We’ve been anticipating it for years, and it’s finally happening. Google is finally killing uBlock Origin – with a note on their web store stating that the extension will soon no longer be available because it “doesn’t follow the best practices for Chrome extensions”.
Now that it is finally happening, many seem to be oddly resigned to the idea that Google is taking away the best and most powerful ad content blocker available on any web browser today, with one article recommending people set up a DNS based content blocker on their network 😒 – instead of more obvious solutions.
I may not have blogged about this but I recently read an article from 1999 about why Gopher lost out to the Web, where Christopher Lee discusses the importance of the then-novel term “mind share” and how it played an important part in dictating why the web won out. In my last post, I touched on the importance of good information to democracies – the same applies to markets (including the browser market) – and it seems to me that we aren’t getting good information about this topic.
This post is me trying to give you that information, to help increase the mind share of an actual alternative. Enjoy!
champagne problems.
Core web app compatibility vs … “enhanced” ad blocking. MS teams and some other business tools also don’t support Firefox but work fine in Chrome and Safari.
It is something the Firefox team needs to work on again. I used Firefox from when it was released until Chrome came out and mopped the floor with it. At the time Firefox became the bloated beast and went through a reset.
Unfortunately trying to have a firm stance on not implementing HVEC when they no longer had the largest market share was a bad move and they seem to be slowly back tracking on that.
MS Teams not working as well in Firefox is a “we want you using Edge or Chrome” Microsoft issue, not a Firefox issue.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of enterprise-sector MS websites that have went from works fine on Firefox to completely broken on anything but Chrome and Edge very quickly after Edge became Chrome with a lick of paint.
I work in IT I am well aware.
So it’s not something Firefox needs to work on, it’s something Microsoft should be punished for. The bulk of these sites for fine if you spoof your useragent to look like edge or chrome, proving it’s nothing to do with browser capability.
They’re using their market position to sabotage a competitor.