474
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This is part of a much larger plan. Google wants to establish a new standard that the rest of the internet will follow.

If Google is seen fighting an endless war against ad blockers, it will encourage other websites to do the same.

No longer will it be "Please disable your ad blocker, as advertising supports us and helps keep this content free"

It will start being "Ad blockers are not permitted."

Google wants the Internet to start thinking of allowing ads as requirement for entry, and (via Manifest v3 and web environment integrity checking (which you better believe will be brought back in another form)), they will provide websites the tools to enforce this.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

And I want to personally blame all the tech savvy people that have helped chrome achieve monopoly status over the last decade. If you've used chrome as main browser, it's your fault.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Pointing fingers now after the fact is not productive. We need to educate people and lead them to alternatives like Firefox. Blaming people is not going to do that.

[-] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

something tells me you use(d) chrome

[-] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I used to, yes. I don't see how that detracts from my point.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. In a lot of your more famous cyberpunk stories, like Snow Crash, the world itself is a violent dystopia, and the internet is depicted as evolving into something both intensely interesting, but also very chaotic and filled with hostile people looking to scam or exploit you. The contemporary internet is moving towards an extreme degree of corporate regulation and control. Its not chaotic - it's intensely ordered. It's not interesting - the content is boiled down to the lowest common denominator and recycled ad-nauseam. Companies like Google are now trying to take the current internet, which has tragically become like a gated community with billboards, into something even worse than that. I imagine the next step will be all out war on the only non-Chromium based browser of note left: Firefox. After Firefox is gone, Google will own the internet as we know it.

this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
474 points (98.6% liked)

Firefox

17042 readers
442 users here now

A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS