Google did it again.
Step 1. Uninstall Chrome why are you still running it? Stop giving Google power over the internet. Just stop. Uninstall it. Use Firefox, Brave if you must. Just ditch Chrome.
Step 2. See above. Just flipping stop. No, don’t install another browser and keep chrome. Just DITCH CHROME. TOTALLY. If you need a backup use Edge or Brave or Firefox. STOP GIVING GOOGLE POWER OVER THE INTERNET.
Unfortunately, it’s not like it would realistically change the monopoly Google has over the internet. The greatest financial backer of Mozilla is Alphabet and if Firefox starts to gain too much traction, they will simply axe Mozilla and unless they manage to get another backer fast, Alphabet will have THE monopoly over the Internet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m doing my part and using Firefox (when it doesn’t constantly crash), but Alphabet’s holding way too many strings currently for any change to happen.
My understanding is that Google pays Firefox to use Google as the default search engine, which they also pay Apple for the same, so it’s a win-win situation and unlikely Google would ever do such (especially since Chrome is already the dominant browser for user base)
To stop supporting Firefox would be begging for antitrust investigation (if not in the US then in the EU). Plus Mozilla would probably find another sponsor so all they’d be doing is draw attention to themselves. If it were a large piece of the marketshare at stake I could see it but Firefox is currently at 3-5% (depending on who you ask) so it’s not even worth the aggravation.
That’s why I included the clause “if Firefox starts to gain too much traction”. I agree that currently Firefox is no threat to Google, but if it starts to become, they will strike hard against it.
And unfortunately, antitrust investigations do little against the Titans of Big Tech, just look at what it (didn’t) do to Microsoft.
I read this article from top to bottom and didn’t find a clear explanation of why you should disable this feature.
Because it doesn’t protect your privacy (Google still tracks everything), but it gives Google an even stronger monopoly to make taking other actions to protect your privacy less viable.
The end game is still their web DRM pretending to be “security” to make it impossible for you to choose how a page is displayed to you.
It’s an underhanded way of implementing a browser supported foolproof adblock detector. Even its stated goal of “give advertisers a unified, browser backed, ‘private’ way of tracking you for advertising” isn’t especially appealing or useful when you get something better than that from adblock anyway. Turning it off will be reflected in telemetry sites gather about feature availability and hopefully low adoption numbers discourage them from taking advantage of this “feature”.
Hmm, not having read up on the tech, what’s stopping someone from making a Firefox plugin that just spoofs fake data back? It’s all done client side if I’m understanding, so everything necessary to do so must be available. Only wrinkle I could see is if they have signing and ship the cert with Chrome and regularly rotate it. It’s still not impossible in that case, just more annoying.
My understanding is vague but the sandbox environment is cryptographically integrity checked in some fashion that makes the spoofing you’re suggesting difficult or impossible.
Laughs in Firefox
After dragging my feet for years I finally moved back to Firefox a few weeks ago. Sure, there’s a few features I miss from Chrome/Edge (vertical tabs, PWA support, tab groups, etc.) but I was able to ‘fix’ many issues with extensions and a custom userchrome.css, and trust is ultimately more important to me.
I’m thankful there are still free, open, privacy respecting options out there.
You can also edit the userChrome.css file to get rid of the top tabs.
Orrrr… don’t use Google Chrome.
Agreed. I never understood why anyone goes out of their way to install Chrome.
Rant:
Why not use Edge, which comes with the OS? I’m not promoting Edge, but it’s already there. If you’re going to install another browser, why not use Firefox instead? Every time I ask someone why they’ve installed Chrome, they either don’t have an answer or say something like “it looks nice”.
That said, Firefox’ handling of tabs is still horrible. “Go Vivaldi” on this count. Sadly it’s a Chromium browser.
I go out of my way to purge Edge from Windows every time it works it’s way back in no matter what registry edits I have to make, what Windows “features” it breaks or whatever script I have to write.
Edge is like having a roommate constantly hitting on you and occasionally withholding things from you when you reject them and you’re basically over here going “They’re already living with you, why not go with them instead of hooking up with someone from outside”
Chrome is ethically questionable admittedly at best, but Edge is straight up cancer.
I started using Chrome instead of IE11, which was crap for standards, and before Edge was a thing. When Edge came along, I got really ticked off by the constant nagging to use it, which made me hate it without even trying it. I will probably carry on with Chrome for now, whist I can still turn off all the ad tracking stuff.
Idk what people have about chromium tabs. Firefox does tabs just fine.
Also, edge does not come with most os, just w*ndows
Vivaldi does this out of the box: Tab grouping, tab stacking, tab stack renaming, vertical tabs, periodic tab reloading, etc.
Firefox has some catching up to do in this regard. I need extensions to do some of this. Tab stacking, for example, simply does not exist on Firefox, which means that my tab bar eventually makes me scroll horizontally.
Not badmouthing Firefox. Just saying that it isn’t the greatest in this area. Am still using it daily. I just don’t use it for tasks that require having many tabs at my disposal.
Edit: I didn’t say that Edge comes with most OSs. But Windows is the most widespread Desktop OS, so most people will have access to Edge “out of the box”.
How does Firefox fail you at tabs? I’ve always been happy with it, I sandbox my FB and Google social stuff, Save groups for opening at once, share tabs across devices, I don’t want for anything.
Chrome and Edge have native vertical tabs. I was an Edge user before the Manifest V3 fiasco, and it’s the one feature I dearly miss. There are extensions to add this functionality to FF, but they require extensive setup, and every new FF update breaks them. Edge also had shortcuts to open a link in new tab and switch to it or stay on the current tab. It’s the little things that you don’t really notice until they’re gone.
Sadly it’s a Chromium browser.
Chromium is the open source project, it doesn’t contain any of the Google Chrome specific changes.
Google’s changes for Chrome are a problem. That’s the main topic of this discussion.
To take it further, Chromium being mainly developed and maintained by Google and a ton of browsers basing themselves on that is another problem: Chromium monoculture and why it is a concern.
Inertia. For years: IE sucked and Mozilla was painfully slow and missing features. I know it’s been quite a few years since that was a thing, but people don’t like to change, so I really think it’s still leftover behavior.
Or at least it is for me, but I’m mostly in the Apple ecosystem now, so it’s not as relevant
Amen. Only using Edge when there’s no other choice.
Usually there is, though.
Chrome, on the other hand, is never needed or required. At least I have never encountered such a scenario. Conceivably, a company admin could force it on employees, but in my experience, admins usually just stick with Edge if they run Windows and want to lock down company PCs from being tampered with.
Unfortunately, on Android, Chromium based browsers are SIGNIFICANTLY more secure than any other browser framework. I recommend Mulch and Cromite.
Again, this is ANDROID specific. Everywhere else, I use FF based browsers.
Firefox is great and works well on Android yes! I recommend Mull.
However, technically speaking, resources don’t fully recommend it due to there being no per-site process isolation yet that works well.
If that doesn’t matter to people then sure it’s great and better than using Chromium based browsers. 🙂
It’s just good to give everyone the information and reasoning why then let them decide.
Divest OS resource: https://divestos.org/pages/browsers#processIsolation
PrivacyGuides resource: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/mobile-browsers/?h=site#android
You can’t just say that FF on Android is less secure and not give any sources for that claim.
I mean, you can, but that makes your claim not have any value.
I wasn’t trying to argue about, or even educate people, on the specifics. I was just making an objective statement of fact. Anyone is free to do their own research to validate my assertion, disprove it, or just ignore it.
But, okay, I can provide a good entry point into the topic with a good write-up on Android browsers from the developer of a security focused ROM, DivestOS:
https://divestos.org/pages/browsers
*He’s also the developer of two good Android hardened browsers: Mulch (Chromium) and Mull (FF/Gecko).
Edit: I also recommend NOT using Google’s official Android Chrome browser, just forks that are based around Chromium e.g. Mulch and Cromite.
Oh man! Time to give Google a damn good show of a morbidly obese balding 40 something world of warcraft guy beating it heavily to lesbian futanari furry content staring into the camera as he gets busy!
Google wanted this to happen, so why not give those suckers the VIP First Class treatment?
Anybody else think of things that’ll make those Google folk writhe in visual and audial agony and cut the privacy invasion act?
