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posted by chromas on Monday June 10 2019, @08:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the lynx++ dept.

Opera, Brave, Vivaldi to Ignore Chrome's Anti-Ad-Blocker Changes, Despite Shared Codebase

Despite sharing a common Chromium codebase, browser makers like Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi don't have plans on crippling support for ad blocker extensions in their products -- as Google is currently planning on doing within Chrome.

The three browsers makers have confirmed to ZDNet, or in public comments, of not intending to support a change to the extensions system that Google plans to add to Chromium, the open-source browser project on which Chrome, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi are all based on.

A few hours after reading about Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi breaking with Google blocking ad-blockers, I find this story -
Firefox may introduce a paid version in order to reduce its reliance on Google revenue

Mozilla, the maker of open source browser Firefox, is by no means strapped for cash; although the said browser is offered free of charge, the foundation has a lucrative search deal with Google.

Some of the revenue also comes thanks to its controversially proprietary online bookmarking service Pocket, and some from sponsored content and donations.

But although the Google deal is sweet – Mozilla is very dependent on it and nervous about the prospect, however unlikely, of losing it. Therefore it always seems be on the lookout for new revenue streams.

Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

In an interview with German media outlet T3N, the company's CEO, Chris Beard, said that it's aiming to launch the new version by October, with features like a VPN and secure cloud storage.

The company's already experimented with a VPN service by partnering up with ProtonVPN and offering a $10 subscription. Now, the company's thinking of offering some amount of free VPN bandwidth to get you started, and then charge a premium for metered access in the form of a monthly subscription.

So - what is the future? Are browsers to be divided between "free" browsers, that play games with Google, and paid browsers, which thumb their noses at Google?

And, how will all of that affect those of us who routinely modify their browsers? Will we have to work harder, for the same effect - or will we just be shot down in flames? Surrender to Google, or pay to browse?


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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:34PM (2 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:34PM (#854335)

    The only massive mistake they're about to make is

    Maybe true, but they've already made the massive mistake of ripping out their excellent extension system, which was most of the reason to use Firefox in the first place. And they'd already gotten rid of most of the other reasons to before that.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
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  • (Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:30PM (1 child)

    by The Shire (5824) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:30PM (#854362)

    I hear this a lot and yet despite using a large number of extensions myself, I find that the authors of those extensions stepped up and delivered updates that made them work with the new API. I can't think of any that don't function now. Sure it was a disruption when it happened, but it was a short lived disruption.

    Firefox, when properly configured, is the only major browser than doesn't spy on everything you do. That's why it's the basis for Tor as well. If you know of viable modern alternatives, I'd consider switching. But no way in hell could you ever convince me Chrome, Safari, or Edge are better.

    Firefox is the current top dog in my book, right up until they have mandatory hyperlink auditing pushed out.

    • (Score: 2) by DeVilla on Friday June 14 2019, @11:36PM

      by DeVilla (5354) on Friday June 14 2019, @11:36PM (#855806)

      I'll agree that firefox is still top dog for me, but they are a pomeranian to the mastiff they used to be. I just looked and I still have 10 "Unsupported" plugins list that I either have no replacement for, have a poor replacement for or have something different that's servicing as a half-hearted stand-in. And that's not counting plugins I just gave up on and removed.

      I'd itemize where I'm at now, but I've already written that book several times now and none of the plugins of old appear to be any closer to working.