove it, albeit maybe not today".
        
             | bayindirh wrote:
             | You're assuming it's going to be removed eventually. I have
             | no such assumption. Also your wording sets an unjust
             | precedent when there's no reason to have one.
        
         | foepys wrote:
         | This is baseless speculation.
         | 
         | Firefox already has more APIs than Chrome to support content
         | blocking. E.g. DNS uncloaking and reliably blocking content
         | loading on startup is impossible for extensions in Chrome.
        
       | anvic wrote:
       | I read somewhere that even though Mozilla will continue
       | supporting the ad blocking API from manifest v2, the rest of
       | manifest v2 will be completely dropped so most of the extensions
       | that I use like greasemonkey will stop working. Is that true?
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | There's a migration guide here:
         | https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/manifest...
         | 
         | Since they aren't taking away the onBeforeRequest()
         | functionality, I don't see a good reason why greasemonkey can't
         | be ported over.
        
           | anvic wrote:
           | Under "Scripting API" it says "the code parameter is removed
           | so that arbitrary strings can no longer be executed [...] you
           | need to move any arbitrary strings executed as scripts to
           | files". I don't see how something like greasemonkey can
           | continue existing given that limitation.
        
             | tyingq wrote:
             | Ah, yeah, that does look like a gap. Tampermonkey's related
             | issue, though it seems to be mostly focused on Chrome:
             | https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/644
        
               | lapcat wrote:
               | This is because Firefox is adding Manifest v3 support
               | without dropping v2 support, unlike Chrome.
        
         | coldpie wrote:
         | Googling "tampermonkey manifest v3" lead me to this issue,
         | which has a lot of relevant discussion:
         | https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/644
        
         | lapcat wrote:
         | No.
        
       | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
       | as a person whohas exclusively used firefox all my life, even on
       | my android, i have both firefox and focus, this is quite good
       | news.
       | 
       | the only problem i can imagine is the invisible pressure by the
       | unending desire to become chrome,you know with hiding the search
       | bar by default "because people are used to that from chrome" and
       | other shenanigans, i feel this support might be shortlived
       | because the stupid people managing firefox are paid by google to
       | fuck up firefox in the worst possible way and this just feels
       | another attempt in that regard.
       | 
       | btw, i've been online since 2004, daily so i have used a lot of
       | firefox
        
         | Svip wrote:
         | I was saddened recently when I learnt they changed "View image"
         | to "Open image in new tab". I loved the way "View image"
         | worked, allowing you to maintain the image in full view while
         | preserving tab history. If you wanted to open it a new tab, you
         | could middle click it or ctrl click it. But since users were
         | used to the Chrome behaviour they changed it to match, and thus
         | Firefox lost a functionality. Unfortunately, since this is such
         | a niche use case, Mozilla has little incentive to restore it.
         | (Note: Extensions that restore the context menu item fails when
         | the image loading relies on the REFERER header, since it
         | actively re-requests it.)
         | 
         | There are numerous smaller items like this, that just flowed a
         | lot better, particularly if you're heavily browsing images,
         | like tab previews, that have been sacrificed either in the name
         | of performance or to be more like Chrome. Fortunately,
         | SeaMonkey still maintains these classic features, but is
         | unfortunately a memory hog.
         | 
         | My daily browser has also been Firefox since around 2004.
         | SeaMonkey remains a time pocket, when I long for the old days
         | of yore.
        
           | asddubs wrote:
           | the thing that's been driving me crazy lately is that they
           | got rid of the undo history for the search bar. if you submit
           | a search, it resets the undo history to be more specific. I
           | expect by now so few people use the search bar that this is
           | probably not going to be fixed any time soon, sadly.
        
           | Toorkit wrote:
           | I miss being able to long-press a link and clicking "send
           | link to _device_. "
           | 
           | Now it only lets you send the page you're currently on, which
           | is annoying.
           | 
           | I send a lot of stuff to my desktop when I'm riding the bus.
        
             | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
             | use plasma integration to get that. it works 100% of the
             | time
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | > sacrificed [...] in the name of performance [...] SeaMonkey
           | still maintains these classic features, but is unfortunately
           | a memory hog.
           | 
           | I mean, there might be a relation? I went from IE to Netscape
           | (edit: Or NS to IE?), to Firefox to Chrome, then tried every
           | 1-2 years to switch back to Firefox and always returned to
           | Chrome because it was so much faster. It was only 2-5 years
           | ago (can't remember exactly) when FF switched to fully
           | multiprocess and stopped using their unique extension model,
           | that I could finally start using FF again because the
           | performance was finally on par with Chrome.
        
         | asddubs wrote:
         | I doubt it, since this is an API, and not a visible difference.
         | Seems that changes like that are mostly targeted at the UI.
        
         | Arnt wrote:
         | I see that differently... my wife uses firefox and that API.
         | She eventually replaced her laptop. The only problem was that
         | the old one wasn't fast enough to process about 90,000 regexps
         | each time she clicked a link.
         | 
         | Chrome replaced it with a less flexible API that has bounded
         | runtime, preventing the browser from the kind of slowness that
         | caused a certain dissatisfaction, even disharmony here.
         | 
         | You could say that people shouldn't configure so much
         | adblocking that the browser has to evaluate 90,000 regexps for
         | a simple click. Or you could say that the browser shouldn't
         | prevent that case by design. It's not simple. IMO a worst case
         | like this is one of the causes of "invisible pressure".
        
           | StingyJelly wrote:
           | I doubt that 90,000 rules were an issue. On 12 year old
           | laptop (thinkpad x230) with 260,000 ublock rules (+240,000
           | cosmetic) the slowdown is imperceptible. Contrary, ad-ridden
           | websites load much faster.
        
             | Arnt wrote:
             | Disabling the blockers (plural because three) fixed it, so
             | it was either that or that the extra processing pushed
             | firefox over a RAM cliff and into swap, which sounds
             | unlikely. Anyway, we didn't try any more debugging, she
             | just got a new laptop.
        
               | StingyJelly wrote:
               | Probably one of the extensions was the culprit. But
               | clearly it's not about the number of rules and crippling
               | that functionality would not bring performance benefit.
               | Ublock origin is pretty lightweight even with 500,000
               | rules applied.
        
           | gorhill wrote:
           | No well-known content blocker "process about 90,000 regexps"
           | to find out whether a resource needs to be blocked or not,
           | that's just not how it works internally.
           | 
           | Last time I ran benchmarks of all well-known content blockers
           | using Ghostery's benchmark tool[1], all of them could process
           | a network request under 20us on average.
           | 
           | Some do have performance concerns, but it has nothing to do
           | with network filtering, it has to do with other stuff they do
           | beyond network filtering (for example see [2]) and
           | declarativeNetRequest does not help there, so they will still
           | suffer these performance issues under MV3.
           | 
           | ---
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/ghostery/adblocker/tree/master/package
           | s/a...
           | 
           | [2] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/182428-ironic-
           | iframes-...
        
           | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
           | Most of those regexes fail after processing the first few
           | characters.
           | 
           | I wonder if an optimizing regex-compiler could transform the
           | set of regexes into a single finite state machine that's more
           | efficient than running individual regex recognizers in
           | parallel. The optimal solution feels NP-hard, but I wonder if
           | one could get sufficient improvements with some heuristic
           | optimizations, like extracting common clauses, etc.
           | 
           | Maybe @burntsushi has some insights about this?
        
             | burntsushi wrote:
             | Taking a set of regexes and compiling them all into one
             | automaton is exactly what RegexSet is:
             | https://docs.rs/regex/latest/regex/struct.RegexSet.html
             | 
             | However, when you're talking about thousands of regexes,
             | that's going to be a very large automaton. Probably
             | impractically large. It's not NP-hard. It's "just"
             | impractical.
             | 
             | Using heuristics to whittle down the set of possible
             | regexes to match---likely using literals extracted from
             | each regex---is exactly what you want to do for a problem
             | like this. If all you have are literals, an Aho-Corasick
             | automaton is feasible to build for 90,000 entries. Aho-
             | Corasick, in my experience, doesn't really start to break
             | down until you eclipse 1,000,000 entries.
        
             | Arnt wrote:
             | Emacs used such a thing ~30 years ago. Common wisdom was
             | that it was great when it worked, but a few carelessly
             | written regexes would shoot the performance. If course
             | there'll be some carelessly written ones in any set of >1k
             | regexes.
        
         | isaacremuant wrote:
         | I think along the same lines. Mozilla has forgotten a lot of
         | the political fights of the past around freedom and
         | customisation and instead focused on US partisan talking points
         | supporting censorship and forgetting about the desires of core
         | users.
         | 
         | I, too, feel that eventually they might just go: "Everyone is
         | doing it and it cost us more effort to keep maintaining it,
         | here you have our own internal blocking, which won't block
         | Google related stuff because they fund us"
         | 
         | All I know is. It's my device. Not Google's and I intend to
         | fight that battle, just like we did with Microsoft.
        
       | AnonHP wrote:
       | Good to hear the reaffirmation from Mozilla that the blocking
       | WebRequest API would be retained. A little over three years ago,
       | Mozilla had promised that it wouldn't just blindly follow Google
       | on Manifest v3 to the letter. [1]
       | 
       | Considering that uBlock Origin works best and can do the most in
       | Firefox with this continuing support, I'm glad Mozilla is still
       | walking the talk on this one.
       | 
       | We need at least one browser that makes the web usable, and that
       | might as well be Firefox with uBlock Origin.
       | 
       | Edit: Oops. Missed providing the link reference below earlier.
       | 
       | [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/09/03/mozillas-
       | manifest...
        
         | flatiron wrote:
         | I really need to learn the Firefox debugger. My years of chrome
         | debugger muscle memory has tied me to that product (at least
         | for work which is 95% of my desktop browsing)
         | 
         | Personally I'm a mobile personal browser person which is
         | safari. I can't stand to be at a computer after a day of being
         | at the computer.
        
           | stuaxo wrote:
           | If there are things that are missing it's worth asking for
           | them if there isn't an equivalent.
        
           | Zardoz84 wrote:
           | Firefox Dev tools are better. At least for messing with
           | styles and html
        
             | easrng wrote:
             | Firefox DevTools are better for some things (styles,
             | accessibility tree, network "Edit and Resend") and Chrome's
             | are better for others (editing local files in the DevTools)
        
             | 7speter wrote:
             | It's CSS Grid/Flexbox inspector is really nice. Does anyone
             | use CSS grid/flexbox?
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | I use Firefox for web development (I got used to using it in
           | the Firebug days and never switched). On the occasion I've
           | had to use the chrome developer tools I've had no problems
           | since they are so similar.
        
           | teaearlgraycold wrote:
           | I always do web dev on Firefox. I worry that developing on
           | Chrome could lead to accidentally breaking Firefox support.
           | But I think the opposite is much less likely.
        
           | 411111111111111 wrote:
           | Can you give an example of a feature that's so different or
           | missing in Firefox devtools?
           | 
           | The only differences that come to my mind are super minor
           | (chrome logging 400er requests to console, Firefox having
           | more advanced grid/flex debugging. I'm kinda interested if
           | I'm missing a super obvious feature that's commonly used.
        
             | Roritharr wrote:
             | If he's anything like me, it's just the muscle memory part.
             | My understanding of JavaScript grew basically alongside the
             | evolution of the Chrome DevTools, so there's quite a lot of
             | subconscious navigation that just feels more intuitively,
             | to me, in Chrome.
             | 
             | It's also a psychological bond to a certain extent, having
             | relied on them during stressful times in my career...
             | before that I had only FireBug and that served a similar
             | purpose but didn't teach me quite as well and did never
             | reach the status of "if the Chrome Devtools are open, I can
             | understand what's going on here"-sense of security &
             | confidence.
        
               | flatiron wrote:
               | Spot on. Every time I want to do X in Firefox and it
               | takes me more than a few seconds to figure it out I get
               | frustrated and use chrome. I do need to break this bad
               | habit though. Maybe I'll try again this week!
        
               | beebeepka wrote:
               | My favourite is ctrl+shift+l to clear the console as
               | ctrl+l focused the URL bar. Damn it, guys. I only use
               | chromium for work, though. The tools are somewhat easier
               | to use
        
               | aeharding wrote:
               | Yeah you can get over that in a few months. It is
               | annoying though during the process. I switched a year
               | ago.
        
             | drawfloat wrote:
             | I think the biggest one for me is less a case of it being
             | missing, more Chrome's implementation being better, and
             | that's the Timeline tab. Firefox not only doesn't implement
             | it natively (redirecting you to a web app at
             | `profiler.firefox.com`), it also lacks screenshots,
             | dropped/rendered/frame durations.
             | 
             | Overall, it also seems less accessible to me. It may well
             | be that it's much more powerful in some respects, but I've
             | never got my head around it enough to work that out.
             | 
             | I do very much rate its Memory Tree Map view, though. Big
             | advantage over Chrome for rapid debugging of where memory
             | goes.
        
             | roman-holovin wrote:
             | Performance tab in Chrome is miles better than in Firefox.
        
         | mike_hock wrote:
         | "Usable" is an overstatement, but we at least gotta fight the
         | fight.
        
       | dotHappy wrote:
       | i know that we're all sure that even if mozilla reverses this
       | decision, we'll have good forks... but, we neeed to be sure to
       | have them on our side... open internet needs people like mozilla
        
       | MintDice wrote:
       | Yeah I mean, they have to. It's open source software so it could
       | be forked otherwise and also, if they abandoned this core
       | principle anyway, they would lose their entire user base in
       | droves.
       | 
       | There would be no faster way to nuke the entire product. Which is
       | a good thing.
        
         | jraph wrote:
         | A browser is hard to fork, and a fork of a browser is hard to
         | maintain. They might be able to get away with not doing this.
         | 
         | The reality is that this time, they are taking a good decision,
         | on its own, not because they have to for some reason, and this
         | should be recognized as-is. They took enough bad decisions we
         | can attack, no need to belittle them for this one.
        
           | Bakary wrote:
           | People belittle Firefox and its parent company out of both
           | love and fear because it's one of the few bastions remaining
           | in a sea of botnets and data siphons. And no, le shill lion
           | doesn't count.
        
           | INTPenis wrote:
           | I think the assumption is that some browser engineers will
           | also break off if a fork is ever created. Because I agree, a
           | browser fork is hard to maintain. So we plebian users must
           | rely on one or two experienced engineers being on our side.
        
             | DoctorOW wrote:
             | Is it reasonable to make that assumption? How many ex-
             | Mozilla work on Firefox forks now? How many ex-Google work
             | on Chrome forks? Genuine questions...
        
               | INTPenis wrote:
               | I can't answer that, I guess what I was trying to say was
               | that if a fork is ever created its chances of success
               | depend on how many, if any, experienced browser engineers
               | join it.
        
       | est31 wrote:
       | The big test is not now, when Chromium discontinues content
       | blockers, but when renewal of the contract with Google is up. For
       | Google there is a big incentive in getting rid of ad blockers,
       | and they have a lot of power over Mozilla being the party that is
       | responsible for most of Mozilla's revenue.
        
         | toastal wrote:
         | Google keeps Mozilla propped up to avoid anti-trust.
        
           | lapcat wrote:
           | Or to keep Google Search dominant, which is why they pay
           | Apple $billions per year to be the default engine in Safari,
           | a deal that may invite antitrust.
        
           | aliqot wrote:
           | I think Google has enough regulatory capture to not worry
           | about anti-trust. In a perfect world, anti-trust would have
           | broken up Google and Meta a long time ago. Our anti-trust
           | investigations have been a joke since MCI. Think about it,
           | USA is respectfully speaking a corporatocratic country;
           | biting the hands that feed is in nobody's interest. John Q
           | Public does not pay the bills and doesn't hold the most
           | personal data and location of the majority of the inhabitants
           | of this planet.
        
             | gpm wrote:
             | Google just 10 days ago lost its appeal of a 4 billion
             | dollar anti-trust fine.
        
               | aliqot wrote:
               | 4 billion dollars is less of a fine and more of a
               | participation fee, a cost of doing business.
        
               | bradleykingz wrote:
               | Curiously, how much do you think would be "fair"?
               | 
               | $4B is a lot of money, no matter how you look at it.
        
               | aliqot wrote:
               | Fair would be sanctions, restructuring, legal consequence
               | for those responsible for inaction in dividing the
               | constituents of the conglomerate. Think Ma Bell, Standard
               | Oil. 4B likely wouldn't even cover the vig on all that
               | profit.
        
               | cmeacham98 wrote:
               | Fair would be a fine such that Google/Alphabet would be
               | better off had they not participated in the antitrust
               | behavior. Anything below that is just subtle
               | encouragement.
        
               | MichaelCollins wrote:
               | Fair would be a fine large enough to actually induce
               | _existential worry_. A $4 billion fine isn 't enough to
               | make Google worried for their continued existence. They
               | know they'll be fine.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | irrational wrote:
               | In Europe. The question people were asking at the time is
               | if the fine was great enough to cause google to abandon
               | Europe. If they did, they might be able to abandon
               | Mozilla with impunity since nobody else is likely to do
               | anything about it.
        
               | rofrol wrote:
               | in Europe Union not USA
        
             | choudharism wrote:
             | There is a world somewhere between perfect and hopeless.
             | It's this one.
             | 
             | And no, as bad as the big bad corporation is, nobody has
             | the regulatory capture required to ward off an anti-trust
             | lawsuit in guaranteed perpetuity. Among other things, the
             | law would have already changed to not bother with anti-
             | trust if it did. All it takes to upend the regulatory
             | applecart is a change of the driver. And when that day
             | comes, you want to have plausible deniability.
        
             | MereInterest wrote:
             | > In a perfect world, anti-trust would have broken up
             | Google and Meta a long time ago.
             | 
             | I'd go even further, as the example of AT&T shows that just
             | breaking up a monopoly is insufficient, as it can reform
             | over time. In addition, (dis)incentives must be created to
             | counter whatever led to the market failure in the first
             | place.
             | 
             | The Sherman Anti-Trust Act forbids attempts to establish a
             | monopoly, regardless of the success or failure of such an
             | attempt. Designing a system in which network effects tend
             | toward monopoly (e.g. "Keep using our platform, because
             | when your friends talk on this platform, it's the only way
             | to hear what they're saying.") is an attempt to establish a
             | monopoly.
        
           | boomboomsubban wrote:
           | On top of all the other reasons that has never made sense,
           | like Google paying Apple for the same reason or the years
           | Yahoo were paying Mozilla, there's an ongoing antitrust case
           | against Google where their payment for the Firefox default
           | search is evidence against them.
        
       | aendruk wrote:
       | How long until Google's campaign that Firefox is an illegitimate
       | browser
        
       | superkuh wrote:
        
         | latexr wrote:
         | > the pot is just being boiled slowly enough to not notice.
         | 
         | That metaphor is based on a myth1:
         | 
         | > While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the
         | underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently
         | gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: a
         | frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a
         | frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately,
         | not jump out. Changing location is a natural thermoregulation
         | strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for
         | survival in the wild.
         | 
         | 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
        
           | DoctorOW wrote:
           | My least favorite Hacker News trope is pretending not to
           | understand what a metaphor is to nitpick an inaccuracy in the
           | literal interpretation.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | I would bet that latexr knows what a metaphor is. They are
             | simply pointing out that the usage of that specific
             | metaphor makes no sense.
             | 
             | And the incorrect usage of the metaphor may give people,
             | such as superkuh, an incorrect model of the world where
             | frogs do not jump out of water that is gradually made more
             | and more uncomfortable.
             | 
             | I like when others make my model of the world more accurate
             | by notifying me of errors.
        
               | latexr wrote:
               | That is absolutely correct.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | latexr wrote:
             | I don't understand how you can see someone specifically
             | call something a metaphor and think they are pretending not
             | to understand what one is.
             | 
             | My least favourite Hacker News trope is when someone
             | assumes ill-intent instead of understanding a comment for
             | what it says.
             | 
             | I did not make a comment on the OP's larger point, nor do I
             | think their use of the metaphor invalidates their comment.
        
         | Matl wrote:
         | > Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against
         | another browser that removes support for power user
         | customization like they don't do it? That's wild. Is there no
         | one left at Moz that remembers them throwing away the entire
         | ecosystem of XUL based extensions that allowed for many things
         | that current Firefox builds don't re: blocking and UI
         | customization.
         | 
         | Dropping XUL wasn't some 'hahah, own the power users' thing, it
         | was a move to allow the Firefox architecture to modernize, with
         | XUL this wasn't possible. I have plenty of criticisms of
         | Mozilla, but simplifying things to the point of removing all
         | important context is not the way to do it imo.
        
           | superkuh wrote:
           | Dropping WebRequest API wasn't some 'hahah, own the power
           | users' thing, it was a move to allow the Chrome architecture
           | to modernize, with WebRequest API this wasn't possible. I
           | have plenty of criticisms of Chrome, but simplifying things
           | to the point of removing all important context is not the way
           | to do it imo.
           | 
           | See what I mean?
        
         | M1ch431 wrote:
         | UI customization is fortunately still alive in the wake of XUL
         | extensions.
         | 
         | A /r/firefoxcss mod has a wonderful collection of code snippets
         | that they maintain, which you can browse here:
         | https://mrotherguy.github.io/firefox-csshacks/ and they created
         | a userChrome.js loader here: https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-
         | autoconfig
         | 
         | My favorite customization repository is
         | https://github.com/aminomancer/uc.css.js - which really tests
         | the limits of what is and isn't possible with userChrome.css
         | and .js. My favorite feature is the implementation vertical
         | tabs, without the use of extensions.
         | 
         | Some legacy extensions are maintained and can be found here:
         | https://github.com/xiaoxiaoflood/firefox-scripts/tree/master...
         | (although you will need to use xiaoxiaoflood's userChrome.js
         | loader AFAIK).
         | 
         | Honorable mention goes to the Firefox CSS Store, which can be
         | found here: https://trickypr.github.io/FirefoxCSS-
         | Store.github.io/
         | 
         | Moving to WebExtensions was the logical choice for Firefox,
         | technical/security reasons aside, as they are not alienating
         | extension developers that target Chromium-based browsers.
         | 
         | Yes, they alienated their own extension developers. Yes, they
         | could've handled the transition better, and worked harder
         | towards supporting some of the many APIs/functionalities that
         | extension developers needed (or still need) for their
         | extensions to work in the WebExtensions ecosystem. I myself was
         | quite mad for a very long time at how they handled the switch,
         | but I think overall it's been a success - my own personal
         | feelings aside.
        
         | bugmen0t wrote:
         | the old APIs were actually the only existing, internal and
         | synchronous APIs which does not work in a multi-process, site-
         | isolation architecture.
         | 
         | The internal APIs also had to go. What else would you do?
        
           | noisem4ker wrote:
           | Unfortunately not many seem to remember that brief period
           | when the old add-on APIs were being ported and made to work
           | with a multi-process architecture, as part of the effort
           | known as Electrolysis [1], with appreciable results, before
           | being completely killed in favor of WebExtensions. I'm sure
           | there were significant technical challenges, but let's not
           | use these to hide the political reasons behind such a drastic
           | move.
           | 
           | [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis
        
             | bugmen0t wrote:
             | These APIs were synchronous and thus blocking. People
             | blamed Firefox being slow when in fact, it was mostly
             | extension APIs and the extension code.
        
         | unixbane wrote:
        
         | pGuitar wrote:
         | Mozilla blocks most extensions by default on Firefox Mobile...
         | they created cumbersome collections for people that really want
         | to install them. Sometime I wonder if their main sponsor
         | is/isn't asking them to make some of those changes.
        
           | jonas-w wrote:
           | I just create my own collection with the extensions i like
           | and go on with the day.
        
             | pGuitar wrote:
             | It's just a lot more of a pain then it used to be to
             | install non-approved extensions, most people probably don't
             | bother.
        
         | lapcat wrote:
         | > Is Mozilla really trying to juxtapose themselves here against
         | another browser that removes support for power user
         | customization like they don't do it?
         | 
         | No. Firefox is adding Manifest 3 support, and people naturally
         | have questions about whether they'll follow Chrome's lead in
         | killing the blocking API.
        
       | indymike wrote:
       | Suddenly Firefox is interesting and Chrome is not. We need to
       | stop thinking of people as users and start thinking them computer
       | owners. Users work when you are sharing a computer, but for
       | installed software, we should think owner instead.
        
       | bdw5204 wrote:
       | This is one thing that has the potential to cause significant
       | numbers of people to switch from Chrome to Firefox. The modern
       | web is unusable without a good ad blocker and its inexplicable to
       | me that it isn't a built-in feature enabled by default in every
       | browser like pop-up blocking. You shouldn't have to install
       | extensions just to get essential functionality from your browser.
        
         | snek_case wrote:
         | The problem is that Google has a conflict of interest as both a
         | browser developer and a platform for people to sell you ads.
         | People selling ads to Google must be putting pressure on them
         | to do this... Or maybe they have internal pressure to maximize
         | revenues.
         | 
         | At the end of the day, yeah, it seems like it might cause
         | people to switch. I'm also honestly wondering, how long until a
         | real competitor to YouTube surfaces? I realize that this is
         | hard to build (though we do have multiple streaming platforms
         | in existence), but Google has been playing this slowly boiling
         | frog experiment with ads on YouTube. Now you have multiple ads
         | per video, coupled with ads baked within the videos themselves,
         | and sponsored content. If you don't pay for YT premium, it's
         | kind of unusable.
         | 
         | The worse the product gets, the more of an opening is created
         | for the competition. Seems like a matter of when rather than a
         | matter of if? What if Amazon or Apple created a YT alternative
         | that was ad-free, maybe with some paid content to sponsor
         | creators (pay $2 a month to get bonus content from this
         | channel). They could afford to sink money into it and it could
         | be very disruptive, but it's like they don't dare. Maybe
         | they're afraid to associate their name with a product that
         | could fail, kind of like Google Plus.
        
           | nickjj wrote:
           | There is a conflict of interest but with the amount of data
           | Google has, they have to know it won't work out in a way that
           | benefits them if they block adblockers.
           | 
           | Technical users have what is probably the lowest tolerance to
           | BS that's humanly possible when it comes to the web viewing
           | experience. The web without an adblocker is really really
           | bad, to the point where I would instantly switch to another
           | browser that continued to allow adblockers. The user
           | experience of that browser wouldn't even matter as long as
           | pages rendered and it worked reasonably well, that is already
           | a million times better than having a ton of ads forced upon
           | you.
           | 
           | I don't know about you but I also can't remember the last
           | time I saw a paid ad and thought "wow, I want that" and then
           | bought it. It just doesn't happen for me. If I end up buying
           | something it's because there was a gap somewhere and a
           | product filled that gap. I'm going to attempt to research the
           | problem (the gap) and find a solution (various products) from
           | a non-biased source before I buy it. This involves organic
           | search results. Basically a paid ad that would have been
           | blocked by an adblocker is going to have a 0% chance of
           | converting me into a buyer.
           | 
           | Also, most non-technical users don't even know what an
           | adblocker is. Unless someone set one up for them they are
           | seeing ads. It seems weird to me they would spend a lot of
           | effort into trying to block adblockers. The audience who uses
           | them likely has a very small chance of ever buying something
           | because of a paid ad and a large chunk of users don't use
           | adblockers.
           | 
           | This whole scenario reminds me of Let's Encrypt in a way. If
           | push comes to shove and major browser vendors like Chrome
           | prevented adblockers something tells me some of the best
           | minds in this space will come together and make a browser
           | that will be technically better in every way possible.
        
       | unixbane wrote:
       | It should content block itself.
        
         | rejectfinite wrote:
         | Most sane Chrome/Safari/Edge user
        
         | beeboop wrote:
         | I'd take content blocking this comment
        
       | nathias wrote:
       | I'm feeling nostalgic for the times where monopolies were broken
       | up ...
        
       | jokoon wrote:
       | why can't ublock origin work properly with this manifest v3?
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | Because Google is replacing the webRequest API with
         | declarativeNetRequest. This new API has 2 benefits. The first
         | is that it protects the privacy of users better. Extensions no
         | longer get access to the full contents of a request. The second
         | is that it ensures that poorly optimized web extensions can't
         | slow down the performance of loading sites. Chrome is making
         | this change to improve user privacy and improve performance.
         | 
         | uBlock Origin just needs to migrate to this new API. Despite
         | the noise from people who just hate on big tech the only true
         | difference as far as I know is that the browser will enforce a
         | limit on the number of rules that can be added. This number
         | exists to try and prevent bad performance from too many rules
         | existing.
        
           | yyyk2 wrote:
           | I want uBlock to get access to the full contents of requests.
           | It actually helps my privacy, as it can perform tracker
           | blocking.
           | 
           | > The second is that it ensures that poorly optimized web
           | extensions can't slow down the performance of loading sites.
           | 
           | This is true for any code that is running on the browser.
           | Luckily, uBlock Origin and the webRequest API allows me to
           | block arbitrary Javascript and assets so that poorly written
           | websites can't slow down the performance of loading sites.
           | 
           | There is an inferior port of uBlock to MV3: https://github.co
           | m/gorhill/uBlock/commit/a559f5f2715c58fea4d...
           | 
           | Are you paid by Google?
        
             | charcircuit wrote:
             | >It actually helps my privacy, as it can perform tracker
             | blocking.
             | 
             | The goal is to increase increase the level of privacy of
             | the entire ecosystem. While ublock origin may be
             | trustworthy there are many extensions that are not. It
             | would be better to find a more privacy preserving
             | replacement compared to having to trust extensions to be
             | good actors.
             | 
             | >This is true for any code that is running on the browser.
             | 
             | Typically the code doesn't blocking the page from loading
             | though. And again if this change results in faster loading
             | speeds for users ecosystem wide this change is a win.
             | 
             | >There is an inferior port of uBlock to MV3
             | 
             | The downsides seem to be from wanting to be permissionless
             | and not from not being able to replicate the functionally
             | with manifest v3.
             | 
             | >Are you paid by Google?
             | 
             | No, I have never been paid by Google.
        
               | yyyk2 wrote:
               | > While ublock origin may be trustworthy there are many
               | extensions that are not. It would be better to find a
               | more privacy preserving replacement compared to having to
               | trust extensions to be good actors
               | 
               | By running arbitrary code on your computer you are
               | inherently trusting the author of the code to be a good
               | actor.
               | 
               | > Typically the code doesn't blocking the page from
               | loading though.
               | 
               | Tens of megabytes of bloat block pages from loading all
               | the time.
               | 
               | > And again if this change results in faster loading
               | speeds for users ecosystem wide this change is a win.
               | 
               | uBlock _speeds up_ loading because it blocks useless
               | bloat such as advertisements. MV3 restricts the ability
               | to block content, ergo it will slow down loading speeds.
               | 
               | It's not actually designed for privacy or whatever, it's
               | simply a way to gimp adblockers so that Google (one of
               | the largest online advertisement companies) can get more
               | money from their advertisement business. You must be
               | really naive if you don't understand this simple concept.
        
           | BLKNSLVR wrote:
           | I can see your point about the goal to protect privacy, but
           | it's another of those business decisions for the sake of the
           | consumer that sacrifices choice of the consumer - which
           | affects the likes of the HN crowd in a much higher percentage
           | than the unwashed masses.
           | 
           | If there was a way for technical users to unlock the more
           | risky settings, it would placate the conspiracy theorists.
           | That doesn't appear to be the case, so the argument that
           | Google is doing this to restrict and minimise ad blocking
           | remain entirely valid.
        
         | Volundr wrote:
         | Because the webrequest blocking API is being removed.
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | The declarativeNetRequest was added which allows a similar
           | capability without causing privacy or performance issues.
        
             | encryptluks2 wrote:
             | I think it is apparent that these statements about Google
             | intentionally doing this and murdering children and
             | stealing your wife are a lot more political pandering than
             | people realize. Even if you said look, it works fine on
             | Chrome, they would say... Yeah, well but, you know Google
             | won't keep it for long. No matter what you say they are
             | just angry Karens out there and the Firefox cult seems full
             | of them, probably so angry cause their browser is so slow.
        
         | DeathMetal3000 wrote:
         | Because an advertising company (Google) designed it just for
         | such a purpose.
        
           | SquareWheel wrote:
           | Considering that Google's ad providers, analytics, and
           | general services are so easily blockable in the new API, that
           | reasoning doesn't hold water.
        
       | adjagu wrote:
       | "These weeks in Firefox: issue 124" was referenced in the post,
       | but was not linked.
       | 
       | https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2022/09/21/these-weeks-in-f...
        
       | beej71 wrote:
       | I switched back to Firefox a while ago, and love it. I keep
       | trying to think of how it could be kept afloat once Google stops
       | funding it.
       | 
       | IIRC they get $400 million annually. There are 200 million FF
       | users. $2 each wouldn't be bad... But realistically only 1% of
       | the users would donate and $200 is unpalatable.
       | 
       | Maybe another organization picks it up and runs it more
       | efficiently or at a loss for advertising?
       | 
       | Or...?
        
         | toxicFork wrote:
         | Do they really need 400m?
        
           | beebeepka wrote:
           | With a CEO that obnoxious, yes, theydo. Supporting a
           | privileged family ain't cheap, bruh.
           | 
           | FF is still my personal browser of choice and has been for
           | two decades but that fucking lady, and I am only using this
           | term lightly, needs to go before it's too late
        
           | lolinder wrote:
           | This question was downvoted but I think it's fair. There's a
           | lot of evidence that Mozilla is pretty bloated as a company,
           | and if they shed a lot of that bloat I see no reason to
           | suppose they couldn't keep maintaining Firefox on a much
           | smaller budget.
        
           | AdamJacobMuller wrote:
           | If you have it, it doesn't matter, you will spend it and
           | scream for more. Look at wikipedia.
           | 
           | Wikipedia collected 162m in revenue (no ads!) and spent 112m
           | dollars! I'd be curious to dig into what % of that goes to
           | core wikipedia and what % goes ancillary projects. You'd have
           | to dig very deeply into their finances to figure that out.
           | 
           | Firefox should set apart a large chunk of that 400m/year in
           | an endowment intended for Firefox to continue and to be
           | independent in perpetuity. That could easily be a multiple-
           | billion dollar endowment by now and their spending and growth
           | from that spending should be on revenue from that endowment.
        
         | Saris wrote:
         | I don't really understand how a web browser needs 400m a year,
         | that's a lot of employees
        
           | waboremo wrote:
           | You can see how they roughly spend their revenue here [1].
           | Although it might be out of date now, it does highlight how
           | expensive browser development really is at that scale.
           | 
           | [1] https://frankhecker.com/2020/08/15/how-mozilla-makes-
           | money-a...
        
             | zizee wrote:
             | This does not break down how much money is spent on
             | development of Firefox. I don't have references, but there
             | has been many a discussion about Firefox development being
             | only a small fraction of the whole, and the majority being
             | spent on questionable endeavors (or perhaps I am thinking
             | of Wikipedia?)
        
       | classified wrote:
       | Good, that's why I use Firefox. Still can't help but find it
       | strange that ads are called "content" now.
        
         | ta8903 wrote:
         | Ads aren't considered content, uBO is called a content blocker
         | because it can block all kinds of DOM content and not just ads.
        
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