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?
Original Submission #0 Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2
Related Stories
Software developer Drew DeVault has written a post at his blog about the reckless, infinite scope of today's web browsers. His conclusion is that, given decades of feature creep, it is now impossible to build a new web browser due to the obscene complexity of the web.
I conclude that it is impossible to build a new web browser. The complexity of the web is obscene. The creation of a new web browser would be comparable in effort to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project.
It is impossible to:
- Implement the web correctly
- Implement the web securely
- Implement the web at all
Starting a bespoke browser engine with the intention of competing with Google or Mozilla is a fool's errand. The last serious attempt to make a new browser, Servo, has become one part incubator for Firefox refactoring, one part playground for bored Mozilla engineers to mess with technology no one wants, and zero parts viable modern web browser. But WebVR is cool, right? Right?
The consequences of this are obvious. Browsers are the most expensive piece of software a typical consumer computer runs. They're infamous for using all of your RAM, pinning CPU and I/O, draining your battery, etc. Web browsers are responsible for more than 8,000 CVEs.3
The browser duopoly of Firefox and Chrome/Chromium has clearly harmed the World-Wide Web. However, a closer look at the membership of the W3C committes also reveals representation by classic villains which, perhaps coincidentally, showed up around the time the problems noted by Drew began to grow.
Previously:
An Open Letter to Web Developers (2020)
Google Now Bans Some Linux Web Browsers from their Services (2019)
HTML is the Web (2019)
The Future of Browsers (2019)
One Year Since the W3C Sold Out the Web with EME (2018)
Co-founder of Netscape (formerly Mosaic Communications Corporation) and of Mozilla.org, Jamie Zawinski, has some brief comments about the current situation with Mozilla and its browser.
Back to Mozilla -- in my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:
- Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
- Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
- There is no 3.
And they just completely threw in the towel on standards when they grabbed their ankles and allowed W3C to add DRM. At this point, I assume Mozilla's voice on the standards committees has all the world-trembling gravitas of "EFF writes amicus brief."
By the way, one dynamic that the cited article missed is that a huge part of the reason for Google's "investment" in Mozilla was not just to drive search traffic -- it was antitrust insurance. Mozilla continuing to exist made Chrome not be the only remaining web browser, and that kept certain wolves at bay.
Google has decided that they don't need to buy antitrust insurance any more. Wonder why.
(Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Monday June 10 2019, @09:03PM
2019 Build Castle
2020 Fill castle moat with lava
2021 Kidnap princess
2022 plumber uses axe to chop bridge, dropping me into lava
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday June 10 2019, @09:20PM (11 children)
Pay - provided I'm 100% my private data isn't sold behind my back anyway.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday June 10 2019, @09:28PM (4 children)
:-) You will never know for sure.... Six months from now you will read about another data "leak"...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday June 10 2019, @09:32PM (1 child)
Yep. That's mostly why I never pay for promises I'm sold that I can't verify.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @10:29PM
A proper non-profit/not-for-profit supporting an open source codebase and a minimally hands-on series of web services.
They shouldn't be doing social outreach. They shouldn't be pretending they're a movement. They should only have one mission goal and focus on that. And anyone involved who wants to forward their other agendas should do it from another pulpit, corporation, or non-profit, as applicable.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday June 10 2019, @10:31PM (1 child)
Six months?
Damn but you're an optimist.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @11:27PM
Seriously, most aren't reported that quickly.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @09:30PM (2 children)
How naive and innocent to believe paying keeps data from being monetized... give your pet unicorn a hug for me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday June 10 2019, @09:35PM
Aah, the beauty of irony...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:28AM
By paying, you have now authenticated the info you just gave them against your payment credentials.
Often, it's not paying for something that makes me so leery, naw, I want to keep it to myself that I am interested in such a thing...or I do not want my payment credentials in yet more hands. Unfortunately, I cannot just send 'em a buck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @09:33PM (1 child)
We're talking about Mozilla here. They'll use your money to pay executive bonuses and then use the money from monetizing your data to install new bathrooms for several additional genders. Win-win.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @11:50PM
Wisdom from the ancients. [mistupid.com]
Create an account AC, let your legacy live on!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Monday June 10 2019, @10:32PM
Pay, but only for purely open source code. Instead of having licensing and all that bullshit, just charge for support and access to blacklisting services. Make it a service actually worth paying for.
The features are super simple:
1) Fingerprint anonymization - Collect all fingerprints from existing browsers, and then distribute the fingerprints that would still support most browsing. Collection is anonymous.
2) Darknet/P2P/Onion Routing - Distribution and collection of Bayesian Poisoning elements (fingerprints being one) uses this network. Regular traffic could too.
3) Blacklisting service - Similar to popular ad blocking utilities, curate a list of trackers, and their IP addresses. The browser by default blocks all connections. Browsers can use #2 to report infractions, that can in turn be added to the blacklist.
4) Site rendering - Guarantee that you don't need NoScript locally, because a service renders your pages for you and relays the new DOM state back. Any information leakage exposes the services infrastructure, which also helps in performing Bayesian poisoning.
I'd pay $10-$15 a month for the services, and browser software that puts the user FIRST.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday June 10 2019, @09:30PM (23 children)
These guys have been busy tanking their usage percentage for years; who the FUCK do they think is going to PAY to use the pathetic Chrome-imitating-but-not-as-good, hey-we-used-to-have-a-good-extension-system-oops-we-got-rid-of-it drivel FF has become?
The should just take Firefox out behind the shed, shoot it in the head, and ask somebody else to take over the codebase. Or I guess it's already open source, so...umm...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snow on Monday June 10 2019, @09:39PM (1 child)
Maybe someone that doesn't want to give Google anything more than they have to.
Enjoy your ads and google tracking.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday June 10 2019, @10:01PM
The problem with paying Mozilla is that that implies we approve of all the nonsense they've been doing with Firefox development for the last several years. If I could pay them a negative amount of money to get them to stop mangling Firefox further, I would.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10 2019, @10:07PM (3 children)
They did it to get multi-process. A reasonable trade-off. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Multiprocess_Firefox [mozilla.org]
The Chrome-look imitating I don't get either.
So far (modified) Firefox remains the only reasonable browser choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:36AM (2 children)
You have the strangest definition of "reasonable".
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Multiprocess_Firefox/Motivation [mozilla.org]
IOW, a surfeit of ads, and coders unable to do thread-safety to save their life. OR their project.
Good riddance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @09:08AM (1 child)
What are you smoking? Ads got absolutely nothing to do with it. Whether you wish to run JavaScript is up to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @12:00PM
WHAT ELSE but ads can contain the javascript fit to hang the event loop? Pray tell.
A webapp doing such a thing would not get released except by mistake, as they are made to be at least somewhat usable.
(Score: 5, Touché) by vux984 on Monday June 10 2019, @10:30PM
I'd absolutely consider paying if the premium services represented a good value add for me.
I'd seriously consider donating otherwise.
"The should just take Firefox out behind the shed, shoot it in the head, and ask somebody else to take over the codebase. Or I guess it's already open source, so...umm..."
Right, what are you waiting for? If you do a better job than mozilla, maybe ill pay you. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Shire on Monday June 10 2019, @11:21PM (11 children)
Firefox has been a solid browser for years and they don't watch everything you do like Chrome does. If you really are privacy conscious then it's a no brainer to pick Firefox over Chrome. The only massive mistake they're about to make is with the new Hyperlink Ping Tracking [bleepingcomputer.com] that all the browsers are making mandatory which makes it impossible to stop sites from tracking every click you make.
I'm confident that both Chromium and Firefox will see forks or patches to code around the both the tracking and ad blocking limitations these companies are trying to bake in. Of course what will happen is Google will come out with a "Verified Browser" program and start requiring all their ad partners to block any browser that Google considers to be "rogue". They'll claim that browser forks are dangerous, no doubt connected to criminal activity, when in fact they just want to make sure they can watch you and shove ads in your face whenever they please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:41AM
Only? You seem to be forgetting telemetry.
(Score: 1) by Mer on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:51AM (6 children)
Firefox is by default not good at all for the privacy conscious. You CAN turn off all the offending features but there's a lot of them, and most of them can only be turned off in about:config.
Some features can't be turned off at all (admittedly those are the most extreme to turn off such as js support).
And to top it off, FF has a habit of resetting user set variables in config when updating.
Nevertheless, the crackdown on adblocking shouldn't be a problem for any privacy minded user. Because the smart move is to block ads with your .hosts file https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ [someonewhocares.org]
Former mozilla supporters should either go to palemoon for legacy support or icecat for a modern mozilla with sane defaults.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @09:23AM (3 children)
Goto about:config, filter for javas and set javascript.enabled to false. Not at all extreme but the only rational thing to do. Then add uMatrix and you're pretty damn well off.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday June 11 2019, @04:03PM (2 children)
That wont stop the hyperlink auditing. Mozilla has outright stated that you will not be able to disable it via about:config nor will any addon/extension be able to intercept it or turn it off. The only solution is to fork or patch the code.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @04:43PM (1 child)
or maybe a pre-parser ... that just removes the offending bits of "html" before sending it to the render/for-your-eyes-only engine?
like moving the proxy and the browser even closer together?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @06:11PM
That won't help if javashit puts it in the DOM. Patching is best.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Shire on Tuesday June 11 2019, @04:15PM (1 child)
That's sadly true of pretty much all software and operating systems these days. You have to know where the switches are and take the time to flip them. But at least right now the switches ARE there and they CAN be flipped. What I object to is they are starting to come out with invasive "features" that cannot be disabled at all. Google is doing it with this adblocker crippling change, and Mozilla is doing it with their Hyperlink Auditing.
Unfortunately options like Palemoon or Icecat are woefully out of date and under supported.
The hosts files option is a performance killer and doomed to fail - it cannot keep up with the ever shifting domains pushing ads. That sort of blocking is best done at the router anyway.
The bottom line is we're getting to the point where you need to be an IT pro to stay ahead of the privacy invasions, and I'm finding my clients just don't care anymore. I think the "privacy race" has been lost and the open internet has become a corporate walled garden. You can no longer do anything without Big Brother watching.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @05:13PM
These things must reflect in specific, useful features not present, or in specific, dangerous bugs not fixed.
Otherwise, your word salad is nothing but cheapest sort of FUD aimed at stupidest sort of hipsters. I doubt any of these read Soylent.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:34PM (2 children)
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?"
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:30PM (1 child)
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
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.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Tuesday June 11 2019, @12:44AM (2 children)
Unfortunately Chrome, or at least Chromium, isn't nearly as good about handling bookmarks. That knocks out most of the alternatives I've looked at except Konqueror and Vivaldi.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:53AM (1 child)
It certainly doesn't knock out Waterfox, does it?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday June 22 2019, @04:05AM
I haven't looked at WaterFox, and I don't remember why. Perhaps I felt I'd downloaded and tested enough browsers.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:45AM
Maybe if they made a fully supported browser that can run all the old extensions I care of, and made a binding contract with money-back guarantee that they won't revoke that ability in the next ten years, I might consider paying for it. Well, better also add a statement that they'll start listening to their users, but I'm not sure how legally binding that could be made.
Oh, and that payment certainly also better include security updates and bug fixes for no extra cost (no feature updates required — as long as they don't remove features I'm happy; if they really manage to implement a new feature I badly want, there's nothing wrong with getting that only with new payment).
But my guess is that that they would take the sorry remains of what was once a great browser, maybe put some extra stuff in it that nobody wants anyway, and try to sell that. In which case, tough luck.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Mer on Monday June 10 2019, @09:47PM
Maybe you can use an adblocker with it but it seems pretty counterproductive.
Brave is 100% ad-centric. It blocks ads by defaul (and replaces them with crypto mining, behaviour tracking and a slew of other stupid shit but that's not the point).
Whoever is using brave is either believing in their ponzi scheme and thinks it supports creators or just wanted a browser with by default adblocking.
I don't see the use case of someone seeing through brave's bullshit and wanting a proper blocker on top of it instead of using another browser as a base.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 10 2019, @10:54PM (6 children)
See subject. I'm on Falkon and learning to use Surf. I've been warning people for years now that corporations and moneyed interests are going to turn what used to be general-purpose computing into a commercialized, Balkanized Hellscape, and as usual, no one listens to Cassandra^W Marissa. It's being turned into a two-tier wasteland, something like a false, overly-manicured Disneyland on the high end and what's essentially a permanent all-encompassing WalMart in an empty Rust Belt town on the low end.
And then there are people like (most of) us, who have the DIY ethos or at least the willingness to learn new tools and new ways. We exiled ourselves from Disneyland and WalMart, but our little cabins in the woods at least still have some self-respect added.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @12:13AM
What do you think about Palemoon? Waterfox? Icecat?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday June 11 2019, @01:23AM (1 child)
I've used surf but I ended up going back to firefox over the extensions. It's less of a problem when all your bookmarks are stored in a markdown file and your passwords are in zx2c4.com's pass, all synced through syncthing.
> (Azuma stands up) Hi my name is Marissa and I've been a FOSS user for 10 years.
> (SoylentNews users) Hi Marissa!
IMHO any balkanization (commercial or otherwise) of general-purpose computing is unlikely when the different parties are trade warring.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:43AM
15 years this July, actually :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 11 2019, @05:06AM (2 children)
>I'm on Falkon
Falkon is built on the Chromium core, so you're using the numerous contributions of people employed by the corporations and moneyed interests you have been warning about for years. This is by design of course; FOSS software is meant to be forked, used, extended, and Chromium is FOSS. It just seems odd that you're bad-mouthing the people who have contributed greatly to a tool you claim to prefer in adjacent sentences.
>learning to use Surf
The suckless philosophy is too much like Luddism to me, but whatever makes you happy.
>false, overly-manicured Disneyland
Is this a reference to Neal Stephenson? Ironically, Neal Stephenson has come to accept the Disneyland of modern user interfaces; he has become an Apple Eloi rather than a Linux/Unix/plan9 Morlock.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @09:27AM
No it's not at all odd. Life is complicated and not black-and-white. Good people also do bad things and bad people also do good things...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @09:48AM
Let's see … Eloi live in a pretty world, but are preyed upon without really understanding what happens to them. Yeah, fits perfectly.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 10 2019, @11:50PM (2 children)
A browser of the people, by the people and for the people! That's what we need!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @08:51AM (1 child)
By the people? Good luck teaching programming to the general public.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @06:28PM
Fuck the Muggles. If they want to learn, they can do so. Pandering to them is half the root of the shitty situation we have right now, for example SystemD and stolen core dumps in new Linuxes.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:10AM
It's one that certain people don't want you to know about. It's called Internet Web Browser for Desktop & Mobile. Also referred to as The Microsoft Edge. And I'm hearing great things about that one. I'm hearing that it's like a very classy automobile. With a professional driver -- the best. Because it gets you where you want to go, very quickly and in tremendous style. And it's backed by Microsoft, the finest name in cyber. A Company that -- unlike Google (AKA, Alphabet) -- stands by it's products. 100% and very proudly. That's so rare in these days of Globalism gone wild. Very special when you find that. Very very special.
I heard that Google opened a Social Media Site. The Google version of Facebook. Known as Google Plus, the "plus" meaning it's better. Did you hear about that one? And I said to Dan, my Social Media guy, Google's a big Company, maybe we should get on that one. He said sorry, too late, they closed it. And apparently -- this is incredible -- Google was in Social Media even before Facebook. Before YouTube. Before Twitter. Not with Google Plus, they tried a few times before that one. And they always gave up. They quit and they're becoming known as the great quitters of the Cyber World. Winners never quit, folks. And quitters never win!!!!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @12:52PM
As a PSA for the community, if anyone uses Android and needs a better browser with extension support than Firefox/Fennec, which is slow as molasses, Kiwi Browser is chromium-based, open source, extensions supported, and uBlock Origin and uMatrix work perfectly with it, at least until G assholes drop manifest v3 and then I'm keeping the old versions forever.
And maybe it's time for a new truly non-profit browser organization because Mozilla long since jumped the orca. You know Frank Herbert said that bureaucracies first task is to stay alive and they are nothing more right now.
(Score: 1) by pD-brane on Tuesday June 11 2019, @01:20PM (1 child)
I don't think it is possible to build a good/acceptable web browser, because the web itself is broken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:09PM
This is a problem we have already once fixed, when Micro$oft almost to managed to hijack the entire www. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet-explorer-usage-data.svg [wikipedia.org]
Of course now we have to fight a business model (surveillance capitalism) rather than a monopoly (M$)...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @01:47PM
As people dumped the radio, making space for stations which primary role is to give you adverts of an arse cream to your breakfast. As with amateur TV, in its short, wireless and wired life. It's time to move out, get out of this whole field as it's now a large companies' playground to brainwash customers. If you are not with one brand, you must be with another. If you are not with any, you are a public enemy.
We got a nice 20 years of possibility to exchange ideas and we did not learn anything from it.
It was not difficult to get rid of TV, it won't be to get rid of the "web".
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday June 12 2019, @08:41AM
https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/11/mozilla-debuts-its-new-firefox-logos/ [venturebeat.com]
compiling...