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Comment by XorNot | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely have no idea what "missing features" or incompatibilities keep people on Chrome compared to the benefits of uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

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Bookmarks, passwords, payment information, recent tabs, extensions... all synced with your Google account in Chrome. Firefox can't sync to your Google account. All that information is synced across the entire Google account system, to your Android phone, other Chrome browser instances and so on. Yes I know you could export your data from Google and pull it into Firefox's sync system, but that's a hurdle.

Why would you want all this stuff synced? The only thing I want out of that is passwords, but 1Password works just fine for that. In fact, I don't trust a browser to store my passwords securely.

Would any answer satisfy you? People want bookmarks synced because they use the same bookmarks on different devices. Many trust Google to transmit their passwords securely and store their email securely. Why not store their passwords securely?

It is a hurdle to switch, yes.

But everything you listed (apart from integrating with Google's servers) can be done with Firefox.

You can either use Mozilla accounts to do that for free and as easy as it is with Google accounts. Or if you are a power user and would like an adventure, you can selfhost sync and accounts servers yourself. Does chrome provide that ability?

Right, I was confused by this comment. I actually don't think it's that hard to switch, tools to import your stuff across browsers have existed for a long time. It might be that Firefox isn't particularly polished on this front but I don't think it's outside the realm of achievable and I don't think the difficulty of switching is by any means a deal breaker.

This would be a relevant list, except no one I know who compulsively uses Chrome...uses any of that stuff at all.

Google Meet is particularly Firefox hostile with camera/audio support, but I'm not sure how common it actually is.

PWAs being entirely unsupported by Firefox for instance.

This is the last big thing keeping me on Vivaldi (based on chromium). I do use those, and would most likely fully switch to Firefox when implemented.

What things are only available as PWAs that are worth it? Like I know they exist, but I've never installed or used one.

"Only?" probably none

However, recently there was a healthy thread about the massive trackers found in mobile apps[1] which wouldn't be a problem with PWAs since they live in the same sandbox as the browser (meaning no exfiltrating all the shit) but yet can one-click launch from the normal app mechanisms and (AFAIK) can be the subject of Intent handlers just like apps

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923931

uBlock Origin Lite works perfectly fine for me on Chrome.

Maybe there's some 0.01% of ads that would get blocked in the Firefox version that aren't in Chrome. But I don't see any regular users switching because they're noticing ads not getting blocked now.

One difference between lite and the full version is CNAME cloaking protection. The enforcement of Manifest V3 in Chrome opens up a gap in the ecosystem where analytics and advertising providers will increasingly use CNAME cloaking, since it can't be blocked from the world's most popular browser. And this is the world in which using Firefox with its support for Manifest V2 suddenly becomes quite a bit more attractive.

If CNAME cloaking takes off in a big way, then yes at that point I agree I could see people moving to Firefox. But for now that's not happening.

Also, if that actually led significant numbers of people to leave Chrome, isn't that where we'd see "Manifest V3.1" or whatever that allows matching against CNAMEs?

Chrome is pretty central to Google's strategy. If we assume that people who want to block ads will (by switching to Firefox when necessary), then it's in Google's interests for Chrome to support ad blocking. If they're not going to get ad revenue anyways, they'd still rather it be happening on Chrome.

Also see a recent comment by a member of the Chrome team on why Manifest V3 was for performance reasons, not to cripple adblocking (I don't know if it's true, but it seems worth considering): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41815861

CNAME uncloaking was a difference between Firefox and all other browsers even before Manifest V3.

Thanks for pointing this out! I had mistakenly conflated it with the manifest V3 switch.

It works fine for now. As soon as Manifest V2 is officially gone you will certainly see an increase in ads. What ad company wouldn't take advantage of more limited ad blocking capabilities in the most popular web browser?

That's just Google boiling the frog slowly.

I use FF full-time but have to use Chromium for WebEx and Teams calls to avoid massive jank.

I bought Ozlo Sleep buds recently. Really cool hardware that does exactly what they say they do. However, the device I read with at night runs Android 11 which is too old for their app (requires Android 12). I can configure and update the sleep buds through a browser with WebUSB...but only with Chrome.

The only reason I keep a Chrome installation is for when I want seemless in-page translation. Firefox just added a version of this feature but, for some reason, didn't include the most important language for nerds: Japanese.

Firefox still lacks webgpu support.

> uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

In what way does uBlock work better on Firefox? I don't see any ads in Chrome. Ad block is more important to me than any browse. I use Kiwi on Android instead of Chrome, and would switch immediately on desktop if I saw ads.

This wiki page on uBlock origin repository is a direct answer to your question.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

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