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Comment by ameshkov | Hacker News Reader

This sort of boycotting will only work when widely supported by both developers and users and this is not the case. Despite all the public outcry and news outlets telling that the end is near, it didn't affect the Chrome's share.

> Without us chrome would likely not be in the position it is today and google could not dictate the terms like they do.

I kind of disagree with this. Google Chrome's current popularity stands on two things:

1. It is a great browser and it does its job very well.

2. Google in the first years was very active with its distribution. And this is not only about the link on their homepage. I remember how 10 years ago every piece of software you were trying to install was bringing Chrome alongside.

Engineers recommending Chrome to their friends and relatives shouldn't be discounted, but I tend to think that it's less important that the two other points above.

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If suddenly there was no ad blocking available on Chrome cold turkey we would see nearly all users who are accustomed to an ad free experience go looking for a new browser. Coordinate this with a marketing blitz from Firefox and essentially you can take nearly all the Chrome ad block users and turn them into Firefox users. And from there it's word of mouth even from the non-techies.

Good ad blocking is an essential part of a browser. Even Google who is actively slow boiling the frog knows they can't just hard cut it off because the users will jump ship immediately.

Why should we let Google get away with this? I feel the right move is to proactively take steps that make Chrome very obviously noncompetitive. By not providing ad blocking at all or at least making it a much inferior experience. It needs to be obvious to the users, not just to tech folks.

What is the market share of Chrome users who use ad blocking though? I don't know if its large enough to make a dent in the overall market share. And even then not sure everyone who has one installed would jump. I have it in my mom's browser but if it stopped working tomorrow she wouldn't know enough to make any changes.

It won't tip the balance but it is a significant percentage of active users. I want to say greater than 15 percent but I can't remember where I saw that.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what percentage of all users, just what percentage of techie word-of-mouth types use ad blockers. And that is a very significant percentage.

Maybe your mom can't change it herself but come Thanksgiving she's going to complain about it to you and you are going to fix it so she has an ad free experience again.

I agree. And a very small percentage of Chrome users turned Firefox users could still mean a significant increase in Firefox usage, which in an ideal world would allow Mozilla a much needed breather from their metrics-driven efforts to stop bleeding users.

Why not fight fire with fire?

Consider checking for the Chrome user agent on your personal website. When you detect it, either:

1. Display a screen that encourages to use a browser that respects their privacy, such as Firefox.

2. Show a popup explaining that "for an ad-free experience, try Firefox + uBlock" and add a bunch of fake (or real) ads to a special Chrome-exclusive piece of the site.

If enough of us do this with personal websites, more and more people will stop using Chrome and start using Firefox. You don't even have to cut Chrome users off from the content -- just annoy them a little, and suggest Firefox.

After all, if Google refuses to fix bugs introduced by Google developers who don't test software in browsers other than Chrome (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1069227), the least that the rest of us can do is fight back in some small way.

>If enough of us do this with personal websites, more and more people will stop using Chrome and start using Firefox. You don't even have to cut Chrome users off from the content -- just annoy them a little, and suggest Firefox.

It's a nice idea, but your personal website doesn't matter. Most people go to a Google website at least a few times a day, and they already tell you to switch to Chrome for the best experience. And almost all of the top non-Google websites also have a vested interest in less adblockers, so none are going to riot over this.

Only the Google homepage tries to push you back to Chrome, iirc. And there is no reason to ever visit it since search is built in to all browsers now.

I strongly believe the above to be true.

Devs of adblockers should all, suddenly, stop supporting Chrome. Make it a specific date (Jan. 1st 2023?) and make it known.

The web is unusable without strong, efficient adblocking. All power users would stop using Chrome in an instant. Even if they are a minority, the move would become visible on usage charts.

If the serious ad-blockers would stop supporting chrome, then all the shady freemium/quasi-malware stuff would be more than happy to be the only option. Most people don't "really" choose their browser, they just use what someone (or themselves years ago) installed for them. The main reason for chrome's shares is google's search&android domination and how hard they pushed it.

they're not stupid enough to block it all at once

MV3 will slowly make adblocking more and more useless, like boiling the frog

at which point most people who formerly used adblockers will become accustomed to the ad-infested web again

If suddenly there was no ad blocking available on Chrome cold turkey we would see nearly all users who are accustomed to an ad free experience go looking for a new browser

so.... Utopic best case scenario, 30% of the users? and that's if 100% of People using AdBlocking across the entire Planet were to make a move. and those are the users that don't provide any Revenue back to the Owner, anyways. the average user is using official Chrome, with very few Plugins, maybe like Reddit Enhancement, extra Twitch Emotes, Et Cetera.

I meant all ad-blocking users.

Unfortunately, we have a negative case study for this belief, one that proves the impact would be minimal: Android. Chrome on Android doesn't support any adblockers, while Firefox does, with perfectly simple installation. Still, Firefox Android is only a tiny sliver of the pie.

(posted from Firefox on Android)

That's because most people haven't ever experienced ad-free mobile browsing. Get them to try Firefox with adblock and they get addicted.

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