this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Google pulls the plug on uBlock Origin, leaving over 30 million Chrome users susceptible to intrusive ads (www.windowscentral.com)
submitted 11 months ago by mesamunefire@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] mke@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

I think some people overestimate how many will migrate to Firefox in the near future over this.

  • High switching cost compared to finding another extension (e.g. uBO Lite), even if the resulting experience is worse.
  • Just as many Firefox users like Firefox, lots of Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don't want to lose that.
  • The kind of tech-aware person who'd switch over this is much more likely to have seen the news months ago and taken action already.

As fun as it is to imagine an Adpocalypse shocking the masses and pushing them to try out alternatives to big tech, it's also way too optimistic, I feel.

[–] OriginalUsername7@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The uBlock Origin chrome extension ~~has~~ had 34 million users. Chrome has 3.45 billion users.

Even if every uBlock user switched, it’s less than 1% of chrome users.

[–] mke@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah, I thought about mentioning that. But the comparison goes both ways. Less than 1% of Chrome users switching to Firefox could still mean an increase in Firefox users of over 10%, if I remember my numbers correctly. That'd be a sweet boost for most products.

[–] Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Depends on their methodology. Sure, a huge proportion of those are users who haven't heard of uBO, but we're forgetting a lot of caveats:

  1. Electron exists and lots of apps are built on top of it and identify as "Chrome". Judging by the numbers most have been weeded out, but some edge cases do visit more sites so they end up in the count.
  2. A lot of workplaces mandate the browser, which is often Chrome. This also gets counted.
  3. A not insignificant amount of Firefox users change their useragent to Chrome.

All of these skew the numbers towards Chrome. Some Chrome users use a different adblocker which lowers the uBO statistic.

[–] experbia@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I agree folks are overestimating how many will switch. but also maybe you're underestimating too - a lot of browser installations are managed by the "family tech guy". the father, mother, brother, sister, aunt or uncle who sets up everyone's new laptops on Christmas and has the suggestions when you look for a new phone. we all know the type. a lot of us are the type.

setting up granny's laptop? I'll install whatever browser lets me automatically block the most "1000th visitor!" banner ads and change the desktop icon to the old AOL icon because that's all she knows the internet as. she doesn't know of care about the browser options so it's up to me. Chrome used to be fast and simple so it was the right choice. Firefox has caught up a fair bit on UX simplicity and speed and now offers better blocking and general security, so it just stole the crown for these installations imo. I trust it more to not let her mess the computer up, so even if I'm not using it as my main personal browser, it gets use here.

[–] mke@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

For what it's worth, I hope you're right.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's also other chromium browsers with built-in ad-blocking that still work AFAIK. If all extensions and forked brower's ad-blockers stopped working, I think there would probably be a surge in firefox usage (even if there's not that much change in chromium usage).

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I use Vivaldi as my daily driver and love it. There’s built in ad blocking but it’s not as good as the extension. If the extension stops working there I’ll switch to Firefox in a heartbeat though

[–] avatar@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there any other browser that does a right-side vertical tab bar with compact tabs?

There's an extension for Firefox to do it, but it's a bit clunkier than Vivaldi's - definitely something I'd only switch to if I really had to... but every other browser I've seen only offers left-side vertical tabs at best, which is terrible if you want 3 monitors in a left-to-right layout with your browser on the left.

[–] Morphit@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

I think what you want is in Firefox nightly right now: https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2024/08/07/firefox-sidebar-and-vertical-tabs-try-them-out-in-nightly-firefox-labs-131/

That expands and compacts based on the sidebar state and can be flipped to the right side of the window in the 'customise sidebar' settings.