Every once in a while I help a family member or friend out with their machine and am stunned when I see the web without an adblocker. It honestly reminds me of the malicious early 2000s porn and “free downloads” sites… but it’s everywhere now, like cnn and eBay and shit. First thing I do is install Firefox and ublock origin, and mostly for their security.

Youtube has also been running basically porn ads on “for kids” youtube channels as well and my kindergarten aged niece and nephew have been exposed to that shit. Adblock is 100% cyber security AND for kids safety.

The FBI recommends using an ad blocker: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221

Malvertising (a portmanteau of "malicious software (malware) advertising") is the use of online advertising to spread malware.
It typically involves injecting malicious or malware-laden advertisements into legitimate online advertising networks and webpages.
Because advertising content can be inserted into high-profile and reputable websites, malvertising provides malefactors an opportunity to push their attacks to web users who might not otherwise see the ads, due to firewalls, more safety precautions, or the like.
Malvertising is "attractive to attackers because they 'can be easily spread across a large number of legitimate websites without directly compromising those websites'."

https://en.wikipedia.org/...

That's the point ofc.

Quiet parts out loud.

A better quote

If you have the funds, donate to Mozilla. They're not only the main developers of the only major competing browser engine, but also do a lot of other good work. You can hope for others, but with Firefox only having single-digit usage share it needs all the help it can get.

To be fair, there are about 20 versions of Firefox too. It’s just that most of them aren’t there to Hoover up ad revenue.

I completely agree, but don’t forget that WebKit exists too on Mac and Linux with about the same market share as Firefox (at least based on w3school’s stats). Chrome/Blink dominate but all hope is not lost and there are more options, they’re just small. I think focusing on embracing Firefox/Gecko as it has so much momentum and community already is the most productive way forward though

A good project to support would be the Ladybird.

https://github.com/...

Nah that's more of a spoiler vote. You need one large competitor to Chrime, not a bunch of small ones that can get wiped out

Google basically made it so that it takes a large company to compete with all the """web features""" that they have, so good luck with that.

Idk about on Windows & macOS, but there are a lot of other options not based on Gecko (Firefox) or Blink (Chromium). Downside is that they don't have as many features or plugin support.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/...

It's going to be very annoying to find new cracks every week

Excuse me but would you happen to have the link to the 100% real ONE LINK no-fake MegaUpload version?

remember those website that say “oh you are using an ad blocker so disable it to access our site”

I can easily imagine this not being a necessary, anymore. Just let the website using this WEI API automatically disable all browser extensions on a WEI-enabled site. Why not, after all? Why should you dictate the traffic you receive on your computer? Why should you own anything?

Well, those of us who care all say that but I for one have to access government and banking websites in several countries, if they implement this I have no choice. This abomination must be prevented in the first place.

You won't have a choice if it's a bank or your job. This is the truly insidious thing, if enough important websites start demanding the standard, you might just end up forcing yourself off of the internet with that attitude

... Until all the sites you absolutely need to use in order to *function in society *require approved devices with proper tracking.

I will as well, unless it's necessary for work/school, or to participate with the government, or not using it will isolate me from friends and family.

Google has close to absolute control of the internet, which is now an essential tool to participate in society. The amount of power they have is insane, it rivals governments.

helped with formatting:

Chrome -> Firefox

Drive -> sync or Dropbox or any number of options

Sheets and productivity tools > libre office or Apache open office

YouTube -> Invidious or even better, odysse

Google search -> duck duck go, SearXNG, StartPage, etc

Gmail -> not a ton of great options. I’d probably recommend proton mail but the FOSS email world is definitely lacking, or gets blocked or goes down, harder to self host etc.

And I agree for sure. In order I use firefox (and brave sometimes), Proton Drive, Apple Productivity suite (pages, numbers etc), and either startpage or qwant, and proton mail. I do still use use YouTube Premium, but the point is Google doesn't need to have its fingers in every aspect of my digital life.

FYI, you need two new lines (hit Enter twice) to actually get a new line in Lemmy.

Two new lines One new line.

Proton mail for sure!! Great great great! Cant stop recomending

Question, I use Google docs a lot cause I like the sync and it's convenient when I write something like a book on my computer and then can add more on my phone and it syncs. Does Apache open office do that? I would like to switch if all this chrome stuff is bad but I use all of it all the time

I really really want to move from google workspace, google photos and google drive. I used it all to backup a 16TB archive, sharing photos with family and friends and keeping my personal files in the cloud and synched across computers. I used a Synology to backup the archive from the computer locally to the Synology and offsite to google drive. But here's the thing, I'm a somewhat PC and Mac-savvy technical guy, but purely GUI. Is moving to Nextcloud on my synology going to be as easy as moving to google drive? I'm a little scared TBH. There are so many ways of installing next cloud and doing 3-2-1 backups and I don't have time to handle a little error on a Synology destroying my whole workflow for days.. Someone give me hope.

I like brave search because it uses its own index

Because it is legal in the US to bribe politicians and this company has a lot of money

Because the majority of legislatures think Chrome is the Internet

Well anti-trust would get in the way of profits, you see

I really want to push the What's Cool! button

Holy cow im getting nostalgia and I wasn't even alive when Netscape was a thing, I think...

Yeah, sure, it's always the same story:

1. Chrome adds a shitty anti-user "feature"
2. Firefox users say "no come to firefox we don't have that!"
3. 3 months pass
4. Firefox adds the same "feature" because it's the standard now!!

I'm a Firefox user myself but I really hope something new comes along that actually cares about its users

This is exactly why everyone should donate to Mozilla so they can stop being reliant on the Google search deal in Firefox.

They ditched the "don't be evil" years ago. Now it's "As many ads as possible".

I hear that they can cover up to 80% of a user's visual field without inducing seizures.

They stopped using that saying years ago

They officially removed that back in 2018.

Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain

Do they actually, or is that just all they have to visit anymore? Would users not be happier visiting a bunch of cheap geocities pages with blink tags instead of tracking cookies?

Half the internet now seems to be bots creating content purely for the enjoyment of other bots. Typing any kind of difficult question into a search engine will now have you dodging a minefield of AI generated articles, none of which contain any useful information other than what they've scraped from other AI generated pages.

Nobody considers the plight of the humble sprawling multinational corporation and their army of lobbyists.

Wait, is this google basically admitting they've been scamming advertisers by taking their money to show ads to bots?

What do you mean? Gcloud is definitely not "easy" when compared to others like AWS. Also I think it's common sense to avoid google products because they tend to abandon ship in a few years.

You can't legally donate to Firefox, as it is developed by a Corp (Mozilla Corp.). Donations go to Mozilla Foundation, which does... other things with you money. In other words, your money don't go towards FF development.

Except websites can just drop support for incompatible browsers.

FireFox already supports DRM. Sites like Hulu/Netflix already refuse to work without it

Same. I feel like this will just push me offline. I refuse to relinquish control over my system.

Unfortunately, you don’t have much of a choice. If a lot of websites start using this implementation, Firefox will have no choice but to implement this, otherwise a lot of websites will be broken.

Yeah looks like I'm going to have to start moving off as best as I can as well.

Don't think I can do it completely but I'll try my best.

This would include YouTube, mail, drive, maps, search which I use daily. And it will be baked into android, and possibly Mac os so it supports the latest standard.

My guess is that sooner or later google chrome will show scary warnings "this site does not support dem, here is a link why this is bad!!!" In the browsers address bar to get users and webmaster to adopt the DRM.

The thing is mv3 is not needed nor wanted by anyone, they are actively shoving an unnecessary product down our throats to show us more ads.

I will keep on using Firefox and Librewolf until the web goes back to webpages that load in text only browsers in less than 2 secs

not OC: this comment written by CatZoomies@lemmy.world

It’s a [16 minute] video with many points and better if you watch it. However, here’s a break down of key points, made to be as simple as possible - there’s a lot more technical stuff, but I’ll try to keep it concise and less technical.

This is probably about a 10 minute read if these concepts are not familiar to you:

• Google owns Chrome (not Chromium), and they dominate the market ever since they won the internet browser wars.
• As an amoral corporation (not evil, simply lacking morals), their business runs on advertisements.
• They’re revealing a new feature called Manifest v3 which is a locked down version of the browser that’s built around what they feel is security and trust.
• Under their proposal for Manivest v3, your browser will have to be “verified” in an attempt to keep you “safe”. Are you a human or a bot? They’re making a more trusted internet with trusted software.
• Companies like Netflix, news web sites, etc. will eat this up and implement the proper protocols to use Manifest v3. To visit your bank’s web site which has this protocol, you’ll need to use Chrome’s browser.
• Using Chrome’s browser, you’ll need to authenticate yourself and become a “trusted” user. With this enabled, you can then visit your bank’s web site.
• If you use an alternative browser that isn’t approved, you won’t be able to use that web site.
• Eventually other corporations will implement these protocols, too, and you’ll be locked out from participating in the internet.
• Google, an ad company, gets to control advertisements better, gets to learn more about their users, and now gets to mark them as “trusted”. In other words, you get the North Korean version of the internet, “Mommy and Daddy’s Safe and Approved Internet”. Meanwhile, North Korea and Mom/Dad get to spy on you, see what you’re up to, monitor you, control you, and shape you. The benefit is they also make money off you by selling the information they learn about you.

Why is this bad:

• It’s censorship. It’s like your mom and dad grabbing your phone, computer, enabling severe parental controls, giving it back to you, and they get to see and approve what you’re allowed to do and say at any time. Apply that same protocol to your money, too. Want to send money through the internet using PayPal? Even more censorship. Want to watch Netflix? Your parents lock it down so only certain things can be watched, at certain times, and certainly under their permission.
• It buries competition and makes Google even more of a monopoly. We already know Google Search is bad (advertisements, phishing web sites, auto-generated content web sites are always the first results in Google.
• Digital Rights Management. Just a bit north of 20 years ago, when you purchased a digital product, you could own it. Streaming didn’t exist. In an age where “buying” no longer means “owning”, this new protocol will further enforce DRM. Pay for Netflix and want to watch it? You’ll have to be a Trusted User that uses Chrome. Bought a new video game you’re excited to play on Steam? You’ll need to be a Trusted User. Don’t want to stream music through Spotify and instead use something like Bandcamp? To make a purchase at Bandcamp, you’ll need to be a Trusted User. Don’t want to buy something through Bandcamp and instead just download what you already paid for? You guessed right - you’ll need to be a trusted user to even login and reach your downloads. Don’t forget your downloads are hosted on servers that are run by Google and Amazon - you’ll have to be a trusted user in order to download from that server.

Can I use Firefox and stop using any Chromium browser

• Most browsers are Chromium: Chrome, Brave, Ungoogled Chromium to name a few. They will all eventually implement Manifest v3, and if they don’t, they will disappear.
• Firefox is not Chromium, but think about how many users use Firefox now. Google Chrome has the overwhelming market share and has captured users into their platform.
• Because the majority of users use Chrome, corporations have to evolve to adopt Manifest v3: banking web sites, governments, job applications, benefits, healthcare, personal emergency, etc. All of these will be forced to adopt it because that’s where the users are, and Google will force corporations to participate. After all, banking web sites will face less downtime through Manifest v3, because bots won’t be able to spam them and try to get in. Netflix will have to spend less money on security, because only trusted users will be able to even reach Netflix. Your “free” email service through Gmail now stops all spam because it only accepts incoming messages from trusted users. Of course everyone will adopt it - Google is safe, secure, and trusted. And best of all it’s “free”!
• If you use Firefox now and continue to use it, you’ll be safe for several years. For now.

What can we do?

• Right now, you can opt out of using Chrome by using Firefox and other decentralized tools.
• In the not too distant future, there’s not much that you can do. Educating users to switch from Chrome, use Linux, use stock Android (e.g., Graphene OS), will not help.
• Eventually, the users that use Firefox, Linux, stock de-googled Android will get locked out. An average user isn’t going to invest their time to learn these platforms. They’ll stick with what works: “I can login to Chrome and watch my Netflix and pay my bills. You’re telling me that this Linux thing doesn’t let me do that? Screw that, I’ll use Chrome OS - at least my shit works! What’s wrong with these Linux developers, they can’t get anything right! They should take a lesson from Google and fix their shit.”
• Write your politicians and hope that some governments will help restrict this rollout. Keep in mind though that some version of this will get passed and approved. Also don’t forget that corrupt regulators and politicians are captured and owned by corporations. This will get passed, there’s no doubt about it.

What will happen 20 years from now?

• Humans have tenacity. You can only frustrate humans so much before they break. Take away too many of their freedoms, impose many restrictions, and eventually they will break.
• The trick for all of time, seen throughout history by all our overlords, kings, emperors, etc. is to find a careful balance. Take away “just enough” freedoms. Give them “just enough”. Work them until they’re tired, but don’t let them break. And of course, give them a few handouts here and there, but not enough to make their lives easy.
• Manifest v3 (or its derivative) will be implemented. There’s no doubt about that at all.
• The 99% of the population will continue to use these services because they want to be able to participate: They have to pay bills, access money, access healthcare, use government systems, do education, have entertainment, etc.
• The 99% will continue to use this because they won’t care. So long as they can be happy enough, they will persist.
• Eventually, an infinitesimally small minority will be affected by something. Something will break and cause them to snap, and they will do the only thing that an individual human can do: opt out.
• That small minority will leave, opt out, and refuse to participate in the system. Those clusters will grow at an extremely small rate because they’re able to recognize the whole picture and see that personal freedoms are so restricted. They’ll remember their history and learn from it.
• Enter decentralization - the removal of power from centralized powers.
• Those who recognize decentralization will build new platforms, and others will eventually follow. This is why the Fediverse and Bitcoin exist. They recognize the problem of centralization and are full of users who decided to opt out. The Fediverse adoption exploded with the 2023 Reddit API problem, and the constant Twitter issues under Elon Musk. Bitcoin happened in 2009 out of anger from the 2008 global financial crisis when “Satoshi Nakomoto” decided to build a new economy of money that had “rules, but without rulers”.

What happens 20+ years from now?

• In 30 years when more of the population realizes their freedoms are under attack, they’ll consult the ones who left 10 years previously.
• In 40 years, you might have choice. There may be a “new Firefox” that pops up after the old Firefox was wiped out 10 years ago, and let’s you use the internet, your IP, and your content in a different way.
• The trick is to train yourself to see the big picture. You’ll never defeat your overlords - they’re behind tall walls and they control the money. However, you can opt out. You can refuse to participate. But by doing so, remember that you will be locked out. That’s not an easy choice to make.
• But those users that do opt out, they will be the ones that were pushed too far. This is why refugees leave their homes - they just want to be safe, they want to be alright, they want their freedom from their opressors.
• We will have “Google Internet” (Manifest v3) refugees one day

not OC: excellent original comment here from https://programming.dev/comment/1256612 based on https://programming.dev/post/865990

more by CatZoomies@lemmy.world here and here

Louis Rossman video alt sites https://onion.tube/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U https://inv.zzls.xyz/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U https://invidious.io.lol/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U https://inv.citw.lgbt/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U

Firefox won't even implement something as mundane as WebSerial because Mozilla has deemed it "harmful", I really can't see them going along with this.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

Vivaldi is pretty great about scraping all this crap out of their chromium based browser.

Or this:

https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

Hot take: the internet was better when it was simpler like that.

Fast loading, accessible, secure, adjusts to any screen size. This might be the perfect site.

nice 👌

And what phone are you using ? What apps do you use

Google is pretty integrated into life.

Yes fuck them but don't lie.

I'm the exact same. Firefox has been great. Switched about three years ago.

Yes that's correct. Same with the apple keyboard, which is why the keyboard and browsers on IOS are such shit

Safari will be among the first to follow this.

I'd have to stop using it. I'd even go to another service like Nebula, at that point, and pay for it.

But I am not going to start running Chrome on my home computer as a daily driver.

If they go after NewPipe and SmartTube I'm going to shill hard the alternatives.

Better archive videos now. Save your favourites and some more.

What webmail can you use for alternative?

You would need an extension that could implement the drm, which would be no small feat and I’m not even sure how poss that would be with the extensions API. Not saying it won’t happen but i wouldn’t hold my breath.

First they established a new standard for extensions that makes it harder for adblockers to work in chrome, that's manifest v3.

And now they want establish cryptographic verification of the environment so that you can't have a custom environment in your browser, like having adblockers. Similar to how DRM works.

As long as average Joe uses chrome, we're doomed.

DRM is the thing in games, movies etc. that ensures only legitimate users can use the content. Now Google wants to do the same for webpages. It means that only approved browsers will have access and no extensions can interract with the page. So you won't be able to view some pages from unapproved browsers, forcing you to switch to Chrome if you really want to see it. And no adblocker can interract with the page and block the ads there.

That's the point, DRM would force everyone to use a "compliant" browser (Chrome, or extension-free Firefox etc), and the other browsers might not be able to show content; they may also lock the content from copying and editing without special tools, just like website video DRM works now

But we already see "sorry you're running adblocker so no content for you" websites, so I'm not sure if that's gonna change much

TIP: winget install mozilla.firefox so you don't need to use Edge either.

The only time I ever used edge xD

Why can't you?

not quite , this is way more serious than refusing to give extensions access to websites content. ( for those who don't know that's what manifest-v3 essentially do )

It was always more of a marketing statement than a security one. And then it was copied over and over because most sites don't write original articles, they just remix other articles. Firefox is as safe as any software - there will be bugs and security issues but so will in Chrome and I wouldn't say the rate of new bugs and security issues will be much different between the two projects.

yeah i used "kinda" to avoid the infamous :

well AcutUaLly.....

I've seen a lot of hate directed towards Brave and I don't understand it either. It's my primary browser and it's fine once you hide the crypto stuff, the recent news about it seems to either be positive things about the browser itself or something about their search engine providing API access that's being abused somehow.

No. What you’re describing is completely normal when using something like pihole.

Also, here’s a solution: Just don’t use Chrome or any Chromium-based browsers.

Provided your bank has not stopped supporting your "non-secure" browser. The previous browser vendor that had a functional monopoly did abuse user-agent to harass the competition. Using non IE required changing your user-agent to IE/Windows for a lot of sites.

Or as they say:

Websites will ultimately decide if they trust the verdict returned from the attester.

It is expected that the attesters will typically come from the operating system (platform)

There is... ...the risk of websites using this functionality to exclude specific attesters or non-attestable browsers

(it ensures two things: your useragent can be trusted and you’re a real non-automated user),

Nothing in the current proposals does either of those two things. In particular the second.

chromium is just striped down chrome ,yeah its open source but google is the main contributor meaning the final decisions are up to them to accept or refuse ( or even force)

By making DRM-abiding browsers a requirement?

How does it impact Chromium?

Chromium is the open source part of Chrome. I've actually run Chromium before, but it's kind of hard to find a binary release. Chromium lacks some Google additions like an mpeg player and PDF reader. It's also free of some annoying add-on stuff like that app tracker that runs a background process full time. Who knows what that process does really. Of course I have it disabled on my system, but you have to go out of your way to kill it.

Otherwise Google has the Chromium project under their thumb so they're not going to do anything Google does not approve of or refuse to do anything Google wants them to.

Speaking of Google influence, it bothers me that Google is a big contributor to Mozilla. I think it's mainly to stay out of hot water with the FTC. They know all too well what happened to Microsoft and Internet Explorer in 2001. They need to keep the competition alive. Still it makes me cringe knowing they could exercise their will on them as a big contributor. I mean everyone has a price, and in Silicon Valley it's not very high.

You could also just install Firefox on your Android. That may not work in the future, but it will continue to work for now

Who do you think the first / main Attesters are going to be with this proposals? Well, companies that have the mediums to do so and the captive audiences to precheck. Such as GAFAM of which Apple is part and founder of.

No because then you're stuck using Apple's ecosystem.

Because that version of ublock is already less effective. The long play is ending ad blockers and this is another step to achieve those ends. If you can't see that then I'm sorry but it can't be much more obvious than it already is.

uBlock Origin is already less effective when running in Chrome than in Firefox. For example, it can't detect CNAME cloaking on Chrome, while it can do that in Firefox. When Chrome finally enforce manifest V3, uBlock Origin will be even more neutered in chrome due to limited number of blocking rules.

I think the point is if website operators start supporting this you might not have a choice but to use Chrome, if you want to browse any reasonably popular web site.

opera is basically chrome under the hood

use Firefox or its forks like librewolf, mullvad

Hate to tell you this here but Opera is also chrome based........

To be helpful here is a list of all the browsers (according to Wikipedia anyway) that are actually just three chromes in a trench coat.

Arc
Amazon Silk
Avast Secure Browser developed by Avast
Blisk 
Brave 
Carbonyl
CodeWeavers 
Comodo Dragon 
Cốc Cốc 
Epic Browser
Falkon
Microsoft Edge 
Naver Whale
Opera 
Qihoo 360 Secure Browser
qutebrowser 
Samsung Internet
Sleipnir 
Slimjet:
SRWare Iron
ungoogled-chromium 
Vivaldi
Yandex Browser 

Why wait? Switch to Firefox now

So here's the thing. This web integrity nonsense isn't about locking people into Chrome, it's about locking people into seeing what they'd see if they were using Chrome. The result might be more people using chrome if a website decides to DRM their content and their ads, but if you switch from one Chromium-based browser that forces you to see the ads like Chrome does to another Chromium-based browser that forces you to see the content that the website originator wants you to, like Opera, that's still a win for Google who are more interested in forcing you to see ads for this cause than for you to use Chrome.

The solution is voice objections to Google implementing this, to not use websites that implement DRM, and to not use web browsers that let Google dictate what the future of the web through their control of the Chromium engine

Firefox. I’ve heard Opera has gone to shit lately

i would happily explained why that is not the case here but i'm very tired so maybe tomorrow so i suggest reading that article if you are interested