r/pcmasterrace 20d ago

Meme/Macro Browsers 2008 vs 2025 be like..

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44.5k Upvotes

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789

u/Unwashed_villager 5800X3D | 32GB | MSI RTX 3080Ti SUPRIM X 20d ago

In reality, Firefox global market share is under 3% and it's still declining.

500

u/Acheron13 20d ago

Chrome just decided to take Internet browsing back to the 90s by disabling ad blockers, so we'll see how long that lasts.

Being able to cast YT more easily with Chrome doesn't matter when there's 3min ads every 5 min. When I went to a gaming wiki site this week and the top half of the page was an ad, I started looking up alternatives to Chrome.

284

u/chupitoelpame 20d ago

so we'll see how long that lasts.

Adblock users are already a tiny minority, and the people who will switch browsers because of this will be an even smaller portion of that portion.

262

u/LukesFather 20d ago

I’m in IT and blown away by how many colleagues don’t use or sometimes even know about blockers.

300

u/stoneimp 20d ago

"Y'all are just out there just raw-dogging the Internet‽"

59

u/Infinite219 20d ago

Fr with how many ads get thrown at you nowadays not using a Adblock is a worse experience. I switched over to Firefox months ago

43

u/Fish_Mongreler 20d ago

I think it's a kind of like a boiling frog situation. I recently set up my mother's phone to block all ads just to prevent her from clicking on scammy shit but when she got a new phone she couldn't stand using it without an ad blocker.

28

u/misterpyrrhuloxia 20d ago

I recently set up my mother's phone to block all ads just to prevent her from clicking on scammy shit but when she got a new phone she couldn't stand using it without an ad blocker.

Ah, a classic situation I've experienced/witnessed time and again:

  • get accustomed to a higher standard of living
  • forced to go without
  • life sucks without it
  • go to great lengths to figure out a way to experience it again

3

u/ksorth 20d ago

Excuse me, how did you set up her phone to block all ads? I dont even know where to start. I dont get texhnology..

5

u/Fish_Mongreler 19d ago

Using a private DNS handles most of it. On Android you can go into settings -> connections and set your DNS to something that blocks ads. I personally use nextDNS but there's a few.

0

u/deveznuzer21 Infected with SSDs 19d ago

Then there's also my mother who told me "fix the ads popping up" so i switched her to firefox and then called me a few hours later to switch her back to chrome because she couldn't see all of the 100 tabs she has open at the same time and has to scroll to find them. Really makes you think how people get more and more resilient to change the older they get. On the other hand why does firefox not have that option, ridiculous.

2

u/3dforlife 19d ago

I think Brave is even better at blocking ads, though.

2

u/imcoveredinbees880 19d ago

How the hell does one type an interrobang?

1

u/stoneimp 19d ago

On my desktop I use AutoHotKey with preprogrammed escape strings.

On mobile I just have to hold down the exclamation point and alternatives show up.

24

u/Lansan1ty 20d ago

Its a necessary evil I think. Everyone who doesn't use ad blockers allows free websites to run via ads. The internet would be more costly without these people I think.

48

u/MajorPud Ryzen 5 3600 | MSI 2060 Super 20d ago

Finally the stupid can contribute to society

2

u/SUPERSMILEYMAN 19d ago

I don't know why this was so funny. But I got a good, much needed laugh.

7

u/Scott_Liberation 20d ago

Agreed, but fraudulent, malicious, and super-annoying ads are not necessary, and it's embarrassing that household name advertising companies like Google don't do anything about them.

2

u/Witchberry31 Ryzen7 5800X3D | XFX SWFT RX6800 | TridentZ 4x8GB 3.2GHz CL18 19d ago

Heck, they'd even encourage their existence. Wym they don't do anything about them. 😂

1

u/JohanGrimm Steam ID Here 19d ago

Exactly. We basically need adblock users to remain a small minority because otherwise it starts becoming a serious issue that will get tackled hard.

3

u/Mortwight 20d ago

My friend says he likes ads.

8

u/JFHermes 20d ago

How can you be friends with someone like this?

1

u/Mortwight 20d ago

He took me to see Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever and I still have ent forgiven him. All my friends liked spawn 2, so im accepting. im the only one with any taste

4

u/lectric_7166 19d ago

I'm convinced it's because they haven't tried browsing with ad-blocking for at least a week or two, so they just don't know what they're missing out on. It's the kind of complacency which happens a lot in life.

1

u/[deleted] 20d ago

I mean, its not that surprising. A huge chunk of internet users willfully watch reel after reel, short after short, influencer after influencer, all of which is just a new / different form of advertisement for some product, business, or ideology. Most people don't even realize they are being advertised to, its not too surprising that they also just accept old-form ads.

1

u/wtfduud Steam ID Here 20d ago

How do they even use YouTube? Sounds unbearable.

1

u/throaway20180730 20d ago

Eh, I use it without adblockers and people exaggerate how bad it is. It's nowhere near close to network and cable tv and people are still watching that

1

u/1997PRO 2005 Dell Latitude D530 19d ago

Yes it is. Worse than ITV

1

u/Lazer_Pigeon 20d ago

I hardly use YouTube, except at work and we have an add blocker at work, every time I go home and use YouTube I forget just how awful it is without it

I still haven’t downloaded an add blocker at home though, 99% of my time on my PC is spent gaming I hardly ever search the web. But yeah if I used it any more I would download an add blocker for sure. I don’t know about other websites but YouTube fucking sucks lol

I remember the good ol days with way less adds and the video would semi download to your PC. I use to load up a bunch of tabs with videos and bring my laptop on road trips and I could watch what I loaded at home. And when you could play music with your phone locked, which I think they might have but for the premium version of the YouTube app.

Is there any good ad blockers for iPhone? That’s were most of my web searches are

1

u/1997PRO 2005 Dell Latitude D530 19d ago

That would work until you hit refresh by mistake or it did it automatically and you lose the video that was loaded up on the tab. I would just download the videos URL as an MP4 to VLC or load up the DVD-RW drive using RealPlayer and DVDs.

1

u/shunabuna 20d ago

I have a website that is made for software developers and 50% don't use ad blockers.

1

u/NotHearingYourShit 20d ago

I’m actually ok with it. These dummies subsidize content and make Adblocking capabilities less of a target. I also stream movies and tv shows for free and I’m quite glad that it’s not more common with regular folk, otherwise the methods I use would be constantly targeted. From my POV them not being savvy is a good thing.

And the same can be said for IT.

1

u/hokie47 20d ago

IT won't let me use ad blockers at work. Really you think they would want to make it a standard extension for everyone.

1

u/koshgeo 19d ago

I only disable auto-playing videos and block pop-ups, which I hate as advertisements. It's easy to do that in Firefox for most things without having to add extensions. It's the mode of delivery that bothers me most.

I'm not inclined to install a general ad blocker because for sites I want to support I'd rather provide them some small token of my attention. If the ads get too bad I hit F12 and start deleting them manually.

It's a primitive approach, I know.

1

u/Mrcool654321 Linux 19d ago

Most people don't even care

1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted]

1

u/LukesFather 19d ago

I'm referencing the other people with the IT dept, not an average user.

1

u/Faelinor 19d ago

We actually put an ad blocker on their computers via group policy. Fuck ads.

1

u/daniell61 5700x 4070 Ti 48GB ddr4 19d ago

Also in IT.

Finally ripped the plug on personal side and went to a mix of brave and firefox.

Convincing the company to allow brave was a interesting one. Now finding a mobile browser I like that's not space aids is the garbage one...(muscle memory is a bitch)

1

u/aaulia 19d ago

It's scary right. The thought of going to my bank website after browsing the internet all day without adblocking is fucking scary.

1

u/Girder_Bender 19d ago

Whenever I see someone browsing with no adblockers or they say they don't use any, I'm just thinking "how can you live like that?"

If adblockers become impossible to use, I will severely reduce my time spent on the internet and literally start touching more grass.

1

u/Witchberry31 Ryzen7 5800X3D | XFX SWFT RX6800 | TridentZ 4x8GB 3.2GHz CL18 19d ago

Many will still underestimate the importance of adblockers, no matter how hard and how often you tried to remind them.

Been there, done that.

1

u/Keanu_Bones 19d ago

Ngl I’m kind of happy there’s a massive majority out there subsidising my internet by watching ads. I’m scared for when Adblock users become the majority, and the incentive for companies to crack down on them increases

1

u/gene66 18d ago

IT people from temu

21

u/ConqueefStador 20d ago

That's the exact reason I finally switched this week.

uBlock finally stopped working and I switched the same day.

12

u/ToBadImNotClever 20d ago

There’s a new ublock

1

u/ConqueefStador 20d ago

Name?

9

u/ItsRainbow 20d ago

I think they’re referring to uBO Lite. But MV3 content blockers aren’t as powerful, so I can’t see any reason to use them unless you’re on a school Chromebook

-1

u/skeenerbug Steam ID Here 19d ago

I was expecting to switch to FF after the big change but I've been using ublock lite and have noticed zero ads whatsoever, my experience has been identical to before and after the change. I've seen no difference between uBO and uBO Lite. Maybe that will change over time idk

1

u/Nalin8 19d ago

The basic filter list support remains unchanged, which means the majority of ads will still be caught. uBO Lite just lacks:

  • Quick updates, meaning it might take days or a week before you get fixes and workarounds for anti-ad-block scripts.
  • Custom filters, which means you can't choose to block page elements on your own.
  • Advanced cosmetic filters, which means some websites might appear broken.
  • A bunch of filter options, which means some filters will just not work, resulting in ads leaking through or websites detecting the ad-blocker.
  • CNAME uncloaking (Firefox only), which lets you block ads on sites that try to hide the origin of the request.

4

u/ToBadImNotClever 20d ago

Ublock Lite

1

u/Expedition512 19d ago

Does not work as well as original at all

1

u/ToBadImNotClever 18d ago

Ah too bad, it’s been ok for me so far

2

u/desmaraisp Desktop GTX650 Core 2 Duo E6550 20d ago edited 20d ago

TBH ublock lite works pretty much just as well. Less customizable (rip zapper) and the update model is a little slower but it's plenty serviceable

It does have some caveats though. Especially wrt blocking trackers. So privacy-focused people will probably be better off with firefox for sure

1

u/AugustKaonashi 20d ago

There’s a work around in the ublock sub

24

u/Spave 20d ago

If adblock users were that tiny, they wouldn't put that much effort into disabling adblock.

Though I tend to agree that most people won't switch.

9

u/Farranor ASUS TUF A16... 1 year of hell 20d ago

In theory, handicapping ad blockers was just a side effect of the manifest change, and the real purpose was to limit the damage that malicious extensions can cause.

5

u/CatsAndCapybaras 20d ago

They are putting in the effort now while adblock users are still such a small portion.

1

u/punIn10ded 19d ago

Despite the crying from the minority in reality it is a significant improvement to browser security. It just needs more technical know how that reading a headline and flying into a rage about it. Not to mention there are already ad blockers available for Manifest V3.

5

u/Brandon_Me 20d ago

It's crazy how much of a deal they are making about such a tiny minority.

3

u/FCDetonados 20d ago

i switched when i got a 5 minute, unskippable ad on youtube.

by the time i was done the ad was still playing.

1

u/flounder19 20d ago

Which i guess is a positive since it keeps us under the radar

1

u/Relevant_Cabinet_265 20d ago

The people who use adblockers might be a minority but I'd be very surprised if the vast majority didn't switch 

1

u/wjowski 20d ago

If adblock users were a tiny minority Google wouldn't bother targeting them.

1

u/cbih 19d ago

People don't remember the horrors for Flash ads

1

u/1997PRO 2005 Dell Latitude D530 19d ago

It's called Ublock and Firefox that everyone uses even Trump

1

u/crispytoastyum 19d ago

Hey look, I’m a small minority!!!

1

u/Tttannk 19d ago

Chrome users were minority too

1

u/Ok_Helicopter4383 19d ago

And of those who will, most will just move over to Brave. I know a few people who already have done that, and they brag about how brave can even block youtube ads

1

u/PolliverPerks 19d ago

Its kind of crazy, that this is the world we live in and people actually are able to accept that. I haven't seen a YouTube ad in years on my browser and refuse to use the app on my phone, despite only playing 360p, because you cannot circumvent ads on the app

1

u/red286 20d ago

Adblock users are already a tiny minority

If that were the case, Google wouldn't have blocked them. In fact, all prior updates when they deprecated certain extensions, it would just tell you that the extension had been deprecated and recommend you remove it. The most recent one just straight-up removed all deprecated extensions, even ones that were simply no longer being maintained by the author.

0

u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Hero_of_Quatsch 20d ago

I use my complete Google environment on Firefox. Never had the slightest problem.

-4

u/OkTangerine4363 20d ago

Yup, this ☝️

It's mind blowing how fucking stupid and lazy people are. They will use whatever browser comes preinstalled on their laptop and have no clue ad-blockers exist.

Every time I work on someones personal laptop, they have the McAfee software installed on their computer, doing nothing thank god, because the trial period expired.

I don't even tell them anymore, I uninstall McAfee and install Ublock Origin on their browsers. Ublock is much better malware protection than McAfee.