Manifest V3 is making the work of ad blocking extension developers (and filter list maintainers) very miserable. This is not a big factor if we talk about availability of ad blocking extensions, because some of the most popular extensions like Adblock Plus or AdGuard are commercial ventures and the companies developing them have an interest in ensuring their business continuity. uBlock not a commercial project, but the main developer is not throwing the towel either.
Technically, Manifest V3 adblockers will be less effective than current ones, but if I had to take a guess, most users will not notice a significant difference. uBlock Origin is already worse in Chrome than Firefox and no one notices: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox · gorhill/uBlock Wiki · GitHub
I am currently a Chrome user in the desktop, and will likely migrate to other browser sooner than later, but the sad situation is that at this point Firefox is almost irrelevant as a Chrome competitor, and worse even, it is financially very dependent on Google. The only other real alternative to Chromium is Safari, which is not available for Windows. Rest of the options worth mentioning are based in Chromium and use the same engine behind the scenes with relatively small modifications.
I used to use Firefox a lot in years past. Although I’ve used Chrome since it was launched pretty much.
Firefox used to be great, but I found it went through a poor patch with too many updates that would break plug-ins and extensions. So something would work today, wouldn’t then work tomorrow.
They also started hiding some of the features too. So I stopped using it apart from when I might need a 3rd browser for something.
I also never got on with how Firefox shared bookmarks and history across devices. It never seemed to truly work.
With Chrome I have it on my iPhone, my Android phone, my work Macbook, my personal Mac Studio, an old Windows machine, a Linux laptop and a Cloudready (Chrome OS) laptop. The synching just works with no effort on the part of the user.
I also use Google docs a lot and Google Drive. It all integrates really well.
If I’m not on Chrome, I’ll use Safari, but I do prefer the Chrome layout over Safari.
As for ‘tracking’ & spyware’.
I certainly won’t defend it, but I can’t say my life has ever had any negative impact due to this. At least not to my knowledge. No idea what they track as I’ve never looked it up (I could take an educated guess). I do wonder if people make more of an issue over than it really is though.
Chrome is an absolute nogo. 2nd worse is Edge = Chrome with Microsoft instead of Google behind. The best in privacy is Firefox, second place goes to DuckDuckGo, although their browser is a little basic. Real world alternatives to Chrome are the Chromium-based browsers Brave and Iron. Both are in essence “Pure Chrome, but without Google”.
[edit] Brave has more advanced tracking and adware blocking, Iron is more pure Chrome, but can install every Chrome-extension, for example, uBlock Origin.
i use both chrome and ffox daily, but i've been using chrome for primary, general purpose browsing for years now.
i've known about this change to Manifest for a while and have therefore been planning to switch back to firefox, but i haven't done it yet. mostly due to laziness and inertia. i use some custom scripts/extension i made to manage browsing profiles to solve certain privacy issues my own way. for that reason, i've been hoping that google would relent due to pushback, but that doesn't seem to be happening, so i guess i'll eventually have to move back to firefox.
with that said, i'm trying to replicate or improve upon my chrome solution in ffox. this looks pretty promising:
Anyone try pi hole? I’ve been meaning to give it a try. It’s supposed to block ads for any devices connected to your network. Forget browser extensions, I want ads blocked on our computers, TV, tablets, phones, smart speakers, etc. Not just some browser extension.
Google (and Facebook, etc.) are gonna do what they’re gonna do to support their business model (selling optimized advertising based on user data mining).
Chrome actually brought some tangible benefits when it first appeared, being lightweight, and fast. Can’t argue with that, especially when it forced others to up their game as well.
However, it would not be fair to fail to point out that users, the vast majority of whom are not discriminating, or proactive in considering something other than the default browser on whatever device they’re using, have also contributed to making the situation as it stands, with Chrome as the dominant browser, and commensurate power to Google to influence web standards, both explicit and implicit, as a result of that market share.
Or, to the lazy web developers who won’t build or test against anything other than Chrome, and are contributing to a redux of the ugly old IE hegemony, where the “best experience,” or at least less of a chance of outright failure, is reserved for users of that particular browser. Or the lovely mishmash of multimedia standards, and plugins before HTML5.
SOS, DD for the same pitfalls, and most are oblivious to it.
I hate Chrome and Brave isn't much better even though it's my default browser. I'm sick of the unresponsive radio buttons on many sites that work fine with Firefox, but the biggest thing with Brave is that it's easy to make a site a desktop shortcut while with Firefox it's a major pain in the ass.
