Chrome may soon break Ad-Blockers

[GoodBytes]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

That's probably what Google is thinking too. However, a lot of average Joes just follow the advice of their more technology literate friends and family members. If those people start switching over to Firefox, for whatever reason, then a portion of the ones who don't understand the difference might switch too, and that in turn can cause a snowball effect.

Would you suggest a web browser where, say, 30-40% of website don't play nice with it? Including YouTubbe, and say Google?

When Firefox came in defeating IE, you didn't have YouTube, social media with near null existent compared to today.

 

[Princess Luna]

Hopefully this increases Firefox market share.

[LAwLz]

26 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Would you suggest a web browser where, say, 30-40% of website don't play nice with it? Including YouTubbe, and say Google?

When Firefox came in defeating IE, you didn't have YouTube, social media with near null existent compared to today.

Sites like Youtube and Google doesn't play nicely with Firefox? First time I've heard of this. I certainly haven't had any issues, and Firefox has been my primary browser for years.

The only time I've had issues was with the web version of Google Earth, but that's because Firefox doesn't support Native Client. Google is however working on a WebAssembly version which will work on all browsers. Google will remove support for Native Client in favor of WebAssembly in Chrome too (currently scheduled for the second half of 2019) so soon Google Earth will have to switch to WebAssembly if it wants to function in any browser.

 

(In before that horribly inaccurate tweet about how "Youtube is deliberately ruining Firefox performance" which the author later said he was wrong about his conclusions, but nobody posts that part).

[Drak3]

31 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Hopefully this increases Firefox market share.

Unless a bunch of publications targetting average users run this story, it probably won't change by a meaningful margin.

 

Sadly.

[Princess Luna]

14 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Sites like Youtube and Google doesn't play nicely with Firefox? First time I've heard of this. I certainly haven't had any issues, and Firefox has been my primary browser for years.

Seconded, I use Firefox for over 10 years already and I can not remember it messing up with YouTube or Google at all, and I use a shit load of extensions and what not all keeps working perfectly fine.

 

Honestly feels more of a salty Chrome user statement just trying to downplay the alternative browser.

[GoodBytes]

14 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Sites like Youtube and Google doesn't play nicely with Firefox? First time I've heard of this. I certainly haven't had any issues, and Firefox has been my primary browser for years.

The only time I've had issues was with the web version of Google Earth, but that's because Firefox doesn't support Native Client. Google is however working on a WebAssembly version which will work on all browsers. Google will remove support for Native Client in favor of WebAssembly in Chrome too (currently scheduled for the second half of 2019) so soon Google Earth will have to switch to WebAssembly if it wants to function in any browser.

 

(In before that horribly inaccurate tweet about how "Youtube is deliberately ruining Firefox performance" which the author later said he was wrong about his conclusions, but nobody posts that part).

No no, I am talking about hypothetical future, where Firefox would continue to drop in market share and increase Chrome engine market. Almost or reach IE6 level, like when IE had 90% market share.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Would you suggest a web browser where, say, 30-40% of website don't play nice with it? Including YouTubbe, and say Google?

When Firefox came in defeating IE, you didn't have YouTube, social media with near null existent compared to today.

 

I have yet to see webpage that literally doesn't work in Firefox. Most of the time I break them with Ghostery or uBlock, not by default. Mind you, Youtube existed before Chrome did. Which means it ran in Firefox. And still does.

[LAwLz]

38 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

No no, I am talking about hypothetical future, where Firefox would continue to drop in market share and increase Chrome engine market. Almost or reach IE6 level, like when IE had 90% market share.

I see. Didn't know you were talking about a hypothetical future.

Well that is the future we may be heading towards, and Microsoft has only sped up the process by switching to Chromium.

Again, I would have preferred seeing them switch to Firefox as the backend instead of Chromium, and devoted resources to improving that.

 

That, combined with these news could potentially have made the browser landscape far more competitive and even (at least in terms of Chrome vs Firefox) than it is today, and most certainly more competitive than it will be in the future.

[Dylanc1500]

46 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I see. Didn't know you were talking about a hypothetical future.

Well that is the future we may be heading towards, and Microsoft has only sped up the process by switching to Chromium.

Again, I would have preferred seeing them switch to Firefox as the backend instead of Chromium, and devoted resources to improving that.

 

That, combined with these news could potentially have made the browser landscape far more competitive and even (at least in terms of Chrome vs Firefox) than it is today, and most certainly more competitive than it will be in the future.

Who knows, Microsoft may have talked to Mozilla about using Quantum. I'd be surprised if they hadn't talked behind closed doors. However, their ideals don't align quite as well as they do with Google. I know a couple of developers at Microsoft that had talked to me, said that they hoped it might go that direction as some point. Though it appears that didn't come to fruition.

 

Honestly, I'm just thinking aloud (sort of, I'm not exactly speaking to my monitor). It would be instresting to find out if it was considered at all though in the upper chain of command.

[DeScruff]

1 hour ago, Dylanc1500 said:

Who knows, Microsoft may have talked to Mozilla about using Quantum. I'd be surprised if they hadn't talked behind closed doors. However, their ideals don't align quite as well as they do with Google. I know a couple of developers at Microsoft that had talked to me, said that they hoped it might go that direction as some point. Though it appears that didn't come to fruition.

 

Honestly, I'm just thinking aloud (sort of, I'm not exactly speaking to my monitor). It would be instresting to find out if it was considered at all though in the upper chain of command.

Heh. That is one thing to consider...
Firefox has really been championing privacy a lot lately, something that Microsoft with Windows10 has not...  I wouldn't doubt there would be some heated debates about telemetry between Mozilla and Microsoft, since it could damage Mozilla's reputation if there were articles like " 'Edge: powered by Mozilla' is spying on you. "

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, Sypran said:

Heh. That is one thing to consider...
Firefox has really been championing privacy a lot lately, something that Microsoft with Windows10 has not...  I wouldn't doubt there would be some heated debates about telemetry between Mozilla and Microsoft, since it could damage Mozilla's reputation if there were articles like " 'Edge: powered by Mozilla' is spying on you. "

FF is open source so it wouldnt be their fault if MS puts nefarious code into their version....

[GoodBytes]

32 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

FF is open source so it wouldnt be their fault if MS puts nefarious code into their version....

Right, but I think what he means is that you'll have click-bait article / fear focused titles to get views. We see this more and more these days.

We saw this with Windows 10. Personally, I am annoyed with such none sense:

Title: "Nvidia pulling out of making Graphics Cards!"

Article: "Nvidia is discontinuing support of its GeForce 4 MX, a graphic card of 2002."

[jagdtigger]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

We saw this with Windows 10

Well you cannot say it was baseless... (And ms just kept on digging their grave deeper by spouting lies instead of backing down and removing to problematic parts from the OS, even now they still refusing to do it.) But in most cases you are right.

[Dylanc1500]

46 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

FF is open source so it wouldnt be their fault if MS puts nefarious code into their version....

Something to remember though, most people don't understand open source and how it works. It's very similar to public knowledge of non-profit and not for profit, most people don't understand the difference, that is if they realize they are different at all.

 

@GoodBytes bingo, public perception can make or break a company/project. When you are the the little guy in the process of trying to grow and gain market share, the last thing you want is bad public perception.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Sypran said:

Heh. That is one thing to consider...
Firefox has really been championing privacy a lot lately, something that Microsoft with Windows10 has not...  I wouldn't doubt there would be some heated debates about telemetry between Mozilla and Microsoft, since it could damage Mozilla's reputation if there were articles like " 'Edge: powered by Mozilla' is spying on you. "

Microsoft is required to rely on telemetry, because they basically fired almost entire human Q&A division. Now they pretty much entirely rely on fast ringers and telemetry. It's skippable for corporate use because that's almost a requirement, but for home, it's not. In general, nothing's wrong with telemetry as such and they do anonymize it. Sometimes something might slip through (like name in a file path), but who will really look for your name in millions of reports. Probably no one.

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

as such and they do anonymize it

Dont spread false info:

 

[SenKa]

Guess I'll just move to Firefox if that happens.

[JoostinOnline]

7 hours ago, porina said:

Have they settled down since then?

Yes, and while I still liked the old UI better, it's at least staying the same now. Also the new type of extensions they use means that there are no longer a risk of breaking compatibility with updates.

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It was objectively a waste of resources because they are now scraping all their work.

If I spent millions of dollars developing something, and then just went "you know what, no need to reinvent the wheel so let's just use a competitors product" then it would have been a waste of resources too.

 

The fact that Microsoft are scrapping it is the reason why I call it a waste of time. If you build spend resources building something, just to then throw it all away, then your time and efforts were wasted.

 

You're mixing several of my arguments and reasoning into one mess.

I made a comment about how bad Edge was, but that comment was not linked to my reasoning for why I think it was bad for Microsoft to scrap Edge and go with Chromium.

 

No it is not an opinion, and you're not reading my posts carefully enough.

What I said was that it would have been better for Microsoft to go with Firefox over Chromium as the base for their new browser. That is not an opinion, that is a fact as far as preventing a Google monopoly on browsers is concerned. This is math, not an opinion.

 

If Microsoft goes with Chromium as their base:

Google controls ~71% of the market.

Firefox controls ~10% of the market.

 

If Microsoft goes with Firefox as their base:

Google controls ~66% of the market.

Firefox controls ~15% of the market.

 

Which one seems the most balanced and least like a monopoly to you?

If we assume that the current Internet Explorer users will continue to use the standard browser, rather than install a third party one then the results will look like this in ~10 years.

 

If Microsoft goes with Chromium as their base:

Google controls ~82% of the market.

Firefox controls ~10% of the market.

 

If Microsoft goes with Firefox as their base:

Google controls ~66% of the market.

Firefox controls ~27% of the market.

 

Again, which one seems the most balanced and least like a monopoly to you?

I am not arguing opinions here. I am arguing facts and math.

 

 

Nope, that is not my argument at all. Stop with the strawmanning.

 

More choice is not always better. I would argue that having a balance where 50% of users used Chrome (or Chromium derivatives), and 50% of users used Firefox (or Firefox derivatives) would be optimal.

What you have to remember (like I mentioned earlier) is that the more browser engines there are in use, the harder the jobs of web developers becomes. The slower adoption of new standards becomes. The more it costs to develop websites.

 

More choice is not always better, but neither is a lack of choice.

Microsoft could have made the playing fields a bit more even between Firefox and Chrome, but chose a path which widens the gap even further, and gives Google an even better position for monopoly.

I get you don't like it, but that's still your opinion about how bad it was,  However as I keep saying it's still completely one less option for consumers and now you are trying to use projected market figures if MS adopted FF to support it being better. Don't accuse me of strawman arguments when you are doing exactly that.

 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I get you don't like it, but that's still your opinion about how bad it was,  However as I keep saying it's still completely one less option for consumers and now you are trying to use projected market figures if MS adopted FF to support it being better. Don't accuse me of strawman arguments when you are doing exactly that.

How many times do I have to tell you that I am NOT arguing for the quality of Edge? I am not.

I repeat, I am NOT talking about the quality of Edge or other browsers. This is not about me liking Edge or not, so please stop with the strawman arguments.

I am NOT talking about opinions. I even showed you the math for this.

 

Again, NO! I am not saying FF is better than Edge or whatever you are trying to strawman there. I do not believe market share is any indication of quality, because it isn't.

 

Can you please stop arguing against me as if I was discussing the quality of these browsers, please? And stop accusing me of strawman arguments when I am not making any.

A strawman argument is to misrepresent another person's argument, like you're doing right now, saying I am talking about the quality of the browsers, rather than the market share and monopolistic outlook on the browser market.

 

If I wanted to talk about how bad Edge was then I wouldn't be going on and on about market share, because market share is irreverent to how good something is. I would say things like how the UI was terrible (missing a lot of functions, even basic ones like detailed certificate viewing, the ability to sort organize bookmarks in any way other than alphabetically, etc). I would not be going "durr, Edge is bad because it has a small market share" because that is an idiotic and shitty argument.

 

What I said was that Edge was a waste of time. I did not mean that as "Edge was bad". I meant that as "Microsoft spent a lot of time and resources on Edge, just to scrap it all. All those resources could and should have been allocated to improving Firefox instead from the beginning. The world of browsers would have been in a better place now if that had been done". That is not an opinion. That is a fact.

[ZacoAttaco]

10 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

Hopefully this increases Firefox market share.

Firefox Quantum, or just known now as Firefox is very underrated. It's on par with Chrome if not better in some aspects. I just like certain aspects like video full screen transitions. Firefox uses a nice fade in to full screen whereas Chrome still uses this dumb, block, jagged full screen transition, little things like this is why I prefer Firefox. I use EverSync to sync bookmarks between browsers in case I feel like a change.

9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Sites like Youtube and Google doesn't play nicely with Firefox? First time I've heard of this. I certainly haven't had any issues, and Firefox has been my primary browser for years.

The only time I've had issues was with the web version of Google Earth, but that's because Firefox doesn't support Native Client. Google is however working on a WebAssembly version which will work on all browsers. Google will remove support for Native Client in favor of WebAssembly in Chrome too (currently scheduled for the second half of 2019) so soon Google Earth will have to switch to WebAssembly if it wants to function in any browser.

 

(In before that horribly inaccurate tweet about how "Youtube is deliberately ruining Firefox performance" which the author later said he was wrong about his conclusions, but nobody posts that part).

9 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

Seconded, I use Firefox for over 10 years already and I can not remember it messing up with YouTube or Google at all, and I use a shit load of extensions and what not all keeps working perfectly fine.

 

Honestly feels more of a salty Chrome user statement just trying to downplay the alternative browser.

I can agree with these comments. If Google purposefully injected bloated code into YouTube, Gmail, Calendar etc. for Firefox specifically, slowing it down, it could force to me to change. Aside from that I see no reason to go back to Chrome at this stage. Again, it's just as responsive if not more responsive than Chrome.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

How many times do I have to tell you that I am NOT arguing for the quality of Edge? I am not.

right here you did:

On 1/24/2019 at 8:18 AM, LAwLz said:

The problem was that Edge was not good. They were constantly playing catch up, and for what purpose? 

We already have a good alternative, which is firefox. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I repeat, I am NOT talking about the quality of Edge or other browsers. This is not about me liking Edge or not, so please stop with the strawman arguments.

I am NOT talking about opinions. I even showed you the math for this.

 

Again, NO! I am not saying FF is better than Edge or whatever you are trying to strawman there. I do not believe market share is any indication of quality, because it isn't.

 

Can you please stop arguing against me as if I was discussing the quality of these browsers, please? And stop accusing me of strawman arguments when I am not making any.

See above quote, you not only try to argue edge was bad but that FF is a good alternative, This not only stands in contradiction to what you are trying to claim now but it does not address what I said. I have not made any claims as to the quality of edge or FF or chrome, they are your arguments.  All I said was we no longer have edge as an option, and you are accusing me of srawman arguments while rebutting things I have not said or argued. You are absolutely making strawman arguments. And then you have the hypocrisy to accuse me of it. 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

A strawman argument is to misrepresent another person's argument, like you're doing right now, saying I am talking about the quality of the browsers, rather than the market share and monopolistic outlook on the browser market.

 

If I wanted to talk about how bad Edge was then I wouldn't be going on and on about market share, because market share is irreverent to how good something is. I would say things like how the UI was terrible (missing a lot of functions, even basic ones like detailed certificate viewing, the ability to sort organize bookmarks in any way other than alphabetically, etc). I would not be going "durr, Edge is bad because it has a small market share" because that is an idiotic and shitty argument.

 

What I said was that Edge was a waste of time. I did not mean that as "Edge was bad". I meant that as "Microsoft spent a lot of time and resources on Edge, just to scrap it all. All those resources could and should have been allocated to improving Firefox instead from the beginning. The world of browsers would have been in a better place now if that had been done". That is not an opinion. That is a fact.

What you are trying to do is argue away my comments by talking about unrelated stuff.  I know what a strawman is, Again it is all the stuff you are arguing, I have not made any comments about quality, or market share or claims about resources and so on. I have not even an raised an iota regarding it's value.  The only thing I said and will continue to say is that it is one less option for consumers. It's your opinion it is bad, a waste of resources, but that does not change what I have been saying.

 

 

 

And you keep trying to perplex the argument by claiming it is pointless, always playing catch-up, does not work properly and a waste of time and money yet claim you claim you are not commenting on how bad it is.    Saying something is pointless, always behind and a waste of resources is absolutely calling it bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

right here you did:

I ave made several arguments throughout this thread, and you are only focusing one one thing I said once. I even pointed that out here:

20 hours ago, LAwLz said:

You're mixing several of my arguments and reasoning into one mess. 

I made a comment about how bad Edge was, but that comment was not linked to my reasoning for why I think it was bad for Microsoft to scrap Edge and go with Chromium.

I have made 6 (now 7) replies to you, and only one of them did I mention that Edge was bad in it. In all other posts I have made several different arguments for other things, such as why having more options isn't necessarily better (regardless of how good the competing browsers are).

 

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

you not only try to argue edge was bad but that FF is a good alternative

That was one comment I made, and you are still ignoring all other arguments I have made. I have also explained why spending resources developing Firefox would have been better served than spending them on Edge.

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

I have not made any claims as to the quality of edge or FF or chrome, they are your arguments.

That is not really my argument either. That's like, one out of maybe 5 points/arguments I've made.

 

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

All I said was we no longer have edge as an option, and you are accusing me of srawman arguments while rebutting things I have not said or argued.

I explained why not having Edge is a good thing.

 

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

What you are trying to do is argue away my comments by talking about unrelated stuff.  I know what a strawman is, Again it is all the stuff you are arguing, I have not made any comments about quality, or market share or claims about resources and so on. I have not even an raised an iota regarding it's value.  The only thing I said and will continue to say is that it is one less option for consumers. It's your opinion it is bad, a waste of resources, but that does not change what I have been saying. 

You said that having one less option is bad, and the reason why that is untrue is because of things like market share distribution, and then you said that was only an opinion of mine.

You never brought up market share but I did because it is an argument for why you are wrong about having one less option is bad. It's not bad. Having one fewer browser on the market can be good in many aspects, which is what I have been arguing.

 

The conversation essentially went like this:

You: Not having Edge is bad because we have one fewer option.

Me: Not having Edge can actually be good. The resources can be allocated elsewhere, less time needed for web developers to test. The userbase could have been used to boost the strongest competitor to Chrome (which is Firefox) although Microsoft chose not to do that. Edge wasn't even good to begin with so nothing of value was lost really.

You: I never made a comment about market share! Stop strawmanning me! You just don't like Edge because you think it was bad!

[mr moose]

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I ave made several arguments throughout this thread, and you are only focusing one one thing I said once. I even pointed that out here:

Yes you have made several aruguments, and not one of them really makes any attempt to address what I said.  I am focusing on the one you claim you never said but actually did say. And the reason I am doing that is because you are trying to make out I am straw manning when that is simply not the case.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I have made 6 (now 7) replies to you, and only one of them did I mention that Edge was bad in it. In all other posts I have made several different arguments for other things, such as why having more options isn't necessarily better (regardless of how good the competing browsers are).

Exactly, they were for other things,  Things I did not make any claims about. I think having less options is not a good thing. you can think what ever you want, but claiming edge was poorly this and bad at that and a wasted other thing is moot to my comments and straw manning.  Why are you arguing things I did not claim?

 

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

That was one comment I made, and you are still ignoring all other arguments I have made. I have also explained why spending resources developing Firefox would have been better served than spending them on Edge.

I am ignoring your other arguments because they simply don't relate to what I said. I have no desire to discuss the pros and cons of edge.  I only ever wanted to point out that it is one less option now and people probably should consider that when they get on their merry high horse about it.

 

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

That is not really my argument either. That's like, one out of maybe 5 points/arguments I've made.

Just stop with all the other arguments then, they are moot at best and strawman at worst.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

I explained why not having Edge is a good thing.

 

No you didn't, you said you thought having less browsers with more market share would be good,  I beg to differ, we only have two choices of GPU and we are paying through the nose for it,  the less choices you have the easier it is for one of those choices to take the lead and use that position unfairly, MS did it with IE, google are doing it with android and youtube, Apple are doing it with boxed IOS, the list goes on.    More choices is nearly always better for consumers, I can;t think of many examples where it isn't.

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You said that having one less option is bad, and the reason why that is untrue is because of things like market share distribution, and then you said that was only an opinion of mine.

You never brought up market share but I did because it is an argument for why you are wrong about having one less option is bad. It's not bad. Having one fewer browser on the market can be good in many aspects, which is what I have been arguing.

It is only an opinion.  I don't care that edge was only 5% of the market,  I don't even use edge, I'm a FF user and have been for years, but I do like there always being another option if something goes wrong with FF.  I certainly am not interested in Chrome.  And now my choices are reducing. That is bad.

 

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The conversation essentially went like this:

You: Not having Edge is bad because we have one fewer option.

Me: Not having Edge can actually be good. The resources can be allocated elsewhere, less time needed for web developers to test. The userbase could have been used to boost the strongest competitor to Chrome (which is Firefox) although Microsoft chose not to do that. Edge wasn't even good to begin with so nothing of value was lost really.

You: I never made a comment about market share! Stop strawmanning me! You just don't like Edge because you think it was bad!

you mean I made the mistake of pointing out that the death of an unliked browser isn't always the best thing for consumers.  Then you hit me with 7 odd unrelated reasons why that is wrong.   Try to call me out for straw manning  and then when I illustrate that only you have made any strawman arguments you go and try to misrepresent my posts,  which is another strawman argument to defend against the others.

 

How many times do I need to say it, This is one less option for consumers.  I believe it not good for consumers to have less options.

[RejZoR]

13 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Dont spread false info:

 

You don't understand telemetry, do you? If some problem within telemetry data is repeatedly happening (like repeated errors on bootup or crashes on or after certain event), you want to know whether it's happening repeatedly on same machine or it's happening on different machines. To Microsoft, the ID tells nothing about you, but it tells them if it's same machine or not when telemetry data is aggregated. Which is kinda important thing you know. If one machine is crashing, it could be just a rare weird case. If many different ID's are crashing after certain chain of events happened that correlates with one another, these unique ID's tell them something big is happening and they probably even have alert systems in place that pop up on the screen of the controller in the QA department, requiring further investigation. You know, coz that's the point of telemetry...

 

You know, Microsoft doesn't live off of your data like Google does. They do serve some ads on free services like web Outlook, but that's because it's free. So, their main incentive from telemetry is keeping quality standards up, they don't need to mine your behavior or personal data to make profit. In fact it's of their best interest they don't do that if they want to keep the customers base. Especially in these days when privacy is highly valued thing and people are dumping shit that ain't private up to certain levels or standards.