caniuse VS uBlock

You forgot to mention (Web)Workers. This is explicit creation, management, and communication with additional threads within JavaScript. What's more, they've been around in JavaScript longer than the V8 engine has even existed!

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers...

https://caniuse.com/?search=webworkers

Do you happen to know where can I check out the cutoff version for each browser? https://caniuse.com/?search=wasm doesn't have it (or other things like WasmGC for that matter)

(https://caniuse.com/) A handy tool for checking the browser compatibility of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript features. Can I Use provides up-to-date support tables for various web technologies across different browsers.

Caniuse

Can I Use (https://caniuse.com/)

> Is it though?

In my experience it's the buggiest browser out of the big three, and is often missing basic features like e.g.:

https://caniuse.com/?search=opus

Supported in Firefox for *12 years* now, in Chrome for 10, still no support in Safari.

They only "support" Opus audio in their special snowflake '.caf' container, which is super buggy and the last time I checked no open source program could even generate Opus '.caf' files that could be played by Safari on all Apple platforms. I ended up writing a custom converter which takes a standard '.opus' file and remuxes it on-the-fly (I only store '.opus' files on my server) into Safari-compatible '.caf' files, taking special care to massage it so that it avoids all of their demuxer/decoder bugs. You shouldn't have to do this to have cross-browser high quality audio!

Well I'll be! In my mind I had this clear picture of Firefox implementing it.

It correct, it was only Chrome: https://caniuse.com/?search=html%20import

https://caniuse.com/?search=web%20bluetooth

which might be great because you have the choice...

and you can use open source chromium or brave (like the jvm to run cross platform java) to run web apps seemlessly that need web bluetooth or such but use safari or firefox for personal use if you find them more secure

I mean using chromium engine as the running environment where chromium only ever runs special trusted web domains and never goes to other "malicious" web domains that may fuck up iOS as Apple claims would be still a secure choice

like you will not download spyware from Apple Store because you are an adult not because Apple can protect you there

Check out uBlock Origin's per site switches [1]

[1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...

If ads, in particular on YouTube, are the problem, anything Chromium-based is probably only going to get worse and worse (see [1] and [2]). So that basically leaves you with Firefox and Safari.

I work for Mozilla (speaking for myself, of course), so I'll leave you to guess which I'd recommend :P

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

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-oppos...

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

Or if on mobile, it is well worth it to look up adblock options for the browser you use.

What are the compelling advantages of Chrome nowadays?

Chrome is working to limit the capabilities of ad blockers:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/11/chrome-pushes...

Whereas a compelling advantage of Firefox is that uBlock Origin works best in Firefox:

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

Advertising networks have often been vectors for malware. Using an ad blocker is an important security measure. Even the FBI recommends ad blockers:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/malvertising

https://theconversation.com/spyware-can-infect-your-phone-or...

https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624

> It allows for 30,000 dynamic rules

That is not what we mean by dynamic filters. From https://developer.chrome.com/blog/improvements-to-content-fi...

> However, to support more frequent updates and user-defined rules, extensions can add rules dynamically too, without their developers having to upload a new version of the extension to the Chrome Web Store.

What Chrome is talking about is the ability to specify rules at runtime. What critics of Manifest V3 are talking about is not the ability to dynamically add rules (although that can be an issue), it is the ability to add dynamic rules -- ie rules that analyze and rewrite requests in the style of the blockingWebRequest permission.

It's a little deceptive to claim that the concerns here are outdated and to point to vague terminology that sounds like it's correcting the problem, but on actual inspection turns out to be entirely separate functionality from what the GP was talking about.

> Giving this ability to extensions can slow down the browser for the user. These ads can still be blocked through other means.

This is the debate; most of the adblocking community disagrees with this assertion. uBO maintains a list of some common features that are already not possible to support in Chrome ( https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b... ) and has written about features that are not able to be supported via Chrome's current V3 API ( https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as... ). Of particular note are filtering for large media elements (I use this a lot on mobile Firefox, it's great for reducing page size), and top-level filtering of domains/fonts.

> "Its happened before"

> That's not an argument

It's a subheading to "2. Browser engine monopoly". The subsection's purpose is describing how bad things were during the IE monopoly to reinforce that it's something to be avoided.

> in fact you could counter-argue that IE left a lot of technical debt

That would be agreeing with the article, unless I understand what you mean.

> On top of that, the internet was very different back then.

In a way that now makes it harder for truly new competing engines to pop up due to increased complexity of the web.

> I'm still not convinced, why would I change my browser?

The points made in the article are:

* Increased privacy, opposed to willingly giving your data to an ad-tech company

* Helps avoid a browser engine monopoly which would effectively let Google dictate web standards

* It’s fast and has a nice user interface

Onto which I'd add:

* Content blockers work best on Firefox (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...), doubly so when Manifest V3 rolls out

* Allows more customization of interface and home page

* UX improvements, like the clutter-free reader mode, aren't vetoed to protect search revenue as with Chrome (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37675467)

Advertising networks are vectors for malware:

https://www.cisecurity.org/insights/blog/malvertising

https://www.malwarebytes.com/malvertising

https://theconversation.com/spyware-can-infect-your-phone-or...

So if you're concerned about security then you want the browser with the best ad blocker.

uBlock Origin works best in Firefox:

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