Without the suggestion to install an adblocker, this is not credible advice.
ninth_ant · 3h ago
A media outlet which depends on ad revenue as a primary income source is unlikely to suggest this.
Ditching these deeply invasive products remains a good idea, independent on any decision to use ad blockers or not.
The Meta/Yandex incident in particular is straight-up malware and everyone should remove their apps.
timewizard · 2h ago
> which depends on ad revenue
They're more tightly bound than that. They're dependent on Google Display Ads. Which really makes their whole diatribe that much more pathetic.
Any media company that decided to traffic the ads themselves, from their own servers, and inline with their own content, would effectively be immune from ad blocking.
> Ditching these deeply invasive products remains a good idea
While still allowing random third party javascript to run unchecked on a parent website.
kulahan · 1h ago
> While still allowing random third party javascript to run unchecked on a parent website.
Lol, why are you commenting as if somehow allowing it to run negates the other good ideas in some way? Obviously some is better than none, and all is better than some, but each step takes more effort.
But I am glad they are pushing people toward other browsers because that is the biggest step. Once you have taken that step, installing the most popular extensions is trivial.
Guess what the highest rated extensions are?
ryandrake · 2m ago
I would bet money that the techie they asked to put the list together included "use an adblocker." And then the higher-up who approves articles like this said "shit! wait... no, no, no, delete that one!!" These corporations are deeply deceptive.
jfengel · 3h ago
Does the ad blocker prevent leaks of your information?
I know it blocks a use of your information against you (targeted ads). And any external source is a potential leak (e.g. the kinds of things that CORS is supposed to reduce).
But does an ad blocker specifically leak more, or just reduce the incentive to collect that information?
demosthanos · 2h ago
A full-featured ad blocker (uBlock Origin original, not the neutered Lite version that runs on Chrome now) will intercept requests at the network level and prevent your browser from requesting the advertisers' JavaScript code. Your browser not only won't show the ads, it won't run the code that was supposed to show them or even send a request to the advertisers' servers.
This blocks most existing tracking methods. The only thing you're not protected from is first-party tracking by the site you're actually visiting, which is impossible to fully protect against.
blacksmith_tb · 56m ago
1st-party would likely be prevented by disabling cookies? Obviously they could fingerprint every visitor on every request, but most just set an ID cookie and check it on subsequent pages I think, since that's good enough for tracking most people (who aren't actively trying not to be tracked). Of course, that breaks things that need a session (like a cart), but depending on what you want from a site, it could be fine.
demosthanos · 33m ago
Those things help, yes. I say that it's impossible to fully block first party tracking because you must interact with the server in order to accomplish anything and those interactions can be tracked. But a third party can be cut entirely out of the loop.
zahlman · 1h ago
>prevent your browser from requesting the advertisers' JavaScript code. Your browser not only won't show the ads, it won't run the code that was supposed to show them or even send a request to the advertisers' servers.
Incidentally, just blocking JavaScript with NoScript kills quite a lot of ads (obviously, not first-party ones if you've white-listed their JavaScript for site functionality; but I try to avoid that when there isn't real demonstrated value) without any need for an explicit ad blocker.
kvdveer · 1h ago
NoScript is indeed very effective at blocking tracking, but it also breaks a lot of websites.
If that is an acceptable compromise, you could also try ditching the Internet altogether, as that not only blocks all online tracking, it also blocks a lot of fraud, misinformation and all kinds of harmful content.
voytec · 1m ago
> NoScript is indeed very effective at blocking tracking, but it also breaks a lot of websites.
Sure, images may no be present without JS lazy-loading them. Accidentaly, NoScript also fixes a lot of websites. Publishers are often paywalling posts via JS and initial HTML is served with full articles.
IgorPartola · 5m ago
That’s always my problem with NoScript being suggested. For some people who consume stuff off RSS feeds or static sites and Wikipedia that probably works. But for literally anything more than that you can’t do that.
weaksauce · 2h ago
they don't load up the ads at all so they can't know your information in the first place at least from the ads themselves. if the website is sharing information directly there's nothing you can do outside of some kind of vpn and never logging on to any services.
antithesizer · 2h ago
Yes they block tracking
eastbound · 36m ago
I think there was a Defcon where they showed that some ad networks let the advertiser themselves provide the image/video. By targeting only people who first visited a given website, they know who you are. And by adding selectors on the ad, they extract your characteristics, including location.
It looks very stretched, but the real magic happens when this data is sold in bulk. It allows recouping who is where. Your target person may or may not be in each dataset, their location isn’t known like clockwork, but that allows determining where they work, where they sleep and who they’re with. One ad is useless as a datapoint, but recouping shows reliable patterns. And remember most people on iPhone still don’t have an adblocker.
Thx. Even the source in the slashdot article links to msn...
bitpush · 1h ago
Written by the same person who wrote Washington Post article.
All very confusing.
boomboomsubban · 1h ago
MSN is all rehosted articles I believe. Several times I've searched major paper headlines to read the full story on MSN.
No idea what kind of deal these places have with Microsoft.
not_a_bot_4sho · 40m ago
I like the MSN articles. My ad blocker cleans them up nicely, and they never ask me to subscribe.
m-localhost · 46m ago
Zen Browser (FF) on Win and Firefox on iOS (for sync) works well for me. Edge for all M365 related stuff. Still use Chrome for web dev. Not sure what to move on in that regard...
t-writescode · 28m ago
I'm a relatively new web dev and I've been quite happy with Firefox's Web Dev tools. What does Chrome's dev tools give someone that Firefox's doesn't? I can edit css on the fly, see where a css rule is being overwritten, debug javascript, etc.
arealaccount · 27s ago
FF dev tools just don’t work sometimes, notably with iframes, sometimes with source maps, and other edge case types things.
I use FF for 99% of dev, open Chrome maybe once a quarter. It’s a better browser.
meroes · 52m ago
Hmm how can I use being forced to use Chrome for work, for me tax wise…
If I’m a contractor forced to use Chrome and mobile devices, can I deduct a separate work phone?
I really hate having it my iPhone, at least maybe I can claw something back this way?
0_____0 · 22m ago
I believe it is good form to keep work and personal machines completely separate, including phones. If you ever have to hand over your devices for discovery in a law suit I think you will come to the same conclusion.
thadk · 25m ago
Anyone have tips on how to avoid having the WhatsApp app on your phone?
p0w3n3d · 2h ago
I've noticed that recent Chrome version does not allow me to download the pdf I'm viewing. I had to open it in Firefox. The Chrome browser only allowed me to save it to drive (cloud)
Aurornis · 1h ago
I downloaded a PDF within updated Chrome earlier this morning without problems. I would be looking at your setup to see what makes it unique.
Legend2440 · 1h ago
Seems weird. I'm in Chrome right now and I can right-click on PDFs and click save as.
charcircuit · 1h ago
Did you try finding a print button?
Henchman21 · 1h ago
To… save? I get that you can print to a file and it’ll save it that way of course, but damn that strikes me as really confusing for non-techies
cosmicgadget · 1h ago
Save or export would make more sense but printing to pdf has been the way to do it forever.
kulahan · 1h ago
This is how I get around that same issue, but it truly is a hacky workaround.
thrill · 1h ago
right-click save-as?
jhbadger · 51m ago
And stop using Alexa (of course Bezos' paper wouldn't say that!)
bn-l · 3h ago
What is the alternative to chrome that doesn’t crash or is not noticeably slower?
wussboy · 2h ago
Full time Firefox user. I run hundreds of tabs for days on end and need to restart it every week or so. Well worth it to not use Chrome. Need to open a site in Chrome about once a month
abhinavk · 1h ago
The upcoming version has "Unload tabs" built in to the context menu. That should result in restarts limited to updates.
HelloMcFly · 42m ago
I use the Auto Discard Tabs plug-in, just lets tabs time-out after a set amount of time
mrweasel · 2h ago
Firefox? Weird question. I haven't even installed Chrome in the past 7 years. Firefox is fast (but I obviously don't know if Chrome is faster) and it never crashes.
NexRebular · 2h ago
I use Vivaldi[1]. Also has built-in ad-blocker although I'm not sure how good it is compared to Ublock or others.
I mean those aren't real controversies though, it's more like "we added a VPN feature and included the VPN, but have now removed it". A real controversy would be like Mozilla who was pushing for censorship and silencing "bad actors" in the years after the first Trump election.
ramon156 · 2h ago
What's wrong with FireFox?
And if you're not a fan of FireFox, Ladybird is becoming a thing in 2026
No comments yet
voytec · 59m ago
Zen Browser works well for me. It's a Firefox fork but privacy-focused whereas Mozilla recently became an ad company and published hostile TOS changes. No issues I had when I was evaluating LibreWolf.
azinman2 · 2h ago
I feel like people sleep on safari, especially on Macs.
Aurornis · 58m ago
I continually try, but Safari is the only browser where I routinely experience crashes once or twice a month. There are also some random incompatibilities with certain websites (related to the CORS issue as mentioned in another comment) that force me back into another browser anyway.
hk1337 · 2h ago
JavaScript Chrome developers did a good job of convincing people that Safari is the new IE.
I love Safari on macOS. I love the pinch/zoom with the tabs. I love that private browsing mode, at least seems to, keep things contained to the tab they started with. e.g. if I open facebook in a private tab then open new tab and go to facebook, it’s going to make me login.
Uehreka · 2m ago
Chrome’s developers didn’t have to say anything. Anyone who’s been trying to build on the latest web features (for me, particularly WebGL, WebRTC, WebGPU and IndexedDB) over the past decade has been bitten by Safari over and over again. They usually come around after being raked over the coals by the web dev community, but they’re still usually years behind.
When “Safari is the new IE” was first published, they absolutely were. They’ve gotten a bit better since then, but all the same it was hilarious to see people who used to rail against IE for flaunting web standards (cough John Gruber cough) suddenly start saying that web standards were a bogus racket once Apple decided to stop keeping up with them.
bitpush · 1h ago
You're drinking Apple kool-aid if you think Safari isn't holding web back.
Lots of anti-google people dislike Safari. Safari isn't the only non-google option you know.
kstrauser · 1h ago
Safari is far from perfect, but I’m glad they don’t implement everything Chrome does. Many of the complaints come down to “Safari doesn’t even support RunBitcoinMinerInBackground.js. It sucks!”
And on the plus side, it’s vastly better at power efficiency, meaning I can use my laptop longer without being plugged in.
arccy · 56m ago
sure if you want to live a life stuck in the App Store and Play Store walled gardens... having a decent web browser is the way towards a truly open web
hk1337 · 1h ago
Apple is slow to adopt new features, sure but Google bulldozes features to be first to market so it can implemented the way they want it implemented.
giraffe_lady · 2h ago
Significantly better battery life too. Like hours.
hungryhobbit · 1h ago
Developers don't convince anyone of anything! They just build stuff according to standards (which are inevitably set not by standards orgs, but by the most popular browsers), and then they expect all browsers to follow those standards and "just work".
When a browser like Safari fails to adhere to those standards, sites will break ... but you can't expect developers (of most sites; I'm not talking about the top 100 or anything) to test in every possible browser ... and then change their code to accommodate them. Certainly not in ones with single-digit percentages of market share, that require their own OS to test (like Safari).
Web devs ignore Safari at their own risk, lest 100% of iPhone users be unable to use their site.
hxtk · 1h ago
I tend to use Safari on my mac, but I will say that it evaluates CORS slightly differently than other browsers so that sometimes I have to disable CORS protection to get a site to work that works fine in Chrome or Firefox, and it's the only browser I've used where I expect to have it crash hard with a SEGFAULT or something every once in a while.
duxup · 2h ago
I use firefox full time, it works great for me.
cosmicgadget · 56m ago
Any browser that lets you block javascript? It is weird how we now call browsers fast because they can quickly render the most cancerous content.
0134340 · 1h ago
Well, for the past twenty years, Firefox has been a good alternative browser to Chrome, IE, etc.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
I’m using Firefox and Kagi’s Orion browser [1] on my Mac and Safari on iOS.
Is it easier to build a browser for MacOS? Arc was Mac only for the longest time, until they released a crippled Windows version. DuckDuckGo browser started Mac only.
JumpCrisscross · 34m ago
> Is it easier to build a browser for MacOS?
Financially, probably. Apple customers represent a disproportionate share of global consumer disposable income.
Technically, I guess Unix-like, BrowserEngineKit and WebKit (Orion uses this) help. Good question, hope someone knowledgeable chimes in!
slaw · 3h ago
Firefox + uBlock Origin
secondcoming · 2h ago
Firefox. It's been my default browser for years but now I'm noticing sites that don't work properly with it. I'm not sure why.
It also has a really annoying 'feature' that its update process will sometimes force you to restart the browser.
brazzy · 2h ago
Firefox.
haiku2077 · 2h ago
Doesn't crash? Firefox/Mullvad Browser is fine.
Not slower? Safari or Orion.
dismalaf · 2h ago
I like Vivaldi myself.
guywithahat · 1h ago
I really like Brave, blocks youtube ads and generally just works where other chrome alternatives don't https://brave.com/download/
ronnier · 1h ago
I'm pretty worried about the security of Brave and stopped using it. I'd like to be wrong. But years old patches missing in Chromium not ported over until recently makes me nervous (referring to a recently addressed long time websocket bug in Brave). What else is missing? It just seems to risky to use for me.
ajsnigrutin · 33m ago
For most people in the west, using yandex and chinese alternatives would be better than local ones, because neither china nor russia has any auhority over you, while your local agencies do.
dlachausse · 3h ago
Safari reports that it blocked 16 trackers on WaPos home page. So it’s probably best to avoid them for privacy too.
leereeves · 3h ago
I hope people can get a "Stop Using Chrome" movement going, like we did with Internet Explorer long ago.
userbinator · 1h ago
Maybe even a "start using Internet Explorer again" movement ;-)
For all the hate it got, IE was nowhere near as privacy-invasive as any of the "modern" browsers now, even Firefox. If you configured it to open with a blank page, it would quietly do so and make zero unsolicited network requests.
timewizard · 2h ago
Chrome is fine.
Letting an advertising company own it is not.
duxup · 2h ago
I feel like that's like saying "it's fine, except for the bad part that you can't avoid" ;)
turtletontine · 1h ago
The future of Google as Chrome’s owner is genuinely in question now due to Google’s antitrust losses, in case you weren’t aware.
There’s a few different cases, one recent one Google has lost and is now in the “remedy” phase. Meaning the court has officially decided Google did bad, and is now considering what to make Google do about it. And splitting up Google into separate Chrome, search, etc companies is completely on the table.
Idk, isn't that how we got Chrome? Isn't this inviting someone else to be the new Internet abuse daddy?
ljlolel · 2h ago
Sounds like something written by a Google employee. Mozilla is a non-profit
dc396 · 2h ago
Might want to look at who provides most of the funds for Mozilla.
0x_rs · 1h ago
No, that was Firefox. Chrome's spread was fueled by literal malware or spyware bundling it to get some of Google's sweet money and some of the most aggressive advertisement campaigns for any online product ever.
righthand · 25m ago
Was it Firefox? I remember Firefox existing at the time but I don't think it's ever really had dominant market share, perhaps when it was Netscape? I do remember the IE campaign went on quite a long time to where eventually Chrome showed up to the party and people shifted over as well as shifted their family and friends over. You don't see that kind of active effort for Firefox ever.
jeffbee · 1h ago
It's sort of interesting that Brave was not affected by this because they already blocked the technique used by the Yandex app. I wonder if Brave devs were aware of that specific abuse, or if they just thought that localhost traffic was distasteful categorically.
TiredOfLife · 1h ago
Washington Post also called Ukraines attack on russian bombers "dirty"
extra88 · 54m ago
That's one opinion from one columnist. Also, the full phase was "dirty war," by which they seem to mean one dominated by covert operations by intelligence services rather than conventional forces, on both sides.
Web browsers should become outmoded soon. It was fine for bootstrapping the web, but now to keep up a browser must emulate the operating system and more in a single app. This pressure is the centralizing factor in browser dominance. Ditch the features, drop the spy protocol (http), just get the files.
zahlman · 1h ago
> the spy protocol (http)
I'm afraid I can't guess your reasoning.
NHQ · 14m ago
How do i turn it off?
thethimble · 1h ago
What will the alternative to web browsers be after they become "outmoded"?
consumer451 · 46m ago
I can't speak for the user who you are responding to, but an AI maxi might believe that an AI powered interface will take over all information retrieval.
Ditching these deeply invasive products remains a good idea, independent on any decision to use ad blockers or not.
The Meta/Yandex incident in particular is straight-up malware and everyone should remove their apps.
They're more tightly bound than that. They're dependent on Google Display Ads. Which really makes their whole diatribe that much more pathetic.
Any media company that decided to traffic the ads themselves, from their own servers, and inline with their own content, would effectively be immune from ad blocking.
> Ditching these deeply invasive products remains a good idea
While still allowing random third party javascript to run unchecked on a parent website.
Lol, why are you commenting as if somehow allowing it to run negates the other good ideas in some way? Obviously some is better than none, and all is better than some, but each step takes more effort.
But I am glad they are pushing people toward other browsers because that is the biggest step. Once you have taken that step, installing the most popular extensions is trivial.
Guess what the highest rated extensions are?
I know it blocks a use of your information against you (targeted ads). And any external source is a potential leak (e.g. the kinds of things that CORS is supposed to reduce).
But does an ad blocker specifically leak more, or just reduce the incentive to collect that information?
This blocks most existing tracking methods. The only thing you're not protected from is first-party tracking by the site you're actually visiting, which is impossible to fully protect against.
Incidentally, just blocking JavaScript with NoScript kills quite a lot of ads (obviously, not first-party ones if you've white-listed their JavaScript for site functionality; but I try to avoid that when there isn't real demonstrated value) without any need for an explicit ad blocker.
If that is an acceptable compromise, you could also try ditching the Internet altogether, as that not only blocks all online tracking, it also blocks a lot of fraud, misinformation and all kinds of harmful content.
Sure, images may no be present without JS lazy-loading them. Accidentaly, NoScript also fixes a lot of websites. Publishers are often paywalling posts via JS and initial HTML is served with full articles.
It looks very stretched, but the real magic happens when this data is sold in bulk. It allows recouping who is where. Your target person may or may not be in each dataset, their location isn’t known like clockwork, but that allows determining where they work, where they sleep and who they’re with. One ad is useless as a datapoint, but recouping shows reliable patterns. And remember most people on iPhone still don’t have an adblocker.
Thx. Even the source in the slashdot article links to msn...
All very confusing.
No idea what kind of deal these places have with Microsoft.
I use FF for 99% of dev, open Chrome maybe once a quarter. It’s a better browser.
If I’m a contractor forced to use Chrome and mobile devices, can I deduct a separate work phone?
I really hate having it my iPhone, at least maybe I can claw something back this way?
[1] https://vivaldi.com/
And if you're not a fan of FireFox, Ladybird is becoming a thing in 2026
No comments yet
I love Safari on macOS. I love the pinch/zoom with the tabs. I love that private browsing mode, at least seems to, keep things contained to the tab they started with. e.g. if I open facebook in a private tab then open new tab and go to facebook, it’s going to make me login.
When “Safari is the new IE” was first published, they absolutely were. They’ve gotten a bit better since then, but all the same it was hilarious to see people who used to rail against IE for flaunting web standards (cough John Gruber cough) suddenly start saying that web standards were a bogus racket once Apple decided to stop keeping up with them.
Lots of anti-google people dislike Safari. Safari isn't the only non-google option you know.
And on the plus side, it’s vastly better at power efficiency, meaning I can use my laptop longer without being plugged in.
When a browser like Safari fails to adhere to those standards, sites will break ... but you can't expect developers (of most sites; I'm not talking about the top 100 or anything) to test in every possible browser ... and then change their code to accommodate them. Certainly not in ones with single-digit percentages of market share, that require their own OS to test (like Safari).
Web devs ignore Safari at their own risk, lest 100% of iPhone users be unable to use their site.
[1] https://kagi.com/orion/
Financially, probably. Apple customers represent a disproportionate share of global consumer disposable income.
Technically, I guess Unix-like, BrowserEngineKit and WebKit (Orion uses this) help. Good question, hope someone knowledgeable chimes in!
It also has a really annoying 'feature' that its update process will sometimes force you to restart the browser.
Not slower? Safari or Orion.
For all the hate it got, IE was nowhere near as privacy-invasive as any of the "modern" browsers now, even Firefox. If you configured it to open with a blank page, it would quietly do so and make zero unsolicited network requests.
Letting an advertising company own it is not.
There’s a few different cases, one recent one Google has lost and is now in the “remedy” phase. Meaning the court has officially decided Google did bad, and is now considering what to make Google do about it. And splitting up Google into separate Chrome, search, etc companies is completely on the table.
Some reading:
https://www.theverge.com/23869483/us-v-google-search-antitru...
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/google-found-guilty-of-mo...
https://win32subsystem.live/supermium/
https://github.com/win32ss/supermium
I'm afraid I can't guess your reasoning.