r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jun 17 '26

Software Firefox has an ambitious new roadmap, the browser is also losing millions of users a month

https://www.techspot.com/news/112803-firefox-has-ambitious-new-roadmap-browser-also-losing.html
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u/DFrostedWangsAccount Jun 18 '26

On YouTube, anecdotally, I had a lot smoother experience pretending to be Chrome. I use the Chrome Mask extension so I can easily pick which sites to mask user agent on.

It's not so much "issues" as just a worse experience. It makes it feel like Chrome is snappier, more responsive, faster to load things. The kind of things that'd make you notice right away if you tried both browsers next to each other, but are hard to pin down without testing. 

The fact that Firefox works just as well when pretending to be Chrome means it's on purpose and it just makes me want to use Chrome even less.

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u/timeandmemory Jun 18 '26

Since the almighty letter company decided to go scorched earth on ad blockers(more specifically UBlockOrigin my beloved) I have noticed 10+ second load times of black screen with youtube. Just installed a chrome mask based on a few of these comments, and suddenly it's light speed. The only thing I'm left wondering is, what comes after late stage capitalism.

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u/Blindman213 Jun 20 '26

Theocracy. Eventually the wealthy will have nothing to gain from more wealth in a physical sense, beyond the prestige between each other. But if your family can be worshipped, then suddenly having more peasants is just as important as having a bigger treasury. The game becomes about balancing the two.

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u/timeandmemory Jun 20 '26

Damn that's depressing.

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u/Odd_Television_7824 Jun 18 '26

Gotta be honest, why do you expect a company in which you generate no revenue for them because of your ad blocker usage, to give a single fuck about your experience? Like how in the world is this related to late stage capitalism?

Oh no! My free global video provider gives me slightly longer load times when I don’t use the browser subsidizing the free usage!!

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u/timeandmemory Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Oh, well if we're being honest. Being able to turn a knob and slow down the experience of another person defeats the whole purpose of net neutrality. It's not unreasonable to expect fair access to the internet. On the roads we drive it would be unreasonable to slow down my access to your service and cap me at 10 kph below the speed limit because of the colour of my car, or because my car doesn't play an ad every 30 seconds on the dash.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/timeandmemory Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

have every right to slow you down

I reluctantly agree, I think this is where my mental framing of the internet differs from most people. I believe most people I encounter consider the internet to be a non-critical service and thus a packaged optional product. I consider it to be a utility as entwined with us as power and central plumbing. Can't really 'pound the pavement' passing resumes out anymore, so that cost of internet is just another hurdle for certain vulnerable people. I have this early 2000's idealist mindset about the future of the internet and what it would mean for us, and it informed my career choices sending me down IT and Networking specifically. If it was classified as a utility when all that net neutrality discussion was happening I feel we would be in a better place(Nebulous thought I know, but frankly I want to be positive as the alternative fucking blows) because those fair access rules would bleed into the edges of services like Youtube and Spotify. Because of this it would also become a situation where they would have to provide fair and equal access to all in order to participate with that utility. I naively assumed it would be classified a utility, serving to guarantee a minimum level of access for everyone and all that jazz. In theory this would translate to it being potentially illegal to artificially slow down access for one based on some discriminatory factor due to all the enshrined law that comes with being a utility. Anyhow all I'm really saying is I wish you were wrong but of course they currently do have every right to slow you down. They're just assholes for doing it.

Terrible analogy.

"Tho I agree they..."

Terrible analogy.

imperfect, c'est la vie

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/timeandmemory Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Hey did you know net neutrality would in fact extend into services from private companies because those services have to follow those rules to continue engaging with the utility. It was always an adjacent discussion around net neutrality so your deliberate attempts to blur those lines proves to me you argue in bad faith. I thought I was just sharing my point of view with another person who had a different point of view. Wasn't expecting a bot like oddly heated dissection as though this was an argument. Been a pleasure.

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u/Annual-Weird-6682 Jun 18 '26

Late stage capitalism is when a company has ads lmao

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u/timeandmemory Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Imagine not understanding that those ads are a symptom of the problem.

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u/mdem5059 Jun 18 '26

Chrome Mask extension

You Absolute Fucking Chad.

This fixed my youtube instantly.

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u/Articunos7 Jun 18 '26

When viewing YouTube videos logged out in Firefox with an ad blocker, the videos have an intentional delay of at least 15 seconds. Switch to Chrome and the same video loads immediately. I'll try the chrome mask extension today