Exactly how the rest of the world feels about this is not necessarily relevant, though. Google owns the world’s most popular web browser, the world’s largest advertising network, the world’s biggest search engine, the world’s most popular operating system, and some of the world’s most popular websites. So really, Google can do whatever it wants. Other projects like Chrome’s “Privacy Sandbox” ad platform and the adblock-limiting manifest V3 have been universally panned, but Google has kept right on trucking with the projects. There have been some small project tweaks and delays, but Google keeps marching forward.
If the theory that consumers are rational actors were true, then the world would simply switch to a new “most popular web browser” etc anf Google’s hegemony would end.
Unfortunately that’s not how the world really works and plenty of people will sit there obediently being milked of their data and influenced in their behaviour.
If you’re still using Chrome… What was it like hitting retirement age before 2008?
Jokes aside, Chrome really is the bottom of my list in the last several years. I’ve gotten the best functionality out of Firefox in the last while. Anyone else different?
I’ve been trying to switch to Firefox but the tab groups suck and I rely on that pretty heavily so I’m stuck in chromium. Every tab group thing I’ve tried on Firefox is just worse.
I’ve been using Firefox since forever. It had its downs, but generally I’m happy with it. And with Multi account containers they’ve made sure I stay for life, it saves so much time.
I tried to use Firefox for work but I had to log into multiple AWS accounts at the same time, which I didn’t think was possible. It’s easy with profiles in the chromium browsers, trying to remember if I tried it in Firefox now
It’s easier in Firefox with containers. You can use multiple aws accounts on the same profile but different containers. I’ve tried to migrate to blink based browsers for various reasons, but this is what keeps me coming back to Firefox!
Firefox even has tab sandboxes now. So you can even run personal aws on one tab and business aws in another. They will have their own sandboxes so won’t collide.
It’s pretty useful at work because I can separate the about riddled with sales trackers from asking for quotes from my “how do I do X” profile. It can change the results a fair bit. On one I’ll get tons of Enterprise professional services, the other recommends a lot of FOSS results.
Plus you can make certain sites always automatically open in their designated container, even if you followed a link. You can keep sites know for spying away from your logged in identity. You can have your banking and other important sites in another container for extra defense in depth.
I do a lot of casting from my desktop to the Chromecast connected to my TV. I have not been able to successfully cast from Firefox. I would love to find a solution though.
I use it quite often and it works very well. Though I use it primarily for YouTube, so I’m not sure how well it works on other sites. I think once I’ve tried it on Netflix (it worked) and a few times for just casting some videos somewhere on the internet.
I tried using Firefox recently and one bad page took out the whole browser and went back to Chrome. I should make the change again but Firefox speed and stability is a tradeoff for avoiding Chrome
Kinda, but it still connects to Google for updates for example, and syncs your browsing data to Google if you login. So it’s really only halfway there.
It does have some weird crypto stuff it promotes/offers after a vanilla install, but you can hide literally all of it. Brave is my daily driver, and looking at my installs you’d never know it had crypto stuff integrated.
Yes, it’s Blink without the bits that Google doesn’t share (I wanted to be precise that nobody can compile actual Chrome from public sources, they can build Chromium which is almost but not quite the same)
I’m stuck with chrome for work because everyone wants their integrated Google Workplace services to operate seamlessly (and because that’s what’s approved in our security P&P).
If it doesn’t work with other WebKit or chrome-based browsers, then we’re back to “extend and extinguish” and your company should run as far away from that locked-in garbage as fast as possible.
If only Firefox rendered my CSS exactly the same like in Chrome. I don’t know if they fixed it but last time developing a web site in FF was real annoying because when I made it look just right in FF some minor things were slightly off in Chrome so I had to keep going back and forth.
I don’t work in hardly anything touching a front end, but shouldn’t you support all major browsers for your rendering? So, checking it in several browsers all the time.
I totally get the difference between should and do, so honestly asking. There is shit I should do, and there is shit that there is time to do. Checking all browsers on all updates may not be it.
Fortunately, there are other good browsers that don’t follow this bullshit. I’m lucky that I haven’t seen ads in ages (and I absolutely don’t miss them). Websites/Services should just find different ways to monetize their work, ads are the worst way IMHO (collecting data, promoting often useless consumption in a world where we need to reduce consumption, annoying etc.).
Are there other browsers? Most of them use Google’s engine so presumably they’ll have to bow down to this decision. Firefox and Safari are the only independent engines but Safari can’t be used on non-Apple devices and Mozilla is funded by Google.
Now, granted, the whole reason Google funds Mozilla is to be able to show they have competition, so forcing WebDRM on Firefox would play against that. But it’s their move to make if they feel like weathering an EU investigation is worth it.
Yeah the whole situation is a little bit fucked, Google has too much power (over Mozilla) and browser engines in general.
But I’m optimistic about the open source community, e.g. brave integrates their own ublock compatible rewrite (in Rust ^^) into chromium. So I think sooner or later there are patched/forked chromiums and if Mozilla indeed makes the move towards WebDRM then also Firefox forks.
I really hope servo under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation proves to be a viable alternative in the future, that’s a little bit more independent than Firefox.
This proposal absolutely infuriates me. This is making it so that you won’t be able to browse the web unless you are using “approved” hardware on an “approved” OS with an “approved” browser. You will have no freedom to control your computing. Even if your browser is open source it will barely matter because you won’t be able to patch it, you will need to run the approved binaries.
Fuck off and let me use the software I want.
This is SafetyNet from Android. You won’t be able to access your bank, your movies, your anything unless you are using hardware and software that is controlled by billion dollar corporations.
The way they phrase the reasoning in their proposal is just disgusting! Like “Users want advertisers to be happy, and advertisers need …”, as if it’s all about what users want.
I’ve had in my mind a political cartoon; two panels:
The first panel is The Free Market Ideal. Dozens of carts and woodend stands selling fresh fruit, food, hand made goods, etc. There’s lots of energetic people moving about and talking and haggling with merchants over prices and comparing prices and looking at all their choices.
The second panel is The Free Market Reality. A bunch of tired people standing in line for one of two computer terminals.
The truths portrayed is that there is no bargaining with the monopolies that dominate our markets, their processes are automated. This is not a market of equals, the people are tired and manipulated. As for choice, sometimes you can choose between 2 or 3 companies, sometimes there’s only 1 option.
The things that happen in a healthy free market are not happening.
There is no healthy free market. That was always a lie spun by those who want to control the market and give the illusion of choice until they’re so ingrained that the illusion is no longer necessary.
Yeah, and the advertising market is only so big. Showing a user hundreds of ads still only makes them buy maybe one product they don’t actually need. The profits from that one product are the maximum amount of money to pay for all those ads.
So, if Google shoves more ads down our throats, that means other companies get less money for the ads they show and so have to increase the number of shown ads, too. Even though this still likely won’t make users actually buy more products.
It’s an arms race and the loser is the user just getting thousands of useless ads.
Not keen on following these awful proposals. It feels like there’s a persistent trend of making the internet shiter than it was beforehand. I get alphabet has a vetted interest in ads and user data, but if they’re going to push for this tracking approach I guess it’ll be back to fix Firefox again
Silicon Valley Hubris. These companies got too big and act as if we don’t have choices. Web is still built on open standards no matter what. These are all attempts to graft on closed patterns on open infrastructure.
Consider switching now. Your continued usage is contributing to the user numbers they see reported that gives them the confidence to pull this shit in the first place.
A part of me is kind of looking forward to it. It may be the breaking point to finally reduce my internet usage and get to implementing the Digital Minimalism, because I feel so strongly against this kind of bullshit that I refuse to use any website that keeps telling me what I can and can’t do. Once I don’t have control over what sites I want to support with ads, or what sites can track me and collect data about me - I will simply stop using it.
I’ve been slowly getting used to the reduced user experience caused by privacy-focused approach. Reddit and Youtube has taught me to just look elsewhere instead of logging in when prompted, LibreFox has got me used to having to relog-in every time i switch tabs due to containers and cookie autodelete, and the subscription bullshit for every smart product has taught me to reflash and self-host devices I can, so I already have a NAS and pretty comfy infrastructure ready.
But I still get drawn to some social networks, or end up mindlessly procrastrinating by browsing the web. This will finally be something not under my control (I tried Cold Turkey - it never lasted long) that will keep me out of the internet for good. It doesn’t really add much value to my life, blog posts and youtube tutorials have been reduced to absolute basics without any value, most of them now even AI generated. If I want to learn something about a topic, it’s hard to find actually interresting content that isn’t the same basics tutorial for dummies made for people without attention span who don’t want details, but just to feel like they are doing something smart with their time.
Now that I think about, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually found something of value on the internet, the discussions here on Lemmy are one of the last few things that I find interesting to engage with. But I’m too used to it to be able to quit on my own accord, and this may just be the push I need, to finally go all-in into the Digital Minimalism.
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This is the problem:
If the theory that consumers are rational actors were true, then the world would simply switch to a new “most popular web browser” etc anf Google’s hegemony would end.
Unfortunately that’s not how the world really works and plenty of people will sit there obediently being milked of their data and influenced in their behaviour.
Maybe they shouldn’t own all that stuff. It’s Microsoft Explorer all over again.
They used to be “Don’t be evil” now they’re the most evil company, absolutely crazy.
All they did was add a . to it. How tough can that be? Don’t. Be Evil
If you’re still using Chrome… What was it like hitting retirement age before 2008?
Jokes aside, Chrome really is the bottom of my list in the last several years. I’ve gotten the best functionality out of Firefox in the last while. Anyone else different?
I’ve been trying to switch to Firefox but the tab groups suck and I rely on that pretty heavily so I’m stuck in chromium. Every tab group thing I’ve tried on Firefox is just worse.
I use Firefox at home, but at work I use Edge as we use Microsoft for a lot of services. It’s actually surprisingly not bad ha ha.
I preferred Brave but I’m side-eyeing it the more news that comes out about Chromium.
I’ve been using Firefox since forever. It had its downs, but generally I’m happy with it. And with Multi account containers they’ve made sure I stay for life, it saves so much time.
When did they implement the containers?
2016
I tried to use Firefox for work but I had to log into multiple AWS accounts at the same time, which I didn’t think was possible. It’s easy with profiles in the chromium browsers, trying to remember if I tried it in Firefox now
It’s easier in Firefox with containers. You can use multiple aws accounts on the same profile but different containers. I’ve tried to migrate to blink based browsers for various reasons, but this is what keeps me coming back to Firefox!
@astraeus @Quill7513
firefox -PFirefox even has tab sandboxes now. So you can even run personal aws on one tab and business aws in another. They will have their own sandboxes so won’t collide.
How do multi-account containers differ from Chrome profiles?
Being able to have different containers in the same window?
Thanks. Not something I’d want to do (I like my work and personal tabs in totally separate windows) but obviously that’s just personal preference.
It’s pretty useful at work because I can separate the about riddled with sales trackers from asking for quotes from my “how do I do X” profile. It can change the results a fair bit. On one I’ll get tons of Enterprise professional services, the other recommends a lot of FOSS results.
Plus you can make certain sites always automatically open in their designated container, even if you followed a link. You can keep sites know for spying away from your logged in identity. You can have your banking and other important sites in another container for extra defense in depth.
This is kinda starting to remind me of Qubes OS.
I do a lot of casting from my desktop to the Chromecast connected to my TV. I have not been able to successfully cast from Firefox. I would love to find a solution though.
https://github.com/hensm/fx_cast/releases
Interesting, any experiences with this? How well does it work?
I use it quite often and it works very well. Though I use it primarily for YouTube, so I’m not sure how well it works on other sites. I think once I’ve tried it on Netflix (it worked) and a few times for just casting some videos somewhere on the internet.
Thanks!
I tried using Firefox recently and one bad page took out the whole browser and went back to Chrome. I should make the change again but Firefox speed and stability is a tradeoff for avoiding Chrome
If FF isn’t for you then maybe give Brave a try. It’s basically a de-googled Chrome.
Isn’t Chromium degoogled Chrome?
Kinda, but it still connects to Google for updates for example, and syncs your browsing data to Google if you login. So it’s really only halfway there.
Ungoogled Chromium is degoogled Chrome, the regular Chromium is just Chrome without (most of?) the proprietary / closed source components
Why are you being down voted? I’ve heard about brave and thought people were generally in favor of it?
Iirc, it has some crypto and nft stuff built in which many ppl hate.
It does have some weird crypto stuff it promotes/offers after a vanilla install, but you can hide literally all of it. Brave is my daily driver, and looking at my installs you’d never know it had crypto stuff integrated.
Idk, people are weird sometimes. I use FF myself, but I think Brave is a good alternative. Definitely better than using Chrome imo.
Vivaldi uses the same engine as Chromium, and the company has been founded by ex Opera developers.
Same engine? As in it’s chromium based?
Yes, it’s Blink without the bits that Google doesn’t share (I wanted to be precise that nobody can compile actual Chrome from public sources, they can build Chromium which is almost but not quite the same)
I never stopped using Firefox
I’m stuck with chrome for work because everyone wants their integrated Google Workplace services to operate seamlessly (and because that’s what’s approved in our security P&P).
If it doesn’t work with other WebKit or chrome-based browsers, then we’re back to “extend and extinguish” and your company should run as far away from that locked-in garbage as fast as possible.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
If only Firefox rendered my CSS exactly the same like in Chrome. I don’t know if they fixed it but last time developing a web site in FF was real annoying because when I made it look just right in FF some minor things were slightly off in Chrome so I had to keep going back and forth.
I don’t work in hardly anything touching a front end, but shouldn’t you support all major browsers for your rendering? So, checking it in several browsers all the time.
I totally get the difference between should and do, so honestly asking. There is shit I should do, and there is shit that there is time to do. Checking all browsers on all updates may not be it.
I honestly think that if this does move forward, we’re going to see a partial exodus from http to project gemini and related networks.
Advertisement is a fucking syphilis, a cancer and a gangrene combined. Don’t tell me what to watch what to visit
Fortunately, there are other good browsers that don’t follow this bullshit. I’m lucky that I haven’t seen ads in ages (and I absolutely don’t miss them). Websites/Services should just find different ways to monetize their work, ads are the worst way IMHO (collecting data, promoting often useless consumption in a world where we need to reduce consumption, annoying etc.).
Are there other browsers? Most of them use Google’s engine so presumably they’ll have to bow down to this decision. Firefox and Safari are the only independent engines but Safari can’t be used on non-Apple devices and Mozilla is funded by Google.
Now, granted, the whole reason Google funds Mozilla is to be able to show they have competition, so forcing WebDRM on Firefox would play against that. But it’s their move to make if they feel like weathering an EU investigation is worth it.
Yeah the whole situation is a little bit fucked, Google has too much power (over Mozilla) and browser engines in general. But I’m optimistic about the open source community, e.g. brave integrates their own ublock compatible rewrite (in Rust ^^) into chromium. So I think sooner or later there are patched/forked chromiums and if Mozilla indeed makes the move towards WebDRM then also Firefox forks.
I really hope servo under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation proves to be a viable alternative in the future, that’s a little bit more independent than Firefox.
This proposal absolutely infuriates me. This is making it so that you won’t be able to browse the web unless you are using “approved” hardware on an “approved” OS with an “approved” browser. You will have no freedom to control your computing. Even if your browser is open source it will barely matter because you won’t be able to patch it, you will need to run the approved binaries.
Fuck off and let me use the software I want.
This is SafetyNet from Android. You won’t be able to access your bank, your movies, your anything unless you are using hardware and software that is controlled by billion dollar corporations.
The way they phrase the reasoning in their proposal is just disgusting! Like “Users want advertisers to be happy, and advertisers need …”, as if it’s all about what users want.
I actually strongly want advertisers to be angry. In fact the more upset advertisers are the happier I am.
I’m starting to wonder what the heck happened to our anti-trust laws in America.
I’ve had in my mind a political cartoon; two panels:
The first panel is The Free Market Ideal. Dozens of carts and woodend stands selling fresh fruit, food, hand made goods, etc. There’s lots of energetic people moving about and talking and haggling with merchants over prices and comparing prices and looking at all their choices.
The second panel is The Free Market Reality. A bunch of tired people standing in line for one of two computer terminals.
The truths portrayed is that there is no bargaining with the monopolies that dominate our markets, their processes are automated. This is not a market of equals, the people are tired and manipulated. As for choice, sometimes you can choose between 2 or 3 companies, sometimes there’s only 1 option.
The things that happen in a healthy free market are not happening.
There is no healthy free market. That was always a lie spun by those who want to control the market and give the illusion of choice until they’re so ingrained that the illusion is no longer necessary.
This is fucking sick. What is going on with the tech giants this year?! Twitter, reddit, YouTube…
They’re not getting the sweet funding they used to so now they actually have to be profitable.
Yep. They are ordinary businesses now, and must seek every increasing profits via squeezing.
The innovation era of big tech is over. The internet is just another utility over which ads must be pumped.
People forget that cable was ad-free went it first started rolling out.
Yeah, and the advertising market is only so big. Showing a user hundreds of ads still only makes them buy maybe one product they don’t actually need. The profits from that one product are the maximum amount of money to pay for all those ads.
So, if Google shoves more ads down our throats, that means other companies get less money for the ads they show and so have to increase the number of shown ads, too. Even though this still likely won’t make users actually buy more products. It’s an arms race and the loser is the user just getting thousands of useless ads.
Not keen on following these awful proposals. It feels like there’s a persistent trend of making the internet shiter than it was beforehand. I get alphabet has a vetted interest in ads and user data, but if they’re going to push for this tracking approach I guess it’ll be back to fix Firefox again
Silicon Valley Hubris. These companies got too big and act as if we don’t have choices. Web is still built on open standards no matter what. These are all attempts to graft on closed patterns on open infrastructure.
It worked with the media DRM that currently exists in browsers.
Consider switching now. Your continued usage is contributing to the user numbers they see reported that gives them the confidence to pull this shit in the first place.
If they will? They will. They are.
Time to follow through on your words. I expect a reply written using Firefox.
A part of me is kind of looking forward to it. It may be the breaking point to finally reduce my internet usage and get to implementing the Digital Minimalism, because I feel so strongly against this kind of bullshit that I refuse to use any website that keeps telling me what I can and can’t do. Once I don’t have control over what sites I want to support with ads, or what sites can track me and collect data about me - I will simply stop using it.
I’ve been slowly getting used to the reduced user experience caused by privacy-focused approach. Reddit and Youtube has taught me to just look elsewhere instead of logging in when prompted, LibreFox has got me used to having to relog-in every time i switch tabs due to containers and cookie autodelete, and the subscription bullshit for every smart product has taught me to reflash and self-host devices I can, so I already have a NAS and pretty comfy infrastructure ready.
But I still get drawn to some social networks, or end up mindlessly procrastrinating by browsing the web. This will finally be something not under my control (I tried Cold Turkey - it never lasted long) that will keep me out of the internet for good. It doesn’t really add much value to my life, blog posts and youtube tutorials have been reduced to absolute basics without any value, most of them now even AI generated. If I want to learn something about a topic, it’s hard to find actually interresting content that isn’t the same basics tutorial for dummies made for people without attention span who don’t want details, but just to feel like they are doing something smart with their time.
Now that I think about, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually found something of value on the internet, the discussions here on Lemmy are one of the last few things that I find interesting to engage with. But I’m too used to it to be able to quit on my own accord, and this may just be the push I need, to finally go all-in into the Digital Minimalism.