Reminder to switch browsers if you haven’t already!
- Google Chrome is starting to phase out older, more capable ad blocking extensions in favor of the more limited Manifest V3 system.
- The Manifest V3 system has been criticized by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation for restricting the capabilities of web extensions.
- Google has made concessions to Manifest V3, but limitations on content filtering remain a source of skepticism and concern.
To my shame, I’m still deeply ingrained in the Google ecosystem. I settled on it like 8-10 years ago and I’m not sure how to dig myself out of this pit. More than Chrome, I heavily use Docs, Sheets, Drive, Wallet, YouTube, Gmail, I even have a Pixel (I hate how bloated Samsung is).
I’ve used Firefox a little for work because of the nice containers feature. Is Google Drive bad too? It’s so easy to share things, I torrent a lot of books and I’ve shared with a bunch of friends, idk if there’s an alternative that others could easily use.
Don’t fret, I think a lot of us are on a long-term journey to de-Google. I’ve actually found that changing browsers is one of the easiest things to do, especially with the ability to import your bookmarks and such. With Firefox Sync, you pretty much have the same functionality as you would with your Google account signed into Chrome.
Gmail is probably the hardest one to kick. I’m fine with paying for an email service if it’s functional and doesn’t siphon my personal data, but finding a quality trustworthy provider and then migrating 20 years of data to it seems so overwhelming.
Is that only for Chrome or all Chromium-based browsers?
First one, then the others eventually.
Just use Firefox :)
It’s not that simple.
I need very niche Chromium-based extensions for my work. They don’t yet exist on Firefox. Nor any replacements to my knowledge.
They aren’t ad-related, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.
I, too, am forced to use Chrome for parts of my work.
I just run Chrome for that set of tasks. Then quit, or tab to Firefox for regular browsing.
This is SOP when dealing with uglies like google, microsoft, amazon, adobe, or meta: do the toxic thing or software they require, as sandboxed as reasonable, then get back to daily life and more knowable risks.
Currently, I use Brave. Not Chrome.
I have all the benefits of Chromium-based without the Google’s spyware.
I don’t see myself going back and forth between 2 web browsers. I prefer choosing one that fills everything that I need, sticking with it and moving on with my life.
But since Chromium is mostly backed by Google, I don’t know the long-term implications of using Chromium based.
Yeah, but that’s just it, there is no one thing that fulfils all your needs if you are forced to use a particular tool, but it lacks privacy or freedom or other features.
I use chrome because I have to and also am curious and I need to know about how Google runs its shit. I run Firefox because of various features it has that are good for web development. I run Safari because it is fast and relatively private outside of the Apple ecosystem And has some great developer tools.
The effort of one keyboard twitch to move from one browser to the other is not really any amount of friction for me. It’s easier than switching from one tab to another inside the same browser, so I don’t get your fixation on a single tool.
And as a PS, I won’t touch Brave with a 10 foot pole anymore because of their Fuckery with crypto.
