[HN Gopher] Why uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
___________________________________________________________________
Why uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
Author : anonymfus
Score : 592 points
Date : 2021-04-09 19:52 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| BigGreenTurtle wrote:
| uBlock Origin helped me get a vaccine appointment despite the
| scheduling system's attempt to make it as hard as possible.
| Thanks!
| staticassertion wrote:
| Sucks, but I'm pretty locked into Chrome. I use GSuite for
| management, ChromeOS, etc. Maybe it means that uBlock Origin
| can't protect me as well, but it's pretty hard for me to give up
| the benefits from all of those other things.
|
| I don't see Firefox competing. Mozilla doesn't seem to believe
| that monetizing a browser is possible, whereas I pay thousands of
| dollars a year at my company because of Chrome's integrations
| with these other systems.
|
| Until Firefox can compete like that, and maybe they just can't, I
| can't switch.
| lolinder wrote:
| ChromeOS is one thing, but what in GSuite doesn't work on
| Firefox?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Not the parent commenter, but I'd assume it's mainly browser
| sync.
|
| Being able to log into any Chromebook and immediately have
| all yours bookmarks/apps/tools/passwords/etc. that you use on
| your desktop and laptop is pretty useful.
|
| As great as Firefox is, if you use Chromebooks then you're
| gonna use, well, Chrome.
| pkulak wrote:
| Eh, I use Chromebooks occasionally. The trick is just to
| not lock things like bookmarks and passwords into you
| browser. 1password and pinboard both work great with
| Chrome.
| lolinder wrote:
| Ah, that does make sense. It doesn't explain why GSuite is
| a factor, but I do get the browser sync.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Just fire up Chrome for Google stuff and picky sites and use FF
| for everything else.
| asdff wrote:
| why not use g suite on firefox? g suite works fine for me.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Yeah, I use G-Suite on FF (with UBO, of course) every single
| day for work and personal use and have never had a single
| issue.
| eikenberry wrote:
| What situation (job or whatever) has led to such vendor lock-
| in? Maybe if you gave more details others could avoid your
| situation.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think they mean they manage a Google Workplace (formerly G
| Suite) org themselves, given:
|
| > I use GSuite for management
|
| Using FF would break existing MDM/DLP policies that they
| themselves have set up.
| antattack wrote:
| I would use Firefox + uBlock Origin over other browsers even if
| it was half as fast.
| OJFord wrote:
| Such a shame uMatrix was discontinued.
|
| uBlock Origin comes close, and surpasses in some ways (I used
| both for that reason) but lacks separate control of cookies,
| images, scripts, etc. So you can't accept a particular third
| party's images without also accepting its scripts, cookies, etc.
|
| I mention it mainly in the hope that we can popularise its
| maintained fork 'nuTensor'.
|
| After trying uBlock (as in attempting to also cover what I used
| to use uMatrix for) for a few weeks I think it's insufficient and
| nuTensor is the better option for me, but it quickly won't be if
| ~nobody uses it and it falls by the wayside.
|
| Alternatively uBO could support the few details it lacks from uM?
| It seems like the problem basically was difficulty/time
| constraints in supporting both.. but I don't know why they were
| ever separate? There's plenty of overlap. If uBO had uM's
| granularity in 'advanced mode', that'd be perfect.
| Demiurge wrote:
| I agree it's a shame, and I hope there is a legit replacement.
| However, it continues to work for me, so far, without issues.
| sandeepbhat wrote:
| Really nice post!! I almost got confused with uBlox at the start.
|
| https://www.u-blox.com/en
| nimbius wrote:
| this process, also called cname flattening, is available in many
| dns recursors.
| Sephr wrote:
| > The Firefox version of uBO use LZ4 compression by default to
| store raw filter lists, compiled list data, and memory snapshots
| to disk storage.
|
| Thais doesn't explain why the Chrome version doesn't use LZ4 or
| better by default. There are native JS implementations available
| as well that don't require WebAssembly.
| xoa wrote:
| Wow, what an awesome dive into some of the technical aspects
| behind one of my favorite tools for using the web. And I do think
| of it that way these days, it's fairly stunning on some sites to
| switch off all the block and see how they become genuinely
| unbrowsable. I remember seeing Gorhill discuss a few times over
| the years some of the reqs for uBO during certain times (like why
| it could no longer work with Safari following changes Apple made
| a while back), but so cool to have it all collected in one place.
|
| Having said that I've also been fairly stunned recently to see
| how much difference a simple DNS blacklist system can make too.
| Not because it's a big technical achievement but because it _isn
| 't_ and in principle seems relatively trivial to work around. But
| as I've been switching all my routing from UniFi to OPNsense,
| I've gone ahead and tried out Unbound's basic built-in
| blacklisting. While it's no uBO, it works on every single device
| and browser including in apps and it seems like it really
| shouldn't, that more parties would just be proxying ads through
| their own infra and DNS. Been kind of an interesting illustration
| of technical vs economic influences in an ecosystem. I can see
| how proxying would add complexity and cost to setup so it must
| just be that few enough people do it the ad industry can't be
| bothered.
|
| But should that ever catch on (and it could, Raspberry Pi seems
| fairly well known) I expect uBO to be able to keep up with the
| cat-and-mouse long after DNS has been left behind. This piece
| helps underline how incredibly important maintaining a critical
| level of diversity in the browser ecosystem is. Just shortly ago
| there were a bunch of complaints again about Apple not allowing
| Chrome to be on iOS because it "holds back the web", but what
| "holding back the web" looks like is certainly a matter of
| perspective...
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I guess the issue with proxying is that the ad provider has
| less control/data and can't be sure whether views are genuine.
| apozem wrote:
| I really, really wish Apple would update Safari for uBlock
| Origin. I'm about to publish a Safari extension (a NoScript
| equivalent) and the content blocking APIs are so limited. iOS
| is even worse than the Mac, too. On iOS AFAIK you can't even
| reload the page for the user.
| grenoire wrote:
| Honestly, I can't really browse on my phone anymore. I'm...
| spoiled by FF + uBlock and I can't tolerate all the distractions.
|
| Will we ever get enough traction on either blocking mechanisms or
| stop shoving ads everywhere? Will the general public experience
| the pleasures of an ad-less internet?
|
| P.S. I'm on an iPhone, blockers failed me so far. Thanks for the
| suggestions fellas.
| pacifika wrote:
| Firefox focus includes a decent safari content blocker
| nashashmi wrote:
| I hear you. One of the greatest reasons I miss Firefox on
| android was because it allowed ublock.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| If Mozilla can continue honing their mobile browsing team and
| keep alive a mobile web browser with pre-Manifest v3
| WebExtension support, then maybe the status quo doesn't have to
| change. Advertisers can push whatever they want and the 0.1% of
| users that want to use uBlock can happily block them all. As
| far as the current landscape of adblocking goes, I have no real
| complaints.
|
| If people try to encourage too much radical change with how ads
| are distributed, I fear that the advertising agencies will
| panic and all start to do what YouTube does, which is to serve
| the ads from the same domain as the content, rendering all
| domain-based adblocking useless. At that point, the only thing
| between the general Internet and ads will be uBlock, and if
| Google obtains complete control of the WebExtension standards,
| I'm not sure there would be anything else we could do.
| therealmarv wrote:
| Using Adguard on Android for some years. It works really good
| with Chrome and all other apps. Mobile browsing without any
| adblocker is a very bad experience.
| bobiny wrote:
| I'm using this on iOS https://better.fyi/ I don't remember last
| time I saw ads.
| kube-system wrote:
| Run pihole or a similar dns solution at the network level, and
| you can block domains without installing anything on your
| devices.
| approxim8ion wrote:
| Host based blocking is certainly better than nothing, but
| uBlock offers much more comprehensive and expansive blocking,
| not to mention cosmetic filtering and other features that you
| can't achieve with PiHole/NextDNS/AdguardDNS/Blokada etc..
| kube-system wrote:
| For sure, it's not as powerful as something that can modify
| the DOM, etc. But, you can also run both, if you still
| prefer uBlock on your PC.
| approxim8ion wrote:
| Yup, I agree. Running both right now, the additional
| benefit of moving DNS queries away from my ISP (I pay for
| NextDNS) is certainly a good one too
| computronus wrote:
| I use both - uBO at the browser level and a PiHole for
| DNS. It's "defense in depth" - there's more than one
| layer of defense for something nefarious to get through.
| fsflover wrote:
| Firefox with uBlock works fine on my Pinephone ;)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| On iOS, Safari with a couple content blockers (like Purify
| and/or 1Blocker) do a pretty decent job. Once in a blue moon
| something will get through, but the goal of dramatically
| improving load times and decrudding pages is accomplished well
| enough for me.
|
| On Android, Firefox supports a subset of extensions that
| includes uBlock Origin. Chrome seems to be the dominant browser
| on Android but regardless of how good it is, I can't imagine
| _not_ using Firefox there.
| rattray wrote:
| Firefox is my default browser on Android, and I use Chrome
| when I need to. It works fine.
|
| I personally tend to use Chrome for "logged-in" internet use,
| and Firefox for "logged-out" use like browsing, news, etc.
| True on both desktop and mobile. Partly this is because
| Google's password vault has great UX across Chrome and
| Android apps.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| On iPhone you have Safari content blockers. Better Blocker and
| Firefox Focus are two popular ones.
|
| There's also a Lockdown, an open source firewall implemented
| using iOS VPN capabilities (though it doesn't send your
| requests through an external server). Lockdown is able to block
| trackers in any app, not just Safari.
| zaik wrote:
| Firefox Mobile + uBlock works great for me.
| bentcorner wrote:
| It works pretty well but Edge/Chrome feel better than FF on
| mobile. Scrolling performance is probably the biggest
| difference. I've had issues with using FF as the default
| webview too.
| mminer237 wrote:
| You can always use Brave. Not quite as good as uBO, but it
| still blocks most ads while being Chromium-based.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Fells better even with all the ads and other annoyances uBO
| blocks? I've never noticed a scrolling performance issue
| myself, let alone one worth tolerating that stuff over.
| godelski wrote:
| FF Mobile has uBlock
| temp0826 wrote:
| Firefox on iOS does not support extensions, fwiw
| thereare5lights wrote:
| You can use Firefox Focus as the ad blocker for Safari on
| iOS
| benjohnson wrote:
| As I understand it, it's Apples fault for requiring all
| browsers delivered by it's App Store to be basically
| wrappers around Safari.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| How has Apple not been strung up on antitrust grounds
| over this?
| jjbinx007 wrote:
| Blokada for Android is a pretty good DNS-based ad blocker.
| leeoniya wrote:
| or if you have root, AdAway can patch your hosts file.
| ignoramous wrote:
| You can definitely do better than use Blokada:
| https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/8536
| Ayesh wrote:
| Or, you can just set a DoT server that blocks ads by default.
| bootlooped wrote:
| Came here to say this same thing about NextDNS. Plus they'll
| block ads in apps, which uBlock Origin is not going to help
| you with. It seems like DNS ad blocking is a pretty good
| solution on mobile, with different pros and cons.
|
| I do also use uBlock Origin on Firefox Mobile though.
| Svperstar wrote:
| >spoiled by FF+uBlock and I can't tolerate all the
| distractions.
|
| I run FF+uBlock on my S21 Ultra. Works just like the desktop.
| sedatk wrote:
| Not possible with an iPhone, I presume.
| na85 wrote:
| Posting this from my oneplus running firefox and ublock origin.
| Firefox has been my daily driver on mobile for a few years now
| (since before Quantum) and it's been reliably great.
| rplnt wrote:
| Anymore? I don't think browsing on a phone was ever viable. The
| problems changed over time, but I never found myself using the
| browser for anything other than absolute necessity. It's sad
| really.
|
| Back in the day Opera with Turbo (or whatever it was called)
| was the peak of mobile browser usability for me.
| timbit42 wrote:
| FF+uBO works great on Android.
| [deleted]
| ub99 wrote:
| I use AdGuard pro on an iPhone and generally don't see any ads
| at all in Safari. I believe this app will block ads in any iOS
| browser.
| coldpie wrote:
| I'd like to switch to iPhone, but the lack of real Firefox +
| uBO is what keeps me from doing it. It's good to know there
| are some options there, thanks for the pointer.
| satysin wrote:
| I was much like you but I can say that AdGuard for Safari
| on iOS is pretty decent. Sure it isn't as flexible as
| Firefox+uBO on Android but it does a fine job at blocking
| ads and doesn't require any tweaking.
|
| The biggest benefit is that as every web view on iOS is
| Safari it means you get content blocking in _all_ apps that
| use a web view (providing they don 't disable it which I'm
| sure some do but I don't know of any that actually do it).
| E.g. in the third-party reddit app Apollo any website you
| load within the app also has all ads blocked.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If ad blocking is all you're looking for, I can't remember
| the last time I saw an ad in Safari iOS with Firefox focus
| content blocker, or Wipr content blocker.
|
| I don't notice any difference between Firefox or Chrome +
| ublock origin and Safari + Wipr/Firefox Focus.
| pcf wrote:
| AFAIK, ads can only be blocked in Safari on iOS. I have
| Adguard on my iPhone, but it only works in Safari - not
| Firefox, which is the browser I use. So that's very annoying.
| axlee wrote:
| There are DNS blockers for iOS, which block most ads,
| including in-app ads. Just need to find the right list.
| beagle3 wrote:
| Firefox has an additional app called Firefox Focus which
| installs a content blocker for both Safari and Firefox.
|
| Also for Safari, Magic Lasso AdBlocker does a very good
| job.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| Edge browser on iOS has an option to make use of content
| blockers in the same way that Safari does. Last I checked
| Chrome doesn't.
|
| I'm surprised to hear that Firefox doesn't have the option
| to do so.
|
| I don't know if it's just muscle memory, but Safari on iOS
| is still my browser of choice due to the way you open and
| close tabs in it.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Well, I use FF+uBlock on my phone :) It works super well.
| crocsarecool wrote:
| I can't look up a recipe for boiled eggs without coming upon a
| 15 paragraph essay with ads in between each paragraph. It's so
| obnoxious now. I don't mind that people want to monetize, but
| it's getting off putting when it is so obnoxious.
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| I, too, am tired of reading fanfic murder mysteries to get
| basic recipe information.
| bilekas wrote:
| The same, I find news articles particularly bad examples. I
| get advertisments, but news articles with excessive
| clickbaiity adds (adds not internal links to other articles)
| really do just make me close the tab down.
|
| If there was some better mobile integration of the extensions
| or built into the browser itself to be perhaps less intrusive
| adds allowed it would be appreciated.
|
| From that, are browsers legally allowed to implement an
| adblock/ublock directly into their browser ? Seems like
| something that would be considered against fair use or
| something along those lines.
| SilasX wrote:
| >The same, I find news articles particularly bad examples.
| I get advertisments, but news articles with excessive
| clickbaiity adds (adds not internal links to other
| articles) really do just make me close the tab down.
|
| Yeah, they follow every dark pattern in the book,
| especially on mobile. 90% of the time, I'll see a video at
| the top that autoplays, and then if I scroll down, it will
| make the video hover over the 75% of the article I'm trying
| to read. Who is this supposed to benefit?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| On recipe blogs, you are probably not looking at the actual
| author monetizing. Rather, someone decided to create a
| copycat website, hire a minimum-wage content writer off a
| freelancing platform to rewrite the original text so that no
| copyright violation is apparent, and then they put the
| copycat website up with a boatload of advertising and SEO.
| The 15 paragraphs are an SEO trick, as Google gives higher
| weight to longform text.
|
| This ecosystem is now so advanced that new copycat recipe
| sites are based on existing copycat sites. You can easily
| tell if a recipe website is a copycat by comparing the
| supposed author bio to the quality of the English. If the
| author bio claims these are recipes by a born and bred
| Louisiana native who wants to share Southern cooking with the
| world, but the actual text is full of grammatical mistakes
| typical of Eastern Europeans or South/Southeast Asians, it is
| clearly a rewritten copycat site.
| MacroChip wrote:
| I made https://thisfoodblogdoesnotexist.com as satire. It
| uses GPT2 to generate blog content like those 15 paragraph
| essays.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Needs more paragraphs. None of them talk about how their
| kids are doing in school.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| FF with uBlock is available on android.
|
| Alternatively check out "Paprika" which bills itself as a
| recipe manager but actually will scrape webpages and extract
| out recipes for you.
| IronWolve wrote:
| And darkreader addon. Addons for firefox mobile is very
| handy.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| The. Worst.
|
| I don't care at all about any of this. Give me the time they
| boil for ffs.
|
| I don't know if it's sites paying by the word, or SEO, or
| some "value added" psychological trick. It is getting worse.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I bet they've noticed 'more time spent on the page' since
| they added interesting stories to those recipes! "When I
| was little, Grandma did this and that and blah blah blah".
|
| Of course, the time spent is cursing, and skimming and
| hunting to find useful info. No one is finding the story
| interesting, but it looks good on metrics?
|
| I wonder if the above is accurate or not.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| I think the idea is that Google allegedly prioritizes pages
| by user dwell time, the idea being that if someone spends
| 10 minutes on your page, it's more relevant than another
| page where the user only spends 5 seconds before closing
| the tab.
|
| So forcing you to scroll through an essay on the complete
| history of nutmeg before you can see any of the ingredients
| in a chocolate chip cookie recipe may improve SEO
| Semaphor wrote:
| but every recipe site I've recently encountered, had a
| "jump to recipe" link right at the top
| Kelamir wrote:
| I use https://recipe-search.typesense.org/ for finding
| recipes, it has scraped over 2M of them. No distractions.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I have resorted to buying books after being burnt by just
| bad receips floating around on the Internet.
| LegitShady wrote:
| If you have android you can FF + Ublock on android.
|
| Sadly ios devices don't seem to have that option.
| christophilus wrote:
| Brave on iOS is great. So is the DDG browser.
| blub wrote:
| Give Brave a try on iOS. Besides offering ad blocking, it can
| block all JS (unfortunately just an on/off toggle, no subdomain
| specific settings) and this takes care of most annoyances like
| cookie pop-ups, article count limiters, ads, etc. On the other
| hand, mobile websites tend to break more often without JS
| compared to desktop websites.
| mtone wrote:
| My iPad Air 1 is aging, slow, and I loved it but I simply won't
| replace a machine where a publicly-funded news/docs store app
| in particular gets laden with unskippable ads.
|
| Half a thousand bucks for this frustration, no thanks! No
| amount of content/entertainment is worth this.
| dont__panic wrote:
| I host my own VPN on a raspberry pi at home so I can use my
| pi.hole even when I'm off my home wifi network. Unfortunately
| that seems to be the most comprehensive solution I can find for
| iOS, and sadly Android phones are pretty much all too large for
| me.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > Will the general public experience the pleasures of an ad-
| less internet?
|
| Remember how cable was supposed to replace ads on over the air
| tv? It was about minutes before it was all ads too. Streaming
| services are starting to get there but then the shows
| themselves are ads. And you have a scenario where Netflix and
| YouTube couldn't exist in scenarios that didn't rely on our
| bandwidth models and massive anti-competitive models.
|
| ... so IDKMAN... I don't know how we get to an internet where
| people making things aren't expecting to get paid for their
| submissions, especially now that we've jumped in there with
| both feet.
|
| I personally would pay for a no-bullshit internet, but it's
| just cable tv's promise all over again isn't it? As great as
| something would start out, soon would come the influencers and
| the narrative pushers and the censorship and the "forum
| sliding" and the downvotes / echochambers / bubbles / power
| tripping moderation...
|
| I'm wondering if the solution isn't just to give it all up and
| use the tools only when you need them. A cabin in the woods,
| but a spotty dialup connection for when you need to find
| something.
| freebuju wrote:
| > would pay for a no-bullshit internet
|
| The money is in selling you ads, on a revolving basis. Not in
| you ponying up a subscription fee to not see those ads.
|
| If it's not the ads, it's the usual FBI or whatever
| government surveillance program tracking you.
|
| You are right on the solution however. Some ads and tracking
| are so pervasive (e.g smart TVs) that the only truly
| effective way to mitigate against them is to cut down on or
| eliminate your exposure to these devices.
| Dobbs wrote:
| I run NextDNS on my phone. It isn't perfect particularly
| because it is an all or nothing type thing which gets
| frustrating with URL redirects. But it is far better than not.
| isatty wrote:
| On an iPhone?
|
| I was a noscript user from 10+ years ago (I guess?) and I've
| been using uBo for as long as I can remember but isn't Firefox
| on iPhone just a wrapper? Is it battery efficient?
|
| As a workaround I use a Pi-Hole (except, not on a pi).
| mcyukon wrote:
| It is just a webkit wrapper. At least the last time I looked
| into it. UBlock Origin isn't possible. You can get some Apple
| sanctioned Ad-Blockers, but I think most (or all?) of them
| use a invisible VPN with DNS based ad blocking.
|
| Mozilla has Firefox Focus for iOS, it does Ad Blocking but
| it's main selling point is No Tracking, No history and No
| synced bookmarks either
| xaos____ wrote:
| Install Firefox focus, go to Safari settings, add Firefox
| focus as Content Blocker and Firefox ( Not Focus, the real
| one) will show no ads anymore. Works, because Firefox on iOS
| is mandated to use the Safari engine
| blub wrote:
| I started using Brave in addition to Firefox recently and I was
| curious if it supports this. Seems like it does
| (https://brave.com/privacy-updates-6/) and uBlock origin was the
| inspiration for that feature.
|
| I never used uBlock, but I did use uMatrix which allows you very
| fine grained control over scripts and other resources based on
| the domain. Unfortunately it was a pain to get some things to
| work with that, especially online payments which use many
| subdomains and redirects. Paying for anything online was a game
| of enabling 10 domains on average, reloading the website, re-
| inputting payment info, etc. Some websites (like twitter) simply
| didn't work even if one enabled all the domains which appeared in
| the matrix.
|
| Brave is pretty decent at blocking JS. Not as fine grained as
| uMatrix, and it apparently doesn't remember that you enabled
| things (at least in private browsing). I think it doesn't perform
| what uBlock calls HTML filtering, because it still makes requests
| to websites which were completely neutered by uMatrix. All in all
| it's more pleasant to surf using Brave than Firefox, because
| fewer websites are broken by the blocking.
|
| I wasn't pleased with Safari's native tracking protection + a
| simple Safari blocking extension which only looks at URLs.
| Websites work the best, but it's making requests to many unwanted
| domains still. Maybe it's blocking cookies and scripts, no idea,
| but I'm not happy even with the simple requests for resources
| going through.
| surround wrote:
| Brave is Chromium-based and suffers from all of the limitations
| stated in the parent article.
|
| (Except for CNAME cloaking. However, their CNAME uncloaking
| only applies to their built-in tracking protection. AFAIK, if
| you use uBo on Brave it will be still unable to uncloak
| CNAMES.)
| tedivm wrote:
| Brave even openly admits this in that blog post announcing
| their support for native CNAME uncloaking-
|
| > In version 1.25.0, uBlock Origin gained the ability to
| detect and block CNAME-cloaked requests using Mozilla's
| terrific browser.dns API. However, this solution only works
| in Firefox, as Chromium does not provide the browser.dns API.
| To some extent, these requests can be blocked using custom
| DNS servers. However, no browsers have shipped with CNAME-
| based adblocking protection capabilities available and on by
| default.
| clircle wrote:
| This is technical and interesting, but can anyone tell the
| difference between web browsing with FF/uBo and Chrome/uBo? I
| personally cannot, other than that the fonts render a bit
| differently. Webpages load fast and no ads get through in both
| cases.
| timbit42 wrote:
| The first chart in the article explains the difference. It's
| not so much about being able to tell the difference, but how
| much it is protecting you in the background.
| pharmakom wrote:
| I love Firefox and I use it on principle. I don't think I have a
| worse web experience, although that wouldn't stop me.
|
| What does break websites is turning on anti-tracking measures.
| The number of times a site won't work till I enable third party
| cookies shows the sad state of the web. Developers, do you only
| test in Chrome on Windows with default settings or something?
| sackofmugs wrote:
| This is honestly one of the first time I'm convinced in a
| technical sense to consider Firefox over Chrome. uBlock Origin
| feels as core to me to web browsing as Saved Passwords and
| Incognito Mode. That uBlock Origin can work better is like the
| browser itself being better.
| paxys wrote:
| I have been using Firefox as my daily driver for 3+ years now.
| Haven't encountered a single case of sites working any worse
| than on Chrome.
|
| I also recently started using Firefox full-time on my work
| machine despite IT strongly mandating that all our tools only
| work on Chrome and everyone should use that. Have had zero
| problems (and we use every Google service under the sun).
| milesvp wrote:
| I have to add my anecdata here as well. I've used firefox on
| *buntu for 8+ years as my primary browser, and have found I
| only need to open chrome ~1/mo for the rare case where I need
| chrome (and I suspect my issues may be more tied to linux
| than firefox specifically).
| u801e wrote:
| The only website I regularly use that doesn't work with
| Firefox is Google voice.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I use it in Firefox a lot, for several years now, with no
| problems. I'm using Fedora + KDE but I doubt that makes
| much difference.
| u801e wrote:
| It works for checking messages and sending them, but I've
| never been able to get audio to work for making or
| receiving phone calls. Then again, I even have similar
| issues with chrome, but it works most of the time.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| On my own videogame Neptune's Pride, I have noticed that the
| performance of canvas rendering on Firefox noticeably worse
| on OSX and Plasma. I still use Firefox for everything though.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > I have been using Firefox as my daily driver for 3+ years
| now. Haven't encountered a single case of sites working any
| worse than on Chrome.
|
| Really? It happens to me all the time. I can't log into my
| U.S. Bank account in Firefox, I can't submit a delivery order
| on Doordash in Firefox, and (just this morning) I couldn't
| validate a credit reporting form in Firefox.
|
| Now, despite those and many other examples, I continue to use
| Firefox as my primary browser, because Chrome has bigger
| issues in my opinion. I don't blame FF for this, I blame the
| websites. I just think it sucks that places do not test in or
| support Firefox better.
| paxys wrote:
| Can't say about your bank, but I have used Doordash on
| Firefox regularly and never had any issues.
| jamespullar wrote:
| Is it possible you have an extension blocking scripts or
| redirects? I'm able to use Doordash just fine on Firefox.
| karaterobot wrote:
| At the risk of this being a tech support comment, I have
| definitely tried disabling all my extensions, but no
| luck. It might be some setting I have flipped on in
| Firefox, but in general I am about as paranoid about my
| privacy/security settings in both browsers.
| JackC wrote:
| Don't know if this is your issue, but it could be Enhanced
| Tracking Protection -- I have it turned up pretty high in
| Firefox and find that a _lot_ of sites won 't work until I
| turn it off. One example seems to be sites that use "Google
| Tag Manager."
| linknoid wrote:
| The only two places I use Chrome are Netflix and Costco.
| Costco's behavior is just plain weird:
|
| "Access Denied You don't have permission to access
| "http://www.costco.com/" on this server."
|
| Is this from running NoScript? Or does it affect all
| Firefox users? (Also the URL is https://, not http://, so
| the error message doesn't match the URL).
| roca wrote:
| Does Netflix not work in Firefox for you? Mozilla and
| Netflix have worked together a lot to make sure it does
| work.
| linknoid wrote:
| Nope, I get Error Code F7701-1003. I have Wildvine
| enabled, and I tried completely disabling NoScript. It's
| easier to just use Chrome for that one thing than have to
| troubleshoot the problem.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I've used Costco's site plenty of times on Firefox. I
| just double-checked Windows right now, and I'm pretty
| sure I've used it on OSX/Firefox in the past.
| linknoid wrote:
| I cleared my cookies in Firefox for everything Costco
| related, and it works now. Thanks for pointing out that
| it works. No clue how it got in that state.
| caoilte wrote:
| I keep chromium for Google meet exclusively. I got awful
| performance on Firefox... not that chrome is much better -
| but at least I can kill it after every meeting without losing
| other tabs.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Used Google Meet just yesterday, only a small meeting with
| five people, but all with webcams and of course audio.
| Flawless and smooth with Firefox 86 on Windows 10.
|
| Clearly not a universal thing then I guess.
| caoilte wrote:
| These things change frequently. I'll give it another go.
| voxic11 wrote:
| Yeah, I want to point out that uBlock Origin is fully
| functional on mobile firefox which makes it by far the best
| browser on Android. Plus with firefox you can do fun things
| like disable the Wake Lock API on youtube so that you can
| listen to audiobooks or music with the screen off and ad-free.
| 725686 wrote:
| Is it? Last time I tried, here where a bunch of sites that
| just didn't work.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| I haven't encountered any issues since I switched almost
| two years ago.
| [deleted]
| jdubb wrote:
| I agree, ublock origin was my single most important reason to
| finally switch from chrome mobile to firefox mobile.
|
| There are some quirks though, minor annoyances that every so
| often get introduced in updates. For example, when closing
| the last private browsing tab it doesn't automatically show
| the regular tabs any more, but instead requires three more
| taps. But I'm happy to ignore those for the sole reason of
| having fully functional ad-blocking.
| mhitza wrote:
| I gave it a shot on Android, but the fact that it doesn't
| support userscripts (Greasemonkey), it makes old.reddit.com
| unreadable. For some reason Chrome increases the font size
| for that site, whereas on Firefox I have very tiny text and
| constantly have to zoom in. As I mostly read reddit/hacker
| news on my phone I had to drop Firefox on Android :(
| jackewiehose wrote:
| > you can do fun things like disable the Wake Lock API
|
| How? Is there a hidden about:config?
| Knufen wrote:
| I second this, if anyone knows how to configure this or has
| a guide it would be much appreciated!
| breput wrote:
| Install the "Video Background Play Fix" add-on.
| the_duke wrote:
| My only complaint on mobile is that the UI for customizing
| settings is annoying, eg for allowing JavaScript.
|
| But that's the fault of Firefox.
|
| I'm always astonished how bad/slow the mobile web experience
| is without Ublock with JS blocked by default.
| amluto wrote:
| The desktop experience of clicking the drop down is not
| fantastic: no tooltips and no real explanation of what
| clicking the empty boxes does.
| Semaphor wrote:
| yeah, it's the primary reason I still use the
| (undeveloped) uMatrix. ublock supposedly can do the same
| things, but umatrix has an amazing interface that's clear
| and straightforward while ublock is like one of those
| mobile first (but also only) websites
| ukyrgf wrote:
| And you have to actually click submenus to expand them,
| you don't just hover. And of course other menus like
| bookmarks open submenus when you hover, so it's a gamble
| every time.
| caoilte wrote:
| I like to use newpipe app on Android for YouTube.
| ineptech wrote:
| Same experience here! The only problem I have is that the
| Android search bar seems to ignore the default Browser
| setting, but avoiding it (opening FF rather than using the
| search bar widget) is a small price to pay for avoiding ads
| so effectively.
| jdubb wrote:
| Another option you have is to put the firefox search widget
| above you google search widget in your home screen. It's a
| bit ridiculous that the Google search bar can't be removed,
| but this is second best.
| pmontra wrote:
| I did remove the Google search bar from all my phones. An
| old and defunct Samsung Galaxy S2, a Sony Xperia X
| Compact (Android 8) and a Samsung A40 (Android 11).
|
| Which phone / OS do you use?
|
| Btw, to search for something I open Firefox and type in
| the URL bar.
| NathanielK wrote:
| You can use the launcher too. If you set the launcher to
| open a new tab, it'll bring the keyboard up too. This means
| you're one tap from searching your query in the browser.
|
| If you have a good keyboard, you can even use DDG !bang
| syntax. I find this very helpful for finding what I want
| fast.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Depends. If you've also blocked ads with pi-hole or the
| Android hosts file Firefox and Chrome get closer. Ublock on
| Firefox is absolutely indespensible for sites that may be
| actively hostile like piracy or porn, but for casual browsing
| the UI of Chrome is a lot better.
|
| For example, I prefer the address bar at the top. Firefox
| doesn't like that, so the new tab button stays on the bottom,
| meaning I have a six inch stretch between where my finger was
| to hit the tab manager and where it has to go to open a new
| tab. It's full of little things like that where the only
| explanation that comes to mind is that Mozilla decided they
| couldn't do it the best way because Chrome was already doing
| it that way.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Fennec Fox (Firefox for Android) can be configured with
| controls (navbar, menus) at the top. Bottom is merely the
| default.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I've been on Firefox since I switched away from Opera year and
| years ago and I don't know any technical reason I would use any
| other browser - not even mentioning the other spyware reasons.
|
| What technically do you find missing in FF?
| shmerl wrote:
| Never really got the appeal of Chrome. Firefox worked very well
| for me for years.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| For me:
|
| - command+d will save a bookmark to the last folder used
|
| - command-y will open the history in a new, full tab
|
| - bookmark manager also open full by default
|
| - Recently closed shows windows and tabs together without
| separating them
|
| - I can actually see and edit a list of all search engines I
| have registered that use the tab to autocomplete. Firefox's
| keywords don't
| jdfellow wrote:
| Years ago I switched at a time when Chrom[e|ium] had a better
| developer tools console than Firefox (although only slightly
| better than Firebug). But, nowadays the console is equal if
| not better in Firefox to Chrome.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Back when I first started using chrome it was the snappiest
| and had less memory usage than anything else on the block.
|
| Then I started to think about what kind of tracking google
| was doing with it, so I tried out firefox... which was just
| as snappy and just as memory efficient.
|
| Then I deleted chrome.
| shmerl wrote:
| I guess that performance gap didn't bother me at that point
| to switch to less privacy respecting browser and Firefox
| caught up well, so I never saw it as a problem.
| andoriyu wrote:
| Firefox, gecko specifically, performed very bad on Mac OS X
| when chrome just came out.
|
| That was also an era of websites crashing all the damn time -
| in firefox it was crashing the entire browser.
|
| Chrome was a significantly better browser for a while. Now
| it's just "why switch?" to your average consumer.
| stevewodil wrote:
| Yeah I never really got the appeal of Firefox. Chrome worked
| very well for me for years.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| So does the tracking ;)
| stevewodil wrote:
| Personally I enjoy being tracked, it's why I got the
| Covid vaccine
| timbit42 wrote:
| The appeal is not having Google tracking literally
| everything you do online.
| Noughmad wrote:
| Firefox is older than Chrome. Did you use IE before that or
| are you just that young?
| Sunspark wrote:
| It's my regular browser for years. There's a lot of things it
| does well or differently. For example, one UI thing I
| appreciate about it is the ability to override a webpage's font
| type and size choice. Chromium browsers don't let you do that,
| you only get to pick if the website didn't pick for you.
| [deleted]
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| It may sound dumb, but the only reason I don't use FF is
| because of its UI. Somehow I think Chrome (and Safari) "look
| better" and make browsing more enjoyable. And this comes from a
| "techie" that knows exactly why, objectively, FF is probably
| better than Chrome in terms of privacy.
|
| Can't Mozilla "just copy" the look and feel of Chrome or Safari
| while keeping FF's internals untouched?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I have the opposite view: Google feels so obsessed with
| pushing Google branding on Chrome users that the UI seems to
| constantly be suffering because of it. Apart from a recent
| discussion to remove the densest UI view, Firefox has
| generally provided a better, more user-oriented UI than
| Google.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Interesting, I haven't run into any issues using ff over chrome
| for the past several years. It's way more common for my partner
| who uses chrome to have an issue that they avoid by opening ff.
| themgt wrote:
| Google intentionally crippling their own free, market-dominant
| browser in a way that just-so-happens to make ad-blocking
| difficult honestly reminds me of the Microsoft anti-trust case
| back in the late 90s. Google is an ad company doing embrace-
| extend-extinguish on other markets just to optimize selling
| your eyes/attention to advertisers.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Google's changes actually make a lot of sense. 99% of
| extensions out there should not be able to touch user data at
| all due to the simple fact they'd abuse this privilege.
|
| uBlock Origin just happens to be so incredibly important and
| trusted that an exception should be made for it.
| paxys wrote:
| Yet on Google's other large ecosystem (Android), they will
| happily let apps collect _way_ more private data than this
| with zero limits in the name of user freedom. In both
| cases, they made the decision that best serves the company
| bottom line, nothing more.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I think Firefox's shortcomings are overstated. Often they're
| actually Mozilla's rather than Firefox's.
|
| There are other things I consider superior about Firefox that
| Chrome has yet to implement: - Multi-account
| containers is a killer feature IMO. I have different
| containers for banking, Facebook, a container for every email,
| a container for every Google/YouTube account, and so forth.
| - The option to enable canvas permission prompts and canvas
| obfuscation. (though there are some arguments that those make
| you *more* trackable) - Autoplay blocking and
| permission prompt - Pop-out videos (aka picture-in-
| picture) are awesome and make it easy to keep videos on screen
| while browsing other tabs and apps. - Built-in anti-
| fingerprinting - Blocks tracking cookies by default
|
| I simply won't use a browser that doesn't have these things.
| trevor-e wrote:
| I had some serious performance problems on my MBP last year,
| back when a lot of the major Rust changes came out (no idea
| if that's relevant). Was super laggy trying to play videos.
| Gave it another try a couple months ago and everything is
| fixed! Very happy user now, won't be going back to Chrome.
| The features you highlighted are some nice added bonuses on
| top of removing another layer of Google tracking.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > Pop-out videos (aka picture-in-picture) are awesome
|
| Agreed on all points. It's funny, I've been using Firefox 20+
| years and when I saw them recently boasting about PiP I
| thought "another useless feature".
|
| Until I decided to try it out. Now I use it constantly.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| I had to remove multi-account containers due to issues with
| syncing, namely on a windows 8.1 install, and it causing a
| TON of browser bloat and CPU usage on MacOS and Linux and my
| windows 10 desktop in a fairly recent past.
|
| It's unfortunate. Plan to try it again but it was borderline
| burdensome that x containers or place settings wouldn't sync
| or that the Mac mini or linux box would start sounding like a
| jet engine.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| Privacy considerations aside, containers are great for using
| multiple AWS accounts simultaneously. Since we use an AWS
| account as a deployment container, it's typical to have 10s
| of different accounts you have to jump between and it's just
| not possible to effectively do ops with another browser.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Mutli-account containers is really a game-changing feature
| for me. I switched from Chrome back to Firefox about 3
| years ago (even before containers were available) and at
| this point there's no going back. I keep chrome around for
| some sites that require it, but that's it.
|
| Now how do I get Chrome to stop auto-installing itself in
| my login items on macOS everytime there's some kind of
| update.
|
| Edit:
|
| Also, if you're on Android, set Firefox Focus as your
| default browser! It's amazing to not have to think about
| the tracking consequences everytime you click a link
| somewhere on your phone. It's basically a new "container"
| for every link click. If you need the cookies, then there's
| a handy "Open With" menu to let you re-open the page with
| regular Firefox, or Chrome.
|
| And uBO works on the regular Firefox Android browser..
| Again, game-changer for me.
| dexterdog wrote:
| You can use the aws switch roles addon that lets you do
| that in one container.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| I really wish AWS would figure out multiple accounts on one
| session.
|
| Even with multiple containers, it still means logging into
| AWS SSO multiple times and selecting the right account.
| rshm wrote:
| By any chance you are using nightly. I am not able to login
| as IAM user in firefox nightly. For last couple of months
| always get 403 from AWS.
| jdfellow wrote:
| This is honestly a killer feature! I use Temporary
| Containers and load the AWS console in a fresh container
| automatically, making it very easy to switch between
| accounts and have multiple open at once. (Caveat emptor: be
| sure which account you're using at any given time!)
| pablodavila wrote:
| It really is. I think this is one of the features they
| (Mozilla) spend some more resources into. It's really
| unique and could drive non-tech savvy users to it.
| diroussel wrote:
| Let's not forget Tree Style Tabs, no other browser can do it.
| Great for the tab hoarders amongst us.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| Simple Tab Groups awesome complement. In special with
| Firefox, not loading tabs that you not have opened. And if
| you combine with Total Suspender... Like having infinite
| tabs with paying any price.
| jamespullar wrote:
| I don't often keep many tabs open, but still vastly prefer
| Tree Style Tabs. I primarily work on a widescreen monitor
| and would rather give up horizontal space rather than
| vertical.
| katsura wrote:
| > Pop-out videos (aka picture-in-picture)
|
| Chrome has this.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Multiple pop-outs simultaneously?
|
| I know it sounds silly but I've used it for SpaceX launches
| to keep an eye various official and unofficial streams.
| abdusco wrote:
| Firefox puts the option right in front of me, and I
| regularly use it. But I have to hunt for it / even google
| it to find the option in Chrome.
| krisdol wrote:
| No it doesn't? I'm on Chrome right now and cannot pop out
| vimeo videos. Youtube appears to have a "pseudo" pop-out
| that I suspect is their own js-driven miniplayer thing.
| Just a fancy change to the DOM. You can't resize, drag the
| video around, or watch it from other tabs or with chrome
| unfocused/minimized.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| > You can't resize, drag the video around, or watch from
| other tabs or with chrome unfocused/minimized
|
| Umm...you can do all of those things. You might have to
| right click the video twice to get the picture-in-picture
| option (to get around the contextual menu of many video
| players including YouTube) or you can use the official
| extension that you click to popout whatever video is on
| the webpage.
| starik36 wrote:
| Multi-account containers are a killer feature for sure. There
| is an ancient bug out there to provide "home page" for the
| container. That would truly make it a home run.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Strong agree on multi account containers. Keep in mind though
| if you disable them they drop all settings, unlike every
| other add-on ... ever. Bug is three years old but maybe we
| can push it over the top: https://github.com/mozilla/multi-
| account-containers/issues/1...
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| There is also no way to rearrange your containers aside
| from deleting them and making new ones in the desired
| order. Since I am using this for o365 administration it is
| a little annoying that I can't keep them in alphabetical
| order to find them easily.
| jedberg wrote:
| Are you on the latest version? I can rearrange them on
| mine. If click on "manage containers" there is a gray on
| gray bar on the right. If you hover it, your cursor
| should change to an arrow to rearrange them.
| gxnxcxcx wrote:
| That allows for visual rearrangement of that particular
| menu, but as far as I can tell the new tab button's list
| does not change and the extension keyboard shortcuts are
| still limited to the first 10 containers, which are bound
| by their creation order (a non-sanctioned way to mitigate
| this might be achieved by editing containers.json, but
| I'm wary of inviting sync shenanigans).
| [deleted]
| FalconSensei wrote:
| This is something that I don't like about firefox. They
| have a ton of cool stuff, but I feel that they are always
| lacking a few things.
|
| What I always give as an example, is how to add custom
| searches (Amazon, Reddit, HN, etc), you save the query
| url and add a keyword. Works very well to type `rdt
| something` and have the results. But: there's no option
| in the menu to see all keywords/search engines you have
| registered.
| quesera wrote:
| My workaround for this is to title the bookmark, e.g.
| "kw:rdt Page Title".
|
| Imperfect, but the convenience is worthwhile for the
| dozen-or-so keyword searches I use.
| fastball wrote:
| I like Brave's adblocking better than uBlock Origin anyway.
|
| Saying this as a former uBlock Origin fanatic.
| grayrest wrote:
| If you do switch, check out the temporary containers addon. It
| makes use of the Firefox containers tech to provide the anti-
| tracking benefits of incognito but maintains history and isn't
| detected by websites as incognito mode.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| It amazes me that a consensus seems to have formed around this
| conclusion that Firefox is technically inferior. I have always
| been using it and it has always been a fantastic browser
| relatively free of Google's icy tendrils. The technical issues
| that people bring up about it are usually nonexistent for me,
| and while I am troubled at its direction it remains an
| unusually solid and reliable workhorse given the stakes
| involved and the size of its userbase
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| On a PC I don't have any issues with firefox. On mobile I do.
| I also am still pissed that they killed almost all the
| extensions for firefox on mobile.
| bilekas wrote:
| Firefox does seem to have really improved over the last few
| iterations, performance also when large numbers of tabs open.
|
| I cant find the link right now, but there was a nice timings
| done where Chrome was using less CPU at lower tab counts, but
| when it increased count, the CPU utilization was considerably
| higher than FF.
|
| I'll be giving it a fair shake for a few months.
| bennysomething wrote:
| True but I've gone back to version 68 on Android. Latest
| versions don't work with s load of extensions I use. Old
| Reddit being one of them. And I don't care about cookies
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Yes, Firefox is pretty much unbeatable in performance per
| tab. I just installed the tab counter addon and it reports
| that I currently have >1500 tabs open in Firefox. I know from
| experience that if I run just a tenth of that in Chromium the
| whole system will basically lock up. And as pretty much every
| other more conventional browser is based on Chromium nowadays
| there's no alternative really unless I get a RAM upgrade.
| diroussel wrote:
| You can see the tab count without an addon. It's not
| pretty, but you can do it.
|
| Go to: about:telemetry#scalars-tab
|
| Then look at: browser.engagement.max_concurrent_tab_count
| sfink wrote:
| Ah, but if you use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/tab-stats/ then you can not only get the
| count, but also be able to mass-close large numbers of
| tabs (eg specific duplicate URLs, or everything for
| specific domains). A tab hoarder's best friend.
|
| (Pretty clever to use telemetry for this, though.)
| whatshisface wrote:
| Firefox recently rolled out an update that broke up the big
| GC passes into small GC passes. That contributed to a huge
| improvement in responsiveness.
| sfink wrote:
| That sounds great. But as someone who works on the Firefox
| GC team, I gotta say: what?
|
| Or more specifically, I'm wondering what change you could
| be referring to. We've had incremental GC for many years
| now, which does exactly what you describe. It's true that
| we keep splitting up more of the uninterruptible pieces
| into smaller chunks, but I don't recall any major change
| there recently. (I'm not very good at marketing, am I?)
|
| And according to telemetry, the incremental slices have
| been working quite well for most people, at least within
| the last dozen releases or so. We have a budget, and it's
| rare that we go over it. Not that I fully trust telemetry;
| if you have counterexamples please file a bug. (I'd _love_
| to have a nice set of scenarios that are problematic for
| the GC. Our telemetry errs strongly on the side of privacy,
| as it should, so I can 't get URLs automatically.)
| bilekas wrote:
| That might have been related to what I was reading, it
| looked impressive anyway, I did mean to go check out FF
| then, I guess now is the time !
| solarkraft wrote:
| I use Firefox out of principle and because of Sidebery, but
| WOW, Chromium is faster by a lot from my experience. That is
| fresh Chromium vs. configured and used Firefox, though.
| scotu wrote:
| thanks for getting Sidebery on my radar! I tried
| treestyletabs and unfortunately it _felt_ somewhat
| disappointing given how much people seem to like it.
|
| At a first try Sidebery looks and feels more modern/slick!
| Might be what I was looking for!
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| I just recently (few months ago) switched over to FF from
| Chrom(e|ium). What pushed me was Google, on short notice,
| revoking all Sync API keys from all Linux distros, and I'll be
| damned if I'm going to use software that's as important as my
| browser from a source like the AUR. The AUR is great mind you,
| and for a small number of things I accept the risks and burdens
| that come with using it (auditing the PKGBUILDs on updates
| etc), but for browser software I just won't on principle. I
| want that from my distro's packagers.
|
| It's been fine so far. The biggest annoyance is that Firefox on
| iOS struggles a lot with form autofilling, and I don't think
| credit card autofill is allowed at all. You'd think this would
| be a minor annoyance (don't most sites save your payments
| methods?) but it's honestly been a big issue. So many sites are
| so broken on mobile that I actually can't create an account
| from mobile, and barely function well enough to get through the
| guest checkout flow.
|
| Examples: Jersey Mike's (sub sandwich shop), and another local
| deli place that's too local for me to name without letting
| everyone know I live in a cornfield.
| simfree wrote:
| From whar I have experienced Chrome and Chromium act
| differently FYI. I would discourage lumping them as one in
| the same.
| maccam94 wrote:
| Firefox on iOS isn't really Firefox, it's Webkit with a
| Firefox skin (because Apple won't allow any other web engines
| on iOS).
| Yoofie wrote:
| > I don't think credit card autofill is allowed at all
|
| I would consider this a feature, not a bug.
| nwmcsween wrote:
| Just reinstalled Firefox due to this info
| pjfin123 wrote:
| Great write up! I hope Brave can improve on this.
| blub wrote:
| Brave is doing something similar: https://brave.com/privacy-
| updates-6/
| yepguy wrote:
| I doubt Brave will do anything about it, because ad blocking in
| Brave is built-in and implemented without the extension APIs.
|
| https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust
| podiki wrote:
| I can't live without uBlock Origin and uMatrix, and was sad to
| see uMatrix archived [0]. Still works great, but I'm wondering
| what will happen long term. Anyone also use both and since drop
| uMatrix for something else, or just uBlock? How is it?
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973
| freedomben wrote:
| uMatrix is so fundamental to my web experience, I dread the day
| it stops working.
| caoilte wrote:
| It's been really interesting to watch recent gorhill tweets
| where he describes some laboured efforts to type in rules to
| block content in ublock that you can do in umatrix with the
| click of a button.
|
| I don't understand it, but I agree that unlock+umatrix on
| desktop and mobile has been the best thing about browsing for
| years.
|
| I think maybe he wants to consolidate Dev effort and I
| completely understand. He's probably the only person I'm
| patriotic about right now.
| donatzsky wrote:
| As I remember it, you really shouldn't be using both at the
| same time. Don't remember why, only that it's a bad idea. And
| you can set up uBlock to do most of what uMatrix does anyway.
| Valmar wrote:
| It's because there was some overlap in their functionality.
|
| What I did was disable the overlapping functionality in
| uBlock Origin, and let uMatrix handle the rest.
| [deleted]
| bassdropvroom wrote:
| > The Firefox version of uBO makes use of WebAssembly code for
| core filtering code paths. This is not the case with Chromium-
| based browsers because this would require an extra permission in
| the extension manifest which could cause friction when publishing
| the extension in the Chrome Web Store.
|
| Anyone know what this extra permission is and why requesting this
| extra permission would cause friction?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Presumably one that allows the extension to run Wasm code
| RamRodification wrote:
| Yeah that one sounds like a negative being described as a
| positive.
| bassdropvroom wrote:
| I wouldn't say that. Using WASM is legitimate and will
| certainly give a performance boost at the very least. I'm
| just curious about the nuances of having it included in
| Chrome.
| the_duke wrote:
| UBlock already had a new version rejected a while ago. Big HN
| thread at the time.
|
| Presumably they are just really careful to avoid giving Google
| any excuses.
| 10000truths wrote:
| My guess is that it's much harder to review WASM bytecode to
| make sure it doesn't do anything sketchy.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Can someone ELI5 the pros and cons of using uBlock Origin and/or
| uMatrix?
|
| Should I be using one, either, both? Are they competitors or
| complementary? What does each do best?
| noisem4ker wrote:
| uMatrix is unmaintained and most of its functionality is
| supposed to be available in uBlock Origin in advanced mode.
| DannyB2 wrote:
| uMatrix provides fine grained control in a matrix by domain
| names (rows) vs various permissions to grant (columns).
|
| Example: Allow domain foo.com to run scripts, but domain
| bar.com cannot run script, no cookies, but css and images are
| okay.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| If you're on a Mac, using Firefox with uBlock Origin is a realy
| nice experience:
|
| - no ads on Youtube
|
| - I prefer the Firefox dev tools over Chrome for vanilla-js.
|
| FYI: I'm one of the earliest and longest-term users of Firefox,
| starting at Netscape in 2000. Never had a reason to switch.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Latest Firefox really does a good job supporting MULTIPLE video
| frames. - Something that I have yet to see on Chrome.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-09 23:00 UTC)