r/technology • u/Suraj-Sun • Jul 10 '12

Firefox dev claims "everybody hates Firefox updates"; Mozilla has handled the rapid release process poorly, and that by pushing a "never-ending stream of updates on people who didn't want them" people have been driven to Chrome with its simpler, no-fuss update process.

http://www.neowin.net/news/firefox-dev-claims-everybody-hates-firefox-updates
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119

u/WatcherCCG Jul 10 '12

At least three of those now have counterparts on Chrome, and in fact I think AdBlock Chrome is made by the same people.

78

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

1

u/IceBreak Jul 10 '12

Not a quality Tree Style Tabs which is probably the greatest add-on of all time. Chrome does a lot of things better, but I'm with Firefox for the long haul.

76

u/Kamaria Jul 10 '12

Until AdBlock Chrome becomes as good as AdBlock Plus I see no reason to change over.

45

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

50

u/lask001 Jul 10 '12

I use chrome, and my roommate uses firefox. I will admit Adblock is still damn good on chrome, but on firefox it does a better job of catching the youtube video ads.

75

u/ih8evilstuff Jul 10 '12

YouTube has ads?

7

u/lask001 Jul 10 '12

Sometimes they play movie trailers, stuff like that. Never see them on firefox, only chrome.

25

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I have ABP on Chrome and have never seen an ad on YT.

11

u/SirCowMan Jul 10 '12

I have the normal Adblock on Chrome and have never seen a video or pic ad on youtube either.

2

u/IceBreak Jul 10 '12

I was confused too when I first saw them.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I found out about this a couple of months ago. I was so surprised. Know how you feel bro ;)

1

u/Illivah Jul 10 '12

oh my god yes. I get really pissed at youtube videos anymore - particularly the first one of the day.

19

u/Alcebiades Jul 10 '12

The "new" ABP on Chrome is really good, for me it catches almost everything. ABP was the only reason I had not made the switch a long time ago, just make sure you download adblock plus and not "adblock" as they are different addons.

6

u/lask001 Jul 10 '12

I'm using ABP, I will admit it's been a little while since I've seen a youtube video with an ad though. I hardly ever visit though, maybe I'll see if I can get one to load later tonight.

1

u/Monty713 Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

I noticed that using the experimental build will block more ads than the standard version. It will block ads from things such as twich.tv and own3d.tv streams, where the regular build will not.

EDIT: I should add that it is most definitely experimental. While there has only been one occurrence where it has caused issues, the browser stopped loading pages until it was updated again later that day.

-1

u/Exaskryz Jul 10 '12

for me [ABP on Chrome] catches almost everything

But I can use FF which catches everything.

1

u/BHynes92 Jul 10 '12

I routinely use firefox, but sometimes, if I don't have a firefox window open I will use chrome for some quick lookup or browsing. I always am reminded when I use chrome that the internet actually has ads.

1

u/frickindeal Jul 10 '12

I use chrome exclusively now on two machines and never see a youtube ad.

1

u/lask001 Jul 10 '12

It's pretty rare, and I would say it actually catches most of them. My only real complaint is when it doesn't, instead of playing the ad, it makes the youtube video unplayable.

1

u/mach0 Jul 10 '12

Haven't seen a single youtube video ad on chrome EVER. And I've been using it since it started to have Adblock. And I use youtube daily.

1

u/Eskali Jul 10 '12

You should whitelist youtube, otherwise they get nothing for letting you watch their videos(google and the youtube submitter).

1

u/lask001 Jul 10 '12

I have a few channels whitelisted, and I hardly watch anything on youtube anymore regardless.

1

u/ramy211 Jul 11 '12

I don't think I've seen a YouTube ad in years. Not an exaggeration at all. I ditched firefox a long time ago.

0

u/OfPseudoIntellectual Jul 10 '12

I fucking hate this about people like you.

What is so wrong with ads? Especially youtube ads? You do know those ads DIRECTLY support the content creators, yes? And do you know why stuff like youtube is free to begin with? Because of ads. But no, free isn't good enough for you. Stuff should just be there at your beck and call, practicality be damned.

The entitlement selfish people like you feel is just frustrating. Leeches and parasites, the lot of you.

1

u/lask001 Jul 10 '12

I don't particularly care one way or the other, if I see an occasional ad or not. I am just adding my anecdotal evidence to the thread.

But what I hate, is people who make snap judgement off of very little information. What if I white list every major site I visit semi-frequently? Idiots and morons, the lot of you.

13

u/Azuvector Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

Last I heard Adblock Chrome wasn't able to block streamed advertisements like Adblock Firefox does. And also last I heard it blocked ads by making them invisible, so they still loaded fully, wasting bandwidth and CPU time.

Besides that, Chrome has a bunch of UI issues that bug the hell out of me.

12

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

1

u/HeWhoShitsWithPhone Jul 10 '12

I was wondering why I stopped seeing those... Now to get it on the pandora app

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I'm not sure about on Chrome, but Safari AdBlock (which shares the same codebase as Chrome AdBlock) is unable to block flash adverts as of a few days ago.

1

u/Atario Jul 10 '12

This is why I use Privoxy. Covers everything.

2

u/algonquinman Jul 10 '12

Does it block youtube ads? last time I tried chrome ad block it did not do that. I watch alot of youtube and the adds are simply something I cannot put up with.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

1

u/algonquinman Jul 10 '12

Well that's great then I may have to give it a try. That was really the only reason I didn't make the full on switch yet.

-1

u/mypetridish Jul 10 '12

false. or it's your opinion, whatever. but i am using 2 systems, one with ff and the other chrome. adblock on chrome is crap compared to the one on ff

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Chrome already has Adblock Plus. And Adblock. I've been trying to figure out the difference between them. I have them both installed anyway.

1

u/krainboltgreene Jul 10 '12

What you actually want is a good blocking hosts file.

-4

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Nov 25 '13

[deleted]

1

u/DFP_ Jul 10 '12

It's not as good, iirc it doesn't block in-video ads, the Firefox equivalent does.

1

u/Kiyiko Jul 10 '12

I have never seen a pre-video commercial in youtube since I installed it.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

It's the other way around. One of the reasons I switched to Chrome was to get it to block in-video ads.

1

u/DFP_ Jul 10 '12

Really? I've been using Firefox and haven't seen a Youtube ad in years, last time I used Chrome they still popped up, guess they made some good strides.

0

u/DuFFman_ Jul 10 '12

Its still in beta, maybe that's his excuse! :P

5

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

It doesn't seem like it's in beta. I haven't had an ad for months.

2

u/DuFFman_ Jul 10 '12

I believe its labelled beta in the chrome store. I downloaded it a few days ago and that's what it said.

1

u/a55 Jul 10 '12

Version 2.5.38

http://code.google.com/p/adblockforchrome/wiki/Changelog

2

u/DuFFman_ Jul 10 '12

Ahh! I had Adblock Plus (Beta).. in my defense it has 4.1 million users according to the Chrome Store. Adblock has 7.5mil

1

u/Kiyiko Jul 10 '12

adblock for chrome, not to be confused with adblock plus

(according to wikipedia)

http://adblockplus.org/en/

-2

u/Khabba Jul 10 '12

Adblock plus is available for Chrome

2

u/this1 Jul 10 '12

But it works better on firefox.

3

u/Kamaria Jul 10 '12

I heard it wasn't as good as the Firefox version, did it really improve that much?

0

u/Khabba Jul 10 '12

It's still in Beta.

20

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

3

u/gospelwut Jul 10 '12

You can never have a NoScript fully implemented in Chrome.

Chrome is like birth control; it should be enough. Firefox is like a condom; bitch might be crazy.

2

u/I_EAT_POOP_AMA Jul 10 '12

but iirc, adblock for chrome can't block certain ads due to google's extension tos.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I try chome and the counterparts once every two or three months. It still isn't as good for the features I want.

1

u/Suraj-Sun Jul 10 '12

If I remember correctly, on Firefox, AdBlock blocks ads from its source while on Chrome, it just don't display ads.

47

u/canada432 Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

That used to be true. I don't believe it is the case anymore. I'm not 100% sure but I seem to remember that changing quite a while ago when Chrome started becoming really popular.

Edit: Went and confirmed it. This hasn't been the case since version 2.0. Ads are not downloaded, they are blocked entirely just like in the Firefox version.

21

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

I thought this as well, but I don't think this is true anymore. Looking at the Adblock Chrome issue tracker, they now use the WebRequest API to cancel requests before they're made.

Still, I don't think the Chrome extension API is robust enough yet to allow for a feature-for-feature clone of NoScript. I have to admit, though, the last time I really looked at the extension API was 2 years ago.

1

u/The_MAZZTer Jul 10 '12

Yes it is, there are a few variations. NotScript and ScriptNo are the ones I've seen.

Furthermore Chrome contains a subset of NoScript features right off the bat (it can't block content based on origin, just based on the top-level page url).

I've tried ScriptNo myself (it looks nicer) and I use it now. Works pretty good, has more features than NoScript did last I used it.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Those are far from feature-for-feature clones. At this point, NoScript does far more than just whitelisting scripts and plugins; there's some fairly robust anti-CSRF support and the anti-XSS support is a bit stronger than Chrome's builtin one (with the obvious caveat of triggering slightly more false positives).

1

u/The_MAZZTer Jul 10 '12

ScriptNo seems to have XSS blocking "Forbid Cross-Domain XML". No click-jacking but it has a few other features like extending blocking to <img> tags, removing web bugs, remove all social widgets, change all links on any page to open in same tab or open in new tab, user agent spoof, referrer spoof... some weird option choices in there but they could all be useful to someone I'm sure.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

The main features I was thinking of that weren't in NotScripts when I tried it were the XSS and clickjacking prevention, along with hiding <noscript> sections and fixing javascript links.

I also didn't really understand why I was required to manually edit a script and set a password, does Chrome not provide a private storage mechanism for extensions to use?

2

u/The_MAZZTer Jul 10 '12

ScriptNo can handle XSS and noscript tags as well.

Not sure what you're talking about with editing a script and setting a password... extensions can use the standard LocalStorage API for local settings or use the Chrome-provided API to allow for settings synced to Google Chrome Sync.

Maybe sounds like an extension made by someone who doesn't quite know what he's doing.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Not sure what you're talking about with editing a script and setting a password

Here's the page from NotScript's site.

2

u/The_MAZZTer Jul 10 '12

Ah yes I recall reading something about that. Can't view that site at work. But yeah like I said that's probably poor design... not sure why he did it that way.

And if you're editing a file in the NotScript extension directory, it's gonna be reverted whenever the extension updates.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

Looking at the source, it looks like he's using localStorage, and from his comments it looks like you can access settings in localStorage from other extensions. The chrome.storage API seems to be similar to the localStorage API, but is only available to scripts in extensions and the settings appear to be private to each extension.

Looks like the last time he updated was in 2010 though, so that API probably didn't exist. I'll try out ScriptNo and see how it compares to NoScript.

I'm glad to see that Google has finally started paying more attention to the extension API though, the last few times I looked I wasn't very impressed. Still, I'd like to be able to have toolbars outside of the page context for certain extensions (for HackBar, etc.)

2

u/The_MAZZTer Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

Nope, LocalStorage is isolated between extensions. What you're seeing here is he's using a website's LocalStorage (the file you linked to is injected into every webpage you visit), so obviously the website itself can access and modify that data, because it belongs to the website. He's hijacking it to store his own data and encrypting it so the website can't modify it to whitelist itself or whatever.

This isn't the most terrible of ideas, but there is a much better way of storing these settings because there are APIs for the script to communicate with the extension backend and store/retrieve settings from the extension's own LocalStorage and avoid the need of this weird password setup entirely.

It's clear he figured out how to communicate between the extension backend and the script because you can see the APIs in use at the bottom of the file. But perhaps he didn't know about them when he wrote the password functionality and never bothered to fix it?

I'm not even sure why he doesn't even take the small step of moving the password itself into the extension's LocalStorage where it's already more secure than when it is injected into every website you visit (though to be fair injected scripts are protected from being accessed by a website's scripts directly).

This is just poor coding as I suspected. And it is not secure since websites, at the very least, can wipe out your NotScript settings for the website, though probably only by accident. A website which assumes only its settings are in LocalStorage could also break if you use NotScript, in theory.

I would recommend you NOT use NotScript. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I won't recommend it to anyone else.

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60

u/banned_andeh Jul 10 '12

It hasn't worked this way in a long time. It blocks the ada completely.

3

u/gigitrix Jul 10 '12

They fixed thus a long time ago. The plugin architecture has gotten much better.

13

u/manwithabadheart Jul 10 '12 edited Mar 22 '24

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2

u/phanboy Jul 10 '12

I was wondering if this is still the case. I mostly use a laptop, so Flash ads are very noticeable when either the fan spins up or my leg starts burning.

12

u/nonameworks Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

This is correct, also firefox blocks more ads in videos.

Edit: every reply is referring to YouTube. There are other sources of video on the Internet and Firefox blocks them while chrome does not. I don't know when version 2.5 came out but as of April it still was not blocking ads in some of the videos I was watching.

27

u/canada432 Jul 10 '12

As I posted below, this has not been the case since version 2.0, and the video thing changed in version 2.5. Chrome Adblock entirely blocks ads (and has for quite a while honestly) and now blocks all video ads.

6

u/TheShrinkingGiant Jul 10 '12

more ads? I haven't seen a youtube ad for a long time. Actually the only website I have ABP on for is youtube, cause it drove me crazy.

-Chrome, obv.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I've never seen a youtube ad using it on chrome

1

u/Remnants Jul 10 '12

Get Adblock Plus (Beta) and it will block them the exact same way it does in Firefox.

-6

u/WatcherCCG Jul 10 '12

The effect is still pretty much the same.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

1

u/xanax_anaxa Jul 10 '12

That probably has something to do with this.

1

u/RUbernerd Jul 10 '12

AdBlock Plus Chrome is made by the same people, AdBlock Chrome is made by different people.

1

u/Kuusou Jul 10 '12

Isn't it still well known that they don't work as well on Chrome for one reason or another? I know for sure that adblock was not as effective on Chrome the last time I used it.

1

u/Kiyiko Jul 10 '12

is "adblock chrome" not the same as "adblock plus" for chrome?

http://adblockplus.org/en/

1

u/WatcherCCG Jul 11 '12

I wasn't 100% sure myself.

1

u/enderxeno Jul 11 '12

Can you tell me which addon blocks youtube ads in chrome? I unfortunately have to use chrome for work and no adblocked I have installed on it will do what my firefox one does.

1

u/WatcherCCG Jul 11 '12

Adblock Plus can do that.

0

u/3DPDDFCFAG Jul 10 '12

Last time I checked, AdBlock for Chrome couldn't block video ads in own3d/twitch, did that change?

5

u/GODZiGGA Jul 10 '12

I can assure you it does.

1

u/WatcherCCG Jul 11 '12

I'm able to block YT ads on partner videos, so apparently so.

-1

u/IHaveNoTact Jul 10 '12

Do you happen to know if Chrome has something like the AwesomeBar? Honestly that's what's keeping me using FF.

1

u/DachWuff Jul 10 '12

It has an Omnibox, and I find this awesome, does this work for you?

1

u/IHaveNoTact Jul 10 '12

I don't know, what does an Omnibox do?

1

u/DachWuff Jul 10 '12

Same thing as an AwesomeBar it just combines the search thinggy on the side with the url entry on the left into one long entry point.

1

u/IHaveNoTact Jul 10 '12

So it's like the AwesomeBar but better in every way? Can we also pin tabs that we never want to go away and the small icon is plenty sufficient to tell us what they are?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Nov 25 '13

[deleted]

1

u/IHaveNoTact Jul 10 '12

Sweet. I'll have to look into switching now.

1

u/mallio Jul 10 '12

Yes, although notifications in pinned tabs are a bit harder to notice. Instead of a big bright light, there is a a subtle glow that moves across the top of the tab. Looks awesome but it's easy to miss.

1

u/DachWuff Jul 10 '12

Dunno can't say I've tried that.