a) Linux, Firefox + uBlockOrigin + Enhancer for YouTube;
b) Android, Firefox + uBlock Origin + Video Background Play Fix;
c) I never ever use any account or login into the youtube. Playlists? Got favorites/bookmarks in browser :) Voting, comments? I don’t care. Native youtube android apk? Never. So, no tracking and stats for you and no dumb auto recomendations for me. Thanks.
P.S. oh, and all cookies are auto deleted on last tab close. Bye.
So, war with or strike me how? Close whole site or put everything under paywall and die? Hahaha
Stop using the word ‘Google’ instead of saying ‘Search’. Take offense if anyone tells you to ‘Google’ something - fuck them!!!
Set Firefox as your default - don’t keep ‘defaulting’ to chrome, or chromium based browsers (as this code mostly comes from Google).
Be sure to become more acquainted with more platforms, keep shortcuts handy and use them when they have content…
If you must use Youtube, use it signed out - find your channel and add it to an RSS reader. Avoid using the Youtube interface and avoid the algorithms. Search for any channels you watch on alternative platforms.
Firefox Focus is also a lovely little mobile browser for random queries and such. It’s effectively always in private browsing mode; anytime you close it, it clears its cache.
I definitely use it more often than “regular” Firefox on mobile. I only really use regular Firefox if I need some sort of persistence or login.
Google made $7 billion from YouTube in 2021^1, might I remind you by running ads on other peoples’s content. Now of course Google does provide the platform for that content, but the point still remains.
Users and content creators are what make YouTube, not the other way around. Companies like Google need to careful not to let their pursuit of profit upset the good thing they have going for them.
It’s well within reason to fight it just like it’s within reason that users will find other ways. I don’t think it makes Google evil to try to stop people from blocking their ads, but this is the internet and people will always find another way around it.
Stop letting Google dictate web standards and accept that they plan on removing adblocking from Chrome.
Firefox is the last widely available, cross-platform browser that isn’t based on Chromium. The only other is Safari for macOS/iOS which is not generally cross-platform.
Firefox uses Gecko/Quantum
Safari uses WebKit
Chrome/Chromium uses Blink
Drop any browsers that use Blink as the rendering engine, and yeah, it’s most of them.
Google has made it completely clear where they stand on this war, which is that they will remove your access to content if you don’t agree to see their ads.
I’ve been on Firefox since way back. I understand they’ve made a lot of missteps and I’m not going to defend some of their worst decisions, but they’re at the very least not an advertising company that wants to remove adblocks from how the web works.
The “Mr. Robot” promotion was pretty bad - they force installed an extension without user interaction. This is IMHO still the worst thing they’ve done.
Their finances could be seen as a little sketchy, at times, like executive pay vs. layoffs at the start of COVID. The fact that they’re hanging off the teat of Google (or maybe Microsoft, which ever search engine has the higher bid at the moment) could also be seen as a conflict of interest.
Some might criticise Mozilla for a lack of focus. While Firefox was getting stale they invested in Pocket, and VPNs and stuff.
It’s a thing of the past, but there was this whole thing about Brendan Eich …
Honestly most of these things seem pretty par for the course under capitalism.
While Firefox was getting stale they invested in Pocket, and VPNs and stuff.
At least those products could have given Mozille a source of income in the long term if they became popular enough. Money that could have gone towards keeping Firefox going.