Shit like this is exactly why competition is of utmost importance. The internet was never meant to be single-handedly controlled by a corporation with private interests, and more importantly, private pockets
If we don’t see a somewhat significant rise in Firefox usage increases after this, then I fear that battle is already lost. People can complain a lot but doing something as easy as switching browsers seems to be the hardest thing for most of them.
You Grandma and her Chromebook don’t care though. The numbers aren’t in our favor, but Mozilla absolutely dominating in the features and privacy arenas is.
Even if Firefox were to win it’s still a bleak future because the ridiculously complexity and scope of browsers prevents new ones being made. Without the possibility of newcomers either the war never ends or there is one victor. We should start to abandon browsers in favor of apps that focus on each part of the browser (e.g. why does a browser need to render video to the screen when the user already has an app for that).
“Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat.”- Kahless
Fuck that. I’m not switching between apps for every god damn function my browser does. I intentionally decline to install apps when I can just use the browser.
Until apps allow to install ubo I’ll stick to a browser instead of having less control than with manifest v3 and chrome/ium
I fear that battle is already lost
I do. I’d be surprised if we see any kind of increase.
Firefox is going to slide into obscurity. They’ve been in a downward spiral for the last few years. So much money wasted on so many failed projects. They’re a shadow of their former selves. The features of firefox are improving of course but by every metric that matters they’re on life support.
I’m not asking this facetiously but: is there an easy way to migrate my bookmarks, tabs, and pinned tabs easily to Firefox? I looked maybe a year ago but didn’t find a 1 to 1 easy switch way to go to Firefox.
To be clear: my personal laptop is all Firefox, but I don’t use it all the time. My main desktop is an integration of all three (please don’t judge), but I’d like to go full Firefox if it was convenient.
Every browser has import / export functions. This is a standard feature for many many years.
I’m not saying this facetiously but I just don’t understand what could possibly be so important that you need a “1 to 1 easy switch way”.
Import your bookmarks. Pin some tabs.
Calling it the “Googlenet” now. The rest of us that don’t suck Google dick can stay on the actual Internet.
Manifest V2 phase out is a big deal, as Google is pushing towards Manifest 3 only. Google’s version of Manifest 3 is hobbled by removing WebRequest blocking which breaks privacy and ad blocking tools - an obvious benefit to Google as an Ad and data harvesting company.
Firefox is implementing Manifest 3 with WebRequest blocking, as well as supporting Google’s hobbled version declarativeNetRequest to allow compatibility with chrome extensions.
As far as I know there is no plan to phase out Manifest V2 at Mozilla. As long as V2 and V3 are active in parallel it shouldn’t have a negative Impact on adblockers etc.
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/05/14/manifest-v3-updates/
We also wanted to take this opportunity to address a couple common questions we’ve been seeing in the community, specifically around the webRequest API and MV2:
- The webRequest API is not on a deprecation path in Firefox
- Mozilla has no current plans to deprecate MV2 as mentioned in our previous MV3 update
That said, I believe Firefox users have gotten a lot of benefits by having extensions made that work in both Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. I don’t believe there will still be as much effort for a Firefox-only extension but I believe there will be a sufficient number of motivated users and developers to still develop blockers and other extensions that take advantage of Firefox continuing to support MV2 and webRequest.
Anyone still using Chromium or any of its derivatives (including Chrome) just needs to suck it up and admit it’s the loser here. Use a Firefox derivative, it’s just all around better in every single way.
I had to call someone using Microsoft Teams today. It does not work with Firefox, even if you spoof the user agent.
I don’t know what’s up with your setup, but this is untrue. I’ve used Firefox for teams in browser for years with no issues.
I can try again with a friend on Momday. Is there a specific user agent extension or a about:config option you used?
I have Edge for two things: Teams and Outlook.
The desktop software for both is so bad, I can’t even use them half of the time.
Outlook actually works in FF, but that way I can put it on my second screen and use Firefox on my main one so I don’t need to switch tabs when emails come in.
I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at?
Microsoft has been playing this game since forever.
He’s getting at Firefox being unusable for one of his usecases. Though i guess you could argue that he could just use something like brave specifically for that use case while using Firefox for other stuff
I’m using both Firefox as my daily browser, and Edge for school related stuff, Firefox is very often maxing out my CPU usage and I can’t figure out why
Yeah, I find firefox tends to leak memory when you have youtube tabs open. Still using only firefox unless testing for compatibility but it is a thing.
- On June 3rd, Chrome(ium) users will start being informed that their MV2 extensions will soon stop to function. uBlock Origin (and others) will lose the “Featured” badge.
- The remaining MV2 extensions will be gradually disabled in the “coming months”, with the last deadline being the beginning of next year. (Expect that uBO will probably not last that long).
What options do you have if you still want to use uBlock Origin?
- Firefox (and up to date forks) have no plans to end support for the webrequest API that uBO requires.
- Brave browser will allow MV2 extensions for now. I still have no info on if they are going to use their own store or require manual installation/updating of MV2 extensions.
- If you use Chrome. By enabling enterprise policy ExtensionManifestV2Availability, you should be able to extend support till June 2025.
- uBlock Origin Lite (uBOL) is a MV3 extension that is much more limited than uBO and is not intended to be a replacement for uBO. These limitations are described in detail in the FAQ for uBOL: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions-(FAQ)
for those who come and read through these comments, on top of considering not using a chromium-based browser, you could also:
- configure your own DNS resolver e.g. NextDNS
- go further and use a fork of firefox e.g. librewolf
Unfortunately DNS blocking is not nearly as powerful as an adblock extension which can manipulate the DOM and CSS directly.
this is true. however it can filter calls to ad services and block them at the dns level before they’re loaded in the browser
many people here parrot the same things relentlessly. there is no issue with choosing firefox as your primary driver. every user here can decide on what they want for themselves.
i am offering other options as the suggestions in this thread (and threads like these) are homogenous.
Firefox has telemetry settings built-in which you can switch off. LibreWolf strips the telemetry options away and focuses on obfuscating your browser fingerprint.
We’ve always been clear that the goal of Manifest V3 is to protect existing functionality while improving the security, privacy, performance and trustworthiness of the extension ecosystem as a whole. We appreciate the collaboration and feedback from the community that has allowed us - and continues to allow us - to constantly improve the extensions platform.
“We’ve always been clear that the goal of our remote-unlockable front door product is to protect your family while improving the efficiency and safety of our field reconnaissance and repo unit. We appreciate your feedback that you really hate unannounced in-home data gathering incursions, and we are integrating that feedback going forward as we work to improve your interactions with our team. See you soon!”
