One of my co-workers switched to UBlock Lite instead of UBlock Origin and now the ads are back.
Now he's working on switching to a non-Google browser.
Good job, Google. You have killed Google for yet another former customer.
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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Chrome users are not customers, they're the product.
OK, then. Killing their product.
You are not Google’s customer. You’re the product they sell to their customers.
Edit: Made this comment before refreshing the post to see the person above me. What they said.
I'm just worried about how zdnet presumes to know what I think.
Google kills things, that's what they do. They can get fucked.
This is the list, for those who don't want to read it. I don't see Adguard Adblocker on there, surprisingly or SponsorBlock. Besides UBlock Origin, which is a staple extension of mine for all browsers and we've long knew about Google's approach to that. I haven't seen a lot of what I use/used on here. I don't even know most of these.
360 Ads Blocker
Adblock Fast
Awesome Bookmarks Button
Block Ads
Bookmark All
Bookmark It
Bookmark Lock
Bookmark Manager Speed Dial
Bookmark My Tabs
Comodo Ad Blocker
Comodo Online Security Pro
Content Blocker
Delicious Bookmark Bar Sync
Domain Blocker
Ethical AdBlock -- Ad Blocker
Fast Bookmark
Ghostery Private Search for Chrome
Google Ad Blocker
Google Privacy Shade
Hover Zoom+
Little Bookmark Box
Location Guard
MalwareAI Browser Security
Pinboard Bookmark Bar Sync
Popup Fixer
Privacy Cleaner
Privacy Extension
Private Bookmarker
Private Bookmarks
Simple Site Blocker
Touch VPN
Trump Blocker
TunnelBear Blocker
Website Blocker
Wikipedia Popup
YouTube Anywhere RemoteI don't know if it's related, but an extension we use at work called Redirector was just disabled a few weeks ago for being "unsupported." It's the only reason I even used Chrome, so I guess I can go back to Safari. At home I only use Firefox.
- Embrace
- Extend
- Extinguish <<< we are here
XMPP all over again.
Glad that I moved to firefox 4 months ago and then to zen browser last week to avoid plugins removal. Haven’t looked back
So, the elephant in the room is Chrome killing ad-blocking.
I think that Firefox (and Firefox forks, like Zen Browser) have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue may just kill support for Firefox if Firefox does permit ad blocking.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
As of February:
Chrome: 66.3%
Safari: 17.99%
Edge: 5.33%
Firefox: 2.62%
The software used to view the Web in 2025 is really mostly under the control of either Google or Apple.
I think that Firefox (and Firefox forks, like Zen Browser) have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue may just kill support for Firefox if Firefox does permit ad blocking
An argument could also be made that Firefox and its forks have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue won't want to deal with the extra work of keeping those users out.
A lot of Firefox users spoof the useragent.
I don't bother. Most sites I wouldn't miss at all. There's only half a dozen or so websites that could force me to take any action on my end.
There’s always PiHole to block ads at the network level. It takes some setup and a raspberry pi but it can be one of the cheaper ones. And I’m pretty sure the sites aren’t going to do much more than check the User Agent to get the browser so User Agent Switcher will get around 99% of that.
You could, I suppose, block Firefox in other ways (like maybe checking for some random Chromium feature not yet supported in Firefox) but Firefox isn’t usually far behind Chrome so it would almost take an entire new developer to be effective. And there’s probably ways around that too. (I’m a web developer but have never worked on an ad-supported project and never will so I’m not sure but life finds a way.)
Yep, I have my PiHole running on a Pi2 still.
You're underestimating these websites though. I already run into sites that arbitrarily throw up a "Firefox not supported" gate until I switch user agents. That will only get worse.
I'm still very concerned about Firefox's funding majority coming from Google search, especially after the antitrust shutting it down. https://slashdot.org/story/431592
We're headed for dark times for the open internet.
Yeah they essentially killed about half the extensions I use. I have to use the browser for work.
Zen Browser on Mac and Orion on iOS. ublock origin and NextDNS on for both - no ads, no adblocker detected. Ever.
I only care about adblocking, so ControlD+Brave for me.
Brave is a Chromium browser.
No